THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2025 41 FS KNOW-HOW Charles Morrill is a Foreign Service officer currently serving as the deputy management counselor at U.S. Embassy New Delhi. He holds a PhD in linguistics from Indiana University and an MBA from Boston University. A focus on cultural competency among Foreign Service members can prevent misunderstandings that have the potential to trigger broader conflicts. BY CHARLES MORRILL Cultural Competency for Effective Communications The Minister Counselor took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, and said in a Southern drawl, “I do not like it when I am inter-rupted.” “The pause was so long I thought you had passed out,” muttered his subordinate, a fast-talking New Yorker, under his breath. Everyone filters messages through the lens of their own culture as they interpret the paralinguistic cues and prosodic features, including contextualization, that help them infer meaning. Even between people who share the same ethnicity, race, class, and gender, there are abundant opportunities for misunderstanding. What one person perceives as a normal give-and-take in a conversation, the other may interpret as rudeness or disrespect. As the Foreign Service becomes more inclusive, there will inevitably be greater opportunity for cross-cultural misunderstandings. And, of course, the very nature of diplomacy requires near-constant communication with people of very different backgrounds and with different goals for the conversation. In her book Get Along, Get It Done, Get Ahead: Interpersonal Communication in the Diverse Workplace, Geraldine Hynes argues that managers need to develop what she refers to as “cultural competence.” After diversity and inclusion, Hynes notes that cultural competency is the third attribute that organizations need to take into consideration when recruiting and promoting effective leaders. Nowhere is this more true than in a global, multicultural setting such as an embassy.
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