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Cross-Cultural Communication Skills

How to negotiate the complexities of cross-cultural differences and communication in the workplace
May 20, 2015
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By GradProSkills


As a Montrealer and Concordia student, you will be working with people from all over the world in your academic and professional environments. This means that sometimes, certain things you say or do may not be received in the way they are intended. And vice-versa. Each culture has a unique way of communicating, impacting leadership style, how feedback works, individual perception, decision making, collaborative effort, along with a whole other slew of work-related communication. Little things matter, like reading the unspoken subtexts of conversation, whether or not you should wait to be called on rather than jumping in discussions to contribute, or if your feedback “sugarcoated” or just to-the-point. To avoid confusion and conflict, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with cultural basics before a meeting or working with someone of another culture.

Entrepreneur’s article How to Avoid Cultural Missteps When Doing Business With Other Countries tells readers to first conduct a simple online search for the location or culture with the words "cultural competence" in Google. Georgetown University’s National Center for Cultural Competence also has a ton of basic resources.This is a good way to start, but it’s important to be weary of identifying cultural norms in just one or two dimensions. Generalizations run rampant on the web, so we’ve done some research for you to find the best sources to learn about cross-cultural communication.

Erin Meyer is an INSEAD professor specializing in cross-cultural management, studying the effects of cultural differences on business communication. Meyer tells us that though there is plenty of research out there on the subject, much of it relies on clichés and stereotypes, which can lead to oversimplified and erroneous assumptions about cultural differences. Her work attempts to present a nuanced picture that can be of real use to people working internationally or with foreign colleagues. Meyer’s HBR article Navigating the Cultural Minefield presents a huge wealth of information to help people learn how to work more effectively with people from other countries.

To help better negotiate the complexities of cross-cultural differences and communication in the workplace, Meyer developed an interactive, online tool called the Culture Map. It is made up of eight scales representing the management behaviors where cultural gaps are most common. By comparing the position of one nationality relative to another on each scale, the user can decode how culture influences day-to-day collaboration - where the problems with each pair are most likely to occur and what you might do to mitigate them.

Other articles by Meyer to check out: Managing Confrontation In Multicultural Teams and How To Say “This Is Crap” In Different Cultures. (She is also the author of The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business, and her Twitter account is full of good stuff too: @ErinMeyerINSEAD.)

For an academic-specific context, University Affairs article Navigating Supervision Across Cultures discusses the frequently occurring challenges in supervising graduate students across cultures, under five common themes: assumptions about the nature of research and knowledge production, cultural differences in power and status, differing needs for saving face, cultural differences in communication styles, and expectations about rule following.

FastCompany’s article 8 Ways To Reduce Your Cross-Cultural Clumsiness introduces the concept of cultural agility, which is the ability to respond quickly, comfortably, and effectively in a different culture and with people from other cultures. Written by Rutger’s Professor Paula Caligiuti, this piece offers suggestions to build a more culturally agile workforce by knowing when to adapt, integrate or override differences.

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