How can we avoid the major pitfalls when working with colleagues who are part of the world we know nothing about?

As consultants, it is not unusual to spend most of the working day in meetings or surrounded by reports, facts and figures. However, these days your team mates can originate from almost any culture in the world. They will be familiar with same technological and principals you utilise, yet they are also functioning in cultures that may be very different to your own. Let us consider some examples:

The Hard Facts…. or are they?
Your American counterpart has just sent the measurements you have been waiting for that will allow you to complete your project. You enter the data into your model, which causes it to fail completely. What happened? Did your American counterpart send imperial or metric measurements? If they were imperial, were they British or American? Although most of the world assumes the use of standard metric measurements, there are some notable exceptions.

You have just received an order for one lakh widgets from your office in Bangalore. What do you do? There are local variations in counting, punctuation, and other methods of quantification throughout the world. In this example, India uses the term lakh for one hundred thousand, written as 1,00,000.

Your Saudi partner asked you to email your final report to him at the beginning of the week so he can incorporate it into his presentation later that day. You dutifully send it out at 9.00 on Monday morning; he is enraged! The Saudi work week runs from Saturday – Wednesday. Saudi Arabia’s time zone is GMT +3. From his perspective, you have just sent him your report 2 ½ days late. Know your calendars and time zones.

Your Australian customer has confirmed in an email that he has wired $50,000 to your business account. Even allowing for currency fluctuations, you find you are about 10% short. Has your customer cheated you? Not necessarily. Did you specify in which currency you were to be paid? Many countries quote pricing in their local currency, which may be dollars. Others quote in US dollars when conducting business across borders. In the above example, the US Dollar is about 10% more valuable than the Australian Dollar. When in doubt, spell it out.

You have sent a sample of your latest IT device to your project leader in Tanzania. One month later, you ask her how the product has been received. Expecting high praise for the miracles this device should be performing, she instead mumbles something irrelevant and quickly changes the subject. Is she ungrateful? Your device requires a constant temperature and supply of electricity to work properly, which cannot be found in your project leader’s location in Tanzania. As well intentioned as you were, your device will not work until the infrastructure can support it.

In each of the examples, we may have made assumptions about what we believed was objective information, yet our communication skills were ineffective. So how can we avoid the major pitfalls when working with colleagues who are part of the world we know nothing about?

Communication
People communicate in many ways and on different levels. It’s not just about words, but how we deliver and receive messages from each other. Contextual cues such as eye contact, tone of voice and gestures are all important communication tools in many cultures. Others utilise additional non verbal communication such as silence. If your colleague’s communication style is very different from your own, it can be easily misinterpreted. It may also be compounded if you are communicating over the telephone or by email, as these subtleties may be lost.

One technique that often works well to ensure that both parties have understood each other is to ask the other person to repeat their understanding of what was agreed. Avoid questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no.

Language
How we use language makes a difference. Language can clarify, or it can confuse. Our understated British-ness may be interpreted as weakness or disinterest in cultures that look toward a strong leader who speaks in superlatives. We may consider such a leader as boastful and dismiss him as ‘all talk’. Such a reaction could be a mistake in many cultures.

In other situations, we may find ourselves frustrated that we can never seem to get any answer at all, no matter how directly we ask a question. Many cultures value harmony and courtesy as the most important factors in communicating with others. As a result, we may receive answers that are polite and non-committal – maintaining harmony and courtesy – which do not satisfy us. It can be a complicated cultural exercise to obtain information, especially when it’s bad news. It may be necessary to rephrase your request several times, or find another colleague who is in a position of authority to deal with such matters. It is important not to interpret such behaviour as evasive, as this is not the intent in such cultures.

On the other hand, we can find ourselves in situations where our request for information is answered so bluntly that we consider our colleague to be rude or unmannered. But is this the case within their culture, or is their culture one that values efficiency and directness more than our own?

In a world where English is the language of business, keep in mind that many of your colleagues are communicating in a language that is not their own. Using slang or speaking with strong regional accents can make communication even more difficult. Humour does not always travel well even amongst native English speakers, as many British people have learnt in America. Try to remember to speak clearly and concisely, using internationally understood English.

