Diversity doesn’t come without tension. The key is to know how to make it into jazz and not discordant noise.
Stereotypes are shortcuts our brains use to make fast decisions (especially when there is too much information or potential unknowns). We tend to infer a lot about others based on our past experiences, whether it’s accurate to do so or not. As the world becomes more connected and our interactions more immediate, we interact with people unlike us every day without even realizing it.
Our brains, being the prediction machines that they are, take these stereotypes and form an idea of how interactions will go.
Illustration: Design vs Development
As a quick example let’s look at the work-centric, cross-cultural environment between Design and Development.
A stereotypical concept of a Designer might be that they are:
- untidy
- unencumbered by deadlines
- value form over function
- generally “right-brained”
A stereotypical concept of a Developer might be that they are:
- fastidious
- unencumbered by manners
- value function over form
- generally “left-brained”
Objections over these questionable stereotypes aside, these two groups objectively look like completely different cultures. Each have their own language or jargon that sets them apart. The etiquette of how to interact with their work is different. Humor among these two groups can be impossibly nuanced, but it ties them together.
These things act as communication barriers and can hinder a process called the Negotiation of Meaning.
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