As I’m sure you all know, Shakespeare once wrote “The play’s the thing”, The Spinners once sang “Games People Play” and Stanley Clarke once played “Life is Just a Game”.
Well if you don't know, now you know.
It seems that since time immemorial, mankind has consistently developed and enjoyed game play.
Over the centuries, thinkers, philosophers and scientists have thought a great deal about game theory. In modern times, social scientists and technology creators have theorized about the impact of game play and knowledge transfer, the difference between strong games and weak games and why we play games at all.
Just between you and me, I think we like playful activities because they are just plain fun.
But I think also that playful activities, exercises and role playing games can be used to teach us about ourselves and one another. If Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is correct, playful activities can help us to develop the capacity to solve problems and create products and solutions that are valued in more than one cultural setting. Garder lists seven aspects of cognitive skill required for learning and problem solving:
Linguistic intelligence - sensitivity to spoken and written language Logical-mathematical intelligence - the ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think logically Musical intelligence - the capacity to recognize and organize pitch, rhythm and tone Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence - the mental ability to coordinate bodily movement Spacial intelligence - the potential to recognize and use patterns of wide space and more confined areas. Interpersonal intelligence - the ability to understand intentions, motivations and desires of others. Intrapersonal intelligence - the capacity to understand oneself and appreciate one’s fears, feelings and motivations. It is easy to see how playful activities, exercises and games help us to practice and develop multiple intelligences. Dr. Stuart Brown at the National Institute for Play goes even further to describe how playful exercises, activities and games provide opportunities to unlock human potential and problem solving abilities. Brown describes patterns of playful activity as attunement play, movement play, object play, social play, imaginative play, storytelling play and transformative-integrative play. Understanding these kinds of behavior help us to make sense of the world, transcend our everyday experiences, understand body language symbols, develop our curiosity of others and create new ideas in teams. Thankfully, Donna M. Stringer and Patricia A. Cassiday really explain how all this works in their excellent new book “52 Activities for Improving Cross-Cultural Communication” (Intercultural Press 2009, ISBN: 978-1-931930-83-3). They describe cross cultural communication as what takes place when we try to communicate with someone whose cultural perspective is different from our own. Sometimes the difference is age or gender, language history, profession or educational background, nationality or regional orientation. Trying to communicate effectively across these cultural barriers often requires extra effort and practice. In an increasingly networked, global society, this is a timely reality: in businesses, organizations and institutions, the ability to navigate communication styles affects productivity, employee satisfaction, teamwork and ultimately, the bottom line. Stringer and Cassiday have succeeded in creating a fun, easy to use, common sense guide to cross-cultural and intercultural activity play which can be used by teachers, human resource educators, institution administrators and students of culture to understand, identify, recognize, experience and describe: - how we can use different communication styles, patterns and approaches - how communication patterns can change when cultural differences are introduced into a group - how status influences the way we communicate - how communication styles can affect workplace productivity - how nonverbal communication affects the way we understand what we are saying and what others are saying to us - how communicative vocabularies can be expanded and developed - how cultural values influence the way we perceive others - how creating more effective dialog in diverse groups is possible - how to leverage diversity for creative and effective problem solving To overcome these challenges to communication and practice the skills to understand them, Stringer and Cassiday explain some of the core reasons for most cross-cultural misunderstanding; for example: - the tendency to judge or evaluate messages we receive as good or bad, right or wrong - the inability to cope with ambiguity and the anxiety it creates in us - the projection of oversimplified stereotypes onto groups of people or individuals we associate with those groups - making judgements based on assumptions that others are similar to us when they are not In this visionary new volume, Stringer and Cassiday offer 52 in-depth descriptions of activities and exercises that can be used to practice verbal and nonverbal communication, conflict resolution, decision making, negotiation and team building processes. Each exercise presented describes the activity goal, the activity process and the materials necessary along with guides for follow-up discussion and de-briefing, sample handouts and narratives. One of the keys to effective intercultural and cross-cultural training is flexibility. Stringer and Cassiday have chosen activities that are adaptable and in most cases can be used in any country or culture. They have paid precise detail to designing activities geared towards different audiences; some of the exercises are experiential in nature, others are more hands on and others take a more reflective approach. In other words, there are a variety of learning approaches presented in this book which can be used effectively to meet learning style needs across cultures. In addition, an ample appendix and bibliography are included which makes this volume a valuable asset for human resource specialists, social scientists and training professionals who develop lesson plans and training programs in industry and academia. The manual’s forte is that it was developed by Stringer and Cassiday in collaboration with education professionals, social scientists and human resource specialists who have accumulated decades of practical experience around the world. Dr. Donna M. Stringer’s pioneering work as a social psychologist, researcher, educator, writer and president of Executive Diversity Services, Inc. has raised the bar for diversity training, organization development, multicultural training and gender differences in universities, corporations and institutions for almost three decades. She continues to develop training curricula and provide mentorship for diversity trainers and facilitators across the globe. Dr. Patricia A. Cassiday is an educator and consultant on topics such as expatriate leadership development, third culture kids, conflict resolution and education reform. Dr. Cassiday’s counseling experience around the world for the past two decades has been documented in her published works on expatriate leadership and as president of Collaborative Connection, a consultancy specializing in transition counseling services for expatriates, their families and their organizations. Stringer and Cassiday’s passion and enthusiasm clearly soak through the pages of this book; although it is designed as a serious training manual for human resource educators, one cannot mistake the glee and delight with which they present each exercise description: they successfully encourage and emphasize a spirit of play throughout each chapter. Their enthusiasm for cross-cultural communication is apparent also in the caliber of their collaborators; their contributors are a Who’s Who in the community of international, intercultural communication experts : Sivasailam Thiagarajan (aka Thiagi), Dianne Hofner Saphiere, Andy Reynolds, Elmer Dixon, Peter Isackson, Basma Ibrahim DeVries, Barbara Kappler Mikk, Karen Rolston and many, many others. This excellent volume of activities will be extremely useful to facilitators, educators, trainers, coaches and teachers interested in serving institutions of higher learning, multinational business corporations, the communications and marketing industry, government agencies, health care facilities, the technological research and development industry and public safety officials. Act like you know: you can pre-order the book here! (Editors note*) As a matter of fact, I would be amiss if I didn’t mention that as I was reading this book, this mess was going down. I couldn’t help thinking that if Barack, Joe, Henry and James had called Donna and Patricia (and Elmer and Andy and them) over to the People's Crib for a cup of coffee, something actually useful might have happened instead of a bunch of Alpha males lollygagging over half-drunk beer in a yard. If they had had this book, they would have at least been able to play the “toothpicks” game in Chapter 11. It would have taken less than an hour for Skippy and Jimmy to learn how non-verbal communication impacts the message received and the importance of learning the non-verbal rules of another culture.
Wishful thinking on my part I guess. +++
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