Can You Prevent All Cultural Blunders?

Cross-Cultural Communication Blunders

Unfortunately the answer is no.

All cultures evolve in time. Languages evolve. Businesses evolve. The world economy evolves. There are just so many variables that come into play in cross cultural business communication.

So, what can you do? Here is what will help you most:

• Open your cultural understanding.

And how can you do this? There are two things you can do.

1 - Learn From Past Mistakes

You can learn about past international business mistakes and cultural blunders. This will help you to open up your understanding of how things go wrong.

• Don’t focus on the outcome. Sometimes the outcome is so big you focus on it.
• Don’t focus on the differences with the other culture. Sometimes the gap may be daunting.
• Focus on what the company did wrong.
• Find the additional step the company could have done to avoid this blunder.

Very often the cultural blunders were caused by assumptions made in one culture that were not true in the other culture. There will be similarities in the reasons why these mistakes happen.

As you look at the reasons behind past blunders and as you have cultural field practice, you will start to question whether your own cultural responses are interfering in your communication. This will keep you on the right track.

2 -Cultivate Your Capacity To Recuperate From Cultural Blunders

You will never be able to prevent all cross cultural communication blunders. Just like you can’t prevent all communication difficulties around you now. But just as you hone your soft skills to get along well with those around you in your own culture, you need to work on your cross cultural skills.

How do you cultivate your capacity to recuperate from the cultural blunders you will encounter? The first and most important step is to see them.

In your current life you will have situations arise where you are not aware of the misunderstandings going on in your conversations. This happens, but usually it does not happen very often. Usually you catch communication misunderstandings fairly quickly.

In international communication it happens a lot more frequently. If both parties are new at cross cultural communication and don’t speak a common language well, the whole communication can be totally misunderstood.

So you need practice. You also need to be sure to

• Communicate clearly, with clarity.
• Stay focused on the communication. Note what is said and what is not said.
• Validate what you understand. Ask questions to confirm your understanding at the slightest twinge of uncertainty.

The more practice you have in communicating across cultures the more you will develop good cross cultural communication skills.

• You will notice the slang and cultural expressions you use that confuse other cultures.
• You will learn to speak with clarity to avoid confusion.
• You will learn the things you need to explain more.
• And most importantly you will learn to follow your conversation from both angles to pick up when you should validate your understanding of the conversation.

Practice Stops Most Blunders Before It’s Too Late

No, you can’t stop all cultural blunders. The more exposure you have with other cultures, the better you will become at stopping almost all of them without anyone ever noticing.

Cross cultural communication is a soft skill. It is also a personal skill. Remember all of the people in your business will need to acquire this soft skill.

In the beginning only the members of your team who are in direct contact with your international prospects and clients will acquire this skill. As your international business grows all the people in your business will also gain cross cultural skills. This takes time and adjustment.

Everyone needs time to become adjusted to dealing with cross cultural communication on a personal level.

These personal adjustments throughout all of your company are just as important, to any one person’s cross cultural skills, in preventing cultural blunders.

Read more on Cross-Cultural Communication Blunders in these articles:
- Cultural Blunders In Tele-Sales
- Should You Be Afraid Of Cultural Blunders?