Insights into cultural differences

Whether we like it or not, cultural awareness across the globe has already become a must for almost everyone in business, be they managers or employees. Regardless of your actual home location or head office, whether you may happen to be in Dubai, Australia, the UK, Mexico or the United States, we are all part of a seamless global network wherein lies our daily virtual connectivity reality.

Not surprisingly, more and more companies are finding it essential that their staff should be willing and able to work in such trans-nationality context.

This year, it has been my turn. In all fairness, I am facing one of the biggest professional challenges in my career but then again I have gained invaluable insights into what it means to operate across different cultural teams.

Granted, Globalization is not a new economic and social phenomenon but never before had we felt the need to acknowledge cultural differences and value them for what they are.

Basically, what I’ve learned is incredibly fascinating: day in day out I have had to make adjustments both in communication and leadership styles so as to match the various cultures I am working with. In fact, this has led me to embrace three key drivers, as a mantra to seek a basic understanding, education and being flexible. Erin Meyer mentioned in her book, that if you succeed in doing this, you’ll be able to effectively avoid conflict and conduct business wherever you are in the world. 

First and foremost, you need to strike a good balance between listening and speaking. In this respect, a friend recommended to me a book called “Culture Map, by Erin Meyer”, which has proved highly instrumental in showing the best way to communicate with people in cultures outside your own. Indeed, even when geographically-wise we may be close to each other, we could be miles apart in terms of our idiosyncrasies.

She walks us through the concepts of high-context culture, in which they listen for meaning, rather than what is actually being spoken. It is also important to pay close attention to changing body language, ranging from head-shaking, head-nodding, arms-crossing and the like. Even self-restraint in your conversational partner can shroud the meaning of what they are trying to say.

The opposite holds true for a low-context culture. In these situations, it’s important to be as unequivocal as possible. You should make a point of explaining what you mean as clearly as possible. If people from multiple cultures are working together, it’s often most effective to utilize a low-context conversational style so that you can avoid misunderstandings.

In my opinion, I am now convinced that today, more than ever, our team success depends on the ability to navigate smoothly through such cultural differences.

 As Stephen covey says: “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities”

Thus it is critical to start getting collaborative work done, increase team work, Bring Together, share experiences with others and feed creativity. Only when all of this is in place will be able to turn this heterogeneous group into  a successful ONE.

Flor