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Understanding Cultures
An essential guide to doing business in multi-racial communities (2)

Understanding Cultures - an essential guide to doing business in multi-racial communities - Part 2

(Date of publication 27 February 2002)

By Sally Fagan, JS Training

In Part One of Understanding Cultures we looked at why it was important for a salesperson to be conscious of cultural differences, and how these differences may exist even when we are not aware of them. In this second part we shall look at how we can sensitise ourselves more easily to a client's culture.

In the space of a short article it would be impossible to outline all the differences a salesperson may encounter. So I believe it will be more beneficial to look at how differences arise and what sort differences may be there, so you can build up pictures yourselves of why a client may have different values to yourself.

To have an appreciation of others' values, we first need to look at our own and our attitude towards them. We often tend to generalise about other cultures, 'they're lazy', 'they're cold' 'they're superficial' and many will say the 'British way is best'. Whatever country we are from, we all have a certain amount of arrogance, and we judge others by our own values. So our first principle in dealing with other cultures is to remember that our way of doing things is not better than others, nor worse than others, just different.

I split cultural differences into four main categories: spoken language, body language, manners, and customs and systems. We can see where these differences arise by considering the facts that affect, or have affected different countries. Once we know the facts about a country we can create models or stereotypes which can help us understand how people coming from there or originate from that country may think. However, just as we may consider ourselves not a stereotypical British person, so we must always be prepared to find that others don't fit the stereotypes of their culture either. The rule here is, remember to treat people individually, not as models or stereotypes which may be used to guide rather than dictate.

Knowing facts will help us to see what attitudes exist and why. These will influence behaviour patterns which in turn will govern communication. Facts may be:

• Geographical (e.g. Great Britain is an island)
• Historical (e.g. the development of America is relatively recent)
• Political (e.g. Singapore broke away politically as a city nation from Malaysia in the 1960s)
• Demographic (e.g. Japan is over-populated)

Let us look at an example of how such facts can influence how we sell:

Fact: Germany was reunified after 40 years.

Attitude: young people in the original Federal Republic were frustrated that their money was going to rebuild a country which they had never known to be part of theirs, and 'their' jobs were being given to East Germans.

Behaviour: For the first time they felt financially insecure and worried about their future. They became resistant to change.

Commuication: if we are trying to sell to a German national, we have to realise that they may be less likely than us to give up what they are comfortable with (i.e. an existing supplier) to take a risk with a new supplier. We have to communicate total trustworthiness and perseverance to become accepted before we can sell.

Similarly the fact that Japan (and other Asian countries) are demographically over-populated has led to comfort zones being smaller. If we step backwards from a hand shake to re-establish our own comfort zone, we may make them feel distinctly uncomfortable and create the feeling that we are 'cold' or that we don't really like their company.

So when faced with what we might perceive as 'odd' behaviour from a client, rather than condemning him or her for it, it's worth taking a step back and considering what it might be in their culture that has influenced it and if we can modify our communication to fit.

When you are meeting with someone from a different cultural origin for the first time, here are some tips to help stop you falling into the culture trap:

• Speak slowly and clearly
• Check and recheck
• Be direct
• Be specific
• Give them time
• Mind your manners
• Don't be funny
• Convey consideration and goodwill
• Don't make hasty judgments
• Think people not foreigners.

For more information, please contact Sally Fagan of JS Training.

Other relevant articles:

Understanding Cultures - an essential guide to doing business in multi-racial communities. (Part 1)

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