There is more to understanding the Bermudian way of life than learning to say `Good Morning' -- and Bermudians, in turn, should make a greater effort to understand the ways of foreigners.

This is the message that cultural anthropologist Ms Maria Martin Thacker is trying to get across in Bermuda's workplace. Through Bermuda Cultural Services, she conducts seminars and workshops for employers and employees, particularly those involved in the two main props of the Island's economy, international business and tourism.

"Bermuda is now competing against other countries in both fields, so it has to be as competitive as possible. Cultural diversity can be a source of strength, rather than a source of conflict,'' she says. "If Bermudians and non-Bermudians can increase their understanding of one another, it will lead to better productivity -- and a happier community. With the world shrinking, and a greater emphasis on the multicultural workplace, Bermuda simply cannot afford to be divided.'' Bermuda Cultural Services, formed in August as a division of the fitness firm, Lomel Ltd., offers various programmes. Ms Thacker, who has an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Virginia, points out that Lomel Ltd., owned by Ms Anne Mello and Ms Carol Lopes, concentrates on physical fitness, "so we feel it is particularly appropriate that we also address the health and fitness of human relations!'' Courses offered may be geared toward the newcomer to the Island, or to companies who wish to improve relationships within the existing workforce.

This week, Ms Thacker gave a special presentation for the Department of Tourism to help prepare the hospitality industry for an expected influx of European visitors this summer. In addition, she is offering a special Heritage Month session, Bermuda Culture in Transition, which examines how different cultural attitudes affect productivity.

"A very simplistic definition of culture is how a group of people behave or respond to meet their everyday needs -- i.e. how we get shelter, food, clothing, how you make a contract, and how you get along with your co-workers.

Different cultures approach these things in different ways and this can lead to a lot of misunderstandings, which in turn breed conflict,'' explains Ms Thacker.

"Although Bermuda is very small, its culture is complicated. Like the Bermuda onion itself, its culture comes in layers -- to understand it, you must peel off each layer until you reach the core,'' she says.

Cultural Adjustment Consultants is designed to do just that. Newcomers to the Island learn how the Bermudian culture works in practice and how it relates to their own work performance.

"Non-Bermudians who come here to work have been recruited for special skills and the employer has invested a lot of money to bring them here. So it makes sense for that employee to start using his technical abilities as soon as possible, and not get slowed down by cultural mishaps.'' Noting that negotiating styles differ from country to country, from culture to culture, Ms Thacker says it is important for newcomers here to understand how, historically, Bermuda has operated.

"In Bermuda, there has always been a high value placed on indirectness in transactions, and in dealing with each other. This is a small community, so you really don't want to criticise other people directly, or lose face in any way. So there's a tendency not to say what you mean, but to say it indirectly, to reduce the friction. So you find that sometimes in the workplace, there is a real reluctance to come out clearly and say `no' (or even `yes'). Now when you have someone who comes in here as a manager -- say, from North America, or Europe -- who has a totally different management style, someone who is very direct in dealing with people, that can lead to problems.'' Emphasising that these differences apply to all countries, Ms Thacker says she can see a distinct similarity between Bermuda and Japan: "Both are islands, and both cultures have a very strong need to save face, and not alienate anyone. If you're doing business with the Japanese, it is very difficult to get a straight answer from them and that can be very frustrating, for instance, for an American, who's trying to get some fast decisions!'' She points out that while differences between various cultures are often seen as little more than dress or eating habits they, in fact, go far deeper.

"Yes, of course, we can see that someone in North Finland is going to dress differently from someone who comes from Tonga! But our culture can have an enormous effect on the way we do business.'' As an example, she notes the difficulties that can arise for a Bermudian doing business with a North American.

"Historically, Bermuda was an agrarian economy, very small. Relationships and how a person fitted into the overall picture was very important, so the type of person that you were was important. Now, you come up against someone who's trained in the American or European way of doing things where the importance is the task itself or the product itself. Even now, when these two differing styles come together, they sometimes clash! But we don't have to throw out either one -- there is a happy medium, but it's essential that both parties understand these differences in the first place before you can work on reaching compromises.'' Her workshop on Training for World Class Service is geared towards tourism.

"For instance, at the moment, a number of Bermuda properties are trying to attract German visitors, with flights slated to begin this May from Germany.

So they need to explore how they may change the way they provide services to meet this particular clientele. Germans are very direct in manner, they expect efficient service but are not necessarily prepared to indulge in lengthy small talk to get it. They may be perceived as being aloof or unfriendly -- but the point is, they don't think of themselves as being unfriendly! So my advice would be that Bermudians should not take it personally if a guest is not over-friendly or interested in Bermuda. They may be interested, but they show it in different ways than talking about it. A guest may not be demonstrative or talkative, but that's just a different style of carrying on.'' Ms Thacker adds that different nationalities have different notions of time and its importance. Until recently, for instance, places like Tahiti or Bali were `utopian' in that nobody worried about time at all: "Some places don't even have a specific word for `time'! To a lesser extent, she believes that this was also true of Bermuda.

