How to Best Manage Multicultural & Multilingual Meetings
How to Best Manage Multicultural & Multilingual Meetings
The previous part allowed us to highlight several sources of potential misunderstandings based on language and culture differences. To some, it may seem like too much to deal with – and overcoming such difficulties certainly demands some work, not even counting the fact the results are uncertain and often only appear on the long-term.
Nevertheless, here are a couple of tips to help limit communication problems between participants with different languages and cultures.
To be truly efficient, one must become aware of one’s own level of mastery of the common language, along with every else that happens when we communicate and that is mostly unconscious (expectations, behaviors, values, rules…). This is the only way you can identify – before or during the meeting – the differences between the others and yourself, and thus potential sources of misunderstandings along with possible solutions.
In short, it’s not enough to know who you’re dealing with; you need to know yourself too.
Ask yourself the following questions for instance:
By gathering such information as early as possible, you’ll be able to clarify and agree on many things beforehand – both internally and externally. You might even be able to adjust certain aspects (who comes, duration, location…), and in the end you’ll help reduce the number of issues once the meeting starts.
The point, however, is not to force your way of doing things onto others or to be the slave of their ways of doing; it’s all about looking at how they do things, how you do things, and then finding some kind of compromise that takes into account external constraints. For example is you’re only staying in China for a couple of days, can you truly afford to use 75% of the meetings planned to build relationships? Or on the contrary, is it wise to only stay so little time in China if you know you must start by building relationships?
Even if you’re well prepared, it’s important to pay attention to how the meeting goes to make sure no misunderstanding is allowed to develop. For example:
All the information necessary to properly manage a multicultural & multilingual meeting can be found via training programs; I have for example given French courses and educated professionals about the French culture.
The best solution however, remains to call upon a consultant who knows about intercultural communication, and especially the languages and cultures that will be found during the meeting. This person can help prepare the meeting beforehand (by asking the right questions, providing relevant answers, identifying sources of potential misunderstandings, etc.) but also – and this is even more important – he or she can participate in the meeting itself as a moderator, who allows the participants to fully focus on what they have to say while ensuring that the message goes through (which basically means fulfilling the role described above).
Even better yet, his/her knowledge will allow him/her, among other things, to act as an interpreter to correct or rephrase sentences that aren’t understood because they’re wrong. His/her ability to correctly “read the room”/understand non-verbal communication will help steer the conversation in the right direction (“you should elaborate on aspect X because the audience is skeptical”, “please, tell us whether you agree with Y”, “Is this clear? Do you have questions?”, etc.), and so on.
By contrast, a participant that isn’t a specialist will have to stick with trying to clarify his speech as best he can while staying focused on the meeting’s content.