Assumptions we make in cross-cultural communications

George Bernard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” This illusion in the context of cross-cultural communications is even more detrimental. A lot of us are very familiar with the challenge as the groups we work in are becoming more and more diverse.

In my opinion we are part of the problem. Most of the times we start with some beliefs and presumptions about the person from a different culture and that influences how we interact and even interpret their communications. Here are some common beliefs I have seen:

- If we are talking and the other person is nodding their head, they really understood what we are saying. Nodding head might just mean that they are hearing you, but they might not understand a thing about what you want them to understand.

- If we have nailed down the most common words and phrases of the other language, we have perfected communication in that language. A limited vocabulary without the proper understanding of the culture makes it useless for any meaningful conversation.

- Making small talk about the other culture brings affinity and will help us with the conversation. This might actually create a barrier for communication as no one likes to be pointed out different.

- Imitating mannerism and behavior of other culture makes us a culturally sensitive person. Mannerism is just one piece of the cultural puzzle and with out knowing the full picture, following it might actually make us look like an insensitive person.

People are just people everywhere and an honest communication with no assumptions can never go wrong.

Communication- there is always room for improvement!

Communication some how seemed like an overrated topic to me for a while, partly because I was always a chatty personality and was even good in probing people enough to make them communicate back. I strongly believed that it does not matter what language you speak or how you speak or not speak, as long as you can get your message across you have done your work.  But, over years certainly learned more subtle elements of communication that can always help. Will share my observations around some of these elements in next few posts.

Relevance of the information is the first one that comes to my mind. Have you ever observed a conversation between a toddler and a parent, where ending is not so pleasant with a crying toddler and a frustrated parent? I have lived with that, until I understood what the problem was.  The problem was that the information I was giving was relevant from my perspective, but not from my toddler’s perspective. Does not still mean that I have conquered the world of toddlers, but for sure I have learned a lesson in communication and try to put information in perspective of the person I am communicating with.

A couple of years back, I was watching a mom tell her 2 year old child to return a toy back to their friend and the child was not ready to part. Mom kept saying, ‘please give it back’ and the child kept increasing her grip. The conversation did not change until the child’s older sibling came and told her, “this toy is not yours, give it back.” It occurred to me that the child was not even ready to listen in the absence of a reason why she needs to return the toy back. That was the more relevant piece of information for the child. For the mother the only relevant information was that the child returns the toy.

What is relevant to each of us changes our absorption of information and how we respond in a communication. We all have that child in us who wants to hear the relevant information we care about and in the absence of that, we do dig in our heels deeper and it is difficult for us to come out of an argument. So if relevant information is missing I try to convince the child in me to understand the other side. Try that and it might work for your communications.

Stop interpreting every action

There is a saying in Hindi (Mein tumhari nas nas jaanti hoin -I can read your veins) that means that I know exactly how to interpret each and every action of yours.

I think most of us know how to interpret people around us in day to day situations, but still feel frustrated and uncomfortable when an in-law does that thing again to tick your nerve, or a colleague again continues to push their agenda, or that executive again provides those strong opinions that you hate. The question that worries us is why they keep doing this? Oh my god! Can’t believe they did it again.

I also have wasted a lot of my time and energy thinking about this question. What I realized while working with Jill Bromund (www.becoachable.com/) was that I was asking the wrong question. The right question all along should have been why it troubles me so much when someone reacts certain way I do not like.  I truly believe that most of the people are good and do have good intentions. Conflict only occurs when their interest clash with someone else’s. In our daily lives that is not the case. However, we spend a lot of our life thinking about such small things that slowly try to change our opinions about people and most of the times make us react not so nicely.

Here are some key principles that I learned during my coaching sessions that I thought are very applicable to preserve sanity of our lives.

1. People will not always have reactions you expect them to have, so do not try to find logic in every conversation.

2. Reactions from different people are on different response scales and learn to best work with it.

3. You can’t make them change to fit your needs; change your response level to adjust to people around you.

4. If you do not think you can adjust well with the group, try to find a group that matches your response level.  

In the end our work/organization/group is all about the people it is made off. So find the bunch you enjoy being with and there is no room for interpretation.