by: Irek Zyzański
Most of us like to listen to music. We have different tastes and listen to it in different ways. Some collect high-quality audio equipment, buy high-resolution files, savour the width of the music scene and details of instrument separation. Others enjoy music by listening to it on networked small, monophonic loudspeakers with the quality of long-wave radio broadcasts. Some simply like the melody, while others look for space, instruments’ separation, high and low tones. We are listening to the same thing at the same time, but we hear differently.
The situation is similar when it comes to working in multicultural teams – we often fail to differentiate the nuances, richness or hidden meanings of messages. We are not capable of grasping the subtleties of the message. As an intercultural communication consultant, I encounter conflicts resulting from the lack of the ability to hear “no” when others have made it very clear. I often come across such cases in teams working on a project with India, Malaysia or other Asian countries. Let us take a fictional but quite realistic example of a phone conversation:
Paweł (Polish Team Leader): Hi Ashok, how are you?
Ashok (Indian Team Leader): Thanks Paweł, everything is fine.
Paweł: I’ve been thinking that maybe we should speed up the delivery of our system test results. What do you think?
Ashok: Speed up?
Paweł: Yes, a week or two.
Ashok: I understand, and what do you think about it, Paweł?
Paweł: I think it’s possible, but what do you think, Ashok?
Ashok: Me? It seems to me that you don’t see any problem.
Paweł: No, my team can be ready earlier, if you speed up on your side.
Ashok: I understand.
As you can guess, Ashok’s team will not be ready on time and, of course, both sides will be very surprised by the resentment from the other side. In his view, Ashok made it clear that they would not be able to complete the project on time, and Paweł clearly heard that there was no problem with speeding up the deadline of the tests.
This dialogue is a roughly paraphrased example coming from Craig Storti’s book Speaking of India[1]. When I present it during my training sessions, the participants’ reaction is usually very vigorous: “yes, our talks look exactly the same in our team”, “they never say that they won’t be able to meet the deadline”. Is that really so? “They” communicate incoming problems very clearly, but we are used to music from a small loudspeaker and are unable to understand this message without additional effort on our part.
Let us consider for a moment what communication is. There are numerous communication theories and models, but most of them assume that the recipient and the sender have their own mental maps, filters, reference points and cultural anchors, through which they interpret the message heard. In the above example, the mental maps and the dimensions of the Indian and Polish cultures make the recipient read the message contrary to the sender’s intention. This is affected by several cultural factors: high level of contextualisation, strive for harmony, and respect for hierarchy.
Indian culture, and generally Asian cultures, seek harmony, are oriented towards maintaining relationships with others and avoiding situations that disturb that harmony. A direct and blunt “no” would disturb the harmony, so the word “no” is communicated in a highly contextualised way, it has to be heard between the words. In this specific case, the lack of a clear “no” from Ashok already means that the message is “no”.
What else should alarm Paweł during the conversation and make him start checking the readiness of the Indian team to speed up the test deadline more thoroughly? These are:
- the lack of a clear “no” in statements, which is the equivalent of our “no”;
- asking the other side’s opinion, especially if this is a person inspiring respect, for example a superior or a foreigner – the wish to understand what the other side wants to hear;
- avoiding a clear declaration and bouncing the ball back: “do you think, believe that?”, repeating what the other side wants to hear;
- suggestions that the team is excessively burdened, that additional resources are needed;
- ending the conversation without an explicit confirmation of consent.
The words “yes”, “I understand” often only mean that the person that we are talking to hears us and not that they understand something or agree to something. It means exactly the same as our “mm-hmm”, “I’m listening”, but nothing else, and it definitely is not a confirmation – for which we may mistakenly take it. The same dialogue read once again with intercultural translation will sound more or less like this:
Paweł: Hi Ashok, how are you?
Ashok: Thanks Paweł, everything is fine.
Paweł: I’ve been thinking that maybe we should speed up the delivery of our system test results. What do you think?
Ashok: Speed up? (translation: Speed up? You can’t be serious!)
Paweł: Yes, a week or two.
Ahok: I understand, and what do you think about it, Paweł? (translation: Mm-hmm… I hear you but tell me what you think about it so that I know what to reply to you, because I don’t want to be in conflict with you, harmony above all).
Paweł: I think it’s possible, but what do you think, Ashok?
Ashok: Me? It seems to me that you don’t see any problem. (translation: Well, yes, I understand that you believe that this is possible and that you see no problem – I agree to that, but I don’t express my opinion).
Paweł: No, my team can be ready earlier, if you speed up on your side.
Ashok: I understand (translation: Mm-hmm, I hear you, but I completely disagree with you – the lack of “yes”).
Now we can see that: Ashok clearly communicates that he disagrees with his colleague’s idea, that is, he will not be able to deliver the system on the accelerated new test date. What should then Paweł do in such a situation to correctly understand what Ashok is saying? He should:
- check through detailed questions where the source of the problem lies;
- encourage Ashok to share a more open feedback and his doubts;
- check what support Ashok needs to successfully complete the project (a hypothesis to be checked: maybe Paweł may influence Ashok’s superior to temporarily provide him with additional resources? Ashok himself will not ask his superior, because this would reflect badly on his competencies, but if someone from Poland asks for this for the good of the entire project – this is a completely different story).
Let us come back to communication, mental maps, directions of information exchange, and the way that both sides of communication perceive each other. During training, we encounter the position “us” versus “them”. We assume that “we” are the point of reference and “they” do not know how to communicate. For this reason, we perceive the highly contextualised Asian cultures focussed on harmony as problematic and not capable of clearly communicating their views. When asked to turn the situation around, put ourselves in the other party’s shoes and analyse how “we” the Poles are perceived, participants often reflect and have a moment to think – okay, so “they” perceive us as the arrogant ones who do not respect others and lack good manners – the typical “elephants in the china shop”. And then, together with the participants, we create solutions, try to fine-tune our hearing to hear the “no” that others are explicitly communicating to us and that we – used to listen to music on a small loudspeaker – are unable to capture in the richness of all the nuances.
Irek Zyzański
is a ICF PCC coach, mentor and consultant, director of HR and sales departments. He worked in Libya, Ukraine, Dubai, China, Russia, Indonesia, and Hong Kong.
[1] C. Storti, Speaking of India, London 2015.