COMMUNICATION FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SECRETS
Rus Slater

Copyright

William Collins

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WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2020

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by HarperCollinsPublishers

Published in Canada by HarperCollinsCanada. www.harpercollins.ca

Published in Australia by HarperCollinsAustralia. www.harpercollins.au

Published in India by HarperCollinsPublishersIndia. www.harpercollins.co.in

Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Rus Slater asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008389888

Ebook Edition © January 2020 ISBN: 9780008133849

Version: 2019-11-19

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

1 Listen and look

1.1 Listen to and for the ‘prepared speech’

1.2 ‘Look’ for the indicators of cultural differences

1.3 Check for real understanding

1.4 Learn about their situation

1.5 Beware generalizations

2 Say and write

2.1 KISS – Keep It Short and Simple

2.2 Explain TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms)

2.3 Avoid idioms

2.4 Beware interpretation errors

2.5 Beware translation errors

2.6 Be aware of cultural/national differences between speakers of the same language

2.7 Consider accents and dialects

2.8 People’s names

2.9 Test readability

3 Technology and media

3.1 Written communications

3.2 Face to face verbal communications

3.3 Using the phone

3.4 Video calls

3.5 Conference calls

3.6 ‘Screen-sharing’ calls

4 Taking the environment into account

4.1 Time zones and time differences

4.2 Local working practices with regard to time

4.3 Local office facilities

4.4 Local climatic conditions and seasons

4.5 Local purchasing capacities

4.6 Local attitudes to family, friends and others

5 Netiquette

5.1 Get your salutation right

5.2 Prof reed you’re email

5.3 Write ‘good’ subject lines

5.4 Use the timing capacity

5.5 Copying and read receipts

5.6 Use a signature block – it helps

5.7 Write and read emails wisely

5.8 Consider ‘social media’

6 Intercontinental differences

6.1 Be honest

6.2 Communicating with Chinese business people

6.3 Communicating with Indian business people

6.4 Communicating with British business people

6.5 Communicating with American business people

6.6 Communicating with German business people

6.7 Communicating with Japanese business people

6.8 Communicating with Russian business people

7 Communicating with a remote team

7.1 Have a communication plan

7.2 Create and maintain a virtual presence

7.3 Use the technology to replicate the communication of an F2F team

7.4 Be a good host

7.5 ‘Slow down to speed up!’

7.6 Run good virtual team meetings

7.7 Communicate with your people’s other (local) managers

7.8 Think ‘Goose’!

7.9 Look for the signs that it is all going wrong

Footnotes

Jargon buster

About the Book

About the Author

About the Publisher

Communication is critical, communicating intercontinentally is complex

The world is getting smaller. Most of us will probably have clients, or suppliers, in another country at some time or other.

And if we don’t we’ll probably belong to a business community of practice that is global. The way we communicate across these boundaries can make the difference between success and failure.

With this book you should be able to communicate effectively with colleagues, suppliers and customers who come from different cultures, speak different native languages and live in different environments to your own. The chapters are:

1 | Listen and look; seek first to understand: with international communication there are some extra critical elements to this;

2 | Say and write: nine simple and straightforward ‘rules’ to help you to get your message across to others across the seas;

3 | Technology and media: how to make contact in order to be as effective as possible;

4 | Taking the environment into account: this helps you to consider the differences in the working environments that exist between where you are and where they are;

5 | Netiquette: eight secrets to help you to master the mouse;

6 | Intercontinental differences: this chapter aims to try to highlight some of the major cultural differences between people from different nations, without slipping into racial stereotypes;

7 | Communicating with a remote team: this chapter aims to distil the best practice for managing a remote team.

It is easy to cause offence if you don’t understand the people you are communicating with. But if you understand them, you can be as successful as if you were communicating with your own family.

Communication is a two-way process. Many books on the topic, and many people, will start addressing the issue of communication by looking at the matter of transmitting information to another party. But receiving information, and understanding the environment in which your message is received, is critically important. This is particularly vital when you are trying to get a message across to someone who doesn’t speak the same language as you as their native tongue. Or someone who is in a completely different time zone or working environment. You may not be able to see each other so there may be no non-verbal cues to their real meaning. This chapter aims to help you to avoid some of the more common errors in international communication.

1.1
Listen to and for the ‘prepared speech’

When people are communicating in a non-native language they often prepare far more, and are much less spontaneous, than if they were talking in their mother tongue. One common element of this is a prepared speech which they may actually read from a script or they may have rehearsed to the point of memory.

