Getting to Root of Cultural Gaffes : Communication: Sorting out inadvertent insults and clearing up misconceptions is vital to diversity management.

When two executives at a nonprofit association in southern Los Angeles met recently with a representative of a local philanthropic foundation, they got an unpleasant reminder of cultural blundering.

The visitor strode in to the meeting, sat down and launched immediately into what he deemed the appropriate language: “Quid pro quo, bro,” and other ghetto speak.

“The room froze,” recalls Brenda Shockley, executive director of Community Build. Shockley and her male colleague are African-Americans. Between them they share five university degrees, and they do not pepper their sentences with street slang. Their white visitor soon found himself dismissed.

This wrong-headed stereotyping of African-American speech is just one example of the cultural misunderstandings that can occur when people from dozens of different cultures are thrown together, as they often are in Southern California offices and factories.

“People are offended a lot of the time,” says Michele Zak, director of management communications at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. “Their values are being assaulted.”

For many companies in the Southland, sorting out inadvertent insults and cultural mishaps has become an important element of their efforts to manage diversity. Lessening cultural tensions or conflict among employees has an obvious bottom-line benefit: Happy employees tend to be more productive.

Anita Rowe, a Los Angeles diversity consultant and author, recalls a case at a hospital in which a disagreement between a Filipina nurse and an African-American nurse over the treatment of patients eventually escalated to open conflict. “The Filipina could not bring up the conflict. The African-American wanted to resolve it and kept following her,” she says. The pair almost came to blows and filed grievances, citing threatening behavior.

“So often the problems stem from an ignorance of differences,” says Rowe, noting that in some Asian cultures it is considered extremely impolite to directly confront someone with whom you are in disagreement.

Ethnic stereotyping underlies much of the current wave of foot-in-mouth disease. “There is the assumption that Asians are forever immigrants,” says T.S. Chung, a partner in the Los Angeles law firm Kim & Andrews. “People say, ‘Oh, you speak English very well.’ ” But the phrase that irks Chung the most is “you people.” “Whatever follows--’You people are this way or that way’--is not proper,” he says.

Vicki Tamoush, a human relations specialist of Arab descent, is troubled by one co-worker who often refers through comments or jokes to the Islamic religion or Arab people. She figures that he must assume that her Arab background makes her interested in his comments, even though she has told him that her religion is Catholic.

Gloria Porter, a human resources manager for the last 18 years at a number of Los Angeles corporations, attributes some of these faux pas to the discomfort people feel when they make certain assumptions about various ethnic groups.

As an example, she cites the different reactions she has witnessed when groups of blacks or whites gather in an office setting. In her experience, a small group of blacks chatting together is often viewed with suspicion by co-workers or managers, whereas a similar group of whites is hardly noticed, she says.

Issues of age and generation can also lead to misunderstandings. Rowe cites a case of a worker, a Mexican immigrant, who was offered a promotion to supervisor, which he refused. At first, his bosses were befuddled. After looking into the matter, a surprising answer emerged. “He said he could not give orders to people in the work group older than himself,” she says.

As companies struggle with ways to educate their workers about cultural differences, they should avoid falling into the stereotype trap themselves.

“The worst mistake people make is thinking that you can get a laundry list of do’s and don’ts, and that following that list will help you be politically correct and avoid blunders,” says Tamoush, the human relations specialist.

One tactic is to encourage employees to keep in mind that each person is an individual. “So many times the complaint is an amorphous ‘they are not doing things right,’ ” says South Pasadena-based psychotherapist Alan Hedman.

Eye contact--or the lack of it--is a frequent source of complaint. In the traditional American way of doing business, looking your colleague or opponent in the eye is a mark of forthrightness and honesty. In many countries, such as Korea, Japan and Thailand, it is a sign of disrespect or surliness.

Humor, though it can be used to make things more comfortable, must be applied with discretion. Consultant Rowe recalls the case of a bank manager who helped a customer fill out some forms. To put the man at ease, the manager laughed and joked. The customer, an immigrant from Mexico, where bankers are expected to maintain a more deferential presence, called later to complain that he was not treated with respect.

In matters of humor or just ordinary topics of discussion, “you have to shed knee-jerk assumptions,” Rowe says. Not every African-American plays basketball. Everyone with an Latino surname doesn’t speak Spanish. All Asians are not Chinese. For that matter, not all whites come from the ruling class.

Even with all the goodwill in the world, preparing a work force to avoid all possible cultural gaffes is a Sisyphean task. At one Silicon Valley company, a newly hired Asian engineer left his office to lead the first meeting of his project team. His secretary crossed her fingers and wished him luck.

But instead of reassuring him, she had thoroughly confused him. In the engineer’s home country, such a gesture is a sexual proposition.