Cross Cultural Team Communications
Facilitated by Jim Brosseau
For MITACS
www.mitacs.ca
Richard D. Lewis
“Cultural behaviour is the end product of
collected wisdom, filtered and passed down
through hundreds of generations as shared core
beliefs, values, assumptions, notions, and
persistent action patterns.”
www.mitacs.ca
Agenda
• Exploration of experiences and outcomes
• Some models to describe what is happening
• Ideas to turn diversity into a strength
Your Experiences
• What have you encountered when you first
found yourself
– working with people from a different culture or
– immersed in a different cultural environment?
• Type your experiences in the question box
Outcomes From These Experiences
• Think about your immediate reactions to
these experiences:
• Identify these reactions in the question box
What’s happening here?
What do you see?
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The Ladder of Inference
Action
• Based on beliefs
Beliefs
• Adopted based on conclusions
Conclusions
• Drawn based on assumptions
Reflexive Loop:
Assumptions our beliefs
• Made based on added meanings
influence what
Meanings
• Added (cultural and personal) we observe
Select
• Selected from observations
Observe Peter Senge,
• Data and experiences
The Fifth Discipline
Cultural Dimensions
geert-hofstede.com
Landscape of Diversity
Category Form Type of Diversity
External factors Who we are Age, gender, race, ethnicity
What we do Appearance, culture,
religion, lifestyle
Internal factors Long-term Personality, attitude,
cognitive biases
Transitive Mood, feelings, current
situation
Organizational factors Personal Education, experience,
skills
Team Position, seniority,
influence
Organization Hierarchy, power distance
How We Communicate
Words
7%
Tone of voice
38% Body language
55%
Albert Mehrabian
Silent Messages
Impact on Team Performance
• How we communicate
• How we make decisions
• How we deal with conflict
• How we deal with Space and Time
• All can affect how we work together
What we can do
Diversity as a Strength
• Diversity (cultural or otherwise) brings:
– opportunity to grow and learn from others
– broadens capabilities of the team
– exploration of new, innovative solutions
• Diversity is required for teams to tackle today’s
complex challenges
– diverse skills and perspectives required
– other forms of diversity inevitable, so manage them
Sensitivity and Appreciation
• Curiosity, inquisitiveness
• Watch for feelings – is there a cultural basis?
– frustration, surprise, annoyance, demotivated,
puzzled, emotional
• Awareness of your own ‘ladder of inference’
– validate those steps when things ‘just don’t fit’
• Recognize, though, the models don’t explain
everything
Learning and Adjusting
• Everyone has strengths, insights, blind spots
– what are yours?
• Consider the culture you are interacting with
– what are your common concepts and values?
– what are the differences from your culture to be
aware of?
Conscious Exploration
• Take time to explore differences as they arise
– pause and reflect, use conscious conversation
– seek insight and reasoning behind behaviour
• Avoid cultural irritants and taboos
– Learn all aspects of the language and behaviours
• Explain your culture to others
– express your cultural needs
Next Steps
• Culture alone does not explain all differences
– just 1 form of diversity
• Wide variation within a country
– you may be unlike others in your country in some
ways
• Become an appreciative student of cultural
differences and communication styles
Questions?
Further Reading
- Geert Hofstede
- geerthofstede.com
- numerous books
- Richard D. Lewis
- When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures,
2005
- Erin Meyer
- The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible
Boundaries of Global Business, 2014
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Thanks!
Supplementary slides
Power Distance
geerthofstede.com
www.mitacs.ca
Individualism
geert-hofstede.com
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Masculinity
geerthofstede.com
www.mitacs.ca
Uncertainty Avoidance
geerthofstede.com
www.mitacs.ca
Long Term Orientation
geerthofstede.com
www.mitacs.ca
Indulgence
geerthofstede.com
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