intercultural communication Archivi - Pagina 3 di 6 - Dr. Daniele Trevisani

Measure the differences

2 Marzo 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Consulting Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for qualified Publishers wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab. If you are interested in publishing or Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

Vision of Time, Long- vs. Short-Term Time Orientation

The measurement of cultural differences makes sense when it is done in comparative terms, and not in absolute terms. In the following table we show some comparisons between countries with respect to the four dimensions (some of the more extreme scores are highlighted in bold). To create the table, indicators (indices) were produced that measure certain behaviors and attitudes on the four variables:

power distance index (PDI).
individualism index (IDV)
masculinity index (MAS)
uncertainty avoidance index (UAI)

Tab. 9 – Scores of some countries with respect to the parameters of cultural difference (Hofstede), scale from 0 to 125

Country	POWER DISTANCE (Low/High)	INDIVIDUALISM COLLECTIVISM	FEMININITY MASCULINITY	UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE (Low/High)
Australia	36	90	61	51
Canada	39	80	52	48
Indonesia	78	14	46	48
Portugal	63	27	31	104
Norway	31	69	8	50
Jamaica	45	39	68	13
Greece	60	35	57	112
Japan	54	46	95	92
Sweden	31	71	5	29
USA	40	91	62	46
Venezuela	81	12	73	76

The scores allow us to confirm some common stereotypes, such as the fact that Latin American countries are predominantly male-dominated cultures, Norway is very little, that the US is individualistic, or that the Japanese are a very structured society. Without getting tired of repeating it, these classifications speak in probabilistic terms, and nothing prevents you from finding Venezuelan companies headed by female managers, or collectivistically managed US companies, or extremely competitive and aggressive Norwegian managers, and other major deviations from cultural stereotypes.

Vision of time, Long- vs. Short-Term Time Orientation

Time Orientation distinguishes cultures based on the propensity to reason and plan in the long run, vs. an orientation “to the day”, and is related to dimensions such as spiritualism vs materialism, the religious concept of life, knowing how to live in meditative phases or only in active phases. Hofstede’s studies also distinguish between monochronic and multi-chronic time. Monochronic time has the following characteristics

the tendency to do one thing at a time – one after the other, in a linear way, a long-term orientation, dependence on agendas and calendars;
in monochronic time, precision is generally rewarded;
time is often scarce, we are often late. On the other hand, multicronic time is a multi-tasking, non-linear time, a short-term orientation, a life lived without an agenda and calendar, precision is something suspicious or at most irrelevant, the sense of time is cyclical (as in Hinduism ).

In the ALM method there is a tendency to distinguish the culture of the times by using in a disjoint way the evaluation of single psychological times (monochronic) or the condition of living in multiple psychological times (multicronicity), concentration on the task (monotasking) or application on several tasks (multitasking).

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or in Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

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In ALM business method Areas and Expected Results in the Negotiator's Communication Training Intercultural conversation management techniques The Intercultural Negotiators’ Training

Areas and Expected Results in the Negotiator’s Communication Training

1 Marzo 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

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In the following article I would like to conclude the topic of negotiation communication training, by listing, in a more detailed way, the interpersonal communicative abilities, explaining the importance of culture shock and self-awareness acquisition.

