Being aware of the cultural factors that create "interference" will help you get your message across in the way it was intended AND build a clear personal "international" brand as a professional business person that can relate to colleagues around the world. This article explores the ways you, as an international manager, should adapt your communication.

Communication is strongly affected by culture. You can improve your cross cultural international communication by recognizing cultural differences and then overcoming your own ethnocentrism-the tendency to judge all other groups according to your own group's standards, behaviors, and customs.

Culture is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations, and norms for behavior. You belong to several cultures. The most obvious is the culture you share with all the people who live in your own country. In addition, you also belong to other cultural groups, including an ethnic group, probably a religious group, and perhaps a profession or industry that has its own special language and customs. All members of a culture have similar assumptions about how people should think, behave, and communicate. Cultures differ widely from group to group.

The difference in cross cultural communication is not about pronunciation or even language. The difference is in the mental software of the protagonists.  They have different filters, different perspectives. So do you and your colleagues when you work internationally. This is how the process works.

• When you write to or speak with someone from another culture, you encode your message using the assumptions of your own culture.
• The recipient decodes your message according to the assumptions of their culture,
• Meaning may be misunderstood.
• The greater the difference between cultures, the greater the chance for misunderstanding.

Intercultural communication in the global workplace can be improved by recognizing and accommodating four main types of cultural differences:  

1. contextual,
2. ethical,
3. social, and
4. nonverbal

People assign meaning to a message according to cultural context: physical cues, environmental stimuli, and implicit understanding that convey meaning between two members of the same culture.

In a high-context culture, (Japan, India, Middle East etc), people rely less on verbal communication and more on the context of nonverbal communication, actions and environmental setting to convey meaning.

In a low-context culture, (Scandinavia, US, UK, Germany) people rely more on verbal communication and less on contextual cues.

In lower-context cultures, businesspeople try to reach decisions as quickly and efficiently as possible. They are concerned with reaching an agreement on the main points, leaving the details to be worked out later by others. However, this approach would backfire in higher-context cultures because, there, executives assume that anyone who ignores the details is untrustworthy.

Cultures differ in their tolerance for disagreement when solving problems. Low-context  businesspeople typically enjoy confrontation and debate, but high-context  businesspersons shun such tactics.

Members of low-context cultures see their negotiating goals in economic terms. To high-context negotiators, immediate economic gains are secondary to establishing and maintaining long-term relationships.

Finally...
However much we learn, we can still get Intercultural communication in the global workplace wrong and if we sense we have made an error, it's probably a wise thing to apologise quickly.  Acknowledgement of any mistake is halfway to solving it.  Working internationally offers many challenges. We need to be aware of not only what we say and how we say it, but also what our business colleagues expect from us. WE must ensure we translate our message into the context of our listeners, and not just our words.  The more we know about our own language and our own core values, and how to flex these, the more our colleagues will understand, and be able to take an active part in the interaction. The more we understand the cultural dimension, the greater our chance of hitting home with the message we want to give, (not the wrong one perceived about us without our knowing) on the level that the listener understands and feels comfortable with.

It's important to be able to really look at a company's specific needs when it comes to developing clear cross cultural communication skills for your workforce. To find out more about communicating interculturally and how you can implement a cross cultural international communication training programme to enhance the skills of your employees click here.