US Military's Cross-Cultural Experts Provide a Blueprint for Peers to Follow

Online, April 21, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Highly skilled "warrior-diplomats" quietly learn about new cultures and build strategic relationships by using 7 key strategies that play to their individual strengths, Drs. Louise Rasmussen and Winston Sieck of Global Cognition report in the March-April issue of Military Review. The research team interviewed a wide range of U.S. personnel, from General Anthony Zinni to a captain and social-studies teacher who orchestrated his own humanitarian assistance program.

"There are members of the US military today who are extremely culture-savvy," says Dr. Rasmussen. "They are especially resourceful in how they learn and deal with cultural challenges." The findings suggest that cross-cultural expertise is not associated with a certain personality type. Instead, there are teachable practices that enable anyone to engage in constructive behaviors in foreign cultures.

These cross-cultural experts were noted by their peers as those who rapidly attained proficiency in a variety of new cultures. By analyzing their most challenging experiences interacting with people overseas, we distilled 7 common strategies that made these warrior-diplomats effective in new cultures. The practices we uncovered for learning and interacting in foreign cultures can provide a template for educating a more culturally prepared military. The article also relays several interesting examples of the experts' handling of awkward cross-cultural interactions.

"Don't look at the women and don't show the bottom of your feet." These simple, memorable, but grossly inadequate nuggets of cultural wisdom are drilled into all U.S. personnel deploying to Afghanistan. Currently military personnel are provided with few, if any guidelines and examples of constructive behavior-showing them what they should be doing and how they should be thinking in other cultures. The lack of a template for productive thought and behavior leaves personnel with a collection of confusing and at times disturbing experiences. "Interacting with people who are different is stressful," Rasmussen says. "Having strategies for learning about other cultures reduces the uncertainty and improves interactions."