Code Switching: the negotiator must manage the change of communication codes (linguistic code and non-verbal code), in order to adapt to the interlocutor. Making your interlocutor understand you requires an active effort of adaptation, a willingness to change your repertoire and to get closer to other people. Whoever imposes a one-way adaptation effort on the interlocutor (one-way adaptation) and does not think about others understanding him/her, automatically creates barriers to communication.
Topic Shifting: the change of subject. The negotiator must understand which techniques need to be adopted to slip from unproductive conversations, to get away from dangerous or useless topics, to avoid touching critical points of other cultures, creating offense, resentment or stiffening. These skills – like other abilities – are useful in every communicative context, such as in a communication between friends, colleagues, companies, as well as in diplomatic communication.
Turn Taking: conversational turns management. There are certain cultures that accept others to interfere in their speech, and others in which the respect for speaking turns is essential. Turn taking includes conversational turns management skills, turn taking abilities, turn defence skills, turn transfer abilities, the capability of open and close conversational lines, etc. All these techniques need to be refined for both intra- and inter-cultural communication.
Self-monitoring: the ability to self-analyse, to understand how we are communicating (which style we are using), to recognize internal emotional states, one’s own tiredness, or frustration, or joy, expectation or disgust, knowing how to recognize those inner emotions that animate us during conversation or negotiation.
Others-monitoring: the ability to analyse and decode the inner emotional states of our interlocutors, to recognize his/her state of fatigue, energy, euphoria, dejection, etc., to know how to perceive the participants mutual influences, to grasp the power relations in the counterpart groups and to understand the degree of interest in our proposals and the right moment for closing.
Empathy: the ability to understand others’ points of view, from within their value systems and cultural contexts and to understand the value of their communicative moves based on the culture that generates them.
Linguistic Competence: the ability to use language, choice of words and repertoires, showing a deep knowledge of the language.
Paralinguistic Competence: the ability to use and strategically manage the non-verbal elements of speech, such as tones, pauses, silences, etc.
Kinesic Competence: the ability to communicate through body movements (body language). Movements management can be one of the strongest traps in intercultural communication, where some cultures – such as the Italian one – normally use broad body movements and gesticulations, while others – such as oriental cultures- use a greater demeanour, while retaining their body expressions.
Proxemic Competence: the ability to communicate through space and personal distances management. For example, Latin and Arab cultures accept and consider closer interpersonal distances normal, while northern European cultures don’t.
Socio-environmental Decoding Competence: the ability to interpret and understand “what is happening here” in relation to what is taking place during the conversation or the interaction. The negotiator must know how to recognize a conflict within the members of the counterpart group (intra-group conflict) and how to grasp the different positions, the trajectories of approach and relaxation, the different roles assumed and the moves of the interlocutors.

Both intra-cultural and intercultural negotiators need to be prepared for Reality Shock (or culture shock). Reality Shock can arise from the sudden realization that:

others don’t follow our rules;
others have different background values;
others don’t have the same goals as we do;
others do not behave like us, or even like we want them to behave;
some negotiators are in bad faith and dishonest: they do not seek a win-win approach, but only a personal advantage;
even with the greatest amount of goodwill, some negotiations escape comprehensibility and observable behaviours do not fit into rational logic.

The difference between an experienced negotiator and an apprentice negotiator is the degree of damage that reality shock does: low or zero for the expert, devastating for the apprentice.

The clash with reality can cause a shock, which can be followed by:

a positive process, reached thanks to the analysis of diversity, the acceptance of what can be accepted (without running into the extremes of radical unconditional acceptance), that leads the negotiator to improve his/her own cultural knowledge; or…
a negative process, caused by a fall of the emotional state, a rejection of reality that leads the negotiator to take refuge in his/her own cultural arena. The result, in this case, is often a withdrawal.

In order to activate a positive process of growth, and not a negative process of involution, it is necessary to work on our self-awareness (“Knowing how to Be”) of negotiation, through:

Cognitive Learning & Knowledge Acquisition: learning the contents that characterize the culture with which we want to interact.
Cognitive Restructuring: transforming our perception of the communicative act itself from an anxiogenic element to a source of positive energy. This practice requires the identification of negative self-statements (e.g.: “it will definitely go wrong”, “I am unsuitable”, “I will not succeed”, etc.), that must be replaced by positive self-statements, (e.g.: “let’s see if we have the right conditions for doing business”,” let’s go and compare our mutual positions without fear”, or even” let’s help the customer understand how we think”). The analysis of self-statements therefore consists in working on how we “enter” the negotiation, on what animates us.
Behavioural Learning & Communication Skills Acquisition: learning the skills necessary to “perform” or achieve a specific behavioural or communicative goal, by using dramaturgical and expressive techniques and relational dynamics.
Emotional Control Skills: developing some necessary emotions management skills, with which one can direct his/her own emotional energies in positive directions, recognize and remove negotiation stress, “recharge his/her batteries” and manage personal times, in order to take part in a negotiation in optimal psychophysical conditions.