"Back in the old days, there was not this feeling that time had to be synchronised. It was more event-oriented, such as church services starting when everybody got there. The watch, incidentally, is really a good symbol that time is money, that everyone has to be synchronised, starting and stopping work at the same time. Then there's the other view that as long as the work gets done, it doesn't have to be done to a rigid timetable.'' Her Heritage Month seminar is entitled "Bermuda Culture in Transition -- How It Affects Productivity,'' and will suggest ways in which a company can change the office climate. Staff members could get together and run a discussion, for example, on how different people see time and its importance in productivity.

An extreme example of the use of time and how it is proportioned out can be seen, she says, in the Middle East: "Whenever you do a transaction there, you have to drink a lot of coffee. That establishes a feeling of trust, and is used to sound out the character and trustworthiness. So if you drink the coffee right, the deal gets done -- but if you don't, and the meeting doesn't go well, the deal is off!'' On a more local note, Ms Thacker cites a customer who goes into an office to increase his insurance coverage. "Now, there are two ways you can do this deal. If you have an hour to complete it, you can spend 50 minutes on socialising and ten minutes on getting the task done -- or you can spend 50 minutes working out the details and ten minutes socialising at the end. These are what I call the `mental road maps' that people carry around in their heads about the way things should be done. The trouble is, based on your particular culture, everyone has different road maps -- and Bermuda has quite a collection of them!'' Her workshops aim to help raise people's awareness of diversity. "Overall, what I'm trying to do is to get people to change the way they look at things.'' Ms Thacker is firm in her belief that one of the greatest dividers facing Bermuda right now -- racism -- is also based on misunderstandings.

"Racial differences are not biological, they are cultural. The word `race' is not a biological term. It's a social term. For instance, what one person may classify as `black' in Bermuda would be classified as `white' in, for instance, a country such as Brazil. Each culture decides how it's going to classify its races.'' An outstanding example of this anomaly, she notes, is the way in which Bermudians refer to the Portuguese.

"On the census, it used to say, `Black, White, Portuguese'. Now this would cause a great deal of puzzlement in Portugal because the Portuguese are Caucasians.'' Questions dealing with perceptions about race, gender differences and how they affect communication, as well as assisting Bermudians and non-Bermudians to work alongside each other, are all dealt with in the Workplace Diversification Workshops.

Employers and employees are able to address such potentially divisive issues as racial and gender differences.

One of the things we have to understand as a community, she says, is that business efficiency is irrevocably linked with the social fabric -- and is ignored at our peril.

Her Workplace Diversification Workshops teach people how to value cultural differences and address how race and gender can affect communication. (There is also a special course, Managing Cultural Diversity, for managers and supervisors).

"This is all about how much of the conflict in the workplace arises from poor communication skills. The way in which men and women communicate is quite different, for instance. Women tend to be `relational' in their dealings whereas men feel more comfortable with a hierarchal system -- one above the other.'' Helping cultures come together Ms Thacker observes that women frequently apologise -- "it's almost an automatic conversational smoother'' -- and frequently say `thank you' -- sometimes for nothing! Men seldom do that because, in their minds, it would put them at a disadvantage in the pecking order! In the same way, women are more comfortable with asking questions about something they don't understand than men are -- and for the same reason.'' With women only relatively recently becoming part of the workforce, men are finding that they have to change the way they behave at work, and this too, can be unsettling. `Pin-up' calendars and sexist jokes are now frowned upon, as, of course, are racist or ethnic jokes in the wider workplace.

"We shouldn't be too impatient for change to come about. The rules are changing and sometimes it is hard for people to alter their ways and get accustomed to the new rules. I hope that these seminars raise the level of awareness of issues like this and encourage people to change the way they look at things and to acknowledge that the opposite view, or a particular way of doing things, is not necessarily wrong -- just different!'' Ms Thacker, who was a professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland for ten years and instigated diversity training for the US government, and who also conducted similar programmes for religious and educational institutions, says she finds her work very rewarding.

Her interest was piqued when she was 17, when she happened to read Margaret Mead's `Coming of Age in Samoa'.

"It had a big effect on me, because there I was, a teenager in the US and the two situations were very different, so that intrigued me. I think that was the first time I really realised that all people are not the same! And gradually, I began to apply this to other things, such as religion, how you raise your children, how you learn, how you work.'' With 27 years experience in the field, and the advantage of having lived in many different cultures, Ms Thacker felt the "new human relations climate'' paved the way for Bermuda Cultural Services.

"It is no longer acceptable to be divided. People should forget the historical boxes we've been in -- we can't afford them any more. Right now, in order to stay competitive, Bermuda needs all the talent it can get!'' KNOW YOUR ONIONS! -- Ms Maria Martin Thacker of Bermuda Cultural Services says that cultural diversity in Bermuda's international workplace can help, not hinder, productivity.