Cross Culture

Communication

Intercultural sensitivities Mubasher

Basic thumb Rule
• Your aim should be to try to treat people not in the way you wish to
be treated, but rather treat them the way they want to be treated

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Inter Vs. Intra

Inter Intra
• Outside one • Within same

• Inter-dept • Intra-dept

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Why
• World is Global Village now
• Many businesses are not country bound

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Culture
• shared system of beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations and
norms of behaviour.

• Members of 1 Culture = 1 set of beliefs, attitudes

• Members of a culture have similar beliefs and theories on how people

should behave, think and communicate, and they all tend to act on
those beliefs in much the same way.

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Inter-Cultural
• In different cultures
• Cross Cultural

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How can you improve cross cultural
Communication
• Think and ask yourself

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• improve your cross-cultural communication skills by recognizing
cultural differences, by being willing to accept that other
people have different beliefs and assumptions, by being open-
minded enough to know that not everyone has the same
standards and theories as you, and by constantly making an
effort to improve your intercultural communication skills.

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•Your aim should be to try to treat
people not in the way you wish to
be treated, but rather treat them
the way they want to be treated

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Ethnocentrism
• Considering one’s own Culture Superior

• The biggest barrier in intercultural communication

•For Example
• Considering Edhi not as live saver but a Muslim and being Islam
phobic mind belittling his efforts

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Steps to Avoid Ethnocentricity
1. Recognize differences.
Accept and acknowledge that there are distinctions between your own
cultures and those of other people.
2. Avoid assumptions.
Bear in mind that others may not act in the same way as you, nor will
they have the same fundamental theories or beliefs.
3. Do not pre-judge.
If people act differently to you, do not automatically assume that they
are wrong, that their way is unacceptable, or that your cultures and
customs are more superior to theirs
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Tips for Effective Cross Cultural
Communication
1. Show respect.
• Learn how respect is communicated in different cultures (gestures,
eye contact, symbols, signs, etc.).

• A wrong pragmatic clue can be Communicative Failure.

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2. Show empathy
• Put yourself in the shoes of the recipient and imagine their feelings
and their point of view.

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3 Do not pre-judge.
• Accept differences without judging, and learn to listen.

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4. Be open-minded.
• Accept that you may have to change your habits or mindset when
communicating across cultures.

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5. Avoid distractions.
• Do not be distracted by things like appearance or dress.

• In our culture people are so concerned about this. Many people are
considered low or not taken serious due to appearance

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6. Be patient.
• Sometimes persistence will be necessary when communicating with
someone from a different culture.

• Try to convey your point again and again with different styles
appealing to audience

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7 Look for similarities.
• Try to find common ground, parallels, connections.

•Do in Rome as Romans do

• Increase acceptability and reduce strangeness.

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8. Send clear messages.
• Make sure all your written as well as your verbal and nonverbal
communications are quite clear, reliable and consistent.

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9. Recognize your prejudices.
• Learn to appreciate and accept when your theories and beliefs are
different from other people’s.

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10 . Treat people as individuals.
• Do not treat one person as being a stereotype of a particular group,
but rather as a unique human being with individual qualities and
attributes.

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