How do you communicate with diverse audiences globally?

It is important to know the cultural differences and how to address your audience accordingly. I use the culture map book of Erin Meyer as a guide. Having lived and worked in 6 different countries and 3 continents, I find it very useful to develop a communication style that is balanced, simple and straightforward. That works in different contextes. The conversational side though is more difficult and depends on the other person’s communication style.

Over years of working with individuals, peers and leading teams across Europe, China and US, I have found that the basic human issues are the same everywhere, but the way we process and respond to it could vary due to cultural differences. For example, almost everyone recognizes the issues relating to exclusion / inclusion, e.g. in keeping someone in the loop. This is a basic human nature. But in some cultures, it might come across as very specific feedback, whereas in some other cases there might be no feedback to tell you if you've not quite managed to reach the concerned individuals. So, a leader can't expect everyone to behave equally same, certainly not as per their own style! Always know your audience!

There are many more nuances to it. For example, in one specific situation of working with my team composed of non-English speakers, any amount of face-to-face communication would yield nothing. Still, the team members were very responsive and communicative when writing emails. Later on, I realized that it was their shyness due to their lack of confidence in speaking English that led to their quietness in meetings, whereas they were using translation software when writing emails, so that wasn't an issue. So, knowing your specific audience is essential, but even more critical is to know why they behave in a specific manner, so that you can tailor your approach accordingly.

I always think this is very important. If while talking, if you constantly use complex words, jargons, making people refer to the dictionary every time, you just lose the audience. Also, depending on the culture you need to be mindful of the tones. You also need to be extremely careful of the jokes you share. Some of them are in really bad taste in some cultures but the leaders often don't realise it.

This is particularly important if you are working in a global environment. I have often seen important meetings, deliveries are scheduled during Indian festivals, where the people are in a hurry to leave for their homes and participate in the festivities but have to stay back for it. That leaves a very frustrated workforce. Also, late meetings on Friday evenings for the Indian teams means they lose out on the weekend since they anyway have to login on time on Mondays.

One of the biggest changes over the last few years is that most all of leadership communications are happening with teams that are largely remote and operating in multiple time zones. And then, there are cultural and individual differences. Even an all-hand might have many more people on the video call than in the room. So, it is not possible to always rely on body language cues to understand how the audience is responding to your messages and adapt to it in real-time. I recommend leaders to always maintain human connect throughout the year, and make it a point to go over some of the key messages (especially the key ones) and ask their team members for their views. That could help understand if people are aligned to the communication.

I agree with @Tathagat on this. Where the leaders often lose their employees is, they don't listen to the employees throughout the year. Most leaders are not approachable and even if the employees reach out to them on mail or other media, they don't acknowledge. Most often the messages get lost in the number of layers it goes through.

This is very important. I haven't seen many leaders doing it. Also, some cultures do encourage juniors talking to seniors openly, asking questions. I have seen leaders getting offended over it without realising that it was a genuine feedback or question from the junior.