Cultural Blindness

Cultural differences can be difficult to manage considering virtual teams can be spread out in both “space and time”, (Alder, 2010). Multicultural teams have a greater potential for success over homogeneous teams, even though the diversity can and will increase the amount of time and energy required to lead the team. On the other hand, a multicultural team does “risk experiencing greater losses due to faulty process”, (Alder, 2014). This is one of the reasons why it’s important to understand cultural differences, so these processes can be altered to benefit everyone on the team and ultimately the outcomes. One concept which can affect a team’s performance is when organizations, leaders, and/or team members are affected by cultural blindness.

Cultural blindness according to the online Psychology Dictionary is “the incapacity to comprehend how specific situations may be seen by individuals belonging to another culture due to a strict alignment with the viewpoints, outlooks, and morals of one's own society or culture” (Def. 1), or simply making the decision not see these differences. It was interesting to read about cultural blindness and how it can affect global teams. People either do not see the differences in cultures or merely do not want to see. For those who do not see these cultural differences, education would be an asset. For the latter, some organizations have their managers blind themselves to gender, race, and ethnicity. They believe by refusing to see and act on cultural differences, by treating everyone the same, the potential for teams to succeed is greater. This blindness to different cultures helps to create the illusion everyone is the same and will perform equally, however, this is not the case. Studies have shown by recognizing the differences in cultures, actually, has the opposite effect. In fact, by ignoring cultural differences teams can become unproductive, (Alder, 2014).

Education of Children

Earlier in this article two ways individuals could have cultural blindness was stated; they simply don’t recognize cultural differences and organizations promote blindness. There is a third manner in which individuals could have cultural blindness, Julie Briggs (2014) suggests another in her article titled “Is Culture Blindness as Bad as Bigotry”. What if cultural blindness was a way in which a different generation tried to prevent racism?

Briggs (2014) goes on to say in her article;

“Like most North American children, my peers and I were taught by teachers and other well-intentioned adults that people around the world are essentially the same on the inside and to admit otherwise was akin to a form of racism”.

This raises the idea cultural blindness is primarily the result of how children were taught in an attempt to promote cultural desensitization. The leaders who instruct their teams to blind themselves could be simply following their teachings from childhood, in an attempt to prevent stereotyping. This has been shown to have the opposite effect, as “they don’t know what to do and the difference becomes a threat” (Briggs, 2014). This has the potential to cause more problems resulting in a dysfunctional team and reduced team performance.

Training Required

To help eliminate cultural blindness I believe education is vital. Organizations need to include Cultural sensitivity training for all their leaders, and especially individuals working on global teams; this will greatly increase the performance of these teams. In today’s global environment organizations need to embrace cultural diversity in order to benefit from all it as to offer. I believe Briggs, (2014) is correct with the approach required, “the most effective approach is to treat everyone you meet as a unique individual, keeping in mind that deeply embedded cultural values often play a role in the behaviors we encounter...” (Briggs, 2014).

References

Adler, N. (2010), International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, 5th edition. Cincinnati: Southwestern College Publishing. ISBN: 9780324360745

Briggs, J. (2014), Is “Culture Blindness” as Bad as Bigotry? Retrieved from http://blog.rw-3.com/blog/2014/03/is-culture-blindness-as-bad-as-bigotry

Cultural blindness [Def. 1]. (n.d), Online Psychology Dictionary, Retrieved from http://psychologydictionary.org/cultural-blindness/       

Fisher, K., & Fisher, M. D. (2011). Manager’s guide to virtual teams. New York: McGraw-Hill.