The art of avoiding misunderstandings
We invite you today to dive into the world of high-level intercultural management.
We are in a world of contact and today there is over-communication, ie excessive information. Who says overcommunication, also says no more communication at all because we all know that the more messages there are and the less they impact us.
This leads to the fact that it is no longer necessary to be better today but different. This is the blue ocean strategy theorized by Chan Kim & Mauborgne. It is therefore necessary to try to be permanently different while remaining within the objective of the demand of its own customers.
In an international environment with people from very different backgrounds, you have to innovate. To teach the teams, train the employees, you can organize management courses in “field immersion” bringing together people from the company with different cultures. The results are surprising.
“Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask “What else could this mean?”
Shannon Alder
Intercultural training in the field takes place over several days and makes it possible to concretize something, to respond to a specific cultural problem. For example, by observing in the field how Irish and Indians manage a crisis situation. For example, how do they connect point A to point B with puzzles to solve and a map that does not necessarily include all the information, tools that do not all work and other surprises…
If everyone can play a role in the company, on the ground, the natural comes back at a gallop. We therefore seek to memorize acquired knowledge by using the emotional vectors of the brain. We all know that we remember something that has marked us better than something that has gone unnoticed.
The world is vast. It is difficult to mention a method of adapting behavior that can be common to all countries. There are, however, certain keys.
For those who are a bit interested in the field of interculturalism, we have anthropologists, sociologists who wanted to model culture to make it less abstract and above all to understand it better. They found variables, points of reference on which we can rely for a better understanding of the “Other”.
The keys to successful multicultural understanding
These keys are:
- The relationship people have with nature and ecology,
- The relationship with human nature. Is she good or bad?
- The relationship with time. Is it cyclical (Present) or linear (With start and end)?
- The relationship with others and the group. Individualist or collectivist culture? This belief leads to the relationship that everyone has with the hierarchy,
- The relationship with oneself. Be or have. To do or to become?
It is necessary to help the teams to understand these variables and with the experience to use them to be more effective. We must always be careful of the simplism of generalization.
“Never waste your time to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you.”
Dream Hampton
Happy CEO 