Increasingly, work teams are made up of multiple cultures. Too often, managers of these teams assume their own culture is the norm and charge ahead without taking time to consider intercultural dynamics. The result be disastrous as the team never coalesces, the work doesn't get done, and valuable time is wasted.
Successful team collaboration depends on two things: understanding the cul- tures of others on the team, and understanding how you might be perceived by other team members. In the U.S., business etiquette often to the informal, but it's never a good idea to assume that such informality will be accepted by other cul- tures. When first meeting other team members, ask each how he or she would like to be addressed. Many may not want to be called by their first names. Similarly, Americans usually are not shy about offering opinions or interrupting others to in- sert a comment or an idea. Some cultures frown upon such practice and never openly disagree or voice their own opinions in a group situation. Take the time up front to learn about the communication styles and preferences of all national cul- tures on the team. How? friends! Get to as many people on the team as you can. Ask them about their culture, watch and listen with heightened sensitivity, and seek out other media information about the cultures (films, novels, histories, and so on). Then, think together about the decision-making process, the review
process, and the evaluation process and establish guidelines all team members are
willing to follow.
The Decision-Making Process
Some cultures prefer the consensus method of decision making: team members ne- gotiate until everyone agrees. Other cultures prefer a more hierarchical decision process where the manager has ultimate authority to decide. To be a productive work group, team members should develop decision-making criteria together and provide copies of criteria to all stakeholders.
The Review Process
Who reviews the team's work products and what are the phases involved? These questions should be clearly at the outset. Once again, cultural differences may come into play. Some members may be used to participating in every phase of the project and expect to be in the review loop for each detail. Others are used to a more compartmentalized process where the review is done by a separate group. should be clear from the beginning what milestones and deadlines are involved and who is critical to the review process. Productive teams these mechanics and work together smoothly to complete the whole project efficiently.
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GUIDELINES Collaborating with E-mail
If you are part of a global team depending on e-mail to communicate, the opportunities for cross-cultural increase. Here are some rules to help you avoid unnecessary cultural
• Be concise. Try to keep all e-mails to a single screen and restricted to one subject.
• Make the subject line informative and specific so busy readers can scan their inboxes and de- termine how quickly they must attend to the message.
• Avoid subject line phrases that contain words that spam filters might block (such as "free" or "congratulations").
• Identify the purpose and action items the beginning of your message.
• Decide carefully what style of communication to use: formal or informal? In every case be professional and polite.
• Avoid misspellings and constructions. • Avoid 213).
• Avoid special e-mail features unless you are sure all team members will be able to read the messages. Not all e-mail readers can handle graphics, special fonts, color, or other features. • Indicate if the message may be forwarded. Do not forward messages unless you have the au-
thor's permission to do so.
• When forwarding e-mail, indicate your reason rather than simply forwarding it. Add a few words of explanation.
• Copy people who need to know. If the whole team needs to be aware of the message's con- tent, then copy all of them. If only a few do, then copy only those who need to know.
• Use abbreviations for months or spell them out when discussing dates. or December 8, rather than 12/8.) Different countries have different conventions for listing dates, and listing just the numbers may be confusing.
• Avoid words that are unnecessarily complex or could have ambiguous meanings or create inappropriate tone (such as "demand" instead of "ask," or "initiate" instead of "begin"). Choose words that are likely going to have the intended meaning when translated.
• Try to work out differences in rather than via e-mail. If you are having a disagree- ment with a team member, pick up the phone rather than attempting to work out the difficulties in negative e-mails.
These guidelines are common sense and apply to most situations, whether or not the team members are from many cultures. But when the team is spread out across the world and must work together virtually, following these rules can make the difference between an on-time successful project, and a costly failure.
The Evaluation Process
In the business world, each team member's performance will be evaluated at some point. It is critical that everyone involved in the project knows who will do the eval- uating and with what criteria. It's good practice to have team members evaluated
Exercises 165
by the same person rather than diffusing the process to a number of outside man- agers. Publish the criteria and the evaluation timeline to set the team's expectations.
Working across cultures can be a fascinating experience, but it takes patience and a willingness to step outside of your own expectations to see from others' eyes and hear from others' ears. Constantly validate your assumptions; and lis- ten carefully and without judgment. With practice, you cannot only become an effective global communicator, but you can learn more about yourself and your own culture as well.
Quick Review
Multicultural communication requires sensitivity to the multiple elements that make up each person's To communicate successfully with people of other nationalities and cultures, keep the following guidelines in mind:
• Research the cultural "norms" of your targel audience, but avoid harmful stereotypes.
• Pay attention to the key areas of cultural difference: Big Picture vs. Details, Monochronic Tasking vs. Polychrome Tasking (one thing at a time vs. multi- tasking), Formal vs. Informal, Expressing Opinions Directly vs. and Feedback as Validation vs. Feedback as Interference.
• thinking patterns are often analytical, whereas Eastern thinking pat- terns are often relational.
• Collaborating in a multicultural team works if team members establish team norms and expectations up front. It is especially important to determine at the projects beginning the team's decision-making process, review process, and evaluation process.
Successful e-mail across cultures requires concise, unambiguous even more so than the messages you send to people in your own avoid
Exercises
1. Research companies in your local area to find how many include cross- communication as part of their daily work. How do they bridge the cultural differences?
2. Think about the stereotypes of your own culture. Write down the image peo- ple who don't know you may have of your country, your town, your
hood. Discuss where these stereotypes may have come from. To what extent are they true?
3. As a class project or as an individual, establish e-mail correspondence with a technical communication class (or student) in another country where the stu- dents speak enough English for basic Exchange information
Chapter 7 / Communicating with Other Cultures
about cultural norms, communication styles, and other topics discussed in this chapter.
4. Choose a particular country or region and research its culture using books, films, and personal interviews (if possible). Create a cultural profile of the area, paying special attention to the ways people who live there communicate.
Community Action Project
If you live in an area with immigrant population, visit one of the local centers devoted to helping get settled in their new land. Offer to work with some of the staff to develop written guides to aid with housing, finding jobs, navi- gating the transit systems, and other resources as needed. You may that you can write the material in English or you may need to collaborate with a translator. Either way, you will benefit from the experience of communicating with people from other cultures, and they will benefit from the information you provide for their use.
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