Terri Morrison, President of Getting Through Customs

Terri Morrison is the co-author of Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More Than 60 Countries and four other books related to business intercultural communications. Terri’s company, Getting Through Customs, sells the content of her books as an online database as well as offers seminars. She has a model for cultural orientation that can help predict “how people in certain cultures will speak, act, negotiate, and make decisions.” While the context for her model is conducting business, we believe it has applicability to better understand the ‘culture’ of the fire service as well as the fire service’s interactions with its multicultural communities. Terri makes it clear that in our communication, we’re dealing with individuals, not cultures. “Because we deal with individuals, there is a margin of error.” So keep in mind that models evolve—they’re not cast in concrete. And, like any tool, it’s your choice to try it out and decide whether or not you want to use it.

Here’s a breakdown of the cultural orientation model:

1. Cognitive Styles: How We Organize and Process Information
   • Open-minded or Closed-Minded?
   • Associative or Abstractive Thinking?
   • Particular or Universal Thinking?
2. Negotiation Strategies: What We Accept as Evidence
3. Value Systems: The Basis for Behavior
4. Locus of Decision-Making
5. Sources of Anxiety Reduction
6. Issues of Equality/Inequality

[Terri gave FIRE 20/20 permission to use and edit excerpts on ‘cultural orientation’ from Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands. We’ll follow a format of first presenting an explanation—word-for-word or edited—of a component of the cultural orientation model and then adding our perspective or posing some questions to get you thinking. We want you to ponder the good/bad/ugly of the fire service’s particular beliefs, traditions and values, etc. We also want you to consider how the model could be used to improve interactions with multicultural communities for building relationships and providing services and prevention programs.]

Cognitive Styles: How We Organize and Process Information

The word "cognitive" refers to thought, so "cognitive styles" refers to thought patterns. We take in data every conscious moment. Some of it is just noise, and we ignore it. Some of it is of no interest, and we forget is as soon as we see/hear/feel/smell/taste it. Some data, however, we choose to accept.

Open-minded or Closed-minded?
Studies of cognitive styles suggest that people fall into open-minded and closed-minded categories. The open-minded person seeks out more information before making a decision. The close-minded person has tunnel vision—he or she sees only a narrow range of data and ignores the rest.

Something that might surprise you is that most experts in cultural orientation consider the citizens of the United States and Canada to be close-minded.

Open-minded people are more apt to see the relativity of issues. They admit that they don’t have all the answers, and that they need to learn before they can come to a proper conclusion. Frankly, there are not many cultures like that. Most cultures produce closed-minded citizens.

In point of fact, most tend to produce close-minded citizens as long as things are working fairly well. It often takes a major disaster to make people open-minded. For example, the citizens of many former Communist nations are now becoming open-minded. Their old Communist ideology has fallen apart, and they realize they need new answers.
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Ouch! Most of us are close-minded? It makes sense when you think about it. We’re creatures of habit and change is not usually embraced.

What’s an example of the fire service’s closed-mindedness?  

What are some examples of the closed-mindedness that you’ve experienced when working with multicultural communities?

___________

Associative or Abstractive Thinking?
Another aspect of cognitive styles is how people process information. We divide such processing into associative and abstractive characteristics.

A person who thinks associatively is filtering new data through the screen of personal experience. New data (we’ll call it X) can only be understood in relation to similar past experiences. (Is this new X more like A, or maybe B?) What if X is not like anything ever encountered before? The associative thinker is still going to pigeonhole that new data in with something else (X is just another B). On the other hand, the abstractive thinker can deal with something genuinely new. When the abstractive person encounters new data, he or she doesn’t have to lump it in with past experiences (It’s not A, it’s not B or C—it’s new! It’s X!). The abstractive person is more able to extrapolate data and consider hypothetical situations. (“I’ve never experienced X, but I’ve read about how such things might occur”).

Obviously, no country has more than its share of smart (or dull) people. However, some cultures have come to value abstractive thinking, whereas others encourage associative patterns. Much of this has to with the educational system. A system that teaches by rote tends to produce associative thinkers. An educational system that teaches problem-solving develops abstractive thinking. The scientific method is very much a product of abstractive thinking. Both northern Europe and North America produce a lot of abstractive thinkers.
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Don’t be too fast to pat yourself on the back and claim that you’re an abstractive thinker because you got an education in northern Europe or North America. Out of our comfort zone, when confronted with something really new—having female firefighters in the department for the first time—can trigger associative thinking.

