As a future expat, do you have cross-cultural competence?

What is cross-cultural competence? It is the ability to understand other people from different cultures, communicate effectively and appropriately with them. It is also called as intercultural competence. If a person has a high cross cultural competence, this means that she/he is competent to understand different culture’s specific characteristics like behaviors, reactions, perceptions or unwritten rules very well and act accordingly.

Based on proposal of Edward T.Hall, culture has 2 parts; internal and external. Only a small portion of external culture is above water and visible behaviors of a society. Larger part is internal culture which is below the surface; in this part there are beliefs, values and thoughts pattern of culture. As you can imagine, it is quite easy to discover and experience the external culture in short period of time, because they are quite visible, observable. But it takes much more time to understand internal culture. To get internal culture you need to interact with culture more and have experience in different situations in work or social life. I think you can understand external culture in 2-3 months if you are a good observer. But you should spend minimum 1 year to understand internal culture if you have a high interaction with local people in that culture. Of course these durations can change based on your personality and similarities between foreign culture and your culture. If you are going to work or live in a similar culture like your own culture, you do not need to spend that much time to adapt.

In order to develop your cross-cultural competence as a future/current expat, I believe firstly you should have 3 key skills being open minded, having positive/constructive approach and respect to any different ideas, behaviors or reactions. I believe these are the most important 3 factors to be able to understand others and other cultures.

The interaction with other cultures is happened through communication and behaviors. So you should start to focus on external culture which includes common behaviors, reactions and traditions. Based on what you discover on this part, you can change or adapt how you speak, listen or write. This will be a quick win for your adaptation to the culture. Learning local language may also help you to understand the culture.

I recommend you to avoid cultural stereotypes. The answer how to avoid is “treat every person as individual” and do not make generalization after your few interaction with people from same culture. You can hear some popular public stereotype stories from your colleagues or friends around you, but please do not take them seriously. Try to see some statistics behind if you are in searching mode to understand common behaviors, otherwise give some time yourself to experience directly. Being patient with yourself and others is also important. Do not forget, that moment of discomfort is usually when you are at the cusp of learning!