Chalk it up to cultural insensitivity, a lack of understanding or simple ignorance, but there are a number of cultural landmines that otherwise-earnest employees can stumble into when attempting to interact with coworkers of different ethnic backgrounds.

Much of the ground covered by DiversityInc's Things Never to Say series over the past several months included comments that reflected stereotypes, such as that Asians are passive, are disproportionately found in technology sectors and are not risk takers. Many people who find themselves making these remarks have no intention of being offensive, but that doesn't make the comments any easier for the recipient to take.

So how do you go about interacting with your Asian colleagues without putting your foot in your mouth? Here are some suggestions on ways to compliment, communicate with or simply ask earnest questions to an Asian coworker without offending him or her.

Compliment an Asian colleague on what he communicates instead of how well he speaks English

Complimenting an Asian person on how he or she speaks English only comes off as condescending, warns Linda Akutegawa, vice president of resource and business development for Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics (LEAP). To do so means you are presuming that the coworker is foreign-born when that may not be the case. And even if English is that coworker's second language, such a "compliment" is likely to come off as insensitive.

"To be surprised that someone speaks English well … why would they assume otherwise just given the diversity in this country?" asks Akutegawa, who is Japanese American.  

But what if you find yourself in a potentially awkward situation and you feel compelled to comment? For example, Akutegawa recounts a situation she was in where an Asian person dismissed his own English as poor. What do you say then? "When that's happened, I've looked at them and said, 'I disagree. I think your English is fine and you speak it very well. You shouldn't be self-conscious about it,'" she says.

Besides, what classifies someone as speaking well? Akutegawa says, "Is it someone that speaks with or without an accent? Or is it that they're using words that are grammatically correct? Who's to judge? What I always tell people is if you make sense and you get your point across ... that alone should be the judgment in terms of how effectively someone is able to speak."

Compliment actions--leave race out of it

You're in a business meeting and the boss is berating everyone around the conference table. All the employees sheepishly accept the abuse--except your Asian coworker, who offers a valid counterpoint. What do you say? What should you say?

A lot depends on how something is said, says Akutegawa. "That Asian-American coworker took a chance on pushing back on something that everyone else was afraid to push back on and ends up getting the type of result everyone else is looking for but was afraid to do themselves … in that sense there's nothing wrong with saying, 'That was great. I'm so glad you spoke up on that.' You take race out of it but focus on the action. I mean, does it really matter that the person happened to be Asian when they did it?"

Jae Requiro, who is Filipino American and a manager of diversity consulting and inclusion strategies at Toyota Motor North America, recounted a tale to DiversityInc for the Things Never to Say series of a friend who was the only Asian woman present at a meeting. Following the meeting, a male colleague said to her, "You're not at all like my Asian wife--you speak up."

"I do think his intent was absolutely not to insult anyone," says Requiro. "I think individuals who are having conversations with someone who is different from them often unintentionally hurt someone's feelings. In my experience, asking questions rather than making statements is often a better approach. It really is about intent versus impact. You may be trying to reach out to build a connection, but the way it impacts that other person could be very insulting."

Acknowledge ignorance when making a connection

The underpinnings of most of this dialogue are fear--fear of saying the wrong thing or being perceived as being insensitive when you're simply trying to communicate with your coworkers. One way to deal with this head-on is to simply acknowledge your ignorance upfront, offers Akutegawa. Here are two ways to broach potentially awkward subjects:

• "I really don't know that much about (Asians or Asian culture). Can I ask you about this?"
• "My interaction with Asians has been very limited. I'm curious about this. Can I ask you a question?"

"I think people would be OK with seemingly ignorant questions being asked if it's in the spirit of wanting to be open and wanting to learn different things," Akutegawa says. "I think people get most annoyed when people are doing it just to be stupid."

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