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Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication – Tip 8

Cindy King — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:00:22 +0000

Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust

There is a lot to say about trust. In cross-cultural communication trust can feel elusive. Especially if it is in a business environment where you do not really get to know people. Cultural differences keep you on your toes. I think this is where it is easy to become conscious of our basic human nature.

In fact, many cross-cultural difficulties often become easier when you bring things down to their most basic level. The trouble is that we do not often need to do this, so it can be difficult finding that basic level.

In the previous Cross-Cultural Communication tips this month, we have looked at how:

Cultural differences can come across as a form of aggression
A quiet self-confidence is a solution to feeling this aggression

Cultivate Quiet Self Confidence

So, how do you cultivate quiet self-confidence? There are several small things we can do to cultivate this for effective cross-cultural communication:

Do not feel threatened by other ways of thinking for doing things
Know yourself and feel confident with who you are

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 8

Trust yourself first

This is a reminder that the best place to begin building trust is to start with yourself.

Basic Trust In Yourself

Trust yourself first. Trust what you know about yourself. Trust your ability to:

Communicate with others
Connect with others
Be flexible and to adapt when needed

And above all, trust yourself to be who you are, to be yourself, without feeling threatened by another culture.

Be Comfortable With Yourself

Be ready to acknowledge:

You do not know everything
You are not excellent at everything
There are other ways of living and doing things

Challenges To Yourself

This might seem a bit like sugar-coated fluff, until you find yourself in a situation where your cross-cultural communication loses momentum.

Mistrust raises it’s head. Why?

Because the other person did not find the right level of personal depth in you. Why?

Because you did not know yourself well enough, you did not have this basic level of trust in:

How you communicate things
What you communicated
What your position is with regards to what you communicate

Trust Yourself To Avoid Mistrust

In cross-cultural business encounters trust can become extremely personal. People will notice when you do not trust yourself at this very basic level.

Cross-cultural communication is mined with possible misscommunication due to cultural differences. There is no need to add on this extra layer of risk of creating mistrust. Take the time if you need to: do the personal work involved in strengthening trust in yourself at this basic level.

Questions For Discussion

How well do you trust yourself in cross-cultural communication?
Do you ever feel an aggression against your beliefs during cross-cultural encounters?
How much effort in personal development do you think you need to develop cross-cultural skills?

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Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication – Tip 7

Cindy King — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:00:51 +0000

Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust

When you first begin in international sales you can spend some time learning how to cultivate trust. In the beginning you might try to use the same trust-building tactics you would use in your own culture. But you soon learn that trust-building in an international business environment is not as straightforward as it may seem.

Different cultures react to these tactics differently and they also have different expectations. One of the easiest ways to improve your international trust-building skills is often overlooked. Instead of focusing on the cultural differences you see on the other side, look at how you can improve things your end first.

Cultivate Quiet Self Confidence

When you meet clients from different cultures you can feel overwhelmed by the cultural differences.

As we saw yesterday, people can sometimes feel these cultural differences as aggression.

Feelings of aggression and trust do not mix together.

Cultivating a quiet self-confidence is the solution to feelings of aggression.

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 7

Know yourself and feel confident with who you are

It is easy to think you know yourself as best you possibly can when you are in an environment you are familiar with. But when are taken out of your familiar surroundings and put in a foreign place it is natural to become slightly disoriented.

Unexpected Adjustments

If you are immigrating to a new country, you expect this and adjustments happen. But if you are in international business, you may not expect the personal adjustments you have to make.

I have noticed this disorientation several times in inexperienced international sales professionals. People react differently when they are disoriented.

They can rebel against the foreign culture. It is interesting that the person doing the rebelling is often the person that needs to look at himself internally. Some of the most difficult cross-cultural conflicts can only really be resolved when one person looks internally and finds self-confidence.

When people become disoriented they can also lose their self-confidence. Generally the cross-cultural communication stalls at this stage until someone makes an effort to move forward again.

Personal Development

Remember, developing cross-cultural skills involves personal development too. The self-confidence we are talking about here is simply the confidence to be who you are.

Before you can truly be confident in who you are you need to have a deep understanding about yourself. For the purposes of strengthening cross-cultural skills you can simply begin by questioning your feelings when you react to other cultures. And focus on yourself. Saying you hate Martians because they are green is not enough.

