Need help: Intercultural Competence at work

Plectrudis   Fri May 29, 2009 6:59 am GMT
Yesterday I was corresponding with a friend who has the biggest problems at work, and from what he told me, I believe it comes basically down to intercultural problems in communication.
The friend is german and his boss is british.
It reminded me of some of the arguments I´ve been reading several days ago in this forum, so I thought, why not hand it to you, and ask for your opinions and advice.
Main focus where the differences of mentality, and the ways how these groups interact, concerning poilteness, etc. The frank way germans tend to be in your face, where the brits feel this kind of attitude disturbing and harsh, and would rather avoid to be direct where possible, rather be smiling and ironic, instead of ever letting the opposite gain knowledge of their true feelings.
The friend was ranting about the way the paople treat him, that he would do whatever they want him to if they only wouldn´t treat him this way, and that he was not willing to change his personality for the sake of giving in, in this situation and said, he felt he would have to painfully bent himself, to behave differently.
I pointed out the obvious - the daily aggression he is facing, not only from outside, but even more from inside, an aggression that will on the long run only be negative for himself and leading to burn-out, as well as keeping him manipulable for his surrounding, and probably make him a drag to work with, as well.
And I recommended working with his aggression in trying to find a way to deal with it very directly, like, for example, find some Budo sports, where you can not only train your body, but, with a good master also deal with inner and outer conflicts differently and find a way to inner rest.
Also I strongly recommended to get a hand on really good books about intercultural competence as soon as possible and adjust to the situation, no matter how he thinks about it now, with his childish mortified attemps of defiance. After all it is intelligence that enables any kind of evolution, and in the struggle for survival, intelligence was always a question of adjustment, I believe.
And I think I made my point pretty clear there.
Then of course - coming from an entirely different background and working in a different field, I couldn´t recommend other books then what I just found quickly looking it up on Wikipedia(to tell the meager truth).
That felt weird and kept me thinking.
And who could I better ask than you all! So please, reply, I need you know.
Conqueror   Fri May 29, 2009 7:20 am GMT
A better plan is for the strongest to subjugate the weaker ones and impose their cultural norms on them.
Plectrudis   Fri May 29, 2009 11:24 am GMT
Well, I´ll come to look once more late night to see if someone had the guts to comment and give advice - but so far I should say, Conqueror´s great contribution above is just about the niveau of an answer I had feared.
I´ll give you another chance, though... Ccome on boys! Remember? intelligence? Evolution of the mind? 21st century? Somebody ? Anybody?
There You Go   Fri May 29, 2009 4:14 pm GMT
Kyudo.
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel (Zen in der Kunst des Bogenschießens).