Article written by Dianne Hofner Saphiere

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Another International Research Paper Supports the
Cultural Detective® Approach
Bertelsmann Stiftung and Fondazione Cariplo Study
by Dianne Hofner Saphiere
Many of you ask us how you can make the case for and roll out a
strategy for developing intercultural competence in your
organizations and communities.
Two of the world’s major philanthropic foundations, Germany’s
Bertelsmann Stiftung and Italy’s Fondazione Cariplo (Cassa di
Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde), published a research and
policy paper* in October 2008 that may help a bit in this regard.
The objectives of the study were to promote tolerance,
integration and cultural dialogue within Europe and with non-
European partners. The paper makes several key points that are
important for Cultural Detectives to understand as we go about
our work. They are points that underscore the value of the
Cultural Detective® approach, namely:
1. The danger of reifying culture. Cultures are not static entities but
open, dynamic, complex systems.
2. Intercultural competence requires a process orientation.
3. Requisite intercultural competencies include:
a. Specific attitudes, knowledge and behaviors.
b. Internal “relativising” of one’s frame of reference.
c. External performance, or constructive interaction.
4. Intercultural competence involves recognition of similarities as well
as differences.
5. Intercultural competence development processes must be the core
of school curricula, revisited in different contexts repeatedly over
time; they can not be appended as supplementary learning.
* http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/bst/de/media/xcms_bst_dms_30238_30239_2.pdf
©June 2010 Dianne Hofner Saphiere, www.culturaldetective.com 1

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In this article I quote from the Bertelsmann-Cariplo study regarding
each of these topics, and then make the link to the Cultural Detective
approach. Let me begin, however, by quoting from the article on the
need for intercultural competence in the world today.
The Need for Intercultural Competence
“Given the process of pluralization that has resulted from
internationalization, the ethnic, religious and cultural
heterogeneity of our societies will increase, as will contacts
between people of differing cultural values and norms. Thus, in
the coming years, the ability to deal constructively on an
interpersonal level with cultural diversity and a multitude of
attitudes, values, norms, belief systems and ways of life will not
only remain a key qualification required of business executives
working in international settings; it will also be required
generally of each individual as a key factor for contributing to
social cohesion and reducing exclusion so that cultural diversity
can be experienced positively.” (pp. 3-4)
1. The Danger of Reifying Culture
“By focusing on what was assumed to be an integrated, almost
static whole of locality, group and culture … culture was
considered (and is still considered by many) to be the way of life
of a certain group of people in a specific setting, people who –
because of their culture – consider themselves members of the
same group and who – because of their culture – are different
from other groups in other localities. This notion is often
depicted as a global map with different discrete cultural groups,
or as a mosaic, whose pieces are distinct individual cultures.
Since Ulf Hannerz (and others) formulated the ideas of “culture
as flux” and the idea that cultures are open, dynamic and
constantly changing ‘entities’ or ‘practices,’ many leading figures
in social theory and cultural studies in the 1990s increasingly
relinquished the viewpoint that culture can be understood as a
closed and static, island-like entity. In addition
internationalization and globalization processes have shown the
previous notion – that locality, group and culture exist as one
unit – to be false or oversimplifying.
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The changed, process-oriented conception of culture as a
dynamic entity therefore tries to accommodate the
contradictions, the intermixing and the new diversity, which are
based more on relationships than autonomy.” (pp. 5-6)
Link 1: Cultural Detective’s Approach to Culture as an Open
and Complex System
There are several ways in which Cultural Detective helps users learn
that a culture is not some static, definable entity but a dynamic
system. Each Cultural Detective package comes with a page entitled,
“What is Culture?” The first words on the page are “culture is a
complex …” Culture is said to affect how we do things, with further
explanation that “common sense” is really a process of “cultural
sense.” Readers are asked to think about central tendencies and
patterns of a group of people, and that each individual is a composite
of the influences of many cultures simultaneously (nationality,
ethnicity, gender, age, spiritual tradition, sexual orientation,
organizational culture, professional training).
The Cultural Detective Worksheet is an interactional analysis and
planning tool, one that reinforces to the learner that the importance of
culture is how it colors what we do, what we perceive and how we
want to proceed. Culture is not presented as some static, separate
thing but as affecting individual people in real situations in complex but
visible ways.
The Cultural Detective Values Lenses are positioned as a view of group
norms or tendencies, a filter through which members of a culture are
taught to view the world. The Lenses are used as clues, tools that may
or may not prove helpful in unraveling the mystery of a given case
study. Not all members of a culture will hold these values; in fact,
some may have an almost allergic reaction to a society’s dominant
values, even while recognizing the norm. It is also noteworthy that the
same or similar values can provoke different or even contradictory
behaviors, depending on the person and the context.
