Asia Insider Minute - Grappling with Cultural Miscommunication

How essential are cultural cues and what’s at stake each time we miss them? That’s the question I ask Kyle Hegarty in this week’s episode of Inside Asia.  Kyle is author of the soon-to-be-released book - The Accidental Business Nomad: A Survival Guide for Working Across A Shrinking Planet. 

His dissertation comes at an interesting time. There are countervailing forces in play. On the one hand, global commerce and Internet access are bringing people closer together. On the other hand, some countries are starting to think that too much economic integration is a bad thing. The prospects of Recession are on the rise and leaders from the US to the UK are calling for protectionism to safeguard jobs and bolster homegrown businesses. 

Just as there’s no stopping the political winds from shifting, nor can one prevent the wings of commerce from beating. People are at the heart of all commercial exchange, and so it is that Kyle has turned his attention to the many things that can go wrong when diverse cultures meet in the marketplace. 

Our discussion left me thinking about the complexities of communication. I’m not talking about language barriers or even cultural differences, but rather, how we are all predisposed to believe that when we say something, it’s been communicated. Instead, we should ask ourselves, when something is said, has it been understood? 

Evidence suggests that we’re misunderstood more often than we might think. I don’t want to get overly personal, but the last time you fought with your spouse, was it about what you said, or how you said it? As often as not, it’s the how. Am I right?

Now think about the way we work. Emails, text, WhatsApp, voicemails and the occasional face-to-face. What we gain in efficiency thanks to technology, we lose in inter-personal nuance. For millions of years, we as humans have been trained to pick up on all forms of non-verbal communication. Body language speaks volumes. Tone is everything. Now add to this communication cornucopia the element of cultural difference. 

?To make the point, think about this: What if Dale Carnegie walked into a bar. You remember Dale Carnegie, the famous early 20th century American lecturer and Godfather of American-style salesmanship who made famous the saying “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get…” Yeah, that guy…So he walks into a bar and there’s an old and wise looking Asian character wearing a gown and a long white beard. He’s sitting quietly contemplating the tea leaves in his cup when Dale walks up, slaps him on the back and shouts: Waddaya havin’? Bartender, give this man a drink. 

The old gentleman, though startled, looks up from his cup and while slightly averting his eyes, says: “As the water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it, a wise man should adapt himself to circumstances…” I’ll have a beer! The old man, you may have guessed, is Confucius and so it is with his words of wisdom that we come upon what could prove the most singularly critical human behavior of our time – adaptation! 

The world is rife – as Kyle points out – with cross-cultural miscommunication. But it strikes me that what’s missing isn’t the ability to communicate, but rather, the inability to adjust and adapt to the communication styles of others. For decades, the economic dominance of Western nations imposed a “my-way-or-the-highway” attitude on business partners throughout the developing world. And in the interest of commerce and profit, these business partners largely complied. Those days are done. It’s a new era led by a new breed of Asian business leader armed with a global agenda. With this shift in power will most assuredly come a shift in style, and the only question worth asking is: How adaptable will we all be?

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