Communication is critical -- we can’t get from A to B without it. Communication breakdowns stall progress and prevent advancement, collaboration, innovation, and expertise sharing between individuals and groups. Whether in a workplace or in an academic setting, barriers and challenges to effective cross-cultural communication can occur based on our biases, stereotypes and misinformation, both via overt and implicit bias - some of these we can mitigate, some we cannot (e.g. gender, race, age, education, class, style, elocution, presence). What we can all can do is understand how we can level the conversation so everyone is heard regardless of these. This workshop will explore conscious and unconscious biases and how they affect engagements and how we interpret language and behavior (body language) to achieve our final goal of building inclusive environments where everyone can thrive.

The presentation and handouts can be found in the Resource Center.