There are several ways that you can tell when someone is reciting a prepared speech:

▪ They tend to plunge straight in with the minimum of ‘phatic’ communication.

▪ They tend to speak quite quickly with few pauses or hesitations.

▪ There is seldom any ‘um’ or ‘er’ in their speech.

▪ The delivery tends to be quite monotone with little modulation.

▪ If they are interrupted, they tend to lose the flow of what they were saying.

Listening to prepared speeches can be quite annoying for many people; the characteristics listed above don’t make interesting listening and the delivery style prevents (or at least discourages) you from asking any questions. However …

“To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well” John Marshall, Chief Justice US Supreme Court, 1801–35

A prepared speech provides the speaker with a huge amount of psychological comfort that they are making their mark on the dialogue. It gives the speaker confidence that he or she is ‘present’ and contributing, when they may be struggling with unfamiliar words, phrases and sentence structure. If there are others involved in the dialogue who have the same concerns, it establishes a degree of camaraderie. So if you are on the receiving end of a clearly prepared speech and you find it annoying and are concerned that it is taking up time that could be spent on more pressing matters, tough it out!

▪ Listen.

▪ Thank the speaker.

▪ Summarize what you heard.

▪ Ask if others agree, or ask what parts they agree with.

▪ Offer you own opinions.

This may make initial meetings a little slow but in the longer run it will pay dividends as people recognize that they can communicate with confidence in a language which to them may be foreign.

Think about more than just the message people are giving you, be considerate of their need to be listened to.

1.2
‘Look’ for the indicators of cultural differences

Biologically all humans may be the same but our cultures are different across the globe. When you are communicating with people from a culture different to your own you need to be constantly looking out for signs that a cultural difference may be getting in the way of the message you are trying to get across.

Consider the areas where there may be different expectations or levels of comfort:

▪ Forms of address. The practice of using people’s first or given names varies from country to country. There are also differences regarding the use of titles with family names. Try to check before you meet/talk/contact someone. If you can’t find out in advance, ask at the opening of the communication.

▪ Greetings. Culturally appropriate greetings are immensely diverse. Different cultures expect or eschew different forms of handshake, kisses and ‘air-kisses’ (one, two or three?), hugs and bows. The exchange of business cards at a greeting is also culturally important to many peoples but of little consequence to others – make a mistake and the whole relationship starts on the wrong foot.

▪ Physical contact. In some cultures it is a friendly gesture to pat someone on the back or touch their arm, elbow or shoulder during a conversation. In other cultures this is seen as overly familiar or invasive, either can lead to embarrassment.

▪ Self-aggrandizement. In many cultures self-confidence is a positive plus, but in others a more humble, self-effacing attitude is more acceptable.

▪ Taking an interest in a person’s private life. Seen as evidence of caring in some cultures, in others it is seen as prying until or unless you are well acquainted.

You will be less likely to make any cultural faux pas if you find out, in advance, about the cultural ‘norms’ of the people you are going to interact with.

Whether or not you do, look out for signs that you may have committed a potentially embarrassing boob:

▪ Someone frowning when you wouldn’t expect them to be.

▪ A sudden silence immediately after you say or do something.

▪ A physical reaction such as a person pulling away from you.

▪ Monosyllabic answers to questions that would normally elicit more response.

Don’t try to replicate the other party’s cultural style; this may come over as patronizing and mimicry. Simply be aware of the differences and avoid causing embarrassment.

1.3
Check for real understanding

Over the years numerous comedy sketches and real-life anecdotes have produced belly laughs or awkward situations based upon a simple lack of understanding of cross-cultural communication. The problem is sometimes simply that one party clearly doesn’t understand the other and sometimes it is due to both parties having a clear understanding but the understandings being different.

Here are some DOs and DON’Ts to help you ensure that you avoid the situation that I (and countless others) fell into:

DOs

▪ Allow extra time to brief people who are not native speakers of your own language.

▪ Issue your input in short chunks.

▪ Get them to explain back to you their understanding of the task, situation, standard or resources after each ‘chunk’.

▪ Allow them time to make notes – the bluntest of pencils is better than the sharpest of minds when trying to remember something you heard in a foreign language.

▪ Once you have finished, get them to summarize to you their understanding.

DON’Ts

▪ Assume that you can brief a non-native speaker in the same time that you can brief native speakers. Be aware that this may create tensions if you are briefing the two ‘types’ of people together.

▪ Ask ‘closed’ qualifying questions: ‘OK, does everyone understand/agree with that?’ You are almost bound to get a resounding ‘Yes.’

