I have worked for a global company for 7 months now and communicate with employees in several different countries.

7 Comments

1. AnonymousJuly 2,2023 at 9:55PM UTC

   Working with different cultures and languages can be a challenge. I would suggest starting with a Google search to learn as much as you can about the culture of your co-workers. Most of these issues I've found are a "language barrier" more than a culture barrier. For example, when I talked to a colleague in Germany, everything he stated was a "problem," which I found offensive, and I assumed he thought that we were somehow to "blame" for the issue at hand. After meeting him in person, I learned that "problem" could have been translated into several more benign words from German, depending on the context.

   When I was in Mexico in a business setting, the most common answer I got to a question was "yes," as there was a cultural issue in saying "no," or acknowledging they did not understand the question. Learning new languages could also be necessary, as is using questions that cannot be answered with "yes" or "no" (i.e., leading questions) or using colloquialisms.

   This problem has different answers depending on the languages and cultures you deal with.

2. Clydene HorriganJuly 5,2023 at 5:04PM UTC

   My team in India says “I have a doubt.” What they mean in English is, “I gave a question.” Like you, I originally found it frustrating to be doubted so often until I learned what they really meant.

3. AnonymousJuly 4,2023 at 3:06AM UTC

   I've been in global roles, and it's helped me to get to know my colleagues especially the ones that work with most often. I learned a lot through these conversations. I also learned that pace is very different in certain countries or regions outside of the US. Also, if I have calls with my colleagues, I try to follow up to recap our conversation and understanding of what we discussed and actions required and timeline for avoidance of doubt and misunderstanding. This has helped in having some situations avoid getting into a fire drill mode, but it's not perfect.

4. Jacqueline LaughlinJuly 5,2023 at 12:17PM UTC

   what a great question.. you are advocating for the need for cross cultural education? where do people have the experience of doing this BEFORE they get to the workplace? I am curious about the experiences of others. with my own children and grands: without a doubt it has been travel, recreation, having a meal, camp and play, and non threatening social settings that have made the difference in learning how to be with others.

5. AnonymousJuly 5,2023 at 12:39PM UTC

   I've worked with international teams for 18 years, and I would suggest that you communicate with each local team individually when you can. So if you are sending out a worldwide message, send one message to the team in France, one to the team in Japan, one to the team in Brazil, etc. so that you can tailor each and know which region needs extra/different communication. When dealing with people of many languages and fluency levels, it's best to be clear and direct, bullet points help. Ask 'what questions do you have?' or ask them to confirm the next actions. It's fun and interesting working with global teams. No one culture is right!

6. AnonymousJuly 6,2023 at 12:55AM UTC

   Strong suggestion to try to put meetings on calendar with agendas. Keep it simple language. Ask for people to put questions into a word doc before you meet. For giving people work tasks do it verbally and then follow up with written directive. Set hard timelines and put things on calendar with reminders for deadlines. I use something called timeanddate.com to help when planning meetings that could conflict with time zone differences. Also suggest if you use gmail to download each countries holiday calendar so that you know when religious and bank holidays happen there.

7. Mark FeldmanJuly 6,2023 at 5:22PM UTC

   Read the culture map by Erin Myer, a wonderful resource to understand the best approach in different cultures and why things do and don't work