Why do you hate the color green?
And what does that mean?
What shades of green do you hate most?
And why is that?
How did this hatred start?
What if the Martian was blue?
What if he liked eating your favorite food too?
Why does this change things for you?

Personal development plays an important role in acquiring cross-cultural communication skills – the 4th Cross-Cultural Challenge in December will be focused on this.

We can feel threatened by what we don’t understand… and this can also be not understanding ourselves when it comes to cross-cultural communication.

Be Confident

Another part of the question here is that me do like to be friends with people like ourselves. We like to model people we like.

It just does not seem easy, or even natural sometimes, to associate ourselves with people who are so different from us. This is common in human nature. Instead of responding to any primal instincts, we need to remember:

When we meet people from other cultures we do not need to change anything about ourselves. Instead of feeling aggression of any sort, we should remain quietly confident in our knowledge of who we are.

Although this may seem much easier to do in an international business environment than in our social lives, some cultures have very social business practices. And this is where things can become a bit challenging. This is where you need to know yourself well and find the right path to walk.

Questions For Discussion

When have you noticed a feeling of aggression during a cross-cultural encounter?
Have you ever questioned yourself after a cross-cultural conflict?
How do you respond to cultural differences you don’t like?

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Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication – Tip 6

Cindy King — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:00:26 +0000

Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust

The first five tips in this series were about smoothing the cultural differences. The next five tips are about having quiet self confidence.

Cultivate Quiet Self Confidence

Now, this is not always easy to grasp. How you interpret self-confidence depends a lot on your own cultural backgrounds. For many English speakers images of asserting oneself easily come to mind when thinking for self-confidence. And this is not really what you need in cross-cultural communication.

Let’s look at the problem this addresses first.

Aggression. A lot of cross-cultural friction happens because someone feels aggression. They feel they have to accept or endorse another person’s differences.

Aggression is not a foundation for trust.

People need to understand that they can keep their own values and still communicate with someone with different values. This may sound easy, but in practice challenging circumstances will always exist.

Knowing Yourself. The first place to start is with yourself. The more you know about your core boundaries the easier cross-cultural communication becomes. You no longer feel aggression because you feel confident in the knowledge of who you are.

This is quiet self-confidence.

In many cases of cross-cultural conflict it is easy to identify the people who feel aggression simply because they do not know themselves well.

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 6

Do not feel threatened by other ways of thinking for doing things

The first step in attaining quiet self-confidence in cross-cultural communication is to not feel threatened by the cultural differences in others. There is no need to feel any aggression.

There one hard truth:

Some cultures find it easier to deal with feelings of aggression from different cultures than others.

Personal Boundaries

People with strong international skills know their personal boundaries well. And they know how to interact with others with these boundaries in mind. They do not often feel aggression from cultural differences and when they do, they know how to control these feelings.

What personal boundaries? Well, this also depends who you are. The quickest way to identify the ones you need to work on, is to make a list of all of the things that react to in other cultures. Then look back to:

What this means to you
Why this means something to you
What differences do you see in this issue
How this effects you

When you understand yourself well it is easier to face the other culture and not feel any aggression.

Business With Different Cultures

Even in business environments some people need to work on their personal reactions to others.

When businesses get a few international clients and do not develop their international business further, I often see an underlying issue of personal aggression mixed in with other things.

Take Time To Learn More About Yourself

There is a fuzzy area here. Business is business. And yet in international business you need to develop personal skills. One of these skills is knowing more about yourself than you need to know to live in your usual environment. In an international environment, it helps to have a deeper understanding of yourself.

For many businesses, the problem is often that people do not take the time to learn more about themselves.

Trust Is Between People

Remember, trust is always between people.

When someone in the trust equation feels aggression in any way, this weakens the foundation on which trust can be built.
When everyone knows and understands themselves well there is a more solid foundation for trust.

Questions for you and topics that can lead to interesting discussions between cultures:

When have you felt aggression or felt shocked by different behavior due to cultural differences?
Do you know how other cultures react to the cultural differences they perceive in you?
Do you think you can only communicate with people from similar backgrounds?

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Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication – Tip 5

Cindy King — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:00:07 +0000

Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust

This is the last tip on how to smooth cultural differences to create a good foundation for trust in cross-cultural communication. These 5 tips are by no means the only ways to smooth cultural differences. Do you have any others to add? Please leave them in the comments below.

