This course showed the gap I have from my action-oriented mindset to the art of reflection, especially the distance I still need to cover to reach public reflection. With my busy schedule, I often find myself running around and spending my energy on result-driven efficiency. This semester encouraged me to take breaks from my daily routine to stop and ponder on the impact of my actions and the result of future decisions. The final post on every Sunday became a safe place to practice my reflective skills and show it through critical thinking. Not only I need to reflect on my learning through the readings and teachings of the week, but I also need to bring my cohort mates’ comments into consideration in my final post. When my colleagues’ sharing, or questions challenge me, I try to track my thoughts through the ladder to find the root of my assumptions.
One of the pleasant surprises of this semester came from all the reflection and sharing I did about my workplace. Before the OLL program, I did not realize how much learning I could still have from my current job position due to my assumption. I thought I had learned my ropes after going through the same project cycle at work for almost the third year. Nonetheless, week after week, my learning challenged me to take a more in-depth look into my workplace to actively reflect and apply the new concept we have discussed in the course.
Using the idea of public reflection for example, with the help of cohort mates’ questions under my weekly post, I discovered probing and testing reflective approaches might not work best in China due to the collectivist culture. In a typical Chinese workplace, where “fit in” is more important than “stand out”, the act of critical thinking might be viewed as a threat to the stability of the culture at first glance. Though more and more people get to see the importance of critical thinking, especially in academia, the way they deliver and share their critical thinking is crucial in this culture settings.
National Cultural Dimensions
As someone who has a passion for cross-cultural environment and diversity, the idea of national cultural dimensions was not foreign to me. Most of my knowledge of diversity and cultures came from personal trips over the years and leisure reading. This semester provided the first opportunity to learn about those cultural dimensions systematically. As Cooper, Hellriegel, and Slocum (2017) pointed out “Cultures do not exist as simply static differences to be celebrated, but compete with one another as better or worse ways of getting things done” (p.71). Culture not only shapes societal and family values but also sets the expectation of various roles in society.
Developed by Hofstede (2001), the national cultural dimensions theory is one of the foundational concepts of cultural values. It offers the basic framework and insights of how cultural values define members’ roles and behavior along six cultural dimensions: Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity/Femininity, Long-term/Short-term Orientation, Individualism/Collectivism, and Indulgence/Restraint (Hofstede, 2001). Hofstede compared countries’ position on each dimension’s spectrum with each other to help researchers and learners gain a more holistic view on the cultural differences and similarities.
One thing I have learned from the culture dimensions came from comparing conflict resolution styles between countries. While the individualist Western culture might be more comfortable with confrontation during a conflict, collectivist cultures in East Asian solve a direct conflict with an avoidance style (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 2012). For example, at my workplace when I hav