▪ Don’t take silence to equal consent/acceptance.

▪ Leave it too long before you check that instructions are being carried out.

case study In the 1980s I was a young officer in the British Army. Attached to my unit was a unit of Gurkha specialists. At the end of a briefing the team, including the Gurkha in charge, went off to join their men and get on with the tasks they had been given. Several hours later I visited the Gurkha team and found that nothing had been done at all. I asked the senior chap if he had understood his instructions, ‘Yes, Sir,’ he replied. So I asked if he was now able to get on with the job in hand, ‘Yes, Sir,’ he replied. But he didn’t move to start. So I asked what the problem was. ‘Yes, Sir,’ he replied again. It dawned on me that he was too proud to admit that he hadn’t understood the instructions and I had been too dozy to realise that I wasn’t being a very good communicator.

Leave nothing to chance; check that everyone has a common understanding.

1.4
Learn about their situation

When you are in the same office, talking to a person face to face, it is easier to understand their situation. When you are communicating with someone in a different country, it is easy to forget that their situation may be completely different to yours. This will probably have an effect on their perception of you and your message.

You may be sitting in your office in Europe or North America in the late morning. You are surrounded by colleagues sitting at their workstations in a large open-plan office. Everyone is wearing a suit and tie. The air conditioning is humming quietly in the background. You have your screen on your desk in front of you showing the latest figures. Outside the window you can see snow on the ground. You are on the phone talking to a colleague in another country. What is their environment like? Do you know?

Your colleague could be talking to you as she walks around the production facility. There could be manufacturing machinery working as she walks past. It could be 97?F and 78% humidity. She could be wearing a pair of shorts and tee shirt. It could be dark outside and 11 o’clock at night where she is; the night shift started 30 minutes ago. The local accounts office is closed for the night and most of the management are at home in bed.

A question you may innocently ask may be impossible for her to answer for another eight hours. But her environment is so different to yours that you have no idea how much pressure that innocent question may put her under.

Take a bit of time to investigate the situation in which your international partners work, whether they are colleagues, suppliers or customers. Even people who seem to have the same type of job as you may be in a very different situation; local politics, the climate or weather, the season, the time zone and local working practices can all make for very different circumstances.

Then try to remember this each time you speak with them or send them an email or text message.

You dialled their number and they answered but it is easy to forget that they may be in a completely different environment to you.

1.5
Beware generalizations

OK, that is ironic; to start a section warning of the danger of generalizations with a generalization. This book contains plenty of generalizations; it talks about people from specific countries as if they were stereotypes. It talks about media of communication as if everyone used them in exactly the same way. Clearly that is dangerous … so beware these generalizations.

When we accept any generalization as a ‘rule’ we are bound to make a massive mistake somewhere down the line. This relates to generalizations about people:

▪ Not all people of a particular race behave in exactly the same way; they will have been exposed to a greater or lesser degree to people from different cultures. They will base their opinions on different life experiences. They will have read and followed different ‘thought-leaders’.

▪ No one person from any particular race or culture can be deemed to speak for their entire nation, regardless of their position in their national hierarchy. Neither will they know what everyone else in their native country thinks about any given topic.

▪ It can be deeply insulting to make assumptions based on national stereotyping; so don’t.

▪ Beware also generalizations regarding generations; not everyone under the age of 25 is on Facebook. And some people over 50 are.

Beware generalizations about methods of communicating:

▪ Not all international phone carriers charge the same rates.

▪ Calls from Country A to Country B may be charged at a different rate to calls from Country B to Country A.

▪ VOIP may work brilliantly between two specific areas, but may be appallingly ineffective between two other specific areas.

▪ Some people are brilliant at running virtual meetings using conference call or VOIP, other people are absolutely useless (trust me, I’ve ‘attended’ some fantastic international remote meetings and some complete wastes of time!).

▪ Sometimes a phone conversation is the best way to communicate and sometimes an email is actually much, much better.

▪ International call routing now means that a call can show on your phone as originating in London, but the caller may be in Lahore.

When communicating internationally it is really important to engage your brain before operating your mouth.

Now it is time to open your mouth or put ‘pen to paper’. This chapter contains nine simple and straightforward ‘rules’ that, if followed, should help you to get your message across to others over the seas. Some of these rules are of the ‘thou shalt not’ variety; things to avoid like the plague (for example, using idioms such as ‘avoid like the plague’).

Some of them are exhortations to consciously do something; such as explaining acronyms and testing readability!

Some are caveats or warnings which highlight things that you probably wouldn’t need to think of when communicating with your own nationality.

