Cultural difference is a well-established issue for multinational businesses employing different nationalities.
With non-natives making up a large part of Ireland’s workforce, it’s an increasingly important issue for businesses here too.
The author of this book, Erin Meyer, is a professor at Insead who specialises in working with this issue and has developed a helpful framework for international management to navigate this area in an interesting book that blends stories with cultural observations.
It’s easy to fall into racial stereotypes here, as she acknowledges.
Some of the best examples of this are those of Americans who precede anything negative with three nice comments and French, Germans and Israelis who get straight to the point in telling you your faults.
Latin Americans and Asians have a reputation for being steeped in hierarchy while Scandinavians meanwhile are perceived as being the exact opposite.
While there is a danger in this over-generalisation, Meyer says that there’s enough truth in these observations to merit concern.
When you live in a country foreign to you, you get to learn about nuances over time.
Take one example of this from India. A half-shake, half nod of the head there is not a sign of disagreement or uncertainty as it might be in other countries. On the contrary, it suggests interest, enthusiasm or respectful listening.
The problem of cultural differences, however, is exacerbated by email and video-conferencing. The absence of the visual and contextual clues that physical presence provides can lead to huge misunderstandings.
Meyer distinguishes between higher-context countries and low context countries.
Higher context countries include China, Japan and Korea where saying 'no' between the lines, for example, is common. When considering strategies for improving your effectiveness, one crucial principle to remember is that communicating is not just about speaking but also about listening.
This means reflecting more, asking more clarifying questions and making an effort to be more receptive to body language cues.
By searching for implicit cues, she says, you can begin to ‘read the air’, more accurately.
One of the biggest mistakes lower context managers make is assuming that the higher context manager is purposely omitting information or unable to communicate explicitly.
More often than not, they are merely communicating in the style to which they are accustomed. Simply asking for clarification can work wonders.
Low context counties, which include the US, like to put things in writing. American businesses like organisational charts and titles.
If you are working with people from a low context or task-based society, choosing the medium that is most efficient to communicate in is fine.
Email and telephone as well as face-to-face are all fine, so long as the message is communicated clearly and succinctly.
When starting to work with those from a relationship-based society, begin by choosing a communication medium that is as relationship-based as possible.
Instead of sending an email, engage in a more personal form of communication, ideally face-to-face if possible.
If not, at least lift the phone.
Organise your time in order to communicate as much as possible in informal settings and then, when you have built a good trusting relationship, you can move to a more task-based medium such as email.
Email, the author notes, can be problematic in relationship-based cultures. Here, people often do not respond to messages from those with whom they have had no previous relationship.
Leaders, Meyer concludes, have always needed to understand human nature and personality differences to be successful in business.
Twenty-first century ones need to understand a much wider and richer array of work styles and need to be able to distinguish between personality traits and cultural norms.
