Read time: 4 mins
Navigating Cultural Differences in Business
With cultures and languages now more globally dispersed than ever before, it has become increasingly important for international business professionals to lead, inspire, and communicate with cross-cultural audiences with confidence.
Watch Ben Shields and Kara Blackburn, Faculty Directors in the Interpersonal Communication: Strategies for Executives online short course from the MIT Sloan School of Management, sit down with Harriet Cross, British High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, to discuss the importance of creating common ground in cross-cultural circumstances.
Transcript
And, you know what my first thought is when I’m thinking about how I interact with another culture is where do they stand on formality and on hierarchy? Um, and it might, the answer might surprise you. Um, so I always thought the US was kind of a relaxed kind of, you know, surfing kind of place and people call each other “sir” and “mam” and, um, I much more often see people use, like Mr so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so. In the UK you’d just use first names.
So that’s just a good example of where I’m going to look rude. If I hadn’t picked up on that kind of social hierarchy side of how you address people, where your place in the hierarchy is.
And then it’s a question of observation. So, you know, look at what people are doing, how are they interacting with each other? What do they like to do in their spare time? Because that all, that all combines to be the person that you see at work. You know, in the US, quite seriously, understanding football and baseball and basketball makes a difference to your ability to engage with people. Um, and there’s a certain element of kind of national stereotype, but I think you’ve kind of got to take a pinch of national stereotype as your starting point.
So it sounds like the strategies you’re talking about are cognitive strategies at first, right. To learn, to seek, to understand either by research, trying to figure out what’s the role of hierarchy and by observation. And so that seems like a really wonderful best practice that we can extract from learning how to navigate cross-cultural environments.
Understanding your own culture
Another point I would make is what are your differences to this culture? So again, you kind of got to understand your own culture, to be able to understand somebody else’s, um, because if you understand what your sort of ticks and preferences, and, uh, you know, do I fit my own national stereotype? Cause people are going to be looking at you and thinking that’s an American, that’s a Brit, that’s a Russian. Um, do you want to say, yeah, I mean, for example for me, I love my tea. Right. You know, tea is often the answer in the UK to any problem and I’m happy to kind of play that stereotype.
Um, but maybe I’m somebody who doesn’t want to be a British person who’s, um, super keen on the Royal family. Maybe you do. Make some of those choices and look, look at yourself while you’re looking at others.
That is a really wonderful insight. I’d love to learn more from you about what actually does that look like for you that, that investigation, or that reflection about like, how is my culture impacting how I behave? Because we know from experience that, um, you know, some people can do that fairly easily. Other people that are like my culture doesn’t impact me and you know, are less aware of the water they’re swimming in. So I’m wondering how you, how you think about that?
I think on the most basic level, it’s what do people like about my culture? That helps you find some of the traits and you might call it soft power and also have a think about when, when people are derogatory, maybe about your culture. Right? How do you feel about that? What stings, right what resonates? Yeah. And is it because it’s, it’s, they’re right to criticize. Or actually can you correct somebody and say, let me explain to you about my culture. So I think even though you think that you’re just an average person and you don’t abide by any of the stereotypes, I think you might surprise yourself when you start thinking about the good and bad, that is the perception of where you come from.
And one other thing I’d say is that culture only goes so far. So you might, you shouldn’t be saying I’m either a like, um, somebody or I’m, I’m very different to somebody because we’ve got different cultures. Cause you might find you’ve got other things in common that surpass or override the cultural differences.
So it might be gender. It might be, um, a disability that you share. It might be a passion for some random stamp collecting. Right? Right. So I think, uh, just because you’re in a cross-cultural environment, don’t automatically think this makes me different because I think you might find areas of commonality that you didn’t expect.
So we can acknowledge that there are differences and we also want to acknowledge and celebrate what we share in common. Yes.