Observing And Analyzing Cultural Capabilities In A Video Scenario

Write a formal report to observe and analyse whether characters in a video scenario that are showing effective cultural capabilities and maintaining a culturally safe space. Also, recommend how effective cultural capabilities of the characters in the video could be improved.

Task details

The report should:

• Summarise and describe observations of the interactions related to aspects of cultural capabilities in the video clip.
• Analyse (with formal references) the safe and unsafe aspects of the scenario,  including the physical location and interactions between actors.
• Provide recommendations for creating or sustaining this video scenario as a culturally safe space.

background of the study

Cultural capabilities can be defined as the knowledge, skills, behaviors that are generally required to plan, improve and provide services in an appropriate manner which is culturally respectful (Ang, S., & Van Dyne, 2015). Safe space on the other hand can be defined as a specific place or the workspace such as collages, meeting rooms’ banks and other social amenities which are supposed to be free from conflict, threats, bias where people in this areas are expected to live in harmony sharing ideas and experiences (Holley, L. C., & Steiner, 2005).

aim of the study

This report is aiming in giving the reader how space is safe or unsafe and the importance of having a safe space. A summary will be provided giving a whole analysis and descriptions, and all the sources will be provided to give the reader a broader scope for this area. A recommendation will also be provided to give direction in an improvement of the safe space where necessary.

scope

The report will focus on the examining cultural capabilities in the safe spaces and how this help in relating to others. More important is that other sources will be used to analyzing and expanding the cultural safe and unsafe space. The video that I will use is Fawlty Towers published by the PI trainers on September 26, 2010. The video describes the confusion brought by Mrs. Richard in a hotel who brought conflict to almost everybody in the hotel customer service desk. This video depicts an example of an unsafe space.

summary of the video clip

The video that I will use is Fawlty Towers published by the PI trainers and was filmed at the hotel customer’s service desk on September 26, 2010. The video describes the confusion brought by Mrs. Richard in a hotel who brought a conflict to almost everybody in the hotel customer service desk. At first Mrs. Richard met Mr. Thurston at the service desk who was by then being served by a lady. Mrs. Richard interrupts even without excusing herself and insists that she needed a change after being served she returned again and further interrupted this time arguing that she was the one supposed to be served and gave a false testimony that she was there even before Mr. Thurston.

observation

This is the general description of the video

Scene number/ time flame	Physical factors of the people in the space	Signs of the exclusion or inclusion	Display of having a cultural intelligence or lack of cultural intelligence
0.29-0.32	The first lady in the customer desk politely gives the service to a customer and welcomes the customer again in their hotel	inclusion	The lady has great cultural intelligence as she successfully serves the customer to the customers satisfactory and welcomes back the customer to the hotel again where the customer went out smiling an evidence that the service was great
1.00-1.25	Mrs. Richard gets in and interfered with the Mr. Thurston and the lady who was serving him. She is not at the point of excusing herself but lather she gives out her problems while shouting	exclusion	The lady has a poor cultural intelligence as she was supposed to excuse herself to Mr. Thurston who was in the position of giving her a room to be served.
1.20-1.22	Mr. Thurston gives Mrs. Richard a chance to be served when she realized that Mrs. Richard was causing trouble	inclusion	This is a good practice of cultural practices as this ended the commotion caused by the lady
1.27-2.00	Mrs. Richard comes back and interrupt again this time insisting that she was the one who was supposed to be served where when the lady in the counter asked her to wait she shout and this time she was even rude to the lady	exclusion	This is a show of bad cultural practice as Mrs. Richard was concerned about her affairs as she argued that a taxi was waiting her outside.
2.01-2.50	At this point Manuel makes his way in the service desk where he is asked to give some help to Mrs. Richard. Manuel seemed to have been confused as he is not even sure of what to do. Manuel confuses Mrs. Richard even more to a point that she was upset	exclusion	Manuel shows a bad cultural practice as she confuses Mrs. Richard more as he was not sure of what he was saying

empathy

In the first scene, the lady who received a call displayed a proper cultural intelligence as she sympathized with the person in the call and ensured that everything would be well by this she showed great concern and respect (Sakari T, 2012). The lady who was serving Mr. Thurston also displayed a proper cultural intelligence by first assuming Mrs. Richard who came and interfered with her conversation with Mr. Thurston and maintained eye contact with him showing that she was hearing what Mr. Thurston was saying but not what Mrs. Richard was saying (Koestler, 2009). This was until Mrs. Richard was too much and the ready asked whether Mr. Thurston would allow her to give change to Mrs. Richard. This clearly showed how much the lady had respect to the customers whom she was serving (Zahn-Wexler, 2007).

Defining Cultural Capabilities and Safe Space

intellectual communication

The lady who was serving Mr. Thurston, shouted at Mrs. Richard when she came back demanding that she need urgent service as she was being waited out by the taxi this portrayed a poor cultural intelligence as this indicated that the lady was upset with Mrs. Richard for causing the disturbance in the office. Manuel in the video also lacks proper cultural intelligence in that he mixed verbal cues to the extent that Mrs. Richard failed to understand what he meant; thus she went back to the lady who was able to solve her problems this was because of the difficulty in understanding (Crowne, K.A., 2013).