Timing
How we interpret time can vary tremendously amongst different cultures and can easily cause misunderstandings. Time challenges go far beyond whether we’ve had a good commute to work on any given day. We may forgive a colleague who is running a few minutes late because of the Tube and quickly joins a meeting, but become furious with a colleague who is on time to a meeting yet spends most of it on his mobile speaking with someone else.

In many cultures, time is seen as fluid. For cultures such as ours that revolve around our diaries, this can be a recipe for disaster. It is routine for some cultures to multitask or to reprioritise their business throughout the day. It’s probably why your colleague is on his mobile.

In addition, the separation between one’s professional and personal lives may be blurred. It is not unusual for people in some cultures to interrupt their work to attend to a family matter, reprioritising their time as they see necessary. Such cultures may look upon our schedule driven days as inflexible and inefficient.

Deadlines
Working toward deadlines can be a challenge in even a local setting, where everyone understands the same cultural language. When working across cultures, interpretations of deadlines can be wide ranging. Are they viewing deadlines as the conclusion of a set of tasks, or a longer term strategy? Some cultures look at a deadline as a concrete target that must be literally met. Others see it as a guideline that may be influenced by many factors, or as something their management worries about. Yet others are driven by fatalism – what will be will be, God’s will, etc.

In a multinational working environment, it is imperative that expectations for achieving deadlines are clearly communicated to those who are in a position to manage time. Asking for concrete information along the way in status meetings will help to keep projects on track. Confirm and reconfirm. Many managers will publish deadlines with a bit of room in their project plan to allow for any last minute panic.

Meetings and Expectations
Setting expectations for a business meeting is another area that can be a danger zone for misinterpretation. Do you know the answers to some very fundamental questions about the meeting you are about to attend?

• What is the purpose of the meeting? Setting an agenda for future meetings? Assigning responsibility to a set of tasks? To get to know one another and building a stronger relationship amongst team members?

• How will the meeting start? Will we wait until everyone arrives or will we kick off at a certain time? How long do we talk about football/the weather/the traffic before we get down to business?

• Will all of the attendees be expected to voice their opinion on a topic? If not, then who will? The subject matter expert? The team leader? The most senior person in the room?

• Are speakers representing their own view or that of their colleagues as well? Are all speakers’ opinions considered with equal weight, or does gender/age/job title influence the audience?

• Is it more important to debate or to agree?

• Who are the decision makers? Are they even present, or will they be informed later?

Building trust
All of the issues above become meaningless if we fail to build trust amongst our colleagues, business partners and customers. Communication, empathy and sensitivity are the keys to success. Learning what motivates others is paramount. Above all, sharing common values and finding respect for difference can only be a winning formula.

What to research before travelling
Most of us think to research basic facts about visas or the weather before we board our flight to the far flung corners of the world. We probably check the name of our hotel and are likely to advise our families as to what time zone we’ll be in whilst travelling.

Take a few extra minutes to learn about the practicalities of business as well. Showing up for a business meeting during a public holiday can be embarrassing as well as a waste of money. So is showing up to a business meeting inappropriately dressed.

It’s always a good idea to learn how to pronounce your business associates’ names and to know their office address, even if you will be using taxis or a driver when out and about. In some destinations, you will be relying on your host for much more than just closing the deal.

Learn the most basic taboos to avoid offence. Bringing a bottle of wine as a gift to much of the Middle East is not a good idea. Nor is discussing politics, at least, most of the time.

Learning about the culture you are travelling to will give you a head start on your road to success. What are the locals talking about? Read. Ask. Meet with others who have been there before or who have lived there, even as children. Consider taking a cross cultural training course, which will offer good, practical business advice for people venturing into unknown cultures.

Be open to sharing information about your own cultural quirks that may seem odd to others. Remember that you are a cultural ambassador for your organisation and your country as well.

Enjoy your journey.



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Donna Marsh was Sales Manager for a number of multinational IT companies in the developing world, including the Middle East and Indian Subcontinent, as well as in territories perceived to be very traditional, including Japan, Korea and Greater China. She has often pioneered new business development in these territories, and has successfully managed most of the above challenges. She now works with Farnham Castle, delivering cross cultural business training and consultancy.