Smooth Cultural Differences

This last tip on smoothing cultural differences brings us back to our mindset. Yes, cultural differences can create havoc in cross-cultural communication and should not be ignored. But one of the best ways to approach this is with the right mindset.

Instead of noticing the cultural differences, focus on the person behind the obvious cultural differences. People with solid communication skills will always find a way of connecting with others. Why? Simply because they put their energy into finding the way to making that connection.

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 5

Focus on connecting with the other person

In the first 4 tips we focused on ourselves. Today’s tip is about both sides of the communication. Ourselves and the person from the other culture. It is about our own mindset and how we connect with the other culture.

What you focus on in a cross-cultural encounter matters. It can make the difference between a successful international business meeting and an unfruitful one.

The Right Mindset

When you focus on connecting with the other person this naturally helps you to put aside any residual cultural baggage you may have. We all have a hard time thinking that we have cultural baggage. But we do. All of us. This is what makes us who we are. And our own cultural baggage can get in the way of what we focus on in cross-cultural communication.

Most people acknowledge that a cross-cultural mindset is willing to open itself up to different cultures. A person with a cross-cultural mindset is also someone who is able to put aside his own cultural baggage long enough to connect with people who are different. This makes it easier to connect with different cultures.

Focusing on communication with others is part of the process of the right mindset for good cross-cultural communication.

Connecting With People

This is particularly important to remember in an international business environment. The business deal may be logical. It may appear to be an easy sale. But in international business, you need to remember that you are dealing with people. It is a person who signs the contract.

It helps to try to connect with a person… and not with a different culture. Put the culture aside and find the person beneath the cultural differences.

Again, when you focus on connecting with a person, it is much easier to put aside their cultural differences.

Finding the person despite the cultural differences and connecting with that person is almost an exercise. And exercise in communication.

Trust Happens Between People

Another good reason to focus on connecting with the people instead of focusing on the cultural differences, is that this helps you to build a good foundation for trust. Even in business, trust happens between two people. The personal relationships count. In some cultures they count more than others. But relationships count more in cross-cultural business because people need to be reassured more when dealing with cultures they are not familiar with. This is how trust is built, and business relationships are tied.

When you make an authentic connection with someone from a different culture this helps to smooth away the cultural differences and avoids the issues of mistrust. In addition, this begins to create trust.

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Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication – Tip 4

Cindy King — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:00:26 +0000

Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust

We all know how important trust is in business. And in international business, we can approach the subject with the same process as we would with business in our own culture. And this has it’s value. But today let’s take a step back. Let’s step out of the business arena. How do you build trust with the people around you? Who do you give your trust to first? Who is it easy to give trust to?

Smooth Cultural Differences

Yesterday we looked at one way of responding to cultural differences: explanations. And this can be the best thing to do in many situations.

But these first tips of this challenge are about smoothing the cultural differences out of the cross-cultural encounters. There is another tactic that works very well. One that:

We forget because we are also dealing with different cultures and varying degrees of culture shock.
May need a little thought, observation and research

Today let’s look at something we can do instead of bringing attention to our cultural differences.

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 4

Find the similarities and recognize them

When you are faced with dealing with cultural differences remember this:

The similarities between two different cultures can be the cement to use to build strong relationships.

Look For Core Similarities

One of the things I often notice is how two different cultures can have the same values, but they express these values differently. In both cultures these core values are important and it can be good to recognize these similarities. In fact, there are so many similarities, it reminds me that we are all humans.

What sort of similarities should you look for? In business I would put on my strategic thinking hat. The strongest similarities are those that connect you on a core level.

Similarities Can Erase Mistrust

It is much easier to trust someone who has the same core values as you do. And it is rare that two people who recognize themselves as having similar core values will be quick to mistrust each other.

When both parties recognize core similarities this can erase the issues of mistrust in cross-cultural communication. This alone is worth the effort.

Learn How To Recognize Similarities

It may take some thought, observation and research, but it is often well worth recognizing similarities in core values, principles and ethics… especially when cross-cultural negotiations are tough.

How can you learn what to look for? Or how do you look for similarities? It is not always easy.

Some people are comfortable with bringing in personal details and some are not.
Sometimes you simply need to find something that means something to the other person… and it may not have much influence from your own viewpoint.

I personally find this skill best to learn through observation. Obviously in business environments it can require subtlety.