"Intercultural Negotiation" by Daniele Trevisani

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

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In intercultural negotiation

Masculinity vs Femininity

1 Marzo 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

Uncertainty Avoidance

This dimension has given rise to much controversy, because it is considered sexist and discriminatory. Hofstede’s will, on the other hand, was simply to analyze a gendered behavior as a cultural category, such as “caring” (taking care of children), deriving from the biological history of the female human race, vs. the prototypical male role in archaic societies linked to defense, competition, hunting and fighting.

By identifying phenomena related to gender, we can see nations such as Japan where there are strong expectations of roles, men are expected to differ from the behavior of women, an “in-charge” role. countries like Norway, or Sweden, the dimension is more feminized, which means that the roles between men and women are much more fluid and interchangeable in social organizations.

Tab. 7 – Differences between high masculinity and high femininity cultures

Femininity	Masculinity
The roles between genres are interchangeable	The roles between the sexes are very distinct
Nutrition, care	Assertiveness, aggression
Equality, solidarity, quality of life, quality of work	Competition, performance, success, money
Managers use intuition and seek consensus	Managers are authoritarian and assertive
Humility and modesty are important in both sexes	The man must be tough, the woman tender
Conflict resolution occurs through compromise and negotiation	Conflict resolution occurs through disputes, fights and fighting (also figuratively)

The vision of the role of women is certainly a still strong variable that differentiates some cultures (where, for example, women are prevented from appearing in public with their faces uncovered) from others where a woman is encouraged to assume roles of visibility and responsibility on the social scale. As social roles become less distinct, the masculinity-femininity scale is increasingly independent of genetic sexuality, and becomes above all a “way of being”, an existential condition, a way of living and being, which can be adopted or modified without changing one’s sexual identity.

The avoidance of uncertainty, the tolerance of ambiguity. Distinguishes the need for clear rules, procedures, well-identified work responsibilities (high degree of avoidance of uncertainty), from the ability / condition to act in conditions of uncertain or imprecise rules, without well-identified responsibilities or in climates of organizational chaos , or in poorly structured environments (low degree of uncertainty avoidance). This variable is related to the “need for structuring” and the “tolerance for ambiguity” which varies greatly in cultures, or between social classes, and even between families, and therefore also between negotiators of different cultures.

Tab. 8 – Differences between cultures with high and low uncertainty avoidance

Acceptance of uncertainty	Avoidance of uncertainty
Uncertainty is a normal feature of life	The uncertainty present in life is a constant threat that must be fought
Low consciousness of time, fluid time	High awareness of time, programmed time
The day is accepted as it is	The day must be structured
People appear calm, relaxed, calm, sometimes sluggish or lazy	People appear active, busy, emotional, aggressive
Low stress, well-being	High level of stress, subjective experience of anxiety
What is different is curious	What is different is dangerous
Ambiguous situations are experienced without problems	Fear of what is unknown
Risk acceptance	Fear of risk
The rules must be kept to a minimum	Strong emotional need for detailed rules
What is new is sought and deviations from the norm are accepted	Innovation is resisted, new or deviant ideas encounter strong obstacles
If the rules are not followed, they must be changed	If the rules are not respected, guilt arises
The rules are few and generic	The rules are many and precise
Citizens can protest	Protests must be suppressed
Tolerance and moderation	Conservation, extremism, law and discipline
Nobody can be blamed for their ideologies and ideas. Tolerance	Different ideas (religious, political, social) are pursued. Fundamentalism and intolerance
Students feel comfortable in open-ended learning situations	Students feel comfortable in structured learning situations, they look for the “right answer”

As can also be seen from the last difference (high or low structuring of a training or school intervention), interculturality can also occur in the same country, between a trainer who uses experiential and active techniques, in the face of a traditionalist culture and structured mindset. Or again, in the didactic and training situations carried out between different countries and cultures. Interculturality also opens the way to the existence of other “ways of being”, of new ways of living life, and can be very therapeutic.

