Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny) – Page 9

Social Networking and Cross-Cultural Competence

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

If you look at the stats below, you get a sense of understanding how important social networks have become in our lives. Interestingly, even more ‘private’ topics such as politics and religion are being discussed, even more so in countries like Tunisia, Jordan or Egypt.

Knowing how to build communities and to nurture them; more importantly, how to communicate across cultures and borders becomes an essential skill in today’s connected world. Relationships are becoming more complex as often people communicating with each other don’t necessarily have the opportunity to see themselves.

But: as I wrote in an earlier post about the components of communication, 55% of the non-verbal aspects actually contribute to the understanding of what your counterpart is saying and 38% of the paraverbal. Hence, when communicating in social networks where usually you cannot see your discussion partner, the tone of your message, character fonts, drawings, diagrams, colours, italics or highlights are extremely important.

Understanding your target audience and their culture plus choosing the right tone and message is a must when building relationships in the business world but also privately.

I am extremely happy to be able to speak about this exciting subject in London on the 21^st of February. Looking forward to seeing you there and if not, please stay tuned as we will be setting up tailored webinars to follow-up on the conference around three major topics:

Social networking across cultures and platforms
How to use social media effectively across cultures for Internationalization, Marketing and Strategic Communication
Using Social Media for Community Management

Jenny

Communicating with Different Cultures – a few Tips

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

The other day, while preparing a class in international marketing that I am going to give in France beginning of April, I stumbled upon this very useful handbook. Although very basic, I thought that it was still extremely helpful to read through it once again.

So here they are, a few simple points to help you communicate with people no matter where they come from:

Be very aware of yourself
Try to understand how and why you communicate the way you do. Also pay attention to your speed and how you express yourself in languages which are not your mother tongue. This will help you appreciate others’ styles and how you may need to adapt to them. Pay attention to how people react and respond to you by looking for subtle changes in facial expressions and posture. Be aware however that non-verbal signs differ from one culture to another.

Be curious, with respect
If you work closely with people from a particular country, learn about the people and how they like to communicate – from greetings to gestures to non-verbal behaviour. Build your know-how by observing, asking questions, watching movies, reading current affair articles and researching online.

Clarify your intentions
Always explaining what you mean, especially when you are not communicating in your mother tongue can save lots of trouble and problems. You could for example explain that in your culture, communication tends to be more direct and that meaning only comes from words and not from interpreting the situation (low-context culture).

Take a step back from the situation
Whenever you find yourself in a confusing situation, get into the habit of asking what is going on and seeking clarification from your counterparts. Usually the other person’s intentions are good, you are simply confused as you don’t know how to interpret what is going on.

Put yourself in the other person’s shoes
We all have preferences as to what we like and dislike when it comes to communication and we tend to make quick judgments about people based on these preferences. The challenge is to stay open in a non-judging way. Try to put yourself into the other ‘worldview’, experiencing but not assimilating it, well aware of the differences and similarities.

Do not stereotype
Do not stereotype but read individuals. If you start judging, tell yourself “here I am judging again”. Every person is different and you might even be surprised about how a person with a certain cultural background behaves completely different from what you would have expected. Everybody is a human being, an individual, just like you!

Keep trying and don’t give up
We change the way we communicate on a frequent basis depending on who we are talking to (a friend, a family member, a colleague). Communicating effectively with people from other cultures just means being conscious and sometimes making a few more changes. Be aware that you can only change yourself and not the others around you. The more you are sensitive to how things work, the more you will see progress and positive outcomes.

