By | Shital Kakkar Mehra | Executive Presence Coach for CEOs I Business Communication Expert I Best-selling Author I Co-Founder Katalyst, NGO
Whenever you visit any foreign country, you face a problem in communicating fluently because of cross cultures. To express what you feel, you have to improve your cross culture skills for communicating efficiently. Here are some useful tips to sharpen your cross culture skills.
1. Know your own culture
You must first understand your own culture. All of us have our own personal culture which we are used to following years. The aim of this exercise is to recognize your emotions. Once you know emotions, it becomes easy to manage the cross culture. Try to recognize triggers of your own culture which help you improve cross culture communication skills. The task is to manage the natural reaction when two different cultures meet together. The reaction is mostly defensive. You may also give emphasis on pushing your values on others.
2. Respect the difference between both the cultures
Always be attentive that you are not entering in other’s personal space. Disturbing someone’s personal space is the main reason for miscommunication. Think about how you will react if other does the same with you. Personal space differs with the different cultures. It may be very close in some cultures. While communicating you must know what the person next to you is used to. This can be done by recognizing their culture and their definition for personal space. Follow the actions only in which person next to you feels most comfortable.
3. Be confident
You have to learn the foreign language, their accent, and their style. It is not that much easy which may also take decades to master. But never give up on yourself. You should not show that you are afraid. The pauses you take in communication can mirror your fear. You need to be confident so that you can communicate without pauses. This becomes even more important when you are communicating to professionals like interviews or conferences in foreign countries.
These are some useful tips to be followed if you are tangled in cross cultures. You can adopt the foreign culture and you can also share your customs and traditions with them. This sharing may develop a strong bond and make it easy to manage both cultures together.
Republished with permission and originally published at Shital Kakkar Mehra’s LinkedIn
