Introducing and Validating Values
George F. Simons, Mandelieu la Napoule, France

Appreciating values from the perspective of those who own them is one of the primary contributions of the Cultural Detective™ approach to intercultural learning. Rather than imposing an external model or set of cultural dimensions on a specific culture and seeing how that culture fits into our perspective, the Cultural Detective begins with what people recognize as important to their own group. It looks at how they express it in everyday life, at work, at home, in social gatherings and in personal interactions. In other words, it starts with acknowledgement and respect for what others value as they value it, rather than diminishing their difference by attempting to fit them into a framework that originates in theoretical analysis or the common classifications of outsiders.

How can I introduce and validate the Cultural Detective’s values approach when, more often than not, I am asked to work with groups of participants who are themselves multicultural and who work with colleagues, customers or clients from multiple cultures? A couple of examples of such groups might be:

• An aerospace agency requiring teamwork, both face-to-face and virtual. The team is composed of French, German and British engineers.
• A large consulting organization branching out from Western Europe to India and China and is faced with the cultural challenges of opening shop in these countries.
• An international social services agency with a multicultural staff is wrestling with how to serve groups of immigrants or refugees from one or more cultures and at the same time deal with local governments coming from yet another culture.

In such circumstances, I get participants into the frame of mind where they recognize and respect their own and others’ values sets in individual and small group (threes or fours) sessions with this sequence of activities:

1. I introduce myself as a US American and own two or three of the US values that they will probably see in me in the course of our time together., e.g., valuing time and speed in how I will manage the course; a level playing field, i.e., I will tend to treat them as equals and behave informally around them. Then I point out how some people may find my words and behaviors abrasive or uncomfortable, e.g., I may be seen as too task oriented, impatient, or disrespectful. I may add how some US values, e.g., individual initiative and taking control are strengths in US culture but can also become liabilities. We can look arrogant or get into trouble in the eyes of others when we play them too hard or in the wrong circumstances. For example, I may fail to get the consensus of my work team; my leaders act too unilaterally in international politics. This first step both allows me to be myself and invites others to understand my behavior from a cultural as well as personal perspective. It also makes clear that values inevitably operate in context. Different contexts bring out different perspectives and judgments about the values we hold and how we express them.
2. Next, I ask each individual to think quietly about what he or she and most people in the/a cultural group to which her or she belongs would agree are strong and recognizable values of that group, and then to jot down three or four of them on their notepads.This second step gets them thinking of themselves as cultural beings belonging to one or more specific cultures that have specific values sets. We are all unavoidably engaged in the interplay of values.
3. Finally I ask them to share their list with their small group and give an example or two of how they carry out these values at work or at home, They may also tell how this behavior might be seen negatively by cultures that don’t share the same values, or even when some people in their own culture do not share these values to the same degree or express them in the same way. This third step helps the participants personally own their group’s values, and get to know each other from a cultural and values perspective. They also recognize that there may be individual and group differences surrounding values even within a culture.

Normally these three steps take about twenty minutes, after which I may ask for a few random reports around the room about what individuals found interesting in their small group discussion.

When this is done, the participants are generally warmed up and attentive as we move into discussing the core values of the Cultural Detective(s) that we will study together. They have already seen how their cultural values play a role in their own thinking and behavior. The have seen how they differed from each other in the group. They are also less likely to see the values of the culture discussed in the CD as stereotypes, thus avoiding one of the ways individuals are likely to discount the value of intercultural training.

George Simons is a co-author of the Cultural Detective: USA and the Cultural Detective: The Netherlands and can be visited at www.diversophy.com and www.georgesimons.com.