Acquire cultural knowledge and skills.

According to our text by Denhardt Denhardt & Aristigueta, managers are constantly engaging with people from many different cultures, both in this country and abroad. As a result, important adjustments need to be made in their daily operations to achieve effectiveness from a “cross-cultural context”. The capacity to do so is called cultural competence which is a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, organization, or among professionals that enable that system, organization, or those professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations (Denhardt Et. Al., page 268). As noted, moving to cultural competence is hard emotional work that involves a paradigm shift in people’s awareness, attitudes and skill development. As a result of work in the field, Cross, Bazron, Dennis & Isaacs, 1989 identified five elements of cultural competence for effective cross-cultural service delivery:1. Acknowledge cultural differences2. Understand your own culture3. Engage in self-assessment4. Acquire cultural knowledge and skills5. View behavior within a cultural contextAs part of this forum please provide me with one example that addresses/describes one of the elements above. For example, regarding #1, cultural differences, a professor may interpret direct eye contact as a sign of respect when in fact the student might be from a culture that teaches its members to avert eye contact as a sign of deference.