In this post, you’ll learn three essential traits that help you boost your intercultural communication skills. That way, you’llbe able to work successfully across cultures. 

Instead of using ineffective do’s and don’ts as a clumsy crutch, learn a more simple, intuitive and effective strategy. Leverage your curiosity, patience and perception.

It is much more natural to use your curiosity when approaching other cultures.

Here is an example: 

In Asian countries, you don’t say `No`. It might hurt the other person and, in the worst case, make them lose their face. Instead, they use a much gentler way of saying ‘No’. They use the word ‘but’. 

Let’s assume you would like to go to a restaurant with someone, but the other person doesn’t have time. They would say: We could go to the restaurant, but another time would be a little better.

How developing curiosity improves your intercultural communication.

With a little curiosity you might find out carefully what the deeper meaning behind it is. It  might lead you  to notice the way people speak, then to listen for it, to see that it's an alternative to saying 'no' for example. Perhaps you might ask a colleague, friend or mentor about it. 

You get into a conversation about ‘saying no in different cultures’ and gain a little flexibility in your personal communication style.

How developing patience will help you get along with other cultures.

Because you don’t know what makes your business partner tick, it takes a lot of patience to find out. When I used to work with an Expat spouse with an Asian background, I allowed myself to take the time I needed to get to know my client better. This helped us build a good coaching relationship so that we could work together and discuss emotions and other details involved in the expatriation process.

Over the years, I have watched clients, colleagues, and friends show impatience . By interrupting others, rolling your eyes, not listening to your conversation partner or tapping on the table with your hands when people didn’t get to the point quickly in their opinion or small talk took too long for them. But you should know how you appear when you react this way. In many other cultures, you appear rude, even arrogant. When you want to sell a product or service and show one of the behaviours above , you might not get the deal. Because sometimes other cultures don’t buy from you because you have such a fantastic product.

 And if you're a director or owner, you will want to make sure your team is not sabotaging its own efforts with these kinds of cultural faux pas.

How seeing things from a different perception is helpful in intercultural encounters. 

People from other cultures have a different perception of things than you do. They are raised and educated differently. In addition, language also shapes the way you think and perceive the world.

In Germany for example, our language is more precise and direct. That might be an explanation for our more direct way of approaching others and in communication.

So, try to find out a little about your business partner's culture and try to “walk in her/his shoes” a bit. 

To accomplish this, you could read some literature on your business partner’s culture or check out a few blog posts. You can also read the magazine ‘Business Spotlight’ which provides you with a lot of information on other cultures.

When you repeat words and chunks of phrases your business partner uses you get a better impression of the other person'sperception.

Takeaway

In this blog post you have seen how you can use the top traits of curiosity, patience and perception for international sales.

These are 3 essential qualities you can develop to improve your intercultural communication. So, you can earn the esteem of your manager, make more sales, feel less awkward in presentations or even climb up the career ladder.

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