Cultural Differences In Understanding Deadlines

Cindy King — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:00:57 +0000

I recently got myself into a little bit of trouble in misinterpreting instructions on a deadline. Now this is my fault because I tend to scan most of the information I consume online. But the instructions were not very clear and explicit either and I naturally assumed the most obvious interpretation to me. This is the problem with reading like this. Scanning favorizes assumptions and assumptions can lead to errors.

Different Meanings In How You Use The Word Deadline

My downfall came because people can use two ways of giving deadlines:

Deadline December 23rd = meaning this is the last day for you to take action
Deadline December 23rd = meaning you need to take action before this date. In this case your last day for taking action would be December 22nd.

And I navigate almost exclusively in circles where people use the first example with the deadline date given is the last day to take action. But there are people who give the date to mean the first day after you must take action. And this is what happened to me. I had left taking action to what I thought was the very last day, but I was already one day too late.

Different Ways Of Communication

Let’s look at some differences in language:

By December 23rd
Before December 23rd

What do these mean to you? I have actually met different people who use either of these examples with the two different meanings above. This is why setting and interpreting deadlines is not as straightforward as it seems.

Clarify Your Deadlines

When you set deadlines for people who speak a different language, you usually make sure to communicate with extra clarity. But when setting deadlines for people who speak English too, it’s easy to lose that clarity and assume everyone uses your own communication style. This was a reminder to always clarify deadline dates even within cultures where I expect easy communication.

An Inconvenient Outcome For Both Of Us

Fortunately I was able to get this resolved. But this incident was inconvenient to me for 3 reasons:

It required 2 hours of my time to resolve this which I would happily have avoided
It was not resolved properly and brought extra attention to myself
I hate getting myself noticed like this and feel a small degree of resentment for this service provider’s sloppy instructions for putting me in this situation

The embarrassment and inconvenience was slight, but I will remember this incident in any other future miscommunication. And it’s a shame for this service provider to lose trust points through such a small lack of clarity. As it turned out I was not the only one who had a different interpretation for deadline dates. The instructions were simply not clear enough.

Where Cultural Miscommunication Happens

Cindy King — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:00:25 +0000

Improve Your Cross-Cultural Communication

It often seems as if cultural miscommunication crops up in the most unexpected place. If you take a closer look, misunderstandings happen due to the wide areas of cultural differences.

You can put most miscommunication between cultures into categories:

Different Values

Different cultures have different core beliefs and national traits. And this effects cross-cultural communication and international business across the board through different:

Attitudes
Reactions
Expectations

Different Habits And Styles In Communication

Some people just communicate differently. There is no meaning to it. This is just what they are used to.

Different styles in communication can be:

Direct and indirect communication – such as getting straight to business in your first meeting or only after a shared meal.
Expected or conventional niceties – such as wishing happy new year to everyone you meet for the first time between December 31st through January 31st
In speech – such as speaking loudly or not
Other actions while communicating – such as handshakes or kissing ladies on the cheeks

Different Concepts Of Time

Cultural differences in conventions and how things should be done. There are differences of what is usual, acceptable and polite… and what is not.

You need to adapt the length of your sales cycles to the local cultures.
In some cultures 7:00 am breakfast meetings and Friday meetings in late afternoon are barbarian.

Different Use Of Physical Space

Some cultures need to talk to each other at very different distances. People need more or less physical space between themselves and anyone else.

When you first start meeting people from different cultures this can be comical to observe. People take steps back and forth, naturally adjusting the space to what they are comfortable with.

And if one of the two people is not at his usual distance from the other, this can effect the whole conversation.

Avoiding Cultural Miscommunication

Knowing where cultural misunderstandings usually happen can help you adjust your communication when you notice a something out of place cropping up.

Practice using this knowledge to improve your cross-cultural communication skills.

Cindy King's International Business Blog » cultural miscommunication