Personal Cultural Diversity the World

¶ … Personal Cultural Diversity

The world in which we live and work has grown immensely more diverse in the apst several decades due to several factors. Not only are people of various etnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds more free and able to move around the world in the search for a better life for themselves and their family than they ever have been before, but other technologies -- most notably the Internet -- also make it possible for people of absolutely every imaginable background to connect with each other across vast distances of space. Organizations -- both corporations and other business entities as well as communities and other social groups -- must learn not simply to tolerate this diversity, which has been the general thrust that many such groups have followed, but must actually learn to use this cultural diversity in ways that maximize the benefits to the organization while limiting some of the problems that diversity can cause (Carnevale & Stone 1994). My own background has its own share of personal cultural diversity; as a Persian-American, I have had to learn to bridge to often very different cultures.

I believe that my cultural diversity has helped me to see ways of behaving and attitudes that will benefit me in my career and in life in general. My family is Persian, and follows most of the religious and cultural customs attendant upon that classification. This has led to my development as someone who not only appreciates and understands cultural diversity, but who actively engages in the cultural differences I perceive, learning about them and attempting to perceive the advantages of new ways of thinking. My Persian-American identity as helped to form my perspective in this regard in two ways: first, by the simple fact that my family's background is different than most of my peers, and second from the lessons of my Persian heritage itself.

Music is a great reflection of any culture's values and perspectives, and Persian culture is no exception (During & Mirabdolbaghi 1991). Some of the things I have taken away from Persian music include an appreciation for symmetry and meditative qualities. I believe that my culture, especially through its music, has helped me to see balance and similarities in situations, people, and events that enable me to draw conclusions about their interrelationships and the ways in which they operate that would otherwise go unnoticed. The general attitude of Persian culture has also greatly enhanced my ability to live and work in a culturally diverse world, as well; some of the most important Persian festivals are pure celebrations of life and existence, and the joy that such ceremonies inspire carries over into the daily life of the Persian culture (Fordham 2007).

At the same time as I have been indoctrinated -- quite willingly -- in the over-reaching aspects of Persian culture, I have also been strongly Americanized through my school and my peers. At times, this has led to conflicts, both with my parents and internally as I struggled with what appeared to be opposing cultural values. Not celebrating Christmas, and not having time off from school for Persian religious holidays, has always made me take great notice of the fact that I am "different." As I have matured, however, I have come to appreciate this difference, and to realize that everyone truly is "different" in many ways. It took me quite awhile to come to this realization and to fully accept my culturally diverse identity as a Persian-American, but now that I have I realize that the diversity I struggled with in my youth has actually given me a great advantage in modern society. I am already prepared and well equipped not only to "deal with" cultural diversity, but to actively engage and navigate a world where it is commonplace.

Learning to not only tolerate but to utilize cultural diversity in the workplace can be very difficult. Even something considered as standard by many people such as a basic work ethic can be reflected and understood very differently by people of different cultures. Many "full American" peers of mine (for lack of a better term) believe that they work as hard as they should, and indeed they often accomplish quite a lot. The work ethic I inherited from my parents and my Persian background requires almost sole dedication to a task until it is accomplished, however, and I realized early on that I studied more than most of my friends. In the workplace, different cultural expectations along these lines can lead to conflict; it is essential that all necessary work in the organization be accomplished as efficiently and correctly as possible, but people from different cultures may have different concepts of the timeline and effort required for a given project (Woods 2009). This is only one basic example of the problems that can arise in work vs. social situations when it comes to cultural diversity.