Montreal Culture Kit

Montreal Culture Kit is about culture differences and about understanding and developing cross-cultural competence. It is not about how to understand Montrealers, a sheer impossibility. It is about people confronted with the same sources of challenge. People have relationships with other people. People must manage time and aging. And people must come to terms with the external nature of their world.

Culture is the way in which a group of people solves these challenges. Every culture distinguishes itself from others by the specific solutions it chooses to certain problems. What one culture may regard as essential may not be so vital to other cultures. Our own culture sustains us. We live and breathe through it.

As a French-speaking province in an English-speaking country, we are deeply attached to our roots and to our culture. We benefit from traditions and customs of our own that reflect our history, our population and our reality.

Our culture is the very symbol of our identity. We, as Québécois, join our French and English roots together with our Amerindian heritage. We are influenced by our proximity to the United States and by our multi ethnic and multicultural population that shapes our demographic profile.

When your verbal and nonverbal communication styles take Montreal Culture Kit into account, you've made a giant step toward blending in with our surroundings.

You may still feel like a stranger in a strange land but you are less likely to be treated as one. Your most significant message, that you want to behave courteously according to the standards of our culture, is clearly communicated.

Failure to pay attention to our cultural differences and to information which are vital to effective personal or business relationships is guaranteed to damage your prospects. A single cultural gaffe in an initial contact can reduce or eliminate the possibility of a second contact. In effect, a bad first impression can ruin any chance of a new relationship or of a successful negotiation or business deal.

The Layers of Culture

The Outer Layer

Explicit culture is the observable reality of the language, food, buildings, houses, monuments, agriculture, shrines, markets, fashions and art. They are the symbols of a deeper level of culture. Prejudices mostly start on this symbolic and observable level.

The Middle Layer

Norms are the mutual sense a group has of what is right and wrong. Norms can develop on a formal level as written laws, and on an informal level as social control. Values, on the other hand, determine the definition of good and bad, and are therefore closely related to the ideals shared by a group.

The Core

Groups of people organize themselves in such a way that they increase the effectiveness of their problem-solving processes. Because different groups of people have developed in different geographic regions, they have also formed different sets of logical assumptions.

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