Thus, Cultural Detective, by its very nature, relates to cultures as open,
dynamic and complex systems.
2. Intercultural Competence Requires a Process Orientation
“…This procedural understanding of culture as a dynamic flow
and ongoing process of negotiation between norms, values and
lifestyles only underlines the need for a conceptualization of
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intercultural competence which is in its turn able to take account
of the changing nature of culture and the interactions it
influences. Some existing models of intercultural competence, in
fact, underscore the importance of a process-orientation.”
If the assumption is correct that culture is constantly in flux,
then individuals must learn and master the ability to deal with
ongoing processes. The development of intercultural
competence is thus complex and multidimensional and,
depending on the intercultural situation, can take on a variety of
forms.” (pp. 6-7)
Link 2: Cultural Detective’s Process Approach to Intercultural
Competence
Cultural Detective is a process. It is to our knowledge one of (if not the
only) intercultural competence tool available in the world today that is
process-based. The approach looks at individuals in real situations,
urging the learner to describe the facts of the situation, as would a
good detective, filtering out biases and assumptions, and seeing what
actually occurred or was said. The learner is then encouraged, at least
temporarily, to set aside negative judgment and give benefit of the
doubt. What could have been possible positive intent underlying
behavior in the situation? Once possible positive intentions have been
formulated, the process asks the learner to discover or create methods
in which the contributions of all involved can be most fully used. How
might the people in the interaction behave, both to be fully themselves
and to be cross-culturally effective? What steps could the organization
or community take to encourage and reinforce intercultural
competence?
One of the strengths of the Cultural Detective process is that it is not
linear. Individuals or groups can jump around and between steps of
the process, in a holistic manner, with powerful results.
We would like to caution that saying “culture is constantly in flux” can
be as dangerous as the traditional boilerplate. Of course everything is
in flux; Heraclitus told us “you can’t step into the same river twice.”
The questions can include what is changing, how fast, how much and
where. We need to deal with ongoing processes, and we also need a
standpoint from which to do this. Cultural Detective gives us exactly
that.
3. Requisite Intercultural Competencies
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“With regard to the definition [of intercultural competence], one
may distinguish four dimensions, namely attitudes,
comprehensive cultural knowledge and intercultural skills, an
ability to reflect on intercultural issues as an internal outcome of
intercultural competence [relativizing frames of reference and
feeling empathy], and an ability to interact constructively as an
external outcome of intercultural competence.
It is important to remember that the relevant cultural
knowledge differs in each intercultural context and, as global
knowledge, is potentially unlimited, i.e. too extensive to always
be known in the intercultural context. Therefore, many experts
attach much more importance to certain behavior related
(conative) communication skills than to explicitly knowledge-
related (cognitive) elements. According to the specialists, to the
degree that comprehensive cultural knowledge cannot be
definitively known, process-oriented skills on how to handle the
situation grow in importance, skills that make it possible to
acquire and process (explicit and implicit) knowledge about
one’s own as well as foreign ways of life, cultural determinants
and practices.” (pp. 7 and 9)
Link 3: Cultural Detective and the Requisite Competencies
The first two skills upon which Cultural Detective is premised “make it
possible to acquire and process (explicit and implicit) knowledge about
one’s own as well as foreign ways of life, cultural determinants and
practices,” as described above. The first is Subjective Culture: knowing
yourself, in context, as a product of personality and multiple cultural
influences. Subjective Culture knowledge allows us to explain
ourselves, what is important to us, and why we do what we do, to
others. It also helps us to predict how we will respond in a given
situation. Cultural Detective: Self Discovery is an entire package,
approach and tools for developing subjective culture understanding,
and such understanding is developed and reinforced with every critical
incident and Worksheet our users work with. When learners reflect on
a critical incident complete a CD Worksheet, they naturally reflect on
their own values and behaviors: what they would do in a similar
situation, how they would expect someone to behave, what would
upset them. Analyzing incidents from diverse cultures and situations is
an organic, intuitive way of getting to know ourselves, individually and
as products of cultural influences.
The second Cultural Detective skill is Cultural Literacy: knowing others
individually, in context, as a product of their personalities as well as
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their multiple cultural influences. Cultural Literacy helps us to
understand others’ intentions and why we respond to them the way we
do. It enables us to put culture on the table as a perspective to be
used, rather than as something that we don’t recognize or talk about
but which reaches out to bite us when we least expect. Every Cultural
Detective package, critical incident and Values Lens helps the user to
develop cultural literacy.
