In this assignment we will explore the four stages of the Reflective Intercultural Learning Cycle, explain cultural and personal considerations that are important when interacting with colleagues from various cultural backgrounds.

Reflective Intercultural Learning Cycle

Part 1 – Your Own Experience Identify a time in your own life experience when ‘something was up’ that might have been about cultural differences. Write a short description of what happened and write out how you would work through each of the four stages of the Reflective Intercultural Learning Cycle as applied to that scenario. Note: For the Suspend Judgement stage, one is not enough – try to identify 2 or 3. Part 2 – Workplace Application GOAL: In this assignment, you are asked to explain cultural and personal considerations that are important when interacting with colleagues from various cultural backgrounds.

Reflective Intercultural Learning Cycle

We prepared several mini-biographies of your fictitious coworkers as a reminder of the broad range of cultural backgrounds – along with other aspects of social identities – present in any workplace. In an actual workplace, you might not have nearly this much personal information about your colleagues (at least not all of them). We hope that getting a glimpse into the cultural backgrounds of your colleagues helps you to understand cultural factors that influence interactional behaviours and workstyles and appreciate diversity of working styles. CONTEXT: You’ve been asked to work with three of your colleagues to develop an annual report for your company.

Reflective Intercultural Learning Cycle

Note: There is no designated leader for this team. You’ve been given some general guidelines from the management team as to the content and format of the report but a lot of decisions are left up to the team. INSTRUCTIONS: Read the mini-biographies of your fictitious colleagues presented below. Select three individuals whose mini-biographies are presented below. We’ve also included some information about the culture of the countries mentioned in each description. Respond to the following questions: Question 1: Which three colleagues have you chosen to work with? Colleague What strengths does this colleague bring to the project?

Reflective Intercultural Learning Cycle

Question 2: How will the diversity of backgrounds benefit your work? Both generally, and in reference to the specific colleagues you chose. Question 3: What cultural barriers might your team face while working on the project? Discuss barriers that may occur in the following four areas: a. making decisions b. leading or contributing to meetings c. giving and receiving feedback d. asking for help or resources Note: If you find charts helpful to organize your thoughts, see the one at the end of this document. It plots the different culture dimensions against the four areas mentioned in this question.

Reflective Intercultural Learning Cycle

You could use it to take notes before writing your final answer – totally optional! Question 4: What strategies could be used to manage cultural differences in your team? Using what you have learned so far in this course, make 3 suggestions for how to help the team members work more effectively together that specifically address aspects of their culture. https://youtu.be/fsG9pR1BZzE

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