#11: Intercultural communication 🌎

Expert of the week: Mareike Müller (TechStartup and Scaleup People & Culture Advisor and remote work ambassador with 15 years of remote work experience

Intercultural Communication in Distributed Work Settings:

Working with people from different has a lot of benefits. But it also brings a few difficulties when it comes to communication. Here are a few rules to make it easier for everyone:

1. 💬 Communicate effectively and neutrally: Whatever language your company chooses, keep the communication vocabulary simple, free of slang and words/terms that could be interpreted differently depending on the reader’s culture.

2. 🪴 Foster cultural Awareness: Train your people and share resources around different cultures, communication styles, approaches to conflict, hierarchies, and behavioral habits to promote successful collaboration and intercultural communication.

3. 🔎 Be mindful of the cultural context: Knowing that, e.g., low-context cultures prefer direct and explicit communication, while high-context cultures prefer indirect and subtle forms of expression will help you avoid miscommunication.

4. 🎭 Adjust feedback and conflict management: There are no “one size fits all cultures” when discussing challenging or sensitive topics. Ensure your team leads know to adjust their communication to have fruitful conversations that lead to growth.

5. 👍🏼 Promote cultural exchange: To create lasting diversity and inclusion in your company, nurture intercultural interactions beyond workshops and training events, also to cross cultural boundaries in casual settings.

6. 🧡 Pay attention to nonverbal communication and emotions: Every culture communicates its feelings and points of view in its own way. While in some cultures, it’s acceptable to express emotions by raising your voice or extensive gesticulation, in others, this might be perceived as aggressive or inappropriate.

Plus tip: 🎯 Extend your intercultural behaviors to time zones and local celebrations. Depending on the cultural background, people will approach their working hours differently. The same goes for regional festivities when people want time off to celebrate their traditions and cultural heritage.

Be mindful of your communication because we are as diverse as our skin tone, eye color, and color of hair, and so are our approaches and reactions to it.

How good is your overall communication in your (distributed) team?