Cross Cultural Communication for Managers

Managers must become expert cross–cultural communicators if they wish to succeed in today’s global environment. Culture consists of the attitudes, values and behavior in a given group of people most of the time.

Managerial communication is communication in a management or administration context to achieve a desired result. Some means of communication can be writing a memo, running a meeting, interviewing an applicant, preparing a presentation, etc. To be an effective communicator in any given culture, managers should consider the following issues before they begin to communicate:

1. Setting communication objectives – managers should define specifically as to what is it that they want their audience to do as a result of the communication. If they are working in a different culture, they might have to reconsider their communication objective, asking themselves the following two questions:

                               a)      Is my objective realistic, given the culture?

                               b)      Is my time frame realistic, given the culture?

2. Choosing a communication style – Once the manager has established a communication objective, consider the most effective communication style to accomplish it. Different styles can be used in different situations:

                a)      “Tell”: to inform or explain, when one needs to control the content of what he is communicating and doesn’t need audience involvement;

                b)      “Sell”: to persuade people to do something differently—it needs some involvement from the audience;

                c)       “Consult”: to interact with the people with whom one is communicating and whose input one may need;

                d)      “Join”: when one wants to collaborate or brainstorm with one’s audience, whose ideas form the message content.

3. Assessing and enhancing credibility – Regardless of what communication style one uses, his credibility will always have a tremendous impact on his communication effectiveness. Five factors, based on a synthesis of the social power theories of French and Raven (1959) and Kotter (1979), affect his credibility:

                a)      rank or hierarchical power;

                b)      personal goodwill toward an audience;

                c)       expertise or knowledge;

                d)      image or attractiveness; and

                e)      the values and standards shared with your audience.

Different cultures value different aspects of credibility more than others.

4. Selecting and motivating audiences – The culture in which one is communicating often has a huge impact on how he chooses and appeals to his audience. He should have an answer to the following questions:

              a)      Should you select or include different people?

              b)      What will appeal to them?

              c)       What is their attitude toward work?

5. Setting a message strategy – Based in part on audience analysis, message strategy represents a fifth set of issues to consider for effective communication. Cultural norms will affect decisions about the message structure, channel, and format.

6. Overcoming language difficulties – Language difficulties represent one of the biggest barriers to cross–cultural communication. Even if English is spoken by everyone involved, dialects, accents, slang, jargon, and code words vary tremendously among different countries, regions, subcultures, industries, organizations, and professions.

7. Using appropriate nonverbal behaviors – Although managers generally understand that language differences can cause major barriers to communication, they may not recognize that nonverbal barriers can cause even greater problems. Some scholars, such as Knapp (1980), estimate that 65 to 90 percent of what we communicate is, in fact, nonverbal. Keep in mind three sets of challenges in cross–cultural nonverbal communication: body language and vocal qualities, space around him, and greeting behaviors.