What is Culture?

Culture is a web of meaning shared by members of a particular society or group.  It is a shared system of beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that group members use to cope with their world and one another.

Navigating cultural differences can present operational, strategic, and tactical challenges. Effective leaders adapt across cultural lines. The August 2011 memo from the Secretary of Defense emphasizes the importance of cultural capabilities: "Language, regional and cultural skills are enduring warfighting competencies that are critical to mission readiness in today's dynamic global environment. Our forces must have the ability to effectively communicate with and understand the cultures of coalition forces, international partners, and local populations. DoD has made progress in establishing a foundation for these capabilities, but we need to do more to meet current and future demands. ... At a minimum, both military and civilian personnel should have cross-cultural training to successfully work in DoD's richly diverse organization and to better understand the global environment in which we operate."

At a very basic level, we all must interact across cultural boundaries.  We refer to the ability to do this as "cross cultural competence".  Our definition of Cross Cultural Competence (or "3C") is "A set of culture-general knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes (KSAAs) developed through education, training, and experience that provide the ability to operate effectively within a culturally complex environment. 3C is further augmented through the acquisition of cultural, linguistic, and regional proficiency, and by their application in cross-cultural contexts." The basic behaviors of being cross-culturally competent are*:

1. Diplomatic Stance

   • Maintaining a Mission Orientation
   • Understanding Self in a Cultural Context
   • Managing Attitudes Toward Culture

2. Cultural Learning

   • Self-Directed Learning of Cultures
   • Developing Reliable Information Sources
   • Learning New Cultures Efficiently

3. Cultural Reasoning

   • Coping with Cultural Surprises
   • Developing Cultural Explanations of Behavior
   • Culture Perspective Taking

4. Intercultural Interaction

   • Inter-Cultural Communication Planning
   • Disciplined and Self Presentation
   • Reflection and Feedback