Whether you’re an entrepreneur dipping your toe into emerging markets, or a line manager welcoming a non-native speaker to your team, you might be wondering how you’ll cope with any cultural barriers.
ACKNOWLEDGE DIFFERENCES
In an increasingly globalised world, it can be tempting to avoid talking about cultural differences for fear of straying into politically incorrect territories or being accused of cultural stereotyping. This is a mistake, says Erin Meyer, Professor at INSEAD Business School and author of The Culture Map.
“Leaders have always needed to understand human nature and personality differences – that’s nothing new,” she writes. “What’s new is the requirement for twenty-first century leaders to be prepared to understand a wider, richer array of work styles than ever before and to be able to determine what aspects of an interaction are simply a result of personality and which are a result of differences in cultural perspective.”
The types of confusion that can arise from a “we’re all the same” mentality are evident in her story about a team of Brits who hosted a telephone conference with their Indian colleagues. In Britain, it’s customary to distribute minutes of meetings, but when the Indians received this post-meeting write-up, they took it as a sign that the Brits distrusted them, and the relationship subsequently cooled.
Meyer advises that anyone looking to conduct business overseas should look at the differences between the two cultures across factors like how feedback should be delivered and received, what elements indicate trust or lack of, how debate and confrontation are handled and attitudes towards timings, lateness and flexibility.
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
Mongolians seal a business deal with much quaffing of highly potent mare’s milk; Brits begin and end meetings with a firm handshake; in Mexico, business associates are expected to enquire after one another’s partners and families; in Korea, it’s considered rude to ask questions so direct they require only a simple “yes/no” answer.
“Because overseas clients will be as unprepared for your way of doing business as you are for theirs, it is crucial you do your homework first and get one step ahead,” writes The Guardian’s Matthew Jenkin in a special report about exporting to emerging markets.
Read all you can about your host country before you travel. A great place to start is the section on cultural etiquette on ediplomat.com, where you can discover more about accepted introduction protocols and body language.
DEVELOP A GROWTH MINDSET
When you have a fixed mindset, you believe that individuals are capable of very little change, that their intellect or learning ability comes in pre-determined quantities, and that feedback – whether positive or negative – has little impact on personal development. When you have a growth mindset, you believe that there is no limit to how you can progress or change as a person. And, crucially where cultural communications are concerned, you accept that you will make mistakes and learn from them. Consider the following story, told in The Guardian by entrepreneur Will Tindall in his first meeting with an international bank in Japan.
“[I] was told to give a little bow upon taking the man’s business card and it seemed all was going well. That was until [I] began to make notes about who the person was on the card. At that point I saw this guy’s face change to a very strange shade of red. My actions went down incredibly badly. Although I was giving this business card lots of respect, the idea of writing on it was definitely frowned upon.
When I went to leave and try to shake his hand, he turned his back on me. It was embarrassing but then I quickly realised that was also because they don’t really shake hands. It may have been awkward, but it taught [me] a valuable lesson about Japan’s reverence for the mighty business card. They are incredibly important in Japan.”
The moral of the story is to keep a sense of humour as you navigate cultural boundaries. Ask questions, acknowledge mistakes, and apologise if you make a particularly awkward blunder. Chances are, it’ll be a lesson you’ll never forget.
NETWORK WIDELY
Unconscious biases are often based on stereotypes – our perceptions of what individuals outside of our ‘own group’ are like. The best way to understand different cultures is to network as widely as possible – to actively seek out individuals from different backgrounds with a view to learning more about the world from their perspective. At the same time though, be mindful of the fact that no one individual should be considered ‘representative’ of a group.
WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE
It goes without saying that when you communicate with someone who isn’t fluent in your native language, you should aim to be as clear and concise as possible. That means simple, explicit vocabulary and phraseology, with no room for ambiguity. Clarity and explicitness are two of the most under-taught skills of leadership, but in practising these skills you’ll power up your communication no end.
If you’re in the position of having to train someone in their non-native language, acknowledge the difficulties that may lay ahead, letting your trainee know that you welcome their questions along the way. If you hit bumps in the road, consider other forms of communication – visual storytelling, ‘showing’ rather than ‘telling’ the individual how to perform a task, and asking them to give the instructions back to you, so that you can check for any misunderstandings.