Be patient with yourself and don’t be afraid of making mistakes
The beauty lies in learning from mistakes and openly discussing what happened with your peers, a mentor, partner or even a coach. As you develop your intercultural skills and competence you will learn how to do things better over time! After all, skills can be acquired, they only need practice, practice, practice…

4 tips on how to remain serene and creative throughout the week

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

Before you start the new week, let me give some tips on how to remain serene and creative even though you have to cope with a flood of incoming mails, various problems, family issues etc.:

When you wake up in the morning, smile to yourself; your mood will directly improve.
Every time you feel tight or stressed, remember to breathe. Even better: take a couple of deep breaths, walk a couple of steps and stretch; you will immediately feel better and tensions will loosen.
Take the habit of establishing some so-called ‘micro-practices’: a certain trigger makes you take a particular action reminding you of staying mindful and switching off the auto-pilot. Example: whenever you are stopping at a red light with your car, take a moment to check in with you body, to feel what is going on and to breathe a couple of times deeply. Or: whenever your phone rings, instead of responding immediately, take a moment for centering yourself and feeling your body.
Do something creative every day; be it arranging the kitchen table for dinner in the evening in a different way than usual, giving a creative input while being in a team meeting etc. You will see that the more you do that, the more ideas you will get!

Here’s wishing you an excellent week!

Jenny

Diversity not Always Leads to Innovation and Creativity: The Damaging Effects of Indirect Cultural Disharmony

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

See on Scoop.it – Mindful Leadership & Intercultural Communication

Jenny Ebermann | Communications | Services

Jenny Ebermann | Intercultural Communications | Services

Organizations strive to be innovative and creative. For that reason, they invest in diversity management, because innovation and creativity can be increased through diversity.

Jenny Ebermann‘s insight:

I completely agree! Diversity has to be actively managed to be able to harvest its benefits such as more creativity and innovation…

See on ingostolz.wordpress.com

7 main catalysts that impact people’s work

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

Today, I would like to introduce you to 7 catalysts that – according to T. Amabile and S. Kramer – have a major impact on people’s emotions, perceptions and motivations as well as on the particular tasks they are performing. These catalysts are certainly not new to you, but I thought that spelling them out again and listing them here would certainly help you remember what makes people thrill, especially when you are leading a team/teams.

1) Setting clear goals: people need to know where they are heading and setting up milestones along the way, will make them feel the progress on the way

2) Allowing autonomy: Stimulate people’s creativity and intrinsic motivation by providing them the freedom – to a certain extent – of taking decisions themselves.

3) Providing resources: All successful projects need the right resources; many times, I have seen the attainment of goals fail as access to adequate resources was not given or hindered.

4) Giving enough time: Studies have indeed shown that no pressure and too much pressure over time are both hampering achievement. You don’t want your employees to be burnt out, but you don’t want them to be bored either; low to moderate time pressure seems to be the optimum here.

5) Help: In today’s complex and matrixed organizations, people need help from various colleagues as they cannot possible know everything that is needed for the successful completion of a task, project or program.

6) Learning from problems and success: If your organization has a ‘safe’ climate and culture, people will take risks and be innovative. Set-backs need to be openly analyzed whereas successes – even small ones – celebrated.

7) Allowing ideas to flow: Mindfully listen to what your employees are saying, engage in dialogue and encourage discussions/debates. Truly creative ideas will come out and people will feel extremely motivated as they are perceiving that they are an active part of the progress on the path to successful accomplishment.

It sounds easier than it is, I agree! Maybe you want to print this out and pin it over your desk so that you can see it everyday… sometimes, the most simple things are those with the strongest impact!

Jenny

Communication skills

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

See on Scoop.it – Mindful Leadership & Intercultural Communication

Being able to communicate with others is one of the best life skills a person can develop. Someone who can effectively communicate thoughts, ideas, and feelings is better equipped for success.

Jenny Ebermann‘s insight:

Excellent post on communication, great read!

See on principlesofstrategy.com

Doing Business Across Cultures

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

Is the title of the conference I am going to speak at in February in London, UK. More specifically, my topic touches on building a relationship remotely and what cultural etiquette you should employ when using email, LinkedIn and other social networks to build relationships internationally.

Have you ever thought about how you communicate in the online world? As body language, facial expression or tone of voice from your counterparts are missing, how would you know if your message was understood? And more importantly, which rules should you be following when you are using online tools, be it so commonly used ones like e-mail? Not much research has been done to my knowledge on how different cultures are communicating through different online channels.

