A great leader must be a great communicator. However, communication in a global context means communicating successfully across boundaries and borders. Cross-cultural communications are complex – often difficult and easily misinterpreted or misunderstood if not skillfully navigated. The ability to successfully connect across cultures can be facilitated, not by trying to understand the many nuances of every culture, but by understanding that there are basic orientations (or perspectives) that, if understood on a continuum basis, can foster the potential for leaders everywhere to leverage cross-cultural communications for a new energy boost to high performance in an increasingly complex global environment.
The truth is that there are very few leaders or companies on this planet that truly embrace cultural differences and leverage them for global success on a personal and organizational level – yet cross-cultural communications are an invaluable lever to global success. Those of you who are managing across countries and regions and who are willing to get the best out of the rich melting pot of cultures that you navigate, have the ability to build virtual bridges between cultures and geographic locations, creating thriving teams and organizations, that will enable you to become a Game Changer vs. a Game Player through effective global and interpersonal communications.
Integrating cultural orientations into your communications will allow you to unleash exponentially more human potential to achieve meaningful objectives – you will be better equipped to extend personal and organizational worldviews, bridge cultural gaps, and make communications relevant to a geographically dispersed workforce that will enable impossible futures across boundaries and borders.
There is no viable way around it – your cultural orientations impact the way you communicate. As you begin to have the ability to understand your own cultural perspectives and communicate effectively across alternative worldviews, you will begin to have the ability to leverage cultural differences constructively and for the benefit of all, communicating efficiently and effectively across your global organization. This capacity is of the highest importance for success in an interconnected and increasingly global marketplace.
In the highly competitive global markets in which we all reside, the aim is to achieve concrete impact and tangible results that are enabled through maximum performance across all regions. Challenging cultural assumptions and looking at yourself and your entire extended network (including customers) through a different cultural lens, and communicating back through that lens, will propel you beyond your previous limitations to discover creative solutions that are outside of your proverbial box – leveraging cross-cultural differences to achieve business results well beyond anyone’s expectations.
For the next several weeks, I will be discussing specific cultural orientations that will facilitate successful communications and business results. Are you prepared to shift your paradigm for global success?
You can contact me at Sheri.Mackey@LuminosityGlobal.com or by visiting our website at www.LuminosityGlobal.com. Check back next Thursday for the beginning of a multi-tiered discussion on understanding cultural orientations for successful communication Across Boundaries & Borders.
