Cross-Cultural Communication: Importance of understanding communication styles in different cultures: Barriers to effective cross-cultural communication..
Cross-cultural communication in an organization deals with understanding different cultural business customs, beliefs and language connotations. Language differences, high-context vs. low-context, nonverbal differences, and power distance are the major factors that can affect cross culture communication.
Cross-Cultural Communication Importance
Three key factors affect cultural communications, both in and outside of the workplace:
- Inadequate translating abilities: Engaging an unskilled or inexperienced translator leads to interpretation mistakes. This inadequacy can cause problems ranging from broken deals due to unintentional insults to broken relationships due to not knowing the subtle differences in meaning in words and phrases from one language to another. Global companies should hire skilled translators to avoid grievous mistakes between people speaking different languages.
- Cultural differences: Not understanding cultural differences, even within a single country, can put international travelers at a disadvantage and lead to gross misunderstandings and prejudices. For example, where Americans do not favor nepotism in their hiring practices based on their vision of equal access to work opportunities, it is common and even expected to practice nepotism in other countries. In the culture of some Asian countries, business owners feel it is an obligation to hire family members rather than external candidates.
- North Americans and many Europeans may become angry when they witness the submissiveness of Muslim women to their male acquaintances and relatives. However, that is the norm among Muslims. If one doesn't know the cultural norms of the country they visit, whether on business or on vacation, their view of the correct dynamics of the relationship between men and women could clash with that of their hosts.
Some main examples of cultures in communications include low-context and high-context cultures. In high-context cultures, people tend to choose informal agreements and their engagement is shaped by personal relationships and trust. Consequently, communication is mainly expressive and emotional. In addition, these cultures ignore the details or leave some information as unspecified for people to draw their own interpretation. The words are full of implicated meanings since the communication relies on shared cultural knowledge. They also look for non-verbal cues and draw meaning from them. Such non-verbal cues include facial expressions and gestures. Another notable aspect of this culture is that people do not depend on face-to-face meetings or well-written engagement documents. Countries with this culture include Brazil, France, and China. For instance, if an employee wanted to quit their job, they would not write a detailed letter to their boss explaining how they are currently feeling about their job. Rather, they would expect that their employers will notice a change in behavior, a lack of motivation, or a change in their performance and take it as an indication of giving up on the job.
What are cultural barriers in communication?
Cultural barriers are the challenges in communication that arise as a result of differences in the cultural backgrounds of the involved parties. They include differences in language, ethnocentrism, stereotypes, and prejudice.
Six key barriers for cross-cultural communications
1- Ethnocentrism
We all have a natural tendency to look at other cultures through our own lenses. Ethnocentrism happens when we implicitly believe our way of doing things and seeing things is the right and only way. As a result, we negatively judge behaviours that don’t conform to our world vision. We perceive other’s behaviours as odd and improper. Ethnocentrism also creates an “us versus them” mentality that can be detrimental. In a previous company I worked for, countless times I’ve heard the French complain about the Americans in an ethnocentric way and vice-versa.
2- Stereotyping
It’s also common to rely on oversimplified clichés about people from different cultures. In fact, there are quite a few cross-cultural trainings in the market that are focused on memorizing cultural differences and can reinforce stereotyping. Learning about differences can be useful as a starting point. But individuals are unique; you can never predict a person’s behaviour based on his or her nationality. When we were moving to the UK, French friends told us, The British never invite you for dinner, which is a common social activity in France. We happen to have the loveliest British neighbours who invite us for dinner often.
3- Psychological barriers
To manage cross-cultural teams successfully, you need to flex your own style. It’s not easy to go against your natural preferences. People can feel unauthentic and incompetent. I know the case of a French manager who went to the United States. He found out that his typical French style of giving feedback, focused on what was “wrong” rather than on what was working well, was undermining his team’s confidence. He realised what the problem was, but he felt artificial acting the “American” way. He went back to France as soon as he could.
4- Language barriers
All teams have a common language, but when some people are more fluent than others, it creates social distance between members. In global teams, people who are less fluent in English tend to withdraw from communication, which means the team may not get all the input it needs. Understanding what’s said can be challenging if people speak too fast or use too much slang. This also might have an influence on how people’s competence and performance are perceived. I worked for an organisation where non-English native speakers felt that their career progression opportunities were not the same as for English native speakers.
5- Geographical distance
In global virtual teams, people don’t get the chance to interact and build relationships with each other as in a traditional office environment. And the less you know about people, the less you share information with them. Collaboration within virtual teams is, therefore, more challenging. Groups outside of the head office can also feel excluded. On the other hand, head office group members might think that other colleagues are not contributing. Differences in time zones also can be challenging. Often if you’re not in the headquarters, you are expected to cope with meeting timings that are less convenient. I know of a highly talented woman who left a global senior leadership role because she got tired of having frequent meetings in the night.
6- Conflicting values
Culture is like an iceberg: what you see are the behaviours, and those are influenced by the invisible values under the water line. Cultural clashes happen when other people’s behaviour compromises our own values. Often, when you don’t understand or don’t agree with a behaviour, it means that there are conflicting values under the water line. There is no right or wrong way of doing things; it’s just a matter of cultural norms. Below, you’ll see a (non-exhaustive) list of common conflicting cultural values:
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