Tag: effective communication

Social Networking and Cross-Cultural Competence

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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.

Social Media use - PEW

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 21st 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:

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

Jenny

Communication skills

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See on Scoop.it – Mindful Leadership & Intercultural Communication

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

Swiss Flag

Keys to multicultural communication in Switzerland

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I am sure most of you know that Switzerland has more to offer than cheese, chocolate and fiscal advantages.As a matter of fact, and to quote Ute Limacher in her excellent post on that matter:

“Switzerland is a multilingual country with four national languages: German, French, Italian and Rumantsch (…). But only German, French and Italian maintain equal status as official languages at the national level within the Federal Administration of the Swiss Confederation. According to the federal census of 2000, 63.7% of the Swiss population speaks German, 20.4% French, 6.5% Italian, 0.5% Rumantsch and 9.0% speak other languages.”

For (international) communicators coming into the country with a multinational or simply having to communicate from within a company locally, this might mean a major headache as the language is not the only thing that differs from one region to another. In fact, culturally speaking, every region – not to say every canton –  has its different worldviews, habits, behaviors, understanding of time etc.  The beauty of it is that all of this coexists in one country!

A Swiss from German speaking Switzerland might thus not have the same values as a Swiss from Italian speaking Switzerland and so on. In order to be able to effectively manage or work in teams, communicate internally/externally, launch a marketing campaign etc. you hence need to know exactly how to do this in the different parts of the country and how/where to approach the local structures, media outlets, agencies… In fact, if you do this the right way, communicating effectively and appropriately in Switzerland might even boost your brand image across Europe, if not globally.

In summary, if you are able to:

  • address the right audience with the right words, tools and media outlets
  • know what it means to have Swiss people on your team or be managed by a Swiss
  • know how to deal with the various differences,

You will definitely have a major competitive advantage, without a doubt!

Exactly for that reason, I have decided to team up with a local senior consultant so that we can bring both international/intercultural and local targeted communication strategy/management knowledge together.  We offer it in form of a workshop to international companies and multinationals who are eager to make the most out of their stay in Switzerland. If you are interested in learning more about the offer and what we do, please visit us here or contact me directly here. We are definitely looking forward to hearing from you!

Further reading:

1. On Ute Limacher’s blog:

2. The Federal Authorities of the Swiss Confederation

3. Intercultural thoughts on Switzerland (Jenny Ebermann)

 

 

Podcast: The Power of Mindful e-mailing

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I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! Here is my second podcast in the Mindfulness Series, entitled “The Power of Mindful e-mailing“.

Podcast 2 | Jenny EbermannPodcasts are a very practical way to take me with you when you are at work, at home or on the road. Remember: You are the Architect of your Life! Everybody can start being mindful: TODAY!

Enjoy listening,

Jenny

Saying “I am sorry” is not only a matter of translation

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To be sorry - different languagesWhile reading this article on how difficult it is to say: “I am sorry” in different cultures, it struck me that things which appear to be so simple on the surface can have a tremendous impact. This it not only true when speaking about image, communication/negotiation style and branding of organizations; it is also crucial when it comes down to the level of personal relationships (at work and in private). Whenever people from different cultures communicate, they have to be mindful about how and if certain emotions are transmitted.

In that sense it is already helpful to look inside yourself and your cultural background/worldviews to see how you are actually apologizing. Is it something that comes quite naturally to you? Do you use words or rather gestures? Or don’t you say anything at all? It already makes a major difference if you are a woman or a man but adding the cultural lens to the problem, doesn’t make things easier.

Next time you meet with your team or speak to friends from different nationalities and cultural backgrounds, please be mindful about how easy/not that easy it is for them to acknowledge mistakes and say “I am sorry”. It can have a huge impact on the quality of the relationship and what it is build of: mutual trust!

Interesting posts on the subject:

What to consider when striving towards becoming an effective communicator

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Did you know that verbal communication as such has commonly three different components or levels? These are:

  1. Paraverbal
  2. Non-verbal
  3. Verbal

In order to be an effective communicator, it is important to know what lies behind these definitions and what they mean for oral communications:

Paraverbal

These aspects of communication refer to the intonation, cadence, volume or pace of saying words. It can also be the accent, a laughter, a pause or a slight cough.

Non-verbal

Here we mean communication through gestures and touch, by using body language or posture, by facial expression and eye contact.

Verbal

Verbal aspects are what we actually say to our communication partner using language and linguistic symbols.

Following a study of Albert Mehrabian[1], an American Psychologist which has been further elaborated and refined by various other researchers subsequently, the following numbers will be interesting to you, who still have their validity and illustrate to what extent which aspect of communications is relevant to the understanding of information, thus to effectively communicating a message where your counterpart understands the meaning behind what you want to deliver:

  • The verbal aspect only accounts for 7 % (hence the content of what you are saying)
  • 38 % come from the paraverbal aspect of communication and surely not surprising:
  • 55 % from the non-verbal aspects.

Especially when looking into intercultural communications, one more level of communication can be added, as does Jürgen Bolten (1997)[2] for example. The:

Extra-verbal

With extra-verbal we mean factors inherent to a situation which can have an influence on the act of communication, i.e. the time, the situational condition, technical means, clothing, expectations.

In order to have the desired effect when communicating, negotiating, speaking etc. you need to take all of these aspects into consideration, especially the ones which are not directly linked to delivering words as shown above. This will substantially affect your relationship and the message that your counterpart receives and understands. You can imagine that if an intercultural dimension is added to this, things get even more complex!

How these different levels are having an impact on written communications and how you do all this in a mindful way will be looked at in the following posts.

Have an excellent day and thanks for reading!

[1] See for example here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Mehrabian

[2] Jürgen Bolten (1997): Interkulturelle Wirtschaftskommunikation. In: Walter, Rolf (Editor)

Wirtschaftswissenschaften. Eine Einführung. Paderborn: Schöningh. S. 469-497.