Building Bridges in Vancouver Communication spans cultures - multicultural aspects of business and training in British Columbia

Training & Development, May, 2001 by Haidee E. Allerton

"Very little has been written about the cultural implications of online learning," injects Myriam Cabrera, senior associate of the center, who teaches international negotiations and now applies her past experience in diplomatic postings in embassies in Central America, the United States, and Europe to bilateral and multilateral conflict resolution.

David Clayton, a principal of Industrial Cooperation Consultants, says he assists his clients, mostly large corporations, that may be entering a foreign country and want to understand the local workforce and their expectations.

"I put together programs to give workers skills that not only make them employable by those companies but also teach the values of the company," says Clayton. "What I find exciting is the participatory use of tools to get people to describe how they see things, what's important to them-to validate the knowledge they already have and identify action steps they can take to transform situations for themselves."

Some attitudes blocking effective multicultural communication and interaction might not be readily apparent. Clayton's wife, Teresa Stancioff, program coordinator for the Bridge Health Clinic's cross-cultural HW/AIDS/STD Project, says there's a prejudice that immigration to Vancouver has raised HIV/AIDS rates. But she emphasizes, "Many migrants catch it here."

The marketing side

Next stop, Kraig Short takes me to meet Kenneth Wong, president of ACE Consulting and Hamazaki Wong, a full-service advertising agency. Like Vancouver, Kraig is also a bit of a hodgepodge of French, English, German, and Native descent. His wife Emily is second-generation Chinese and born in the Yukon. Emily speaks several dialects, including one that Kraig describes as "more like singing than talking." He says he speaks Thai "poorly" (and also admits he plays golf badly). Emily and Kraig both consider themselves to be Canadians.

ACE has been providing consulting services to such clients as banks, airlines, and retailers, including IKEA Canada in its entrance to the Asian market. Wong points to the Korean and Japanese populations in Vancouver. "Sometimes, you have both working in the same shop, and the staff don't understand each other." He's not talking just about language, but also attitudes and work styles. About the Japanese, a presence in Vancouver as workers and as tourists, he notes, "To the Japanese tourist, the amount of money you pay for something is a reflection of your status; the more the better. That's not true of Vancouverites."

Wong adds, "The Japanese are hungry for training. Their economists know global concepts but not at the middle management and staff levels. Japanese companies have knowledge, but their human resources are ill equipped to compete globally. It's only in the past five years that you could find a keyboard in Japanese. That made Internet use in Japan lag. But now Web-enabled cell phones are very popular."

Wong says another challenge is that recent Chinese immigrants to Canada are highly educated and have a sophisticated set of needs. "Frankly, Canadian companies haven't paid much attention," he says. Until now.