Everyday I am face to face, or ear to ear rather, with clients recovering from disaster. I am an emergency care representative for a non profit that offers help to people after a disaster. Data entry and recording information might seem like it should be an easy thing to do, but the clientele that calls is often in a state of trauma, shock, panic, and possibly disbelief that a fire has just destroyed all their belongings. Within all this is my job to gather and record very exact information to people that may have a hard time explaining about what just occurred. Add to that language barriers, people who aren’t able to articulate due to poor language skills, and those who are simply distraught, it’s not easy. Trying to extrapolate information under those difficult circumstances, which is why learning to use skills that communicate with an international or multicultural audience is essential.
I have to tap into a number of skills to communicate with clients, that relate to intercultural leadership communication. Emotional intelligence, patience, knowing when to push for more information, knowing when to just let people “talk”. It’s a gentle style of negotiating, to get clients to give me more details and make them feel like I am present in their hardship and not desensitized to their trauma. “How to negotiate with anyone, anywhere in the world” notes linguistic abilities, patience, listening, using language that is simple and accessible, and preparation as qualities that relate to the competency of a negotiators skills. Subtleties that show that although the main idea is to achieve a business agreement or common ground, but also that you are adept at communication and respect and accept the constraints of a conversation that occurs from people that are of a different culture than you.
Many times I have to employ a translator to communicate with a client. When this occurs I try to use simple language as noted in “how to negotiate with anyone, anywhere in the world” as to not complicate the conversation with American idioms only common to me. Although we are on the phone, I use cues for when to know to interject and when to continue. Since communication is surely multi level and used on many platforms, it would be remiss telephone communication skills.
Some days what I do is hard. Listening and trying to hear people through an emergency isn’t what I’d imagine I’d be doing. Some days I leave feeling like I could have done a better job, some days I am overwhelmed with hearing trauma. Overall I know the need to hear these clients is greater than my feelings. The paramount importance is the effort we put into trying to understand others who need to be heard. Being kind and understanding is a skill that surpasses any culture. 
Moran, R., Abramson, N., & Moran, S. (2011). Managing Cultural Differences (Ninth Edition). New York, New York: Butterworth-Heinemann
Acuff, F. L. (1993). How to negotiate anything with anyone anywhere around the world. New York: American Management Association.
Our Penn State Lesson 4 commentary leaves us with this thought: “Communication is interpersonal acts that exchange meaning and information” (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2013, p . 126). While there are many models of communication, the basic process involves encoding and decoding a message through a channel between a sender and a receiver” (p. 5).
This basic description of communication is a great summation of both the fact that we are both sending and receiving, and the fact that communication is personal and contains meaning – perhaps beyond words. I loved your statement at the end of your blog post: “The paramount importance is the effort we put into trying to understand others who need to be heard. Being kind and understanding is a skill that surpasses any culture.” I absolutely agree.
Reference:
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2018). OLEAD 410: Leadership in Global Context. Lesson 4: Global Communication. Retrieved September 16, 2018 from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1942644/modules/items/24935380
What an excellent topic to cover for our lessons this week. Communication is difficult in the most ideal of situations. Add to that the trauma of losing their house, possibly a loved one, or any other personal affects and I’d imagine the effective communication rate falls dramatically. I bet it is difficult to get people to stick to the facts and not branch off on tangents about their lives.
I traveled the world recently and only just started to realize how much idioms do not translate to other cultures. Often times, I myself can’t even explain why they are phrases, only what they mean. It was difficult to avoid using them in conversation as they are so prevalent in our common speech. This sounds like you have some great skills to use to balance both of these difficulties. Good job!