Overcoming Cultural Differences

7 Rules to Overcome Cultural Differences

I was working with a client from a developed country in Asia in one of my previous organizations. It was product portfolio diversification project. We were armed with all the management consulting frameworks, and we kept on having discussions with the client on the findings that we had. The client showed a lot of interest, nodded at each of our points and gave only a few subtle suggestions. We thought, we were moving in the right direction. However, deep in the project the client set up a call with the partner of our firm and told that we were moving in completely wrong direction. It came as surprise to us. It turned out that the subtle polite suggestions that they were making were the only things that they wanted us to focus on. All the things that they nodded in agreement and politely appreciated were of no use to them. Thankfully our notes were extensive. We revisited everything that we had thought were ancillary or complementary. We reworked the entire thought process focused a lot more on the cultural subtility and collaborated more effectively with the client and executed the project with mutual satisfaction.

This opened my eyes and I started focusing on understanding the culture about the people that interact with before and during the engagement. There are cultures where direct communication is considered rude and there are cultures where indirect/subtle communication is considered inadequate. Here are 7 rules to overcome the cultural differences:

1) Understand cultural differences

2) Model communication styles to effectively transcend differences

3) Establish collaboration protocols to maximize the benefits of different cultures and time zones

4) Formulate Rewards & Recognition (R&R) to ensure that the R&R is appreciated by people in the team of different cultures 

5) Make sure cultural nuances are understood for all during the negotiations 

6) Establish common terminologies to make sure that language barriers are minimized

7) Build trust among the people through team building exercises and trainings