Question

You are assigned to a long-term overseas assignment. Despite your initial excitement about becoming a bi-cultural person thanks to this experience, you find yourself rather isolated within the visiting environment. What kind of phenomenon are you experiencing? What are the FOUR stages that you may expect to go through on your path to bi-culturalism? How can you ease this process?

Answer 1

I am experiencing the difficulty in absorbing and accepting the change and this is leading to trouble because deep inside I am happy with this opportunity but I feel doubtful about the fact that whether I would be able to adjust in this environment or not.

4 stages that I can expect are:

• Honeymoon stage- I would be enjoying the starting days as the expectations would be lesser because of the fact that I am new in that domain and office.
• Frustration stage- I might start to get irritated and frustrated because of the understanding level differences between me and the other employees and work not being done on time.
• Adjustment stage- I would make peace with the changes gradually and I might start to adjust a bit with the new environment.
• Acceptance stage- Lastly I would accept the way things are and would move forward.

I can ease this process by taking things one at a time and not rushing to get everything right at the first go. I should break the change tasks into smaller pieces and then should try and solve each one.