conflict management skills as an essential part of intercultural competence Culture through crisis

Backdrop  Centre for Intercultural Management and International Communication, Lessius University College  Years of training- and consulting practice within different working areas (education, student-exchange programmes, international business, civil society and international cooperation)  Bachelor after bachelor in Intercultural Management and International Communication  Research project ‘Measuring Intercultural Competence: building a coherent frame of reference’ ( )

Goals  Contribute to the general research on intercultural competence  Definition of concept intercultural competence  Further development of diagnostic tools for this concept  Actively explore and define practical insights and approaches

The broader picture: ICC  Intercultural competence is viewed and constructed as an integrated concept, consisting of nine components : 1. Cultural self-knowledge: knowing your own frame of reference and roots 2. Cultural flexibility: willingness to adapt and explore alternatives 3. Cultural resilience : able to overcome stress and negative feelings caused by difficult intercultural encounter 4. Cultural receptiveness: openness to listen to other views and capacity to correctly position own views and ideas 5. Cultural knowledge: interest in exploring factual knowledge on cultural differences and capacity to use this knowledge in an appropriate manner 6. Cultural relational competence: willingness to invest time and energy in the building of trust and willingness to connect 7. Cultural communicative competence: ability to explore the particularities of own communication style and approaches, to remediate if necessary and to explore the communication style and approach of counterparts 8. Cultural conflict management: consciousness of potential positive forces of intercultural conflict and knowledge of own conflict management-style 9. Multi perspectiveness: able to view a single issue from different perspectives and appreciating this various perspectives

An inspiring thought (Erwin Jans) CLASH Or... CRASH

Cultural conflict as a chance for growth, creativity, strength and improvement  Margalit Cohen-Emerique: the analysis of ‘critical incidents:  decentration (shifting of perspective)  the exploration of sensitive zones, personal or societal taboos (self-knowledge).  Igor Klyukanov: “the real goal of intercultural dialogue is not to prevent conflict, but to manage it so as to benefit fully of the transformative potential conflict offers.”

Ground rules  To ‘benefit’ from intercultural conflict, two elements are essential:  having a clear idea of what the added value of diversity is  having a clear idea of where your boundaries lie and what type of transgression is or is not acceptable (Hoffman)

Culture through crisis: mindshift  Become involved in a deeper kind of learning, a learning that offers not only a solution to a question at hand, but also allows us to develop new problem-solving strategies. (double loop learning, Argyris/Shön)  Accept the creative and operational forces of (inter)cultural conflict -> redefining conflict as part of a change-process, a constructive crisis => reclaiming agency and ‘control’.

Competence in cultural conflict management  People on the level of advanced intercultural competence, view open dialogue on the topic of boundaries as an essential part of the intercultural encounter. They can define and name transgression – both on a cognitive and an emotional level -, but they are also open to negotiation. Acceptance and appreciation of difference is the final aim.  People on the level of advanced intercultural competence have a good understanding of their own conflict management style. They are also empathic to the conflict management style of their counterpart. They do not fear conflict, to the extent that they actually actively seek out feedback of others.

Preffered style?

Case: teamleaders CARE  Systematic ‘underscore’ on conflict management  Linked to underscore in flexibility (resilience)  Important lever in trainingdesign:  Focus on case-analysis  Focus on dealing with culture-shock  Focus on definition of added ‘value’  Exploring company communication culture in broader sense (stepstones)

Conclusion  Dealing with intercultural conflict can train us in many important skills.  If we are able to transcend the idea of clash, of wanting one system to beat the other or prove the other one wrong, we can actively combine the differences experienced and the frictions experienced in the crash become energy.  Thus, through intercultural conflict, we are able to create a synergy that in fact constitutes new culture for new, more diverse times.