By Jyoti Pandey
Senior Consultant, Integrity Leadership Partners, LLC
Understanding the cultural differences and social complexities are the key components of success in a global economy. Conventional wisdom holds that no one country or one organization has the capacity and expertise to manage future large-scale risks alone. However, in an increasingly global interdependent world, they have neither. As the world is “shrinking” – “interdependence” is increasing for resources, talent, skills and the market.
I couldn’t agree more when the speaker introduced us to the topic she was going to discuss next, titled: “Leadership in a global economy” that I had attended a while ago. The presentation would discuss complexities associated with leadership in the 21st century global environment and the conditions under which they occur. It would also evaluate the organizational effectiveness and ways to advance success, foster growth and promote change in the organization. A very powerful and relevant presentation. Talking of globalization, the attendees comprised of people from many different nationalities – predominantly Americans, but there were Indians, Russians and Europeans as well. We talked about the work culture, the communication style and respect for fellow workers. Among all of the features that were discussed as “globally unifying” in international trade, the power of communication earned the top slot as the key component of success. In the cross-cultural/multicultural world, we can’t emphasize more on the strategic importance it plays.
“We are having an effective communication, when it is – clear, concise, and to the point,” the speaker added. What are the usual challenges we face when we interact cross culturally? She posed a question. “Communication!” a clear winner there. India found its mention as one of the Asian countries where apparently, communicating across the border could get challenging. They showed us a clipping of a movie called “Outsourced” in which an American company tries to outsource its Seattle based call center to India. The guy who visits India to train the team faces insurmountable difficulties. Even trying to have a decent communication seems like a huge challenge to the trainer. Training the Indian team on its accent (especially teaching them to speak Chicago with a slight nasal tone by literally pressing on nose while speaking) made up for a humorous content. There was someone in the audience working for a Japanese company with offices in the US, stated that while Japanese are great with documents and written materials, it gets very challenging when there is verbal communication involved.
While sitting in that room, I was feeling blessed to have a perspective on things which comes from having a global outlook, having worked and traveled internationally.
I left the presentation with a range of thoughts and ideas going through my mind…I sure was hugely impacted. To have an effective communication – it’s not just enough to speak the language with correct syntax, grammar or punctuation. As a national language – English is primarily used as a basic communication tool in India. However, it’s only after I came to the States and after I have stayed here for a significant number of years -I can say that there is a whole new dimension to a language which is very specific to a country. Even within the country, the expression and and intent of a word could be potentially misdirected and misconstrued if you don’t know your audience. The take away gives me a new understanding that regardless of the fact that English is the business language of the world, the “English” spoken in America would still be a foreign language for the English speaking population living in India, China, Italy, Germany, or England if you will.
Any language, when it evolves and develops in a nation, takes on the unique characteristics of the natives who have developed it, used it and owned it. It’s made up of the cultural ethos. So we need to learn not only the language, but also the tone, the expression, the body language, what was said explicitly, and what remained to be speculated to understand the real meaning.
On a global platform, when an organization/country is dealing with an economy, where infrastructure needs improvement, and professionalism requires a bit of touch up – a non-verbal communication, written documentation and gestures can all be the important features of communication to make up for the deficiency in verbal linguistic skills. And that only comes with appreciating the cultural differences and understanding the complexities in the social environment. We just don’t need to understand their language; we need to understand their language their way.
We just don’t need to understand their language; we need to understand their language their way.
Thoughts?
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