Improving Cultural Communication Skills

Special Forces (SF) of the United States Army perform missions requiring them to teach, negotiate, and operate with people from different cultures. To succeed in such missions, SF soldiers must understand these cultures and possess the communication skills necessary to work effectively with host nation counterparts or coalition forces. To satisfy this need, the U. S. Army Research Institute awarded a contract to the North Carolina Center for World Languages and Cultures, HumRRO, and the American Global Studies Institute to develop methods to identify and prioritize SF cultural communication skills training needs.

The information domain for any culture is voluminous and not expressed in behavioral terms. The methods developed here represent a systematic procedure for performing cultural communication skills training needs assessments. These methods identify and prioritize training requirements in behavioral terms, while being sensitive to both the target culture and the mission involved. Initially, cultures relevant to the SF were identified based on a literature review and conferences with academic, diplomatic, and military subject matter experts. An operational definition of culture was derived, from which criteria evolved that specified 839 world cultures grouped into 10 regions. Using additional criteria (size, location, impact on world events), 187 of these were determined to be operationally relevant to SF.

A generic cultural template was then developed that provides a structured, topical taxonomy for any cultural information domain and 919 notional behaviors (e.g., understand/ recognize/react appropriately to religious activities, gestures, members of the opposite sex, authority, sense of private space, and greetings). Using this template as a starting point, we conducted additional literature reviews and subject matter expert conferences that resulted in three culture-specific templates; Arabs of West Asia (448 behaviors), Russia (419 behaviors), and Cuba (455 behaviors). These behaviors were prioritized using focus groups of cultural informants along with cluster analyses.

The elements of two SF missions were then identified and weighted using SF subject matter experts' rankings and paired comparisons. Finally, we performed a crosswalk analysis to link the cultural behaviors and mission elements, with the combination of their respective weights resulting in a prioritized list of cultural skill training requirements. Based on these analyses, researchers developed two courses and delivered them to members of the SF: Methods to Improve Cultural Communication Skills in Special Operations Forces; and Cultural Communication Skills Training for Special Forces Conducting a Foreign Internal Defense Mission in the Sultanate of Oman (Hannaman, 1997).

The methodologies and products developed empower training managers to make informed, objective decisions regarding what cultural communications skills should be taught, while avoiding distortions caused by the biases of individual subject matter experts. This, in turn, serves to ensure the effective use of limited training time. The methodology developed could benefit other applications, including: integrating cultural and language training; structuring area studies and analysis; evaluating existing cultural training efforts; developing diversity programs; identifying activities to be incorporated into mission rehearsals; and enhancing the return on private sector and government investments in assigning personnel overseas.

This project was the recipient of the International Society for Performance Improvement Potomac Chapter's 1997 Outstanding Research Project Award.

For more information, contact:
Dr. Lauress Wise or Research Notes