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Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication – Tip 3

Cindy King — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:00:03 +0000

Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust

Awareness of cultural differences is the first part of avoiding possible mistrust. And the next step requires a delicate balance. This is where practice, international experience and strong communication skills can help.

Smooth Cultural Differences

Once you are aware of the cultural differences others see in you, you need to evaluate what to do. It is how you use your cultural awareness that proves your cross-cultural skills. There are no set rules here and different people have different styles. The key is to get beyond the natural distrust in human nature of things that seem foreign to us.

An obvious solution is to explain why you do things differently.

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 3

Explain things when others find them “foreign”

In many instances it can feel awkward to explain something you do naturally. If you are not used to explaining the cultural traits you have it can feel very uncomfortable. This is because you are thinking from your viewpoint.

The trick is to focus on the cultural differences others see in you and how “foreign” you appear to them. This will help you find what to say.

When all else fails, if you cannot “explain” why you do things differently, then simply stating the cultural differences may help. This may bring everyone’s focus on cultural differences as opposed to a certain foreignness.

But this is not the only way to approach this and we will cover more options later this month which may be more appropriate in a business environment and in certain cultures.

Learn More About Yourself

When you think about explaining the cultural differences others see in you something interesting can happen…

You may need to think more about why you do certain things before you can explain them. This internal reflection can often lead to discoveries about your culture and yourself that you did not expect. This internal reflection is a good thing to get used to when developing your cross-cultural communication skills. The next Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge will be on how personal development improves your skills.

Good Communication Practices

The most important thing to remember is that explaining your cultural differences is a communication skill.

An easy way to acquire this skill is to:

Notice how others explain their cultural difference in a business environment
Find the style that suits you best to copy
Practice, practice, practice

Evaluate Action To Take

Sometimes being foreign has it’s advantages. It can be cute.

Sometimes it takes time to identify what the problem is. You may need some time to evaluate what is happening. You may need an extra pair of eyes present to help you understand what is happening.

The cultural differences may not be an issue to the other person, and it is best leave things, or to respond with tact, until there is an issue.

There are many reasons why you may not jump right into a long explanation of your cultural differences. Experience is the best teacher in finding the right solutions.

Don’t Let Mistrust In

The problem is that if you wait too long to explain the reasons behind the cultural differences others see in you, then barriers of mistrust can quickly set in.

When that happens, it is often a hard and long task in getting rid of them again. And if you do manage to get rid of the barriers of mistrust, they tend to leave a residue. Trust becomes more difficult to install.

It is much easier to respond when you realize what it is about you that appears “foreign” to others. This is why you need to keep in mind the question of trust and mistrust.

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Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication – Tip 2

Cindy King — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:00:39 +0000

Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust

Cultural awareness plays an important role in cross-cultural competence. It is easy to be assume that what we perceive is true. In many cases our cultural awareness is progressive. Cultural awareness often takes time as we go through a series of steps to a better global understanding.

Smoothing Differences

This cultural awareness helps us to smooth our cultural differences and avoid mistrust.

Yesterday we touched on the need to know our own cultural body language. Let’s say you spend some time working with one different culture. You will have learned a fair bit about that culture and how they react to the cultural differences they see in you. What you learned is not static. It can change and be different in another group of people.

The more interaction we have with other cultures the more we learn about ourselves. But we do need to make the effort, this is why today’s tip is important.

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 2

Be aware of the cultural differences others see in you

We need to always be aware of the cultural differences others see in us. If you notice that someone reacts to the cultural differences you bring, you can:

Pay more attention to the conversation for signs of mistrust
Explain the differences

However, before you can do anything you need to be on the look out for any reactions your own cultural baggage has on the cross-cultural encounter. In fact, experienced international professionals will always keep this on their radar. It is one of the multiple things they process continually throughout a cross-cultural encounter.

Today’s short time is a very important one… especially when it comes to avoiding mistrust and building a solid foundation to create trust.

Warning Signs Before Cultural Blunders

Many cultural blunders can be avoided simply by keeping radars tuned in to notice how other people react to our own culture.

There are often little warning signals. You could notice someone physically taking a step backwards, or the facial expressions might give away that something is not quite right. You also need to question any lack of dialog, or if you seem to need to repeat something, or to justify something more than once. Of course, not all of these mean that there is a cultural blunder looming in the future. But many cultural blunders can be avoided through better cross-cultural awareness.