When the lady proves her point as she felt disrespected by Mrs. Richard, she shouts at her saying she was not deaf for the lady to shout at her and added that she was in a hurry as a taxi man waited at her. In this point, she had opened her eyes wide looking at the girl in the counter (Goodrich, J. M., 2016). Manuel is even more confused and acted like a person who never knew what to do this is clearly shown in his behavior as he was shaking the whole body. It is at this point that Mrs. Richard moved back to the lady in the counter who explained everything to Mrs. Richard. More of safe place as the lady in the service desk was able to calm the situation with her smooth voice and thus helping both Mr. Thurston and Mrs. Richard.

awareness of body language

Manuel failed to use proper body gestures thus showing that she never understood and he had no clue of what he was saying (Bhui, K., 2012). This is an excellent example of a reduced level of cultural intelligence this made Mrs. Richard seeks for clarifications from the lady. Mr. Thurston when he noticed that Mrs. Richard was causing trouble he portrayed an exceptional cultural capability and allowed Mrs. Richard to be served first though when Mrs. Richard return Mr. Thurston’s face changed showing that he was disgusted with the behavior Mrs. Richard portrayed (Goodrich, 2015). When the lady called Manuel to serve Mrs. Richard, Mrs. Richard portrayed poor cultural capabilities by clicking and murmured saying that what she experienced that day was the most mediocre service ever which showed she was not contented with the service (Lynn C, 2005). When Manuel tries to talk to Mrs. Richard, Mrs. Richard came close to her trying to listen to what Manuel was trying to tell her. She tried to repeat words which Manuel was busy saying to see where they would make some meanings to her. Manuel portrayed a deplorable cultural practice.

cultural chock

Cultural shock is well portrayed by Manuel in the video a man who came from Barcelona who showed poor cultural capability as through his body language, and he was unable to pass a message to Mrs. Richard. This is seen when Mrs. Richard went away from Manuel and murmured saying that Manuel was not in a position to help her. Later she was helped by the girl who had previously asked Manuel to help Mrs. Richard who portrayed good cultural capability as was in a position to help both Mrs. Richard and Manuel understand each other (Pandey, S.C. and Dutta, A., 2013).

The lady when she shouted at Mrs. Richard, Mrs. Richard became very much disappointed to the point that she told the lady that she was not deaf thus she never deserved to be shouted back. This clearly shows that Mrs. Richard was already hurt (Nielsen, 2016). This was a sign of poor cultural capability.

Video Analysis

In this video, there are explicit shows of examples that indicate excellent examples of how unsafe workplaces do look like. I have to give some recommendations which in my opinion I think they are recommendable to give proper decisions to change unsafe working place for a safe working place. Basing on the video, the company failed to give proper customers measures where there would be boundaries which would have prevented customers to jump the line and proper protocol would have been followed and this would have prevented Mrs. Richard from jumping Mr. Thurston in the line. The company also did not give proper rules which would have been used to give employees and the customer’s decent behavior in the working place thus proper rules and regulation should be enhanced.

Conclusion

This video covered a whole scenario that showed how cultural incompatibilities do create an unsafe place in a particular area. Mrs. Richard who is used as excellent examples to portray poor cultural capabilities, in order to improve her actions organization should come up with proper measures such as educating its customers the importance of a safe workplace.

In the conditions of the language barriers such as that in the case of Manuel, in order to improve this person have to forget the barriers that are brought by different cultural and show respect to other people’s culture.

References

Ang, S., & Van Dyne, L. (2015). Conceptualization of cultural intelligence: Definition, distinctiveness, and nomological network. In Handbook of cultural intelligence (pp. 21-33). Routledge.

Bhui, K., Ascoli, M. and Nuamh, O., 2012. The place of race and racism in cultural competence: What can we learn from the English experience about the narratives of evidence and argument?. Transcultural psychiatry, 49(2), pp.185-205.

Crowne, K.A., 2013. Cultural exposure, emotional intelligence, and cultural intelligence An exploratory study. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 13(1), pp.5-22.

Goodrich, J. M., & Lonigan, C. J. (2015). Lexical characteristics of words and phonological awareness skills of preschool children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 36(6), 1509-1531.

Goodrich, J. M., & Lonigan, C. J. (2016). Lexical characteristics of Spanish and English words and the development of phonological awareness skills in Spanish-speaking language-minority children. Reading and Writing, 29(4), 683-704.

Holley, L. C., & Steiner, S. (2005). Safe space: Student perspectives on classroom environment. Journal of Social Work Education, 41(1), 49-64.

Koestner, R., Franz, C., & Weinberger, J. (2009). The family origins of empathic concern: A 26-year longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(4), 709.

Lynn C. H, Sue S (2005). Safe space: student perspectives on classroom environment. What is safe space and why is it importance?, 49-50.

Nielsen, S.B. and Momeni, M., 2016. Structural Capability of an Organization toward Innovation Capability. Journal of Management Research, 8(2), pp.86-102.

Pandey, S.C. and Dutta, A., 2013. Role of knowledge infrastructure capabilities in knowledge management. Journal of knowledge management,17(3), pp.435-453.

Sakari T(2012). Mobility of cultures and knowledge management in contemporary Europe. European review, 20,pp 173-181 doi:10.1017/S1062798711000445

Zahn-Waxler, C., & Radke-Yarrow, M. (2007). The origins of empathic concern. Motivation and emotion, 14(2), 107-130.