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How to Hack Cross-Cultural Communication
As our world becomes more globalized and businesses reach across the sea to collaborate with an increasing quantity of foreign partners, business success often hinges on our ability to understand and effectively communicate with our colleagues abroad.
I want to do an experiment. Call to mind the attributes of a typical German person.
What did you think of?
Did you imagine someone punctual and direct, who isn’t very keen on small talk?
Great! Those are indeed attributes of many German people. However, the problems come when you relate to the individuals with whom you’re working purely as representations of their cultural stereotypes, rather than as individuals.
What are the stereotypes of your own country? Do you fit into every one of those stereotypes? I know I don’t. US people are supposed to be loud, extremely individualistic, and patriotic. However, I’m reserved and hate interrupting people. I’m relatively individualistic in that I’m independent and prefer freelancing to having a boss, and I don’t like to be responsible for others. But I’m also very community-minded and happy as a clam living in a house with 10 housemates and sharing food. As for patriotism, I think nationalist attitudes are very dangerous and eschew flags.
As you can see, I vaguely fit one US stereotype and completely contradict others. I’m guessing it’s the same for you — you probably fit into some of the stereotypes of your country, but don’t relate to others. Cultural stereotypes are useful if we think of them as cultural averages rather than generalizable rules.
What Can Go Wrong
If you assume your German colleague, Hans, values punctuality and direct communication and doesn’t like small talk, your well-intentioned efforts to please him by arriving at the meeting on time and getting right down to business might not particularly impress him if he doesn’t relate to those cultural averages.
Worse, in assuming you know his preferences, you might miss out on cues that could help you to get to know him as an individual and accommodate his individual preferences rather than the averages of his culture.
