Cultural Norms vs Effective Communication
While preparing to lead the class on the topic of interview skills, it was a pleasant coincidence that I met up with two girls who had just graduated from a top junior college in Singapore and were shortlisted for scholarship interviews in the coming week. With the materials ready for the ES2007S class, I decided that I would offer my services in an attempt to prepare them for their interviews. During this process though, I realised that the girls were faced with several cultural dilemmas that seem to conflict with recommendations made about effective communication during interviews.
Firstly, when dealt with the questions regarding themselves, the girls seemed uncomfortable with explicitly stating their strengths (e.g. analytical, self-motivated). They preferred to talk about their experiences, and hoped that the interviewer could extract implicit personality traits of theirs from the stories being related. Similarly, they too were reluctant to talk about their weaknesses, and attempted to find a “correct” weakness for which the interviewers could not fault them for having.
In addition, when suggestions were made about possible methods to tackle various questions, the mini-workshop that was set-up as a dialog very quickly changed into a lecture, with notes being written down at a rapid pace. Despite repeated attempts at making an impression that interviews are about allowing the parties involved to find out more about each other, the girls seemed more interested in providing “correct answers” to the question.
While these responses might be specific to the two girls involved, these incidental discoveries made me ponder deeper about how one might, in this globalised world, balance one’s cultural norms and the need for effective communication. For example, should one adopt explicit methods to promote oneself just in fear of losing out in an interview to an effervescent speaker? Similarly, should one conform to social norms and provide “standard” answers or attempt at providing unique insights in an attempt to shine among the crowd? Finally, if this is truly a balancing act, what are some of the parameters that one can use to assist in the determination of the “sweet spot” between preserving cultural norms and subscribing to rules of effective communication?
I look forward to responses and thoughts on this issue.
I like the way you have initiated this stimulating discussion of cultural norms and effective skills with the scenario involving the two ladies. Their queries and confusion certainly reflect some interesting phenomena. Is it more cultural than personal? I assume both ladies are Asian. How do you think their perspectives would be different if they were, say, American?
I hope you get some classmate responses to your questions. Frankly, I don’t quite understand what’s happened within your blogging group. That is a mystery –either intercultural or interpersonal, or both –that I feel like you and I (and others?) are facing now as well.
Hi HT,
This is an interesting post you have made. Are these girls from Singapore? If they are then I suppose this is the normal action most Singaporean students will do such as taking notes and keen on proving standard answers.
In my high school, I was educated by my teachers about the importance of providing standard answers to the questions. If my answers deviate from the standard answer by a little, I would not get marks for that question. In addition, my teachers also demanded the actual phrasing from the model answers they provided.
I guess I cannot blame them from behaving in such a way. They are educated this way!
Hi Hong Ting,
Thanks for the interesting experience but sad reality. I have to agree with Gillian about being educated to provide “standard”, “politically correct” answers. Furthermore, I think no one would want to risk not getting the job/scholarship that they applied for just because they said something “wrongly” during their interviews. Thus the reaction from the girls whom you interacted with. I think you can’t blame the girls or any person in a similar situation as them per se, because it has to do with the whole system and culture in Singapore. If most employers are looking for employees with x,y,z qualities, there really isn’t much room for being deviant.:)
I guess Singapore is really too small to embrace a diversity of views, personalities and talents, resulting in a lot of Singaporeans (including employers) succumbing to the norm, while those who do not, leave. We grow up in a society which generally only accommodates one “best” path in life, in terms of education, jobs, mindset etc… I mean, there isn’t really any room for exploration and failure, as I mentioned in Terry’s blog. If the newspapers (for example the recruit section) publishes an article on how to perform well at an interview, and what to say and what not to say, other employers who read the article will probably use the pointers as a gauge as to whether the job applicants have met up to the “standard”. This is just the way society works.
hmmm…not sure if I have deviated from the topic. Anyway, as to how to balance between conforming (I would rather use the word “adapting”) to cultural norms and “providing unique insights” that can make one “shine among the crowd”, in our society today, I think it really depends on how badly the person wants the job and how confident that person is that his/her “unique insights” can land him/her the job. However, I am not sure if effective communication means “providing unique insights” though, because if you can convince the employer about your abilities by giving standard answers, that in a sense is effective communication too, I think.:)