Have you ever tried to have a cultural conversation with a member of an unfamiliar ethnic group who happens to sit next to you at work? 

Or, like many Iowans, are you afraid that you may offend that person by asking him questions about his culture? 

More than 100 Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines employees got a chance to practice their cultural relationship skills during a daylong series of workshops hosted at the bank by CultureALL. Five cultural “ambassadors” representing Chinese, Kenyan, Scottish, Indian and Ukrainian cultures — all Iowa residents — demonstrated aspects of their heritage and took questions from small groups of about 20 employees. 

The Sept. 13 event marked the launch of a new model by CultureALL to bring its cultural ambassadors directly into workplaces to give presentations, said Sherry Gupta, the nonprofit’s executive director. For the past several years, CultureALL has hosted at least one annual special community event to support its in-school education programs in which different cultures are celebrated. 

“Learning about another culture is a lot like learning another language; it takes practice,” said Gupta, who founded CultureAll in 2005. “It’s practicing how to ask questions in a way that’s more inviting. Or they may learn a nugget of information that helps them open up a conversation with a co-worker.” 

The cultural training represented a new approach for FHLB-Des Moines, which has had an active culture and diversity committee for a number of years, said Nancy Betz, senior vice president and human resources director. 

“We developed a relationship with CultureALL around the time of the (2016) Bali festival,” Betz said. “Because we have a fairly large Indian population (at the bank), we became a sponsor. We also started learning more about what CultureALL has to offer.” 

The bank has held its own in-house celebration of various cultural festivals in the past and has organized ethnic food days as well as panel discussions on different cultures, but it was seeking a different training approach to delve into topics such as how culture affects work styles. 

Among the cultural ambassadors who presented was Phoebe Liang D’Alessandro, a Chinese-American business consultant from Ames who gave a whirlwind tour of key Chinese principles such as harmony, order and the importance of “saving face” — built around examples using food. For instance, each dish and each meal is carefully chosen to be harmonious, and even dining in China is a collective task that reflects a collective-minded society, she said. 

As FHLB employee Dusan Stojanovic learned, where one is seated at a Chinese dinner party is very meaningful. Inadvertently seating someone in the wrong place could cause both the host and the guest to lose face.  

When D’Alessandro asked rhetorically whether where they’re seated matters as much to Americans, Stojanovic quipped, “It does now.” 

In an opening session for the workshops, Stojanovic, the bank’s chief risk officer and a diversity committee member, shared his own experience as an immigrant from the former republic of Serbia. Coming to St. Louis to study economics in 1987, he recalled how fellow students initially branded him as “arrogant” in peer reviews. 

“So I started observing and taking notes about how others acted,” he said. “I learned that the directness I was used to wasn’t accepted,” he said. Pretty soon, he started catching himself when he wanted to say, “No, that’s not right” in disagreeing with another student in a class discussion.

Gupta said she’s hopeful that the personal approach of bringing cultural ambassadors to the workplace will overcome the barriers that often emerge when employers conduct diversity training. “We want to wipe (those barriers) away and say, ‘Get to know me as a person — ask me questions.’ ” 

The workplace cultural training days may evolve as her organization receives feedback from participants, but Gupta said CultureALL is ready to host more in-house trainings at companies.