How might associative thinking work against your prevention materials/programs?

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Particular or Universal Thinking?
One final category has to do with how thinking and behavior are focused. People are divided into particular versus universal thinkers. The particularistic person feels that a personal relationship is more important than obeying rules or laws. On the other hand, the universalistic person tends to obey regulations and laws; relationships are less important than an individual’s duty to the company, society, and authority in general.

Not surprisingly, the previous categories tend to go together in certain patterns. Abstractive thinkers often display universalistic behavior: It requires abstractive thought to see beyond one’s personal relationships and consider “the good of society” (which is a very abstract concept).

_____________

Firefighters not wearing seatbelts: particular or universal thinking? What other instances are there where the culture of the fire service appears to override the importance of following orders/codes/laws?

Members of multicultural communities may have come from countries where there are minimal to no laws for fire prevention and life safety. How could your prevention materials/programs use particular thinking to positively overcome that?

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Negotiation Strategies: What We Accept as Evidence

In general, let us assume that everyone acts on the basis of his or her own best interests. The question becomes: How do I decide if this is a good deal or not? Or, in a broader sense, what is the truth?

Different cultures arrive at truth in different ways. These can be distilled into faith, facts, and feelings.

The person who acts on faith is using a belief system, which can be religious or political ideology.

Clearly, people who believe in facts want to see evidence to support your position.

People who believe in feelings are the most common throughout the world. These are the people who “go with their gut instincts.” They need to like you to do business with you. It can take a long time to build up a relationship with them. However, once that relationship is established, it is very strong.
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What have you seen or experienced in the fire service where there was a contradiction between the facts presented and the feelings that were expressed?

Why would a department’s outreach to the leaders of multicultural communities help leverage the acceptance of prevention materials/programs?

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Value Systems: The Basis for Behavior

Each culture has a system for dividing right from wrong, or good from evil.

Locus of Decision-Making
Some cultures prize individualism. Some cultures prize collectivism. The United States is considered to be very individualistic. China is very collectivistic. Such pure individualism and collectivism is rare. In most countries people consider more than just themselves, but are not bound by the desires of the group.

It is possible to consider the loci of decision-making as a series of concentric circles. In the center, in the smallest circle, is the individual. The next circle, slightly larger, is usually the family. Many cultures expect each individual to consider “What is best for my family?” prior to making any decisions. The next circle represents a larger group. It could be an ethnic group, a religion, or even the individual’s country. Some cultures consider the best interests of the entire, expansive group.

Of course, when a person is acting as representative for a company, the best interests of the company may be paramount.
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The fire service considers itself ‘a family’. What rituals and behaviors help ‘probies’ gain entry? How might those work to be exclusionary?

Consider a large multicultural community you’ve had experience with. What represents the concentric circles for that community? How are people in uniform judged?
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Sources of Anxiety Reduction
Every human being on this planet is subject to stress. How do we handle it? How do we reduce anxiety?

We can identify four basic sources of security and stability that people turn to: interpersonal relationships, religion, technology, and the law. Frequently, a combination of sources is used.
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In the fire service, what ways of reducing stress could be perceived as barriers to sexual integration?

In what ways can multicultural communities’ source of religion for security and stability help prevention materials/programs?
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Issues of Equality/Inequality
An important characteristic of all cultures is the division of power. Who controls the government, and who controls the resources?

All cultures have disadvantaged groups. These can be defined by economic status as well as by race or gender.
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The issue of gender equality/inequality looms large in the fire service! That’s why we have reminded you of the book Real Heat: Gender and Race in the Urban Fire Service by Carol Chetkovich and provided you with the PDF for the study, A National Report Card on Women in Firefighting.

Cultural awareness can lead to positive culture change. That is true for the fire service culture and the enculturation of multicultural communities as they become more knowledgeable about fire prevention and life safety.

For more information about Terri Morrison’s company and books, visit:
http://www.getcustoms.com/2004GTC/index.html