One of the most influential trends during the initial years of the new millennium will be our increasing involvement and contact with people of other cultures, countries and regions. This will happen on individual, business and political levels as geographic and political boundaries are no longer the norms for separation.
As a result, one of the largest challenges the next millennium will present is learning how to communicate in this new environment.
Yes, our world is becoming exponentially smaller year by year, driving our cultures and businesses closer together. You can see this happening already with all the mega-mergers crossing international borders in our industry this year. It’s a trend that will only accelerate.
We’re going to be living in an age where the address book in our e-mail program is like an international directory, and where the people we work with span multiple languages, cultures and religions. For some of us, this is already a reality. But really, it’s just the beginning. My point is how fast this trend is increasing.
Of course, the tremendous growth in Internet use plays a significant role in this internationalization trend. At the last Telecom show in Geneva, people have reminded me recently, Web sites still weren’t all that common. Now just four years later, you’re not legitimate in the business world without one.
More than with any other tool or event, the Internet is bringing the world together.
The telephone as a telecommunications tool enabled a certain level of cross-cultural communications during the last century, but it pales in comparison with the capabilities of the Internet. Telephone calls for the most part are a fairly targeted form of communication-i.e., you plan who you’re going to call and then make the call. However, in a single two-hour chat session on the Internet, I can communicate with people in several countries spread across the globe-all of these contacts totally unplanned. It’s like throwing a message in a bottle into the ocean and seeing who picks it up. Only with a much faster response.
On a business level, the Internet has dramatically changed the way companies operate. Several years ago in my line of work, for example, writing an international news story took sometimes several days because getting information and finding the right contacts took some real sleuthing work. Now I can pick up on a breaking news story in the morning, go up on the Web and print other articles about it from the news wires, go to the Web sites of the companies involved to print out their press releases, check for company contact information and then e-mail or call those people with follow-up questions. This takes 15 or 20 minutes.
But while this trend toward a smaller world represents tremendous opportunity for businesses and can enable all of us to better understand each other, it also brings the potential for increased conflicts. Throw a group of diverse people together, and they’ll likely start sharing experiences; however, at some point because of each of our cultural backgrounds, there will be differing opinions presented and resulting disagreements.
To deal with living and working in such close quarters, we’re going to have to remember some basic lessons about communications and about respect. Perhaps the most important will be remembering the art of listening.
Yes, listening is an “art.”
It’s hard to sit and listen to someone without interrupting. Talking is easy, but talking also can get us into trouble faster than saying the tongue-twister acronym HSCSD.
In any culture, we have to listen hard to what other people are telling us and not insert our own interpretations of what we’re being told. This becomes even more important when communicating across cultures, whether it’s with an e-mail pen pal, co-worker or customer.
So in this high-speed world of Megabits and mergers, slow down and remember that forming a relationship is the easy part. Maintaining it is more difficult. Listen to what your partner is saying, repeat back to him what you’ve heard, make sure you understand each other. Then act.
