Diversity and Intercultural Communication in Continuing Professional Education

A key mandate for continuing professional educators is the updating of professionals in the workplace, making it possible for the latter group to improve their day-to-day practice. This mandate is critical as workplaces throughout the world evolve within the global economy While the last 30 years have seen an increase in valuing diversity or difference in the workplace, the implications for workplace practice remain vague. How do you know if you've achieved "diversity?" Once a workplace becomes "diverse," what needs to change? Whose responsibility is it to make sure that the goal of a more inclusive workplace becomes a reality? These are questions for all adult educators and all those involved in the workplace of the 21st century The inherent flexibility of their role puts continuing professional educators in a unique position to help professionals redefine the way they do business, especially around issues of culture and inclusion. The field of intercultural communication offers valuable information to adult educators in general, and also to continuing professional educators. Its emphasis on improving the face-to-face communication between people from diverse cultures is particularly beneficial. Intercultural communication focuses on symbolic, interactional processes between people. Continuing professional educators are the "performance consultants," in the words of Queeny (2000), who work collaboratively with professionals to identify the specific behaviors and concerns that either impede or enhance practice. As the face of the workplace changes, the dominance of the European-American tradition lessens and new patterns of interaction emerge. Employers and employees alike must be prepared to expect and understand differing communication styles. When continuing professional educators enter the workplace, they must be sensitive to how employers present issues related to diversity and inclusion. Terms such as diversity, inclusion and culture are culturally based and have multiple meanings. One of the roles of continuing professional educators is to help forge common understanding of not only vocabulary, but also the underlying beliefs and values. To further this process, it is useful to examine common myths about the nature of workplace diversity. Myth #1 There is not much diversity in our workplace. In American workplaces, this statement is frequently linked to the black and white racial politics that have dominated our talk about diversity for centuries. We are used to "seeing" culture in terms of different skin color or "hearing" cultural differences through accented English or foreign languages. What about "hidden" diversity, which emerges from different religious practices, regional background or sexual orientation? We must consider the differences that are not generally labeled cultural, based on gender, age or perhaps professional norms, which have the potential to substantially influence workplace communication. Myth #2 The way business is done within any given workplace is neutral. This feeling often operates on the level of the subconscious, as members of the dominant culture get used to established cultural norms such as the length of time set aside for meetings, the way new people and new topics are introduced, the degree of formality with which meetings proceed, or the balance of time devoted to discussion versus planning for action. How we communicate in the workplace is often as important as what we communicate. Depending at least partially on cultural variables, individuals may have a preference for both sending and receiving messages in styles that are linear or circular, direct or indirect, attached or detached, procedural or personal and more confrontational in either intellectual or relational terms. Imagine a scene where one committee member is telling a long, evocative story thought to be relevant to a particular discussion, while a member of the same committee is muttering, "come on, get to the point! …