Communication Skills: Different Cultures & Generations

Most of us work with or meet people who are different

We need to recognize the differences

You want to improve your communication skills

This is the third of my courses, all of which are designed to help people with their communication skills. Improving our communication skills requires that we truly understand how to communicate with others. The lectures in this course are designed to offer insight into the most fundamental aspects of communicating with others. This can be done regardless of where the communication takes place, but it is primarily intended for the business world. The business world is where we encounter the most variety in the types of people we have to interact with.

In this course, I discuss the concept of language, which is the foundation upon which all communication builds. I look at dialects and how a dialect can be a subset of a language and is always built on the original language of the people. While a language is national in scope dialects are most often regional and limited to a specific area. I also discuss the concept of accents, and how an accent is not the same as a dialect. Accents can often be from a wider geographic area than a dialect. Accents and dialects are not indicators of intelligence of a person’s ability to do a job.

The final area, I touch upon is culture, specifically nationalistic cultures, and also generational cultures. The focus here is on how the various cultures prefer to communicate and how we can differentiate between them. How to best approach the communication process when dealing with a culture that is different from your own.