Cultural competence

A couple of days ago I read about cultural competence in a newspaper. I think the topic is very

interesting and is in my opinion very important due to the fact that the demographics of society have been changed by globalization and have made the world seem smaller than ever before. In the past people just did not know a lot about other people, other cultures or the business of others. Off shoring, outsourcing and other business developments have broke down the wall between the different cultures. Now leaders are facing the challenge of handling cultural differences. That is one reason why people in big companies now need cultural competence.

 

Cultural competence is the ability to interact with people of all cultures, languages, classes, races, ethnic backgrounds and religions. People who have cultural competence have the knowledge of different cultures and different worldviews. With the ability of cultural competence you can understand and communicate with people across the world, while avoiding stereotypes. For example, a person who works in an international company should have cultural competence so that this person can recognize the strengths and weaknesses that exist in all cultures.

 

Leaders of global companies need cultural competence to improve their business in other countries. The interaction of different people from different cultures is very helpful to develop new markets and other products. Furthermore cultural competence is important for recognizing that some products need to be a little bit different to the same product in other countries. For example a coke from Coca Cola is a lot sweeter in the US than in Europe because the Europeans are not used to the extreme sweet taste.

 

How can cultural competence be acquired? There are different courses about other cultures and other languages you can take. Different courses are very important to better understand the world view of other people. You can also just travel to learn and understand more about other cultures and other lifestyles. Furthermore, through other people you can improve or acquire cultural competence. These people can tell you things about their own experiences.

 

Cultural competence is very important in our society and in our business lives. Cultural competence refers to the ability to recognize cultural differences in order to achieve desired performance results. This ability describes a specific skill that is increasingly required of successful employees, managers, leaders and organizations.