Khadijah Bell '24 RGLP Reflection: Communicating Beyond Barriers

The term "globalism" refers to an ideology that advocates for free movement of people, information, and things across boundaries. While spreading ideas across borders can be beneficial for all parties, there are many challenges that come along with it. The biggest challenge in collaboration with other countries is communication due to cultural difference. I've learned that some challenges with communicating in a collaborative setting could be language differences, colloquial jargon, and perception. While these challenges can be great, the first step to eliminating them is to be mindful of them. To build a platform to mitigate these barriers, in sessions, we've learned that leaders can hold informative group sessions at the beginning of projects to get the team acquainted, immersing ones self into the new culture, and asking questions to build an understanding of one's behaviors.

When immersing ones self into another culture and communicating with that culture, it's important to remember to be adaptable. Adaptability is a soft skill where one is able to easily adjust to changing circumstances. The most important thing that I've learned to be adaptable, is to also be resilient. Resilience is a vital adaptability skill, and is the ability to bounce back from a misstep, failure, or challenging period. RGLP challenges its participants to emerge themselves into challenging environments, and be open to making mistakes, but also learning to be willing to try again.

Another way to improve communication skills in a different culture is to recognize ambiguity. Just like our own culture, there are a lot of differences between similar groups of people and cultures, and initially, we may unintentionally assign our own culture's moral code to another culture's. In this case we must remember to seek understanding and keep in mind what we've learned about the culture, and try to see the issue from their perspective, their standpoint, their worldview.

Through cross-cultural communication,  RGLP helps one recognize and develop the skills needed to avoid misunderstandings and misinterpretations and instead create constructive connections across previously daunting cultural barriers.