Using cultural lens as a tool to avoid mistakes

- So, everybody has a culture. I mean, it's interesting 'cause a lot of people equate culture with race or ethnicity or nationality. And in fact, people will say sometimes to me, they're like oh, Ms. Diversity lady, I wish I had a culture. It's so interesting if you have a culture. I'm just plain. (laughs) And I'm just like newsflash, everybody, we all have a culture. In other words, we've all been taught something about what's important and what's valuable and how to act and how to think about money and what are the most important ways to connect. These are cultural ideas. What's beautiful, who's valuable, all of those things are aspects of our culture. And so when we talk about cultural lens, we are talking about what we experience or got taught about the world and how it works. And as such, it creates a set of filters and lenses through which we're looking at every single dynamic, relationship. And we're interpreting what it means through those filters. So a lot of you are like I see it all. No, you don't see it all. What you see is your own peculiar version of the world. So for example, I come from a family where we're very boisterous, and we talk a lot, and we talk over each other all the time, and we love it. But for example, if I were to invite someone who comes from a culture that's different than ours from that respect to my dinner table. So maybe they come from a culture where you wait until someone finishes speaking before you speak. Or there's a culture about who respect and who gets respected or there's a certain kind of deference you give to the host or someone who's older. It could also be a personality thing. People may be introverted versus my family is extremely extroverted. So if you come to my home, and you are in your culture, we'll be really nice to you. We'll get going. It'll be all exciting at the table, and you may not have a moment to interject. Or you may feel like oh, this is all too much. When you leave, we'll be really nice to you, but then they'll say to me, let's not have her back again. She's awfully boring, right? And so there's not just the dynamic. It's the interpretation of who a person is. In other words, they don't recognize that our culture is sort of making it hard for a person of another culture to be within that dynamic and their full selves. And what's worse than that is that they sort of have a judgment about it. So if you're going to say the right thing or know the right thing to say, it's going to be essential that you account for your own cultural lens. And I see this also in the workplace where someone might be quieter, or they may have a different culture. And they're sitting around the table, and so they're not interjecting. And the person who's running that meeting is going I don't know if they have a thought in their head. They don't seem to speak up. I'm not sure they can handle the room. I'm not sure they exude confidence. But that person's idea of exuding confidence is shaped by their world view of what confidence looks like. So in other words, a person could be very confident, but they're not going to demonstrate it the way you do. And so one of the most important things is A, take a look at your lens and how you have had that shaped and by whom. And then also, you've got to be more empathetic. So what is it like to be someone who's from a different culture and having a different set of values in this particular environment. And then we have this thing now called the platinum rule. And the platinum rule is very different than the golden rule. The golden rule says treat people the way you want to be treated. But the platinum rule says treat people the way they want to be treated, and that can be very different. And it requires us to pay attention, to ask questions, to be much more curious, and to actually think about not only our own lens, but the lens of others.