Intercultural Communication: Barriers

A. Communication Dimensions (continued)

5. Emotional vs. Rational. Emotional cultures will fill the conversation with gestures, crying, yelling and other demonstrative actions whether in private or public. The emotion of the conversation is as important, if not more so, than what is being said. Many Arabic, Mediterranean, and African countries show emotion while discussing an issue. When upset or trying to make a point they may pound their fist on the table, raise their voices or use other methods to convey the emotion of the conversation.

A rational culture will avoid showing any emotion while conversing with other people. They often find it difficult to have a conversation with people who use a great deal of emotion. They find emotion counter productive to solving an issue or disagreement and feel it should be removed from any decision made. Many Asian countries feel showing emotion in public, especially in a business environment, is not acceptable behavior.

GV team interactions and communications are related better to the rational approach as emotion is often difficult to convey through VCT. Even when it is used it may be misunderstood or misinterpreted leading to unproductive and time wasting conflict. When you consider that VCTs are the only way to communicate with team members and only the rich VCTs provide audio, visual and text communication, albeit in a limited manner, emotion becomes very hard to correctly communicate through VCTs.

While working on GV team, a colleague appeared angry and mad. However, when asked, he apologized and commented that he had had several late nights and was extremely tired. This illustrates how one thing (exhaustion) may be mistaken for an emotion (anger).

6. Formal vs Casual. A formal communication style recognizes a clear hierarchy in the group and defers communication to those in positions of power and authority. The hierarchal relationship establishes clear rules of who may speak to whom, when they may speak and the type of language they would use. Formal people would insist that titles and positions be used when addressing each other.

Casual communication style is less concerned with the formality and hierarchies of the group. It is less formal in the language and titles people use to communicate and interact with one another. The title or position of a person matters little in this regard.

In some cases language itself conveys the formal and casual types of communication. In English this has largely been lost except in some religions where terms like "Thee" and "Thou" are replaced when praying to deity. Other languages have this formal and casual dimension embedded in the language. An illustration of this in Spanish is by asking, "Where are you from?" The two ways of asking this are:
• ¿De dónde es usted?
• ¿De dónde eres (tú)?

Asking "¿De dónde eres?" is more casual and is not used when speaking to an older person or your boss. In the United States it would be illustrated with asking, "What's up?" (informal, used with close personal friends) and "How are you today?" (formal, used with people in a position of respect and power like your boss).

This type of communication is also indicated with non-verbal actions. For example, if a businessman was working in a team to solve a problem, he may take off his suit coat, roll up the sleeves of his shirt and loosen his neck tie as the work proceeded. In many Asian countries such behavior is too casual and considered inappropriate. Similarly crossing one's legs so the sole of the foot is showing is viewed as a casual, relaxed action in the United States, but an insult in the Arab world.

On a GV team during the team start up and periodically throughout the project, team members need to identify culturally formal and casual comments, gestures and actions. It is at this time that team members express how they prefer to be addressed. For example, Asian cultures will often use a "Western" name when interacting with western cultures. Such items should be specified in personal profiles and team setup procedures to avoid any offense.

7. Frequent vs Infrequent. When you go to see a doctor, how many questions do you ask after he/she has prescribed a course of action . . . more than five or less than five? If you ask more than five questions you may be considered a frequent communicator. These people will have numerous conversations and ask many questions in the process of making a decision. In cultures oriented on group actions, found in Asia and South America, frequent communication is preferred to make certain everyone has a voice and understands what is being said.

An infrequent culture prefers fewer conversations when making a decision for the group. They want to have a decision made and to move on. Many western cultures focus on the individual and independent actions. As a result conversations are more infrequent and individuals are expected to take greater responsibility to make their own decisions.

On GV teams a frequent approach is preferred as one needs to make certain of the meaning conveyed from interactions and communications. If in any doubt, one needs to ask questions to verify and seek clarification. GV teams require considerable more effort to make certain that all team members are working in a unified task towards the same common goal.