Gender Conflicts in Cross-Cultural Global Communications
A couple of years ago, View Magazine called our series, Diversity: Creating Success for Business and People "one of the best products about diversity on the market." And customers agreed!
Now, we can offer you a follow-up series from the same company, ARMC. Building a Diverse Workforce for the Global Millennium is a 20-volume series that covers a huge variety of diversity issues.
Each program also presents critical business concepts like building trust and respect, performance appraisals, team building and leadership.
Program 17: "You’re Making Me Uncomfortable: Gender Conflicts in Cross-Cultural Global Communications"
You are a female executive traveling to South America. You’re meeting with an Argentinean executive who works for your organization. Here’s how the program opens:
(Being very upbeat and manly Jesus gives Jillian a warm handshake and puts his hands on her shoulders. He looks her up and down.) He says "Jillian, Jillian, it is so nice to first meet you in person. My goodness the States didn’t tell me they were going to send such a beautiful woman. Come in, come in and sit down. It is wonderful to have you in Argentina, just wonderful." (He pulls out her chair for her). Jesus continues to tell her how beautiful she is and continues to talk about social issues.
Jillian begins to feel uncomfortable but she tries to cover it up.
So how can you tell the difference between possible sexual harassment and or cultural difference? How do different cultures perceive work and life? What is important to them? How do you handle the conflict between U.S. and Latino perception of women and sexual harassment? Who is right? Learn how to build trust and respect across different cultures.
CHARACTER NAMES
Jillian Bradley and Jesus Cruz
KEY LEARNING POINTS
- Building trust and respect across cultures
- Developing enhanced awareness of what defines sexual harassment
- Understanding different cultures’ approaches to work and life
- Understanding areas of difference including styles, time, communication, and male-female work relationships
- Developing skills to lead a diverse workforce