The real problem of cultural psychology is to recognize how much cultural absorption has affected one’s personality, and to regain possession of a different way of being, be it less “anxious” or “more dynamic”, with the awareness that it is not possible to “have everything ”, Be busy and relaxed at the same time. Intercultural communication, seen in the ALM method, poses the challenge of “internal multi-existentiality” – the new ability to live in different states of the personality by absorbing the best of different cultures – eg: knowing how to be lively and dynamic in certain moments, relaxed in others, and includes the ability to avoid existential and cultural drag, eg: living a vacation with anxiety and over-planning stress, or on the contrary not knowing how to live in a system that requires deadlines and planning, when necessary.

It can be said that the intercultural dimension opens the doors to new frontiers of the human being, who (at least in Western societies) for the first time in history can choose to adhere to a culture or not, can change their way of being and of to live.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

For further information see:

In intercultural negotiation

Second Component: the World View (World-View)

1 Marzo 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

Classifying Cultural Differences (Hofstede Categories)

A second component of culture considered in the 2V model is “World-View” – the “world view” The worldview is considered in anthropological studies as a set of beliefs, values and attitudes, used by social actors to interpret and categorize reality, giving meaning to events, establishing relationships between them and guiding behavior.

The worldview is such a personal concept that it is difficult to classify in rigid schemes, however the need (or attempts) to provide classifications have led some social scientists to produce categories through which to read cultures. Among these, we expose the Hofstede classification, one of the most used in the literature.

Among the classics of intercultural communication, Hofstede’s categories are often cited as parameters for differentiating and categorizing cultures. Hofstede’s categories can be an interesting starting point for starting a reflection on cultural differences. However, the risk of generalization is high, and it is undesirable to use them for automatic predictive purposes. It would be extremely wrong to conclude that – because a person has a certain passport or a certain nationality – his mere belonging to a country allows us to predict with certainty how he will behave.

It seems more useful to think about how these categories can help us understand who we are dealing with when we negotiate, based on the concrete behaviors we observe, and without letting ourselves be clouded by automatic judgment. We therefore suggest using categories above all as tools to analyze the organizational cultures with which one comes into contact.

Individualism-Collectivism

Individualistic cultures characterize systems in which the bonds between individuals are weak, vary over time, and each has to look after himself substantially, or at most his close family. Individual freedoms are high, and social security substantially low, the possibility of social ascent and career high, as well as the risk of failing and falling without nets and protections. Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, incorporate the individual into the group in a very cohesive way, offering him protection in exchange for loyalty and fidelity, giving security but at the same time limiting freedom of expression and deviations from the norm.

The individual is very controlled. This dimension is typically used to distinguish how some cultures manage work and social practices, distinguishing between individualistic cultures such as Canada, US, Australia, and Great Britain, from other cultures considered collectivistic, such as those of East Asia (Japan, Korea South, Hong Kong, and Singapore) and Latin America.

Tab. 6 – Differences between cultures with high individualism and high collectivism

Individualism	Collectivism
Identity is based on the individual	Identity comes from belonging to social groups or families
We move in the first person, without waiting for help. The strategy is determined by the individual	Help is expected from the community; greater passivity. The strategy is expected from others
High degree of autonomy. Autonomy is rewarded	Little autonomy. Autonomy is punished
The value comes from the results produced by the individual himself	The value is inherited or absorbed based on the group to which you belong
Employment relationships are seen as contracts based on mutual benefit	Work relationships are seen as moral functions, like family relationships
The task or goal takes precedence over the relationship	Relationships come before tasks or goals
The recruitment comes as a result of selections based on skills	Hiring depends on recommendations, on connections
Career depends on the results produced	Career depends on internal and external affiliations
Speaking openly and asking for an open confrontation indicates honesty	Harmony must be maintained at any cost and confrontation and confrontation must be avoided
Communications are direct	Communications are “veiled”
Failure to comply with the rules produces a sense of guilt and a loss of self-esteem	Failure to comply with the rules produces public shame and loss of social face
Management is the management of individuals	Management is group management

As we argue throughout the course of this publication, the advanced intercultural negotiator should never assume that a counterpart is individualistic or collectivist (or otherwise characterized) just because it is classified in terms of nationality and stereotypes. Even within Western countries and industrialized areas (mainly individualistic) we can find “bubbles” of collectivism, in rural areas but also in corporate areas (partly for example in industrial districts) where the facade is individualistic but the heart and habits are essentially collectivist.

