Question

Have you ever been misunderstood because you did not relate to another’s culture? Give an example.

List at least one way that you could better relate to someone whose culture is different from yours.

Answer 1

Yes, I have been misunderstood at my workplace because my culture does not relate to one of me colleagues’ culture.

Example - One employee just joined the organisation 3 days ago as a part of my team and he belongs to culture where they use different language than mine. I was speaking in my native language with other team members and he misunderstood the fact I am excluding him from the conversation. Though, I was not aware that he does not understand that language. This misunderstanding made him think that I mistreat my co-workers.

There are many ways in which we can relate well with someone whose culture is different than us. One of such way is mentioned below –

Every person must try to communicate with the other person and know about their culture. They should never make any assumption and always clear the doubts with one another. Once both the person in conversation has some understanding about each other’s culture then misunderstandings will automatically get reduce.