Cultural Competency Training: SKILLS 

The Diversity Collaborative custom designs its Skills Training to help managers and employees:

• Respond appropriately when bothersome, hurtful, or offensive language and behaviors occur
• Recover from cultural conflicts inadvertently caused in communications with coworkers, colleagues, clients, and others
• Give constructive feedback that is:
  o Clear
  o Non-judgmental
  o Descriptive
  o Practical
• Receive feedback non-defensively

Behavioral studies indicate that in the absence of skills to respond when hurtful language or behaviors affect individuals, the response is often no response. Using the phrase “Silence implies consent,” workshop participants learn and practice skills to get beyond their own discomfort and thoughtfully address statements and actions perceived as negative. In most organizations, Skills Training follows Awareness Training so that managers and employees receive new options for communicating through cultural conflicts.

Drawing the Line: Four Hours Skills Building Workshop
Walking through a cultural conflict – with dignity and sensitivity – requires awareness and skill. Our research shows that the lack of knowing “what to say” or “what to do” are among the most profound reasons employees accused of offending their coworkers continued the same offensive behaviors.

In this half-day workshop, participants practice techniques to deflect fear, anger, and frustration sometimes caused by someone else’s behaviors, or an inadvertent error in one’s own actions or language. Participants explore some of the common issues from their own personal background that may make it difficult for them to appreciate people who think and act differently.

Using real examples of common cultural conflicts, learners exercise techniques to use their professional responsibility and personal “Response Ability” to tactfully set boundaries and confront situations that make them feel less than full contributors at work.

Other activities focus on how to forgive yourself – and others – for potentially harmful cultural misunderstandings that may result in damaged relationships and an “unsafe” work environment.
Drawing the Line: Eight Hours Skills Building Workshop
Silence implies consent. Researchers tell us that when an individual doesn’t know what to say, she or his often says nothing. The lack of a response when hurtful language or behaviors occur leaves a hurt person stunned – and a perpetrator clueless.

In this full-day version of Drawing the Line, participants spend more time in small groups, practicing skills and techniques designed to “walk through” discomfort and address cultural conflicts each participant has experienced at work or in her or his personal life.

Few people leave their homes each day with the singular intent to hurt the people around them. Then again, life happens. Here, participants learn skills to recover and heal from making cultural errors about race, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, and other differences.

Similarly, by understanding that negative perceptions of others may affect the ability to be productive at work, participants learn clear and specific language to use when responding to the insensitivities of others.