Cultural differences

Comparing communication mediums in cross cultural team communication

15 August 2010

There are a num­ber of dif­fer­ent com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies avail­able to the mod­ern pro­ject man­ager to inter­face with and coördin­ate their inter­na­tional pro­ject teams, ran­ging from stand­ard email com­mu­nic­a­tions, whether they be one to one or used to broad­cast mes­sages to the entire team, use of the tele­phone, again either for a one on one conversation, […]

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Finding the right motivation to succeed in international communications

5 June 2010

I seem to have had a few con­ver­sa­tions with col­leagues recently on the need for per­sonal motiv­a­tion as a driv­ing force to suc­ceed in inter­na­tional com­mu­nic­a­tions. By motiv­a­tion I am refer­ring to the type of psy­cho­lo­gical drivers the indi­vidual needs to have the per­sonal desire and drive to really want to learn and under­stand their […]

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Self awareness as a contributor to successful communications

1 June 2010

In a recent con­ver­sa­tion with a col­league, the topic of self aware­ness in pro­ject per­son­nel in gen­eral and as a major con­trib­utor to the devel­op­ment of suc­cess­ful and effect­ive inter­cul­tural com­mu­nic­at­ors spe­cific­ally came up. Dur­ing the dis­cus­sion I came to real­ise just how effect­ive and indeed essen­tial it is for any­one who wishes to become effective […]

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Settling in to new cultures

24 May 2010

Tak­ing up from where my last post left off.  For most people, com­ing to terms with a new coun­try and the cul­ture shock asso­ci­ated with the move, after a few days, weeks or, in rarer cases, months, what ini­tially felt strange and pos­sibly threat­en­ing will start to feel more usual, yes, you most likely still […]

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Assimilation into a new culture

9 May 2010

Arriv­ing in a new coun­try or cul­ture is some­thing every trav­el­ler exper­i­ences dif­fer­ently, for some it is all excite­ment at the new exper­i­ences and oppor­tun­it­ies afforded by the change, for oth­ers it is largely fear at the changes they must under­take, learn­ing dif­fer­ent ways to func­tion in their new envir­on­ment, but for most it is a […]

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Cultural filters

25 April 2010

We are all products of our per­sonal and cul­tural past, everything we have seen, read, heard and exper­i­enced changes the way we see our own pres­ence, our future and how we per­ceive oth­ers around us. Whether our view of the world is an inclus­ive and open one or we see the world as a number […]

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Going native on international assignments

27 March 2010

Over the years I have come across a num­ber of indi­vidu­als who, usu­ally after a few years of liv­ing and work­ing over­seas, decide either con­sciously or sub­con­sciously that an over­seas loc­a­tion, on occa­sion any over­seas loc­a­tion, is more attract­ive for them than a home base job. Some­times these people seem to seek out these opportunities […]

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Mind your colloquialisms

19 March 2010

We all have our little speech quirks, turns of phrase and col­lo­qui­al­isms, the little things we often say without think­ing, that make per­fect sense to us and usu­ally, though not always, make as much sense to our col­leagues. They can be things we have picked up from our par­ents, our chil­dren, our friends, favour­ite films, […]

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Masculinity in international project communications

6 March 2010

The impact of the level of mas­culin­ity in a cul­ture on inter­na­tional pro­ject com­mu­nic­a­tions is an inter­est­ing one to con­sider. Cul­tural Mas­culin­ity, along with Power Dis­tance, Indi­vidu­al­ity, Uncer­tainty Avoid­ance and Long Term Ori­ent­a­tion, all meas­ure­ments doc­u­mented in Hofstede’s research, is, in part at least, a reflec­tion of the way the indi­vidu­als in a soci­ety regard […]

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Taking the long term view

5 March 2010

Long Term Ori­ent­a­tion sits along with Power Dis­tance, Indi­vidu­al­ity, Mas­culin­ity and Uncer­tainly Avoid­ance as one of the meas­ured cul­tural dif­fer­ences from Hofstede’s research. As the name of this char­ac­ter­istic sug­gests, it is a meas­ure of a culture’s per­spect­ive of the future, how it impacts on life and busi­ness and how life and busi­ness impacts on […]

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