The third Cultural Detective skill goes farther than the Bertelsmann-
Cariplo report. It is Cultural Bridge, the ability to leverage similarities
and differences for interpersonal, organizational and community
satisfaction, productivity and effectiveness. Cultural Bridges allow all
parties to retain their authenticity, encourage all parties to develop
intercultural competence, and involve processes, structures and
systems that sustain intercultural competence in the organization or
community. Cultural Bridges must be multi-directional, as one-way
Cultural Bridges may work in the short term but are rarely if ever
sustainable over the long term.
a. Specific attitudes (emotion), knowledge (cognition)
and behaviors (conation)
One set of questions we are sometimes asked is, “Where does
emotion fit within the Cultural Detective framework? By
reporting facts and behaviors, are we to divorce ourselves from
emotion?”
On the contrary, emotions are crucial pieces of a Cultural
Detective approach. Contemporary cognitive science is showing
that what we consider emotion has cognitive content and vice
versa. Evaluation and emotion are automatically present in
nearly everything we do. The Cultural Detective methods
develops in the learner the capacity to see this, and the desire
as well as capacity to purposefully shift perspective in order to
see a situation more thoroughly and accurately.
Heightened emotion can provide a beeline into the salient
aspects of deep culture that make a difference in a situation.
The things that most upset us are invaluable clues to the
underlying values and intent that drive perception and action.
Cognition and conation obviously come into play in the Cultural
Detective Worksheet. The “Words and Actions” as well as the
“Cultural Bridges” sections of the Worksheet involve behavior
and conation. The Worksheet and the Values Lenses involve
knowledge and cognition.
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b. Internal “relativising” of one’s frame of reference
The Cultural Detective process requires us to step into the
perspective of other people, to shift our frames of reference.
The Worksheet provides a visual illustration of such a shift of
frame of reference. Each Values Lens, through its positive
values and negative perception of those values, involves shifting
perspective or frame of reference as well.
c. External performance, or constructive interaction
This final Bertelsmann-Cariplo skill is well represented in the
Cultural Bridges portion of the Cultural Detective Worksheet,
and is also the focus of the upcoming Cultural Detective:
Bridging package.
4. Recognition of Similarities as well as Differences
“Perhaps the search for commonalities is as important in
intercultural competence as the sensitivity and recognition of
cultural differences that have been talked about so intensively in
scientific, political and everyday-life discourses on intercultural
competence during the last decades.” (page 13)
Link 4: Similarities, Differences, and Cultural Detective
As a process-based, interactional approach, Cultural Detective naturally
encourages the learner to explore similarities as well as differences.
When analyzing a critical incident using the Cultural Detective
Worksheet, it may become apparent that multiple parties are
motivated by similar or compatible values or desired outcomes. An
effective Cultural Bridge may involve building upon this shared outlook
or purpose, while also acknowledging and working with difference.
Values Lenses also encourage exploration of both similarities and
differences. Whether we are discussing our Personal Values Lenses in
an attempt to better collaborate, or comparing and contrasting national
Values Lenses, the ways in which we are similar and the ways in which
we are different make themselves apparent.
5. Intercultural Competence Development Processes as Core
of the Curriculum
”The multidimensional and process-oriented nature of the
development of intercultural competence can hardly be
appended as a supplementary learning module to existing
school curricula. Instead, it is necessary to examine to what
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extent intercultural competence as an educational goal can be
established in curricula as they are currently structured.” (page
10)
Link 5: Cultural Detective Process as Core
Herein lies one of the true beauties of the Cultural Detective toolset.
Because it is a process, it can be used as a design backbone for nearly
any type of curriculum, courseware, teambuilding, coaching,
technology transfer, competence development program, mediation or
conflict resolution, merger and acquisition. Because it is so simple, it
easily integrates with nearly any topic. It can be taught once, and the
learner retains it, being able to use it again and again in different
situations for ever deeper or broader learning, applying it both at home
and at work, across disciplines, to continue developing knowledge of
self, knowledge of others, and the ability to collaborate.
The key, as with any tool or important learning, is to integrate it as
part of an ongoing spiral learning approach, revisiting and reusing it at
periodic intervals in order to improve users’ facility with the tool and to
deepen and broaden user ability and sophistication. A tool left on the
shelf serves no purpose. Cultural Detective, as any tool or approach, is
useful for certain purposes and not for others, and it can be used well
or poorly. We trust your efforts towards intercultural competence will
bear positive results.
©June 2010 Dianne Hofner Saphiere, www.culturaldetective.com 8