The Truth About Our Differences

Cultural Anthropologists Thomas Kochman and Jean Mavrelis have worked as diversity consultants since the inception of the field with Kochman’s first book in 1981, Black and White Styles in Conflict. Their research is rooted in the social sciences, specifically anthropology and sociolinguistics, studying people’s patterns of behavior, values, and principles. The husband-and-wife team develop cultural modules identifying gender and racial differences in an approach they’ve called Corporate Tribalism–also the title of their most recent book. Kochman’s expertise is in cultural differences and the impact on interpersonal communication and organizational culture. Mavrelis’s area of study is on gender and culture. The pairs’ diversity consulting company, Kochman Mavrelis Associates Inc., works with nonprofits,  government agencies, and top 500 companies including AT&T, Boeing, McDonald’s, and Motorola, to address social and cultural diversity in ways that value and respect differences.

“We are socialized into cultural systems that tell us how to get ahead at work, how to behave in a meeting, what bosses value, etc.,” asserts Mavrelis. “Ultimately, culture trumps personality at work.”

Black Enterprise spoke to Kochman and Mavrelis about a few common workplace differences that exist between whites and blacks.

You say in the book that communication styles are very different between corporate white males (CWM) and women (CWW) versus African American men and women.

Kochman: There are two really key differences that we pick up that are cultural and probably true of both genders. That is what we characterize for African Americans as truth before peace and for mainstream U.S. as peace before truth. It comes out in the workplace in who’s likely to be the person who brings up the topic that no one else wants to talk about. It’s likely to be a black woman, and this is where gender differences for African Americans do matter, not because black men and black women don’t share the same value of truth before peace but it’s that black men feel they need to be more cautious in the workplace when dealing with these issues. Black men are much more at risk in our society. There’s a risk factor in speaking out because invariably, you end up being the target.

Another cultural difference between African Americans and mainstream America is over what qualifies something as racist. For mainstream U.S. awareness, motive and intent have to be present. For African Americans, inconsistent treatment along racial

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lines is sufficient to characterize something as racist. For example, in one workplace, black workers asked their CWM supervisor, “[Why did] the white workers get all the good vacation times?” The CWM said that vacation times were given on a “first come, first served basis.” Blacks then asked, “[Why did] the white workers know to come in first?” It turned out that the posting of vacation times was done on the first shift, which had mostly white workers.

What’s culturally relevant here is that, while the CWM considered the outcome “unfortunate,” he did not accept the charge of racism because it was not his intent to skew the outcome to favor one group or the other. For the black workers his intent was immaterial. E

ither way, he lost whatever credibility he had with the black workers. The CWM, in turn, saw the black worker’s characterization of what happened as “racist” not only as unwarranted, but as an unjust attack on his moral character.

Intent is a matter of trust, which you say is also perceived differently by the groups.

Kochman: Well it has to do with whether you perceive trust as something that’s earned or something that’s a given. This has to do with one’s cultural or social group. Typically for white men trust is not an issue until it becomes an issue. They start out with the premise that unless you’ve done something to make me think I don’t or can’t trust you, I trust you. I give you the benefit of the doubt. They also feel they shouldn’t have to earn somebody’s trust. If they haven’t done anything to make you think they’re not trustworthy, then they should be considered trustworthy.

The other groups are often coming from I don’t trust you until you’ve done something to make me think I can trust you.

The social reason behind that is, at least in the U.S., white men trust the social institutions or believe that any business arrangement once entered into will be supported by institutions, the courts, or whatever. Other cultures don’t have the same confidence that the institutions are impartial or fair or will work for their benefit.  You don’t automatically trust somebody if you’ve come from a culture or social situation that puts you at risk time and again.

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In general, how do the cultural differences affect promotion and hiring?

Kochman: White men basically see themselves as a collection of individuals, and not as members of a group. In the U.S. context, as members of a dominant group that operates in a mainstream context, they have no race/gender self-awareness. White men have to go outside of the U.S. to experience being  a minority, then they become very much aware of their race and gender. However, they are aware of everybody else’s

group membership. Black women are characterized as African American women first, before individuals. White women are characterized as just a woman because white is normative. This has an impact on who gets picked in the organization–not even with respect to cultural patterns, which also factor into who rises to the top given the culture of the organization–but just in terms of who’s in the pool.

White men succeed or fail as individuals, not as members of a group. The success or failure of one does not impact the possibilities of someone else getting considered. If everybody who applies for a job is a white guy, race and gender disappear from the radar screen. What emerges in that context are individual characteristics. When they say they got hired because of who they were as individuals, that’s true, because everybody else got left out because they were members of the group. That’s the critical part of this.

In part two of the book you talk about workplace conflict between corporate white women (CWW) and women of color. What creates this conflict?

Mavrelis: Middle-class white women learn as children to be nice and not to hurt anybody’s feelings. The people-pleaser white women–who are not necessarily nice–are the ones that are programmed to behave in a way that’s protective of other people’s feelings. African American women are taught to be strong and self-reliant. One of the things you do if you are going to be self-reliant is be more competitive. If they have an issue with someone, they will go [directly] to that person. Before we started looking at corporate diversity, I had a company that was looking at diversity in the schools for 10 years. If you look at the two power

groups in sixth grade on the playground, they’re going to be black girls and white boys. So these two groups culturally have a lot in common. Black boys are not in the power group because they’re getting messages to be careful and hold back. If you compare that to white women, the message is: Be nice; it’s not right to compete because if you compete you win and somebody else loses. For white women who believe it’s not nice to compete, the strategy is to avoid or eliminate the competition rather than meet it straight on.

Also these groups’ strategies of getting ahead are different. African American women get all the degrees and go down a checklist of all the things that the establishment could use to not [promote them] and makes sure to cover all the bases. But white women are doing something different. They’re building relationships and using familiarity in the culture. Most of that relationship building is going to be with white men. One group is looking at what, and the other group is looking at whom.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard white folks describe an African American as “unapproachable.”  Part of that description is their own fear, and the other part is that they are looking at African American style through their own expectations of the “white woman smile” which translates as “I’m nice and approachable” (all of this is unconscious). White men try to bond through joking, and white women by sharing personal info–when black women don’t share back, they think they don’t want to “be their friend.”

For more information about Kochman and Mavrelis’ cultural programs, visit www.kmadiversity.com and their blog, www.talkingculturaldiversity.