The mental practice of collectivism as “living and doing together”, hit hard by the crisis of the former Soviet Union, becomes a sign to be hidden in public statements. Intrinsically, in many cultures, there remains a strong need for sociality and collectivity, typical of Latin and Mediterranean areas, but also of Asian cultures, which continues to express itself despite the educational “mainstream” (prevailing culture, dominant proposal) proposed by the model Anglo-Saxon culture.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

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In intercultural negotiation

Barriers to communicability, linguistic microdiversity, macrodiversity, semantic fields

25 Febbraio 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

Intercultural Communication and Negotiation. Some Linguistic Problems for Effective Communication

In the previous paragraph, we began to mention the problem of the different conception of the world produced by cultural diversity. But the problems don’t stop there. In fact, in intercultural communication we find a further barrier, generally much more evident: a different language, a different language, an uncommon communication code, unknown sub-codes (dialects, professional languages).

It is enough to hear two astronomers or two physicists talking to each other, while dealing with their work problem, to feel completely alien after a few seconds, unable to mentally connect with what they are saying. Also in this case we must consider an important phenomenon: linguistic diversity can be evident (macrodiversity: eg, Chinese vs. Arabic), but also very subtle and difficult to recognize, creating situations of linguistic micro-diversity.

There are different professional languages within the same language, and different meanings applied to the same words. The problem of communication is not limited to the translation between different languages, but also touches the flow of words that exist between father and son, who grew up in two different generations, with different models and languages, or between managers of different sectors, whose problems and languages become separate worlds. Translating means carrying meanings into other languages, but also, and above all, allowing access to a different system of thought.

Let’s see the following case:

• for US Americans, “tomorrow” (in Italian) means from midnight to midnight;

• in Mexico, “mañana” (always “tomorrow” in Italian) means “in the future”, it has a general postponement sense, and absolutely does not include a precise time frame.

The two different conceptions are not purely linguistic, but refer to a different perception of time. A seemingly trivial act, such as writing a date, can cause misunderstandings and problems, e.g .: 05.02.2010 means February 5, 2010 in many European countries that adopt the day / month / year date format, but it means April 5, 2010 in the USA and in other systems that conventionally adopt the month / day / year format. When two generations or two religions dialogue with each other, the problem of cultural interpretation arises seriously. This problem also arises in the dialogue between two companies, regardless of the language used.

One of the most naïve mistakes of those who face the intercultural dimension is the presumption that it is possible to translate the meanings exactly, transposing verbs and words “as they are” and simply bringing them into the language of others. Translation is actually a much more complex phenomenon. Each word, each verb, has specific “semantic fields” (fields of meaning) that cannot be translated exactly into the language of others. In some cases, there are no translation possibilities – in many cases, words and verbs have no exact correspondence in each other’s cultures and languages. Let’s see an example. An Italian company is preparing to start a production activity in China. He is looking for on-site consultancy to train managers on the issues of quality-oriented leadership, commitment to corporate values (commitment), good internal communication.

It is therefore looking for trainers in communication. But how will you describe your need when the category of “trainers in communication” is not linguistically consolidated in the Chinese language? And are we sure that – if there is a similar term – the mental image that in Italy corresponds to the “trainer” is the same in the mind of the Chinese recipient? Thinking that the mental images between two subjects can match perfectly is a pure illusion. There are also intercultural problems when it comes to communication between the sexes.

If we only reflect on how much diversity exists between a Latin man and a woman on the concept of “having a relationship”, or “making love”, and other similar concepts, we can understand that the intercultural dimension is present in every moment of the day. But let’s go back to our Italian-Chinese dimension. What form of communication are we talking about? In Chinese there are at least two terms (ideograms) to describe “communication”, and at least three words that can vaguely approach the meaning of the term “trainer”. Are we sure we can translate correctly or that the translator does it? Let’s see some of these meanings in the following comparative table.

