In this article, you will learn:
What does living and working across cultures do to your identity
How to adapt effectively
The more years I spent in the UK, the more I felt like I’m too Polish for a Brit, and too British for a Pole… You know, it’s like you can never fit in with either fully!
But now, I know that you don’t need to “fit in” – other approaches are more effective.
I was triggered to write some reflections on this topic because I feel this again more than ever. I’m moving back to Poland after 9 years spent in London, UK. For some, it’s a simple move – people come and go, “good for you”, “all the best” and “hope to meet up soon”. For me, it’s turning my life upside down, yet again. Preparing for the move brought me back to the initial reflections I had about identity, and how it changes and evolves when we work or live across cultures.
Living in-between
That in-between feeling can be scary. It’s as if we’re losing a bit of self when trying to adapt to the new culture. How can we adapt so that we work efficiently with others, but also stay true to ourselves?
Wait, do we have to be one or the other at all? Adapted or not? Behaving like ‘a Brit’ and then doing things like ‘a Pole’? I think we don’t, because in reality we’re rarely just one or the other.
How about we reframe this from “I’m not quite this yet (or anymore)” to “I’m a unique new self, a reinvented me”? This way we’re acknowledging that we are not “static” as humans, we can learn and evolve our views, our behaviours, our mindset.
Imagine that you are a musician, a vocalist, specialising in opera music. The market gets tough, and so you start looking at other options. You realise that there are many opportunities in the jazz music space, and you decide to take your chances with the current skills. You know about various music styles after all through your education, and had various gigs here and there before you ‘made it’ in opera. You decide to further invest in learning new skills to become a great jazz vocalist as well.
Does this mean you no longer can do opera? No.
Does it mean that you’ve practised your jazz skills more? Yes.
Does it mean you’re no longer a vocalist? Of course not!
It just means that you’ve expanded your repertoire to be able to collaborate on various projects, and now you can do both! Awesome!
It’s not just an ‘expat thing’!
This identity challenge may sound like a unique one for people who move abroad. The truth is, we go through these kinds of identity shifts many times in our lives, regardless of where we live!
When we finish studies we’re no longer students but we may become employees or entrepreneurs. That gives us a new identity which we didn’t associate with before.
When a child is born we’re no longer just us, we become parents and guardians. Another major life transition.
Those identity shifts don’t mean that we lose everything that we had before. They don’t mean we’re no longer ‘us’. Like with the vocalist example – it just means that we take on different roles, and build on our previous experiences and skills to do as well as we can in them.
Building successful international career
Before we wrap up, let’s look at how all of this can relate to us working successfully internationally – with people from other offices, colleagues from various backgrounds, or diverse clients.
Like with the vocalist example, we enter the workplace with a certain skillset, a certain way of working. Then we learn some particular processes and techniques that the company requires to be successful. But then, we may move to another company and the processes and ways of working are slightly different. So you learn new ways. Over the course of your career you will get to work with multiple people, likely multiple companies and roles too. Through that work, you will expand your skills and repertoire of communication styles that you can use to work with people effectively.
You do this even if you’re not in an international career, bear in mind.
If you want to develop internationally though, work in international teams and with global clients – you may need to expand those skills and mindset further. Some ideas or ways of working will just be very far off from what you’re used to. That’s where the challenge comes in. But remember, it’s not that different from any other life transition.
Start with yourself
It is tempting to think that in order to be successful, you need to be adapting your approach to everyone around you, be direct with that person, and beat around the bush with another etc. And it is partly true – flexibility in working styles and leadership can be a true accelerator for progressing your career. That said, it’s hard to know when/if you’re adapting if you don’t know what your own baseline is.
It’s good to spend some time reflecting on what your defaults are, and a preferred working style. If someone asks you “how do you like to work?” and you find yourself answering “Oh I can adapt to whatever” then it’s worth doing that internal exercise. In times of stress, we tend to default to our natural styles and be frustrated with other styles. Without knowing where our default is, it may be hard to manage those trigger points.
Final nuggets of wisdom
How to make this in-between, adapt-or-not-adapt, who-am-I feeling more manageable?
- Define the bits of your identity that are its non-negotiable core and make you YOU.
- Find the good bits in the other culture/working style that you think are valuable.
- Decide which bits you may choose to adapt depending on the context to be more effective in working with various people.
When you accept yourself, your values and needs, it will be easier to grow and shift your thinking to support any new professional context that you find yourself in.
You can also read:
Are you experiencing an identity crisis after moving abroad?
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