2.1
KISS – Keep It Short and Simple

When you are communicating with people who are not native speakers of your own language, remember that in their heads they may have to translate every word you say. Then, once they have translated the words themselves, they have to analyse the meaning. This is not an easy process. It takes time.

Keep it short:

If I’m trying to translate what you just said, and at the same time you say something else, it can become very confusing.

I’ll probably miss one thing completely.

Or I might lose both!

So when speaking, keep your interjections short. Only cover one topic per ‘soundbite’.

Leave a pause for people to absorb what you have said.

Ask for confirmation that that part of the message has been understood.

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead” Blaise Pascal (1623–62)

This is also good practice with written communication. Try to keep texts or emails to a single screen (bearing in mind that many people read their email on a smart phone, so a ‘screen’ may be only 50 or 60 words).

This will take more effort on your part; it is actually easier to ‘ramble’ than it is to be concise, so plan enough time to think about paring your communications down for the international audience.

Keep it simple:

This isn’t a matter of dumbing-down or being patronizing. However, try to use simpler words rather than longer or more complex ones; so for example:

Use … | Instead of …
Make happen | Facilitate
Lose value | Depreciation
Belief | Paradigm
Combined effect | Synergy

Short and simple is harder than long and freewheeling, but it is worth it in the long run.

2.2
Explain TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms)

Most industry sectors and organizations abound with acronyms (not necessarily three-letter ones). They are a useful and usually valid way of saving time when constantly referring to something that can be abbreviated. However, this can be very confusing to people who speak a different language, especially when an acronym gets further abbreviated; for instance, Bayerische Motoren Werke becomes BMW becomes ‘Beemer’.

Acronyms can create confusion in several ways:

▪ I heard the letters but wasn’t sure it was an acronym or a word I wasn’t aware of; did you say TLA or tee elay?

▪ I heard the letters and know it is an acronym but I don’t know what they stand for and I’m embarrassed to ask.

▪ In English the acronym for the defence alliance is NATO but in French it is OTAN.

▪ The acronym makes sense in your language but not in mine; for instance in English we talk about 5 a.m. or 5 p.m. These are acronyms from the Latin words ante meridian and post meridian. The Italians don’t use the Latin or the abbreviation but actually say (in Italian) 5 in the morning or 5 in the evening.

▪ An acronym can sound like a word with a different meaning; for instance, NASA the American Space Agency and Nasser the Arabic name, or SALT the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and salt the chemical or foodstuff.

▪ Any acronym can have numerous meanings even in the same language; the acronym SAS can mean a British military unit, a Scandinavian airline, an environmental charity for surfers or a software brand.

While the context can provide a clue as to which acronym you are using, avoiding the use of an acronym altogether simply makes it easier for the other party to understand the message … which is your aim after all.

Never use an acronym unless you KNOW (for sure) what it means.

Acronyms help people in-the-know to communicate faster. They hinder people not-in-the-know and make it slower.

2.3
Avoid idioms

idiom

() noun

1 A group of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of the constituent words, as for example (It was raining) cats and dogs

2 Linguistic usage that is natural to native speakers of a language

3 The characteristic artistic style of an individual, school or period

As native speakers we often use idioms. They can, however, be very confusing to people who are not familiar with our idiomatic phrases.

Here is an A to Z of common business idioms in English (from across the English-speaking world), check whether you use them regularly …

A. Ahead of the curve | B. Bring it on | C. Corner the market | D. Drop the ball
E. Eyes wide open | F. Foot in the door | G. Game plan | H. Hit the nail on the head
I. In the black | J. come-to-Jesus moment | K. Knock yourself out | L. Low-hanging fruit
M. Make no bones about it | N. No brainer | O. get Outta here! | P. Pink Slip or P-45
Q. Quart into a pint pot | R. Raise the bar | S. Swimlane (as a verb) | T. Think on your feet
U. Under the radar | V. Virgin territory | W. Window of opportunity | X. generation X
Y. Your guess is as good as mine | Z. Zero tolerance |  |

… and if you do, make sure that you are careful when communicating internationally.

Idiomatic language is confusing enough, but also be aware of the tendency to create new words that will similarly present problems for interpreters and individuals when used in international situations:

Co-opertition: a compound of co-operation and competition used as a sort of alternative to ‘friendly rivalry’

Blamestorming: Having an apparently open critiquing session which is really about pointing the finger of blame at someone

Idiomatic language may feel more comfortable to the speaker but ‘can confuse the Hell out of’ the listener.