Developing Intercultural Competence: Strategies and Best Practices

Intercultural competence has become an essential skill for success in personal and professional life in today's increasingly globalised world. It refers to the ability to interact and communicate with individuals from different cultures, recognising their values, and respecting beliefs as well as customs. It includes knowing one’s culture of origin, prejudices, and beliefs and being adaptable to new cultural environments.

Below are some strategies and best practices that will assist you to become inter-culturally competent.

Develop Self-awareness: On determining your cultural background, values, beliefs, biases reflect on how you were brought up culturally and what experiences have influenced your outlook on life so far. This assists you in appreciating other people’s cultural diversities.

Learn about Other Cultures: Make a deliberate effort to learn about different cultures including their customs, values and beliefs; that can be done by reading books or articles related to those cultures, watching documentaries or even interacting with people from other regions. Do not rely on stereotypes neither should you assume anything concerning other cultures approach them without bias.

Practice Active Listening: Active listening is part of good communication where one listens open-mindedly while paying attention to the other person’s perspective. Ask questions either to get clarification or paraphrase so as to confirm whether the other person’ view point is clearly understood by you.

Develop Empathy: Empathy is having the ability of understanding others feelings as if they were happening towards yourself . One develops empathy through imagining oneself in another person’s shoes thus viewing things from his/her angle; this is usually realised through active listening or the thinking of how could I feel if it was I?

Respect Cultural Differences: Respecting differences among cultures entails acknowledging various norms, opinions as well as traditions. Never force your own opinions on others before first learning how they live their lives while not forgetting that here people act differently which may need adaptation into new situations.

Practice Cultural Humility: Cultural humility refers recognising ones limitations when it comes to understanding and interacting with other cultures. It means that one is open to learning from others, ready to make mistakes and learn from them.

Seek Feedback: Inquire feedbacks from others particularly those who come from different cultures in order to know how inter-culturally competent you are becoming. You will be able to identify the areas where you are weak at improving on them and also areas where your performance is good.

Developing intercultural competence is an ongoing process that requires continuous learning and practice. Self-awareness, learning about other cultures, active listening, empathy, respect for cultural differences, cultural humility and feedback are some of the skills and knowledge that can help in effective interaction with people from diverse cultures. This will not only help you succeed in personal and professional life but will also contribute to a more inclusive and harmonious society.