On the forefront on my mind lately is the need to integrate resilience into intercultural training. In my work, I have long focused on helping my clients develop the skills needed to successfully navigate cross-cultural interactions. With the unprecedented challenges we’ve faced globally these past few years, providing resilience resources are becoming increasingly important to manage the high level of stress leaders and teams face in their work.
Beyond the day-to-day challenges of working across cultural and geographic borders, particularly for those working in already fragile and volatile environments, many are also having to cope with increased stressors, including exposure to traumatic incidents. These stressors often impact mental health and well-being and ultimately may affect one’s job performance. Recent geopolitical events have placed additional pressure on leaders striving to maintain normalcy in their work environment when team members are coming from opposite sides of the conflict. For example, several months into the war in Ukraine, I worked with a large team comprised of team members from various countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including Ukrainians and Russians. The Russian manager was struggling to effectively maintain team trust, cohesiveness and productivity while trying to balance her own emotional struggles with the conflict.
Integrating resilience practices are also important to adequately prepare expats for the strains of crossing cultures. I was reminded of this recently when working with two couples relocating to the Washington DC area. Both were seasoned expats, having spent the past two decades living in several countries. My assumptions were therefore that they had developed the skills needed to seamlessly adjust to living in the U.S. Yet each couple confronted unique circumstances that created additional challenges that were causing sleepless nights, family stress, and, in one case, impacting the ability to focus at work. Uprooting one’s family to start afresh in a new environment, even under the best of circumstances when a company provides the resources to do so, can be overwhelming. Providing additional resources to nurture one’s well-being in addition to cultural competence skills can help provide for a smoother adjustment.
These examples, highlight why preparing leaders and teams for the inevitable upheavels that happen in our highly complex global work environment today are so critical. A few weeks ago, I attended a Resilience Symposium at the Foreign Service Institute where I heard from diplomats and health care workers on ways they had incorporated resilience training in their work. Some of my main take-aways are:
- Adopt a positive attitude. While this may seem trite if someone is dealing with a traumatic event, optimism is one of the first steps to helping us cope. Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of “Man’s Search for Meaning,” shared that hope, specifically in finding sources of meaning, determined if one survived the horrors of the concentration camps. When facing horrific events, reaching deeply into our internal resources to have hope for the future may be one of the critical skills for survival. One way to practice this is through altruism. Even a small random act of kindness can shift things for yourself and for someone else. This can be particularly important in a cross-cultural interaction where historic cultural animosity between co-workers can help shift the relationship leading to deeper trust in spite of external factors that may otherwise hinder this.
- Develop your personal “tap” code. This code was used by POWs during the Vietnam War to communicate with fellow prisoners also in solitary confinement to support each other and keep up morale. While most of us will hopefully never face such dire circumstances, finding others experiencing similar challenges with whom to share your experiences and provide support is a critical reminder that you are not alone in your suffering and fosters a deeper sense of belonging. Social support is one of the most robust resilience factors. There are many expat resource groups abroad to help families arriving in a new culture. However, such support is not always available when entering into a new work environment where the person has to hit the ground running. Proactively seeking those who may have a similar experience can provide critical aid in the early weeks when you may be floundering.
- Face your fears. It’s a primal human instinct to run away from whatever threatens our physical or psychological safety. Our brain’s limbic system triggers a fight, flight or freeze response for our survival. When we encounter repeated stress, such as if we are victim of historic discrimination or marginalization, we may choose one of these responses as a form of self-protection. However, stepping into our fear, such as to calmly address the perpetrator of a micro-aggression by making ourselves vulnerable and sharing the impact of the hurtful comment, can fortify our self-esteem and help us move forward.
- Develop your psychological and physical First Aid Kit. When you experience an accumulation of traumas, such as we’ve seen in recent years from the pandemic, environmental disasters, social/political unrest, and mass violence, it’s important to have practices that create and access hope, safety, calm, efficacy and connectedness. Mindfulness and gratitude practices and physical exercise can reboot our system, activating the parasympathetic nervous system responsible for rest and repose and boost our moods. When engaging in intercultural interactions, particularly in a stressful environment, such as a high-level negotiation, having our First Aid Kit can better prepare us for success.
- Embrace your moral compass. We may sometimes find ourselves in cross-cultural situations where our beliefs and values are compromised. In a workshop I delivered last week, a participant shared that he had received a gift from a very high-ranking official in a west African country and was trying to figure out how to balance the need to adhere to his organization’s strict ethical rules against accepting bribes while not offending the potential client by refusing his gift. Being grounded in our values and beliefs and consulting trusted colleagues for advice allows us to anticipate in advance actions we may need to take in the moment when we encounter practices that are counter to our own. This preparedness can ultimately eliminate undue stress to unpredictability that could hinder a potential cross-cultural engagement.
As we continue to navigate the inevitable uncertainties life will hurl our way, tuning into our well-being, cultivating humility and empathy, and reminding ourselves of our collective humanity will be essential helping us thrive, particularly as we negotiate difficult cross-cultural encounters. As Ambassador John Bass said in his closing statement at the symposium, “Sometimes we just need to slow down, be present and take care of each other.”
