As one who has lived abroad and has been immersed in a range of cultures, I was self-conscious of the onset of culture shock. The disorientation, disbelief, the guarded embarrassment had all been present, signaling to me that I was an alien creature on an alien planet.
I wasn’t overseas though; I was a short 40-minute drive from my home in Moscow, Idaho. I was participating as a panelist tasked with judging business start-ups. The event was hosted by the Nez Perce Tribe and all the entrepreneur participants were Native American — as were most of my fellow panelists.
There I sat, pen in hand, facing a scorecard and masking my ignorance and confusion by appearing to thoughtfully place a 1-through-5 score for each attribute on the form. Mercifully, I was not required to explain my rankings.
I’ve served on other Shark Tank-like business panels in the “white man’s world,” the world in which unbridled individual skill and dominance is celebrated. The world where venture capitalists settle for nothing less than revenue forecasts that resemble hockey sticks with a meteoric rise in income over the initial few years. There were no hockey sticks at the Nez Perce Events Center. There was talk of honoring the elders, of using their talents to serve the community, of healing and helping others live holistically.
Among the small business start-ups, there was even a storyteller, or more sensitively phrased: of course there was a storyteller. Whereas in my fiercely competitive business environment there too are stories, they are corporate fairy tales wrapped in bows by clever public relations executives. Like most of the contestants, the storyteller himself was raw, unpolished and, in retrospect, most impressive. Each and every one seemed to lack the conceit necessary to get ahead. And on that score, they were all impressive.
By day two of the conference, I had partially recovered my wits and had turned my embarrassment into a pursuit for answers. My mentor had arrived over lunch and she welcomed my cultural ignorance. She is a tribe member in Montana who teaches economics and accounting to both Native and non-Native students. From her wry smile, I knew that she understood my state of mind and I shut up and ate slices of melon while she cogently, enthusiastically, completed my questions for me and proceeded to educate this white man with her classroom stories.
“There is a game called Mystic Mountain,” she said, “and I played it one summer at camp, and later introduced it to my students.” She explained that the students form teams and each team has an allotment of land with which they can divide and decide how to generate revenue. There is a river for fishing, mining is possible, as well as hunting, agriculture and other resource-based activities.
She leaned forward. “My Native students were not focused on generating lots of revenue. Team members would almost come to blows over the use of land for mining.” She contrasted that attitude with her students from the dominant culture: “If it maximized revenue, they didn’t hesitate to mine most of their allotment.”
I was self-conscious of my leanings and how I convey them to my own students. I’m sure she read my thoughts. “Oh, and about team leadership,” she added, “you know the dominant, talkative one in front is team leader, right? On Native teams, you can be sure that person is not the team leader — the final decision-maker is the silent one in the back.” Perhaps even more telling is the way in which Native team members evaluate one another. “I know for a fact that one team member missed most team meetings and contributed next to nothing; her team members gave her a full 10 points, defending her with an explanation that she has a child and a job that requires her non-class time.”
What an enlightening conversation. The kind that stops you in your tracks and makes you gulp, and opens you up to apologize even when it’s not called for. I left with my perspective widened, that my attitude towards business would not be business-as-usual. That too she knew.
After years of globetrotting, Todd J. Broadman finds himself writing from his perch on the Palouse and loving the view. His policy briefs can be found at US Renew News: https://www.usrenewnews.org
