Such a failure of cross-cultural communication can have dire consequences in international diplomacy.  For business, the consequences of cultural insensitivity can be equally devastating. 

A little ignorance is the only ingredient needed to create an angry customer, an alienated employee, or an irritated partner.  Whether a company does business abroad or just within the increasingly diverse United States, where communications is concerned it seems surprisingly easy to undo years of goodwill and hard work.

Yet in spite of the importance of good cross-cultural communications skills, Deborah Valentine, a faculty member in the management communication department at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School believes that Americans spend too little time thinking about how to bridge cultural gaps. “We are so America-centric and culture-centric that we’ll say, yes, a lot of people do [things] differently, so what?  It would be better if they’d just do it our way.”

Valentine says she realized from teaching business communication to American and international students at Emory that they needed better access to the most important research and thinking about cross-cultural contact.  “My international students would say, ‘In my country we do it differently.’  I found that fascinating, and I began to collect specific examples of cross-cultural communication issues they reported.”

The result is the book, Guide to Cross-Cultural Communication, which Valentine co-wrote with Sana Reynolds, a professor of management communication at New York University’s Stern School of Business.  Their deliberately slender guide from Prentice-Hall offers a short course on some of the basic paradigms used by academics in classifying cultures, along with practical tips on how to overcome cultural barriers.

In the book, the two argue that while English may be considered the universal language of international business, it’s still quite easy to miscommunicate.  Many managers they have worked with misinterpret culturally specific behaviors. For example, some believed that the failure of their Chinese employees to make direct and sustained eye contact was evidence that they were uncommitted or uninterested.   “They didn’t realize that differences in eye-contact are strongly related to cultural norms.”

Avoiding cultural misunderstandings is easier said than done. Often, knowing some of the cultural communication norms is the best starting point. For example, it’s important to know whether the people with whom you are trying to communicate come from a higher- or lower-context culture, the authors say.  In a relatively low-context culture such as the U.S., people want as many details as possible.  Alternatively, in many Asian countries, elements of how people communicate and do business are simply “understood.”  For example, Japanese executives don’t usually reject a written report – but when they imprint their personal stamp, the degree of the stamp’s alignment expresses whether they believe more study and work is necessary before the report is approved.  The Japanese are taught from an early age to notice subtle details that help form the context for communication.

 It is also important to be aware of how hierarchical a culture is, the authors add.  In the less-hierarchical U.S., for instance, discussions are often free-for-alls, with many people contributing their views from a fairly equal footing.  In many Asian countries, the authors say, where a hierarchy is clearly designated, it may be difficult to get any business accomplished if the U.S. team doesn’t have a clearly designated leader. 

Even understanding the other culture’s sense of time can make a huge difference.  Is time seen, for instance, as proceeding in a straight line—a limited resource that needs to be saved, or budgeted?  Or is time fluid and circular? Trying to set production and shipping schedules can be a challenge when communicating with a culture whose very concept of time may differ.

It’s important not to assume that U.S. symbols of power apply to other cultures, the authors advise.  One example: If you’re doing business in Japan, don’t think there is a problem if the person you’re meeting has an open office on the main floor with many other desks in plain view.  The authors say that in Japan, a big, window-office in the corner of a building may indicate a person with little decision-making power whereas a desk on the main floor can indicate a position of importance in such a collective culture. 

Sometimes historical perspective can influence perceptions: in Germany, the authors write, one global delivery service found employees reluctant to wear the company’s brown uniforms, because the Nazis wore brown uniforms, and “brown shirt” was a synonym for fascist.

Valentine says she has been fascinated by cross-cultural communication since she was a little girl.  As the daughter of an Army officer stationed in Munich in the 50s, she learned early on that she could only get what she wanted from her German nanny if she could make herself understood.  “Learning how to communicate that I was hungry or wanted to go out and play—that was fascinating to me as a child,” she says.

Reynolds, a first-generation immigrant, also traces her fascination with cross-cultural communication to her childhood.  “From the time we came to the U.S. when I was seven,” she says, “I was constantly translating and interpreting English and the American culture for my Ukrainian parents.”

In the course of writing the book, Valentine says that she had many opportunities to see how her cultural background, that of her co-author, and that of their editor all seemed to influence the way they communicated.  E-mail, she says, made those differences particularly clear.

Their editor, Dartmouth professor Mary Munter, is a New Englander who tended to be short and to the point.  Reynolds, who is Slavic, tended to frame even strong opinions in an indirect manner.  And Valentine?  She says she sees herself as somewhere in the middle, since she grew up in a military family where being clear and direct was encouraged, but has spent most of her life in the American South, and has adopted the region’s polite and courteous ways. 

The group did have one advantage over other teams according to Valentine: “Because we’re experts in cross-cultural communication, we understood the differences and never let them interfere with our progress on the project.”

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