Lessons from Cultural Awareness Training

One of the training sessions we had last week during Pre-Deployment Training (PDT) was Cultural Awareness Training. A dynamic older gentlemen, former military (Army, I think), Arabic translator/interpreter, originally from Bahrain, taught the four-hour class. By the time we come home, we'll all have felt as if we had a year-long cultural awareness class, but this was to prep folks who haven't been there for some of the fundamental and practical differences between Bahrain and the US.

It only took about 30 minutes before he said something that put my back up. I don't remember the specifics, but I vaguely remember an extremely negative judgmental comment about homosexuality. I think it was meant as a generalization of religious dogma, but the speaker certainly didn't qualify it that way, so it came across as the truth as he saw it.

A few minutes later, he brought up gender roles and how men and women are treated in Bahrain. I know this is a push-button topic for me. I know I'm tecchy (i.e., touchy, with a spin of mountain pride) about it. I know I have some personal work to do here. So I was, maybe not prepared to be offended, but hugely aware it was a distinct possibility. Still, hearing him say blatantly that, in a group of locals and US military, the locals will always, always, always defer to the men. Never mind the rank or experience of the women, it's just not in their world view that women would have a useful opinion.

During the second break, the other O5 trainee in the group approached me. He's deploying too, but doesn't work directly in the same chain of command as I will. He had heard some of the conversations from the more junior members during the break that they were disturbed, uncomfortable, disgusted...pick your emotion...with the delivery of the training. He suggested I address it, either with the instructor, the training coordinators, or the group. I love having a task to complete, so I immediately went looking for someone to talk to.

I came across the instructor first, and discussed with him my intent to add a few comments to the group after he was done with his presentation. I think I managed to get my point across that a lot of what he was saying was uncomfortable, and that's what I was hoping to point out to the crews.

Finally, after a few more insults about how all women like to shop to excess and how my gray hair will make me be perceived as an elder despite my actual age, the presenter wrapped it up after four hours and six minutes. I strode up to the front of the room, made sure all the lights were on (they had been dimmed for the power point presentation), and thanked the presenter for his welcome insights into the Bahraini culture. Because it was helpful to hear about how welcoming and friendly the locals are, about the beauty of the culture, and about the variety of goods in the souks and all the other mundane tidbits he shared with us.

I knew I was balancing on a very thin, tight rope, so I chose my words carefully. I said very blatantly, "Some of what he said offended me." I explained further without attacking him personally, along the lines of whether we heard things that offended us because of our gender, our sexual orientation, our age, our religion, or whatever... there was plenty in what he said to make us uncomfortable. For myself, I said, it's incredibly demoralizing to hear that, in a mixed group of locals and US military, I will always be dismissed, even in favor of a man of a lower rank, simply because I'm female. It feels like 18 years of a hugely successful career has been wiped away and is meaningless, all because I'm a girl. And that makes me feel awful and worthless.

I then went on say that figuring out how to be ok with being uncomfortable is necessary for us to be effective in our operating environment. That doesn't mean just fighting against whatever is making us uncomfortable, because, where we're going, that could start an international incident. It means understanding what exactly is putting us off balance, and being strong and self-aware enough to know that whatever it is is not our truth, and is instead an artifact of us being in a different culture who operates under separate beliefs. We have to learn to accept a certain amount of discomfort to stay focused on what we're over there to do.

I tried not to ramble too long...jeez, we'd already been in there for 4+ hours. But I wanted to make sure they understood my point.

Beyond the more obvious lessons about sitting with what makes us uncomfortable, I took two other insights away from this training session that were maybe more useful to me:

1. Trust my instincts. I say this All The Time to my JOs, so it was good to have it reinforced for me. I knew what I heard (important distinction of "message received" from "message sent") was not in alignment with our collective CG values. It took someone else validating that for me to take action. I'm very grateful to the other O5 in giving me the impetus, or maybe the tacit permission, to address it with the group, and maybe make the most of my first real opportunity to be a leader for them.

2. Figure out how to make my vulnerabilities into my strengths. I used how I felt about what the instructor said about women as an example. "I was offended." I described why I was offended and how it made me feel. And then I followed up with what I was going to do about it as the teaching point. I'm still getting used to the possibilities of making my vulnerabilities my strengths, and this was a fantastic example of what it might look like. I definitely felt vulnerable up there, talking to E3s and E4s, and all those other people who are going to work for me, about my soft underbelly...my fears about my own inadequacies and how they manifest and undermine me. But I also think it made it relate-able, made it personal for everyone, so they could be ok with feeling uncomfortable with whatever they may come up against. Or, at least that's what I was aiming for.

Afterwards, I got a hugely welcome and supportive text from one of the COs: "Thank you for giving the follow up talk after the training. That was very necessary and clarified some of the things I wanted to make sure the crew understood...It was just what we all needed."

Yes. That's what it's all about.