Impacting your global communication strategy
Have you ever had to call someone from a different country and conduct a meeting in a different language? For those of you that said, “yes”, you understand how complicated and frightening this can be. You can have the most specific and detailed agenda, but if you do not understand the person you are conducting business with, the meeting becomes worthless. This is very frustrating and creates roadblocks to success for many companies. For some organizations, global communication is part of the day-to-day business, for others, this is uncharted territory. For those that have not conducted global business, this can be a nerve wracking experience. It is not as simple as using a web-based language translator to communicate effectively. Besides the language roadblock, the organization has to understand the business culture and its associated nuances.
An Assessment of the UK’s Relationship with Foreign Languages
To begin to understand how to adopt better global communication, we must first understand the process of communication. Communication is a very complex activity which some still struggle with. There is in fact an actual process involved in communicating effectively. According to Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts (2013), The communication process is as follows: sender sends message, encoding occurs (possibility of noise/bias/error), message goes through channel process, decoding occurs (by the receiver) and finally the receiver discerns the message.
Partners In Communication
Because there is a lot of room for error in communication, especially in a global environment, organizations must focus resolving the challenges of communication in a global context. Starting by bringing attention and development as it pertains to negotiating across cultures. If the company requires that employees negotiate with others around the world, it is the company’s responsibility to provide the tools needed to for their employees to communicate effectively. The complexity of a dealing with foreigners with other beliefs, can create a roadblock of misunderstanding. Generally, culture, language and business acumen can be so different that it can impede successful negotiations. This can be true, especially when there is trouble translating a simple and even general message. Moran, Abramson and Moran (2014) details that, “Foreign negotiations often display many different styles of logic and reasoning”.
Other cultures have their own belief systems, vision and understanding of what they want the business to be and hold very different ethics and values. Trying to reach an agreement with varied beliefs and expectations tends to complicate the negotiation process and or reach an agreement. Other global communication challenges that may arise include: (1) national Character, (2) cross-cultural noise, and (3) interpreters and translations.
To help overcome some of these roadblocks, organizations must familiarize themselves with the culture of the person(s) they will be doing business with and under what context, this helps to eliminate biases. It is also important to remove biases towards that country and its beliefs. An effective way to do this is to create teams (Olead 410, lesson 3). Having the opinions of others on your team and allowing them to proofread your correspondence can help to reduce biases and prejudice. Lastly, groups aid in having more eyes and ears to review conversations, correspondence and announcements, and help increase chances of having better outcomes.
Artful Thinkers, featured an article (Impacting Your Global Communications Strategy, 2015) by Jamie Glass that advised the following when it came to understanding the global audience you will be doing business with:
“One content type does not fit all. Along with demographic definitions and assigned attributes, there are requirements to understand socio-graphic and behavioral traits. These can amount to hundreds and imagine defining these across multiple geographies. It requires time, market experience and research to match target to content. Culturally, there are differences in approach, positioning and key market messages that without proper definition can offend or create irreparable harm to your brand or organization.”
To achieve effective global communication, a company must first understand the country, review the culture and be aware of cultural nuances that affect the business you will be conducting. Have a plan for the meeting with goals to be reached so that nothing is missed. Lastly, take the meeting seriously but do not get offended by cultural traits that do not impact that process.
References:
Glass, J. (2015). Artful Thinkers. Impacting Your Global Communication Strategy. Retrieved from: http://www.artfulthinkers.com/impacting-your-global-communications-strategy
Leadership Made Simple. (2012). Leading Change. The importance of Communication skills in a Global Market. Retrieved from: http://leadershipmadesimple.com/the-importance-of-communication-skills-in-a-global-market/
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences (Ninth ed.). New York: Routledge.
Norris, Ashley. (2017). WOLFESTONE. An Assessment of the UK’s Relationship with Foreign Languages. Retrieved from: http://www.wolfestone.co.uk/blog/an-assessment-of-the-uks-relationship-with-foreign-languages/
Penn State University. (2018). Olead 410: Leadership in a global context. Lesson 04: Global Communication. Retrieved from: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1916378/modules/items/23640528
The Importance of Effective Global Communication blog post was very well written and I fully understood the frustration of a language barrier that occurs when speaking to someone from another country.
Although I have not traveled abroad but I have dealt with many individuals who come from other countries where English is not the primary language. As English is my main language and I can speak very little French and Spanish. I can relate to having language conflicts, also the possibility of translation mishaps. The biggest issue is trying understand someone who is trying to piece their statements into what little English language they may know, I run into this a lot with telemarketing calls.
I do recall a language barrier issue I dealt within the last year, a gentleman who was deaf came into my work place, he was asking for help for his wife and himself. I knew a little sign language but it was much quicker to write back and forth on a piece of paper. I escorted him to our guess services and volunteer office within the hospital, who was able to get a machine that we used from translation.
You must keep an open mind when conversing with others, no one wants to offend someone due to a misunderstanding from a language barrier,