There is data on the Internet use across the population (click here for more info on Europe for example: ); there is also data on social media use by enterprises (click here for stats in Europe). Precise information on how written language and images are used online analyzing the data by culture and differentiating between the various social media channels are rare. Usually research focuses on the comparison of one culture and one medium to another.

During our workshop in London, Dr. Pari Namazi and myself are going to touch on some interesting aspects, working on concrete examples and speaking about our own multicultural and international experience.

Being mindful about how online communication can be perceived in different cultures is indispensable for multinational companies, governments, charities, NGOs and in fact, for any organization operating in today’s global marketplace.

Avoiding cultural mistakes whilst demonstrating respect and openness for another culture will pave the way to successful interpersonal relationships…

Interested? Register here to get at 20% discount. All you need to do is to click on the speaker button and use the discount code: Jenny3 .

Speakers include:

Andrew Kain, Founding Chairman, AKE Ltd.
Richard D. Lewis, Chairman, Richard Lewis Communications Ltd
Pari Namazie, PhD, Managing Partner, Atieh International GmbH
Nick Hurst Founding Director Burts Potato Chips
Peter C. Pang US China Counsel Dickinson Wright
Jenny Ebermann Freelance Consultant
Bobby D. Butler, Jr., Senior Vice President Global Partnership Management, Universal Weather & Aviation, Inc.
John Smart, Partner, Head of Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services, Ernst & Young LLP
Nigel R Brahams, Head of Legal, EMEA, GFI Group

Looking forward to seeing you there and if you know of interesting research on the subject matter, please let me know!

Jenny

Brussels – A Cultural Potpourri

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

During this holiday season, I had the pleasure of going home again. To those of you who are following this blog on a regular basis, you might know that ‘home’ for me is quite an interesting term. Usually, I use it for Brussels, the town where I grew up in and where I still feel very attached to.

For the first time in a while, I noticed something new when listening to the people in the streets, restaurants and other locations where crowds meet: even more languages than ever before. More worrying for me: I was not even able to recognize some of them, hence would not be able to say from which country the people speaking them would come from.

Since I lived there, many things have indeed changed in Europe’s capital. Not only have the member states passed from 12 at the time to 28 today which means a huge organization when it comes to elections; We now also have a single currency in 18 member states meaning that you don’t need to change money anymore when crossing the border… I still remember the times and even the exchange rates between the countries when this was not the case: what a complicated undertaking! I also remember having to show passports at borders and the need to explain what my different grades were worth in various countries to have the right to study there as no credit system existed at the time…. Wow, either I am getting old or things change fast 😉

What also struck me over the holidays was the fact that all these different people with different habits, worldviews, behaviors are living and working together in one city, bringing their own traditions, norms and values with them. What a colorful potpourri of people and truly something making the heart of a European Intercultural Chameleon like me beat faster. How enriching those encounters are but how full of problems and misunderstandings they can be if not lived and accepted with patience and a non-judging and open attitude.

2014 begins in the heart of Europe for me and who knows where my intercultural and mindful path will lead me this year. Maybe to you! Don’t hesitate to contact me if your teams are not working well together or you need to understand what motivates people from a different culture to become more efficient. My up-bringing and years of experience coupled with various languages and other skills will surely be able to bring you further on your path. Looking very much forward to it!

Jenny

No more resolutions

Posted on January 1, 2014 by Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

It’s that time of the year again, people take resolutions that they never live up to (or at least rarely) and everything is supposed to be better, brighter in the New Year. The fact is though that YOU are the architect of your life and that self-awareness and being kind to yourself should be at the basis of whatever you strive for.

Start with acknowledging how you feel and where this can be felt in your body, focus and sharpen your attention on all these small things going on at this very moment. Don’t judge, plan, think. Simply BE… You hold the key to happiness, you simply need to pay attention to how life unfolds every single second. Think about something that made you feel warm and loved. Stay with that feeling and see what it does inside of you. Smile to yourself and be present. Moment after moment. Happy New Year!