Being able to identify and relate to the communication styles of people from other cultures is a valuable life skill, but how does one develop it?
For Barbara Mink, a senior lecturer at the Johnson Graduate School of Management and an active painter with an international presence, the interest in international communication stems from early experiences living in other countries.
Professor Mink’s international journey began as an exchange student in German-speaking Switzerland at age 17. After four years of high school French, this required some deft recalibrating in terms of both language and cultural mores. At 19, she took a year off from college and lived on an Israeli kibbutz, working mainly with children. As someone relatively fluent in Hebrew on arrival, she honed her language skills by telling favorite children’s stories in Hebrew. “The best part was trying to figure out the right word for something from ‘Curious George’ and having the five-year-olds shout out suggestions. Working with speakers of another language, as opposed to lecturing at, is always more effective, and creates a sense of empathy on both sides.”
Not everyone gets the opportunity to live abroad, of course, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need cross-cultural communication skills or won’t have an opportunity to hone them. In this session, Professor Mink will discuss how to recognize our own communication styles and why it’s important to value methods of communication that differ from our own.