Awareness Improves Communication

The more you are aware of how others perceive your culture and your own cultural baggage the better your cross-cultural communication.

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Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication – Tip 1

Cindy King — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:00:09 +0000

Cross-Cultural Communication 30-Day Challenge – Build Trust

Today starts the 3rd month-long Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge. When you first begin international business, you can feel challenged by how the cultural differences impact all aspects of business… and how funny little things can become important to good communication. No matter how much you read prior to your first cross-cultural business encounters, you can still feel uncomfortable.

Now, I’m not going to give you lists of things to do and not to do within each culture. If there is one thing I have learned more than anything else in my 25 years in the field as an international sales and marketing executive, it is that cross-cultural skills in international business requires a unique skill set. International professionals need to:

Operate with flexibility and adaptability

Process multiple sources of information at the same time

Have a sound fundamental understanding of their business

So, I would like to give you simple tips on how to broaden your perspective by breaking things down and focusing on one part of cross-cultural communication at a time.

There are many different aspects to developing good cross-cultural communication skills. This year I decided to dig deep into the 4 aspects I found the most useful in international business.Build Trust

During the first challenge we looked at how to expand your mindset to prepared for good cross-cultural communication. This is where you need to start… and you never realy stop working on mindset either. Our own mindset is the biggest hurdle in developing cross-cultural communication skills.

In the second challenge we looked at how to get extreme with clarity for great cross-cultural communication. Clarity comes second in importance in a business environment. Simply because so many initial contacts in international business do not get any results simply because they lack clarity. So many businesses cannot get their foot in the door simply because others cannot clearly grasp what is asked of them.

This month’s challenge is focused on how to build trust in cross-cultural communication. Trust is a huge issue in cross-cultural communication for international business. The main reason why trust is such a critical issue is because it is so quick and easy to lose in cross-cultural encounters. It is natural to mistrust:

Things you don’t know
People you don’t know
Different ways of doing things

In many cross-cultural circumstances, it is not trust that is the issue, it is the mistrust. Most professionals know how to use trust-building tactics to get business. International professionals learn to get proactive in:

Responding to common areas where mistrust can kick in
Avoiding to create situations which favor mistrust
Building trust… consistently, continuously and even in ways that can appear to be insignificant

This is why we are going to look at how to build trust in cross-cultural communication this month.

Smooth Cultural Differences

The first 5 tips on building trust will be on how to smooth out the cultural differences. Let’s smooth out the differences to avoid mistrust.

After this we will have a better foundation to work on building trust.

Trust In Cross-Cultural Communication Challenge – Tip 1

Keep your body language open to dialog

The first cultural differences people notice are the visible ones. Of course, there are some things we cannot change. But culture can influence our body language and people from different cultures will notice these differences in body language. So what can you do?

1 – Know Your Own Cultural Body Language

Instead of focusing on what you find “different” with other cultures you need to become aware of what other cultures notice in you.

Now, I don’t really believe everyone needs to go through cross-cultural training to understand this, and I hesitate to give any broad generalizations. There are so many differences in body language within any given culture. Different generations usually have differences in body languages. Education and social background also play a part in who we are and can show up in our body language.

The best way to learn what your body language portrays is to:

Meet up with people from different cultures
Pay very close attention to what you do
Ask cross-cultural friends
When you notice differences in others, look at what you do and explain why you do things like you do

2 – Adapt A More “Neutral” Body Language

It is almost always a good idea to try to soften any cultural differences in how you hold your body. This really depends on personal preferences, but most people who become aware of what they do that marks them culturally will try to soften the impact.

Here are some general areas to pay particular attention to:

The distance you feel comfortable from the other person and the distance they appear to want to keep
The placement of your arms… and theirs
Your facial expressions
The tone of your voice
How you hold your body compared to how others hold their bodies

3 – Adopt An “Open For Communication” Body Language

Even if you do nothing else, remember to follow the basic guidelines for a body language that is open for communication.

Do not fold your arms across your chest
Have a welcoming smile
Use the right level of eye contact

Don’t Start With Mistrust

The foundation for mistrust can be established before you even say one word. Remember to be aware of the image you project to others. Instead of focusing on how the other person is different from what you are used to, pay attention to the response you see in them and how they react to your body language.

Although your body language plays an important role in allaying fears and mistrust, it is really not that difficult to get right. With a little practice, it is easy to find the right way to approach international clients and business partners.

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