Sunday, January 31, 2010
Observation of team behavior: intercultural and interpersonal communication
Posted by Cherlia at 12:05 AMBeing in a multi racial country, seeing people of difference races or religion working well together is not uncommon. However, with the increase in influx of immigrants from all around the world, Singapore gradually becomes an even larger melting pot of different cultures and traditions. Therefore the need to work well with people with different cultural backgrounds becomes progressively crucial in our contemporary society.
An example of how intercultural communication is important is in baseball. Baseball is a sport that requires a strong sense of teamwork and cooperation. Without proper communication, the team cannot possibly work together to cause the opposing batter to be out of the game. This requires very fast paced communication and deep understanding between the team members.
In recent years, many Japanese famous baseball players have entered the American Baseball playing field. And being in a team where almost all the players share a similar culture, it must have been difficult to smooth out the cultural and language differences at the start. But these teams were not daunted by the task, and they managed to overcome the differences and work together.
For a good team to work well, it is important for the members to understand the different cultures of their group members and not to judge their traditions. Being unable to accept another's cultural makes one seem ethnocentric and inflexible, largely affecting the team dynamics. It is also important for the group to have effective interpersonal communication, to be able to resolve conflicts even if their differences cause some communication problems. This is crucial to a team as the members need to know how to manage conflicts effectively without compromising on someone else's feelings in an argument. They will also need to be emotionally aware of their group members' feelings and how to negotiate on differences in ideas objectively without sounding defensive or aggressive.
Inter cultural and interpersonal communication are necessary skills that all of us need to hone as our world becomes a global city, and people become more interconnected. If we are acceptive of others' culture and lifestyle, we might achieve much more as a team, having diverse viewpoints and perspective that can further stretch each others' potential.
Below is an example on how misunderstanding occurs due to cultural differences.
Selling to the Arabs
A disappointed salesman of a Cola drink returns from his Middle East assignment. A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful selling the Cola drink to the Arabs?" The salesman explained:
"When I got posted in the Middle East, I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem: I didn't speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters...
- First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand...totally exhausted and fainting.
- Second poster: The man is drinking our Cola.
- Third poster: Our man is now totally refreshed.
And then these posters were pasted all over the place.
"Then that should have worked!" said the friend.
"That’s what I thought, said the salesman. Didn’t realize that Arabs read from right to left."
Source : http://www.contentforcommunicators.com/cross-cultural-articles.html
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5 comments:
Hi Cherlia,
First of all, I like the cartoon very much! It's hilarious. A picture says a thousand words, and it sure did in bringing up what this topic meant about.
I feel you have already covered all areas of definition for the terms in this topic, so I should not go into that. True enough, increasingly as university students we need to be more aware of how globalised this world is becoming, as well as our chances of working together with people of different backgrounds culturally and racially. Hence we have to be more proficient in our communication skills so as to avoid unnecessary conflicts.
I understand the observations you raised, but I guess a better alternative would be much closer to home. Yes, in our homeland we have chances to work with students of different races. Perhaps you may have some interesting, more personal experiences that you have missed out? Sometimes it is better to use a relatively vague but personal experience, than a obvious but distant example you cannot relate to.
Brandon
Hi Cherlia,
I like the way you explained the importance of intercultural communication in a multi racial country, like Singapore, in your introduction. It gives the readers an overview of your blog entry and the importance of intercultural communication before you elaborate it in the rest of your blog entry.
I agree with you that it is important for teammates to understand the cultures of other teammates in order to work effectively. For example, when we are hosting a delegation of Chinese business people, the most senior of them needs to be seated to the right of your most senior representative as a form of respect in the Chinese culture. By observing and understanding other cultures, one may be able to reduce conflicts. Take for example if we do not know that the Chinese culture and reserve a seat at the head of the table for the most senior Chinese representative. The Chinese businessmen may be insulted by that action and may result in a loss of a business opportunity.
Lastly, good job in your second blog entry. I am looking forward to your future blog entries.
Li Hua
Hi Cherlia,
I agree with your view that we need to improve our intercultural and interpersonal communication skills. As the world is increasingly becoming more interconnected, the need for these skills is greater than before. People that we are going to work with and people that we will be interacting with are becoming more diverse. Therefore, we should aim to improve our skills of communicating with people of other cultures, so as to not put us in a disadvantage.
As you mentioned, being brought up in Singapore have expose us to people of different race and culture at a young age. We would most probably have worked with people of different cultures and we should have realized that it is not easy, especially when conflicts arise. This highlights to us the increasing need of intercultural communication skills, as we will be working in more diverse groups in the near future.
Lastly, I like the example of selling cola to the Arabs which you used at the end. Pictures are a form of communication that is common to most people. Most of us would interpret a picture in almost the same way. However, we should be aware that some culture may interpret it differently, just like the example shown. Therefore, we should be more sensitive when using pictures to communicate, so as to avoid misunderstandings. One way to achieve it is to do some background research before using it. The salesman in your example would definitely achieve better sales if he put in some effort to study about the Arabs.
Leonard (C06)
Hi Cherlia,
Singapore indeed is becoming more and more globalised as more people are coming in from overseas to work or study. It has become a norm to be communicating with people from different cultures and working with them. It is definitely essential that we learn to be capable in this aspect of communication in order to achieve good team performance within an intercultural setting.
Good example that you used to show people from different cultures are able to come together, cooperate and achieve good results. However, I feel that since in your first paragraph u touched on Singapore, it would be great if you could include an intercultural communication observation in the context of Singapore.
It is indeed important that we respect other people’s cultures and not judging them in any way that we want. To communicate effectively with people from other cultures, we must first put away any assumptions that we have towards them and start to understand them. By doing so, we will be able to work better with them with as minimal conflicts as possible.
Lastly, the comic strip you have added in is very humorous and it is in relevance to the aspect of intercultural communications. Looking forward to your next post.
Jason
Hi Cherlia,
I found the picture a perfect example of how cultural ignorance will lead to bad results. It really conveys how important knowing the culture in the place you will be going or working in will affect how you will be received by the locals.
In your scenario of the Japanese baseball players interacting with the American ones, you went in depth with how interracial communication was important and how it will continue to improve interpersonal relationships and the impacts of that. I felt that it really highlighted how this awareness of other cultures will affects many facets of our lives as well as enriching them. Just reading it made me appreciate how lucky we are, that our world is one homogenous culture, lest we could not enjoy such benefits of learning a different culture.
You also highlighted that globalization has made interracial awareness not only an important but necessary skill to have now, and that it would benefit the team if all the members had that particular skill as they could stretch each other’s potential. I felt that although this is true, it would have a stronger impact if I could see the effects of such a team’s effort, perhaps by indicating a specific benefit that such a team has.
Overall, a really interesting read, a really thought provoking perspective. It makes me look forward to you next post.
Regards,
Kimberly
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