The Communication Playbook. Teri Kwal Gamble

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       After completing this chapter, you should be able to:

      A lot of different flowers make a bouquet.

      Anonymous

      Have you ever decided that you liked or disliked someone without really knowing him or her? Has anyone ever done the same to you—forming a positive or negative opinion of you—judging you, without really knowing you? If your answer to either of these questions is yes, it is likely that stereotypes, the mental images that guide our reactions to others, played a role.

      A stereotype expresses the knowledge, beliefs, and expectations we have of the members of a particular group.¹ Whereas some of the stereotypes we hold of cultural groups are positive, others are astoundingly negative and overly generalized. Some contain kernels of truth, whereas others prevent us from recognizing our misconceptions.

      What groups of people do you stereotype positively and/or negatively? What stereotypes might others hold of you? And how do our evaluations of one another affect our communication?

      Some years back, Representative Peter King, chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, convened a series of controversial hearings on the radicalization of Muslims in the United States. Critics of the hearings objected to the broad-stroke inquiry, arguing that we should view the Muslim community more objectively and stop treating Muslims with automatic suspicion. Furthermore, they asserted that individuals should be able to distinguish between mainstream Muslims and those belonging to the radical fringe.² Representative Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, observed that individuals, not communities, commit terrorist acts. He said, “When you assign their violent actions to the entire community, you assign collective blame to the whole group. This is the very heart of stereotyping and scapegoating.”³

      It’s not just Muslims who face stereotypes. Relations between all groups are complicated by stereotypes. Yet we all share a common desire—and a need—to get along better with one another.⁴ Stereotyping is just one of the topics we address in this chapter as we explore a host of factors that influence our ability to communicate in a multicultural society and world.

      Cultures’ Many Faces

      Globalization is the increasing economic, political, and cultural integration and interdependence of diverse cultures—the worldwide integration of humanity. Diversity, a related concept, is the recognition and valuing of difference, encompassing such factors as age, gender, race, ethnicity, ability, religion, education, marital status, sexual orientation, and income. Because the likelihood of our working and living with people from all over the world is increasing, the time is right to embrace diversity and learn about other cultures so that we refrain from unfairly stereotyping them.

      An early observer of how technology affects behavior and thinking, Marshall McLuhan, predicted many years ago that our world would become a global village.⁵ He was right. We now are linked physically and electronically to people around the globe. Digital technology is playing its part in erasing the notion of territorial boundaries between countries, gradually eroding the idea of the term nation.

      People we once considered strangers are now friends and coworkers, highlighting the importance of multiculturalism—engagement with and respect toward people from distinctly different cultures. In addition to using the Internet with increasing frequency, many of us move a number of times during our lives for personal or professional reasons.⁶ We also travel abroad regularly, some of us to visit relatives (one in five Americans was born abroad or has at least one parent who was), others to represent an employer, and still others to vacation. Each of these provides us with opportunities to improve cultural understanding. We don’t have to be in the diplomatic corps to assume an active role.

      Attitudes Toward Diversity

      Some people do not embrace diversity eagerly. In the book Bowling Alone, written at the turn of this millennium, author Robert Putnam reported that reciprocal and trustworthy social networks were on the decline. Aware that people were doing more and more things alone, Putnam asked why? After studying 30,000 people across the United States, Putnam found a correlation between ethnically mixed environments and withdrawal from public life. He reported that the people living in diverse communities tended to “hunker down.” Sadly, they were more likely to distrust their neighbors—whether they were of the same or a different race, a similar or different background.⁷ Do you find this to be true today?

      Is It Different in the Working World?

      Happily, the working world reveals a different story. In organizations, people with identity diversity (people who come from different races and religions) and cognitive diversity (people who come from different outlooks and training) come together to do the organization’s work.