Communicating Across Cultural Differences

Transnational Leadership

Beth FISHER-YOSHIDA, Kathy D. GELLER

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780814432587
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The text of this ebook appears as chapter 4 in the print version of Transnational Leadership Development.

The chapter explains how to communicate across cultures, focusing on the interaction between the speakers (direct–indirect); the shared and disparate meaning of words, expressions and phrases; and the style of delivering the message (linear–circular).

It features detailed examples and a model for communicating more effectively across cultural differences - such as listening more effectively, voicing thoughts and feelings, forms of inquiry, and empathy.

COMMUNICATING ACROSS CULTURAL DIFFERENCES: TRANSNATIONAL LEADERSHIP

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

—PETER DRUCKER¹

Although there are many considerations in communication, we will focus on three in this chapter. In considering how to communicate effectively across difference our attention is drawn to three points:

• First to the interaction between the speakers (direct–indirect)

• Then to the shared and disparate meaning of words, expressions, and phrases (words–expressions)

• And finally to the style of delivering the message (linear–circular)

COMMUNICATION IS THE CHALLENGE FOR TRANSNATIONAL LEADERS

As a transnational leader you are either working or living in a culture different from your own or working with others of different cultural orientations, or perhaps a combination of the above. While there is usually a shared business language in the workplace, understanding what is being said and the true intention of the message is not always as easy as it may first appear.

What you say and how you say it may not be heard or experienced by another person in the way you intended. As communication is a reciprocal process, you also may not be experiencing what others say to you in the way they intended.

BERNARD AND WAI TING: THE CHALLENGE OF BEING TRANSNATIONAL

A short case will illustrate this phenomenon.

Conversation between Bernard and Wai Ting

Bernard asked Wai Ting, one of the staff members on his team, to create a report that he urgently needed for an upcoming meeting with his boss. Wai Ting listened to the request, and said “Yes.” Hearing the “yes” Bernard assumed the report would be on his desk the next day.

After three days, Bernard had not received the report. He approached Wai Ting asking for the report. Wai Ting responded, “Yes, I am working on it.” She then began to tell Bernard about the difficulty she was having with a different project.

Bernard was frustrated that the report wasn’t ready and further baffled by Wai Ting’s reply concerning another unrelated project. He knew he had been clear in his request. As a result of his frustration he cut her off and said to her, “Which part of the phrase ‘The report is urgent.’ didn’t you understand?’” Wai Ting became silent and looked down.

What had transpired between Bernard and Wai Ting? To be able to answer this question requires you to “experience the world as Bernard and Wai Ting” do.

Bernard had come to Singapore five months before as a mid-level manager for a Global Fortune 50 Technology Company. He was finding the transition to life in Singapore trouble-free. It was a lot like life in the United States, with Friday nights out with his staff, golf on Saturday, and access to most of the conveniences of home. While his staff was multicultural—Singaporeans of Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian background—English was the common language shared by all. Taking on the management of this multicultural team and working effectively with each team member was from Bernard’s perspective relatively easy.

Before coming to Singapore, Bernard had been a manager in the New York City office of the same organization. Through his accomplishments he was identified as “high potential” in the corporate talent management process. The organization was lacking depth in its talent pipeline and managers of Bernard’s caliber were important for the future as the organization grew globally. This was Bernard’s first overseas assignment and with future growth forecast primarily in the markets of Asia and the Indian subcontinent, it was important both to the corporation and to Bernard personally that he succeed.

Upon arrival in Singapore, Bernard continued to lead and manage as he had in his former role. As an American, he was focused on achieving outcomes, used to saying specifically what he needed, hearing “yes” as full commitment to action, and using the word “urgently” to indicate immediately. In his mind it was all very straightforward.

While Bernard assumed that Wai Ting was Singaporean (after all she looked like others on the team), she was not. Wai Ting was recruited from the Masters in Business program three years ago from Tsinghua University—the MIT of China. Wai Ting’s transition to the company and Singapore was also relatively uncomplicated as she moved to a small island nation with two million people where 79% of the population was Chinese. While sharing a common historical Chinese heritage with many of her colleagues, because Wai Ting had been raised on the Chinese Mainland and born after the Cultural Revolution, her style of interaction and communication was quite different from her Singaporean Chinese colleagues; who were second generation Singaporeans. Wai Ting was raised in a culture in which the needs of the group took precedence over one’s personal needs, where deference to authority was embedded, and where communication was offered in an indirect manner that significantly relied on paying attention to what was unexpressed as well as the nonverbal communication.

Like Bernard, Wai Ting had been very successful since joining the organization. After only 18 months with the company she too was identified as a “high potential” in the talent management process and had been promoted to a senior consulting role by her prior boss. Talent like that shown by Wai Ting was particularly important to the organization as the company saw the China market as a significant area of growth for the coming decades. Young professionals like Wai Ting who had worked off-sho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Communicating Across Cultural Differences: Transnational Leadership