Working Across Cultures!

Over last few months I have been in midst of culturally immersive experiences. I have been working with stakeholders from Germany and from a few Latin American (LATAM) countries.

I thought I was well prepared for working across cultures. I have had a deep interest in knowing how things work across cultures and have put in my discretionary time and effort over last few years in increasing my knowledge/skills around this area.

So yes, I was not overwhelmed by the things that I saw happening.  But I can´t say that I was not taken by surprise. There were quite a few times when I had to improvise my way through.

I am increasingly realizing that what is important in working across cultures are answers to:

• What do you communicate?

• When do you communicate?

• With whom do you communicate?

• How do you communicate?

Here are a few dilemmas I recently faced:

• LATAM– Who do I contact? – I hear hierarchy is respected and followed.  But what do you do when in trying to figure out the correct authority figure to be contacted, you are losing out on valuable time?  Well! I chose to write to the most relevant person I could get through to. Have I managed to make progress in my discussions subsequently? Yes, I do experience progress.

• LATAM – should I speak/write in Spanish? – Most LATAM countries, except Brazil, are Spanish speaking. I know Spanish and I can write to my LATAM counterparts in Spanish. But should I or should I not? I hear they appreciate it if I an outsider were even to make an attempt to speak in Spanish. But in initial few meetings, it is better to be safe than to be sorry. My communication with them till now has been exclusively in English.

• There was atleast once where I realized that the LATAM counterpart I was speaking to did probably not comprehend completely what I was saying. I had to make an extra effort to speak very slowly and ask a lot of clarifying questions – that seemed to work.

• LATAM – do people across LATAM countries behave similarly or differently? I am sure there must be differences but I feel I am just scratching the surface in figuring out the differences in way they have responded to me.

• Germany & LATAM – I hear building rapport/working relations is important in LATAM while in Germany interactions are more business-like. Well! I managed to translate this to an actionable item. I wrote emails to LATAM counterparts with ´how are you doing?´ introductions and ´Look forward to working with you´ endings . With German counterparts, on other hand,  I got straight to the point.

• Regards, Best, or nothing –

o   I find American counterparts signing off their emails by writing Best. In India, we write Regards. I prefer writing nothing. 

o   Some emails marked to me start off with Dear while I prefer writing HI.

What is correct way to star/end emails when I write to counterparts in Germany/LATAM? I don´t have a well formed answer yet.

• Who adapts - you or your counterpart? I don’t think there is a one right answer to this question. You must make an attempt to understand and be sensitive – probably that would make the other person be understanding and sensitive too. Well, to be frank. I am not completely surely how I have been perceived by my German/LATAM counterparts till now.

• What works – emails or phones? Well! First communication will have to over emails. Emails are necessary to ensure that there is a common acceptance of what has been communicated. But I do feel that with LATAM counterparts, communication over the phone helps more than communication over email.  I sense that response time to emails might be similar across both LATAM and Germany – not necessarily the quickest.  But then I realize that my definition of quick and theirs might be different.

• Pre-meeting agendas- I am scheduled to have a meeting with a German counterpart in next few days. I was reminded of fact that they prefer detailed pre-meeting notes. So I modified my Indian way of ´we´ll figure it out in the meeting´ and sent him as pre-meeting material, all the notes we will refer to during the meeting.  I feel he will have read through all material before our meeting.  I hear this is not necessarily the case for LATAM. A detailed introductory email note may be a necessity to a LATAM counterpart (given that you are communicating across different time zones) but expect to do a lot of explaining during the first telephonic call.

This is the first in series of my learning´s working with people from different cultures. I will post more soon.

What have been your experiences in working with people from different cultures?

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Sourav