Terms	Ideograms	Ping Yin	Meanings
Communication	沟通	gou tong	understand each other well between the parties
Communication	传播	chuan bo	make yourself understood and spread your ideas
Trainer	训练员	xun lian yuan	who helps to do exercises
Coach	培训	pei xun	a growth guide that takes care of both aspects of skill and motivation
Coach-Mentor	导师	dao shi	spiritual guide – who lights the way – who assists you in your growth (ex: study mentor, religious guide, teacher)

Even very similar languages (Italian and Spanish) can give rise to translation problems, sometimes due to the similarity of the sound or the word. The word “embarrassed” in Italian has a meaning (roughly, to be uncomfortable), while in Spanish the word “embarazada” means to be pregnant. The same similarity in the root of the word generates problems in the American speaker who relates to a Spanish speaker by saying “I am embarrassed” (I am embarrassed), which can be decoded as “I am pregnant”.

The intercultural problem does not start only from the kilometer distance, but can occur within a few meters. Each dialect is full of words that cannot be translated into the official language. For example, the Ferrara dialect – like any dialect – uses terms that cannot be translated literally into the Italian language:

Tab. 2 – Some correspondences and problems of exact untranslatability from dialect (Ferrara) to Italian

Terms	Rough explanation	Translations into English possible	Problems of semantics
Cioccapiatt	Someone who “locks the plates”, who makes plates bang The cioccapiatt highlights the person who makes a lot of noise but does not produce concreteness, someone who talks a lot but does not, but also someone who claims to have done or to do, but then will not.	Talker, braggart	Chiacchierone does not contain the semantic dimension of stealth, of boasting, which “cioccapiatt” instead possesses Millantatore is very negatively connoted in Italian, but the “cioccapiatt” in Ferrara is only vaguely offensive, it is often a joking term.
Puffarol	Someone who “makes puffs”. Puffs are scams, escapes, broken promises	Scammer, “crook”	The puffarol makes scams, yes, but not graphs, it can do at most little damage
Trabascan	Shady person, someone who has “shady turns”	Crook, shady	The Trabascan is much more negative than the Puffarol, it can also be criminal, while the Puffarol generally does not do serious damage, but is limited to “throwing bins”

Exercises on untranslatability Exercise: search for words within their own dialects (if known), which may be difficult to translate into the Italian language. Evaluate the problems and difficulties of a precise translation, using the example of the table above. Exercise: search for words within your own language that may be difficult to translate into another known language. Evaluate the problems and difficulties of a precise linguistic translation, and the alternatives to effectively transfer the meaning. Exercise: researching technical terms within your profession, selecting above all the terms that should be explained to new customers, and the terms that we cannot take for granted or simplistically translate into a different language. Above all, select the terms that require the client’s “acculturation”.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

For further information see:

In intercultural negotiation

Communication Barriers, Psychological Distances, Misunderstanding and Disagreement – T2V model (Trevisani 2 Variabili)

25 Febbraio 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

Language Barriers and Cultural Barriers

One of the first discoveries of those who venture outside their own cultural contexts is that the behavioral rules that work in their own culture prove to be fragile and not very productive when transposed into a foreign context. Let’s see some short examples:  In your home: for a while you have wanted to discuss a topic with a family member, but every time you try it, the person escapes.

What is happening?

In your country: a customer would like to buy (a project, a product) but you know that the purchase is underpowered, the problem he would like to solve is big and the budget is not enough to give him a real result, how do you manage to make it understood?
Beijing. 9.30 am, Sheraton Hotel. The client company’s delegation has not yet arrived, the appointment was at 9.15 am. Can we interpret it as a tactical move, or a real delay? Did they want to delay, or did something happen?
Moscow. We offer the counterpart the exclusivity of our product on Soviet territory, the additional benefit of training the staff of their entire sales network, but the counterpart is offended and closes the negotiations. What happened?
Buenos Aires. The negotiations to access the contracts of the ministry of industry are endless, incomprehensible, obscure. How to behave?
Jerusalem. Representatives of the Jewish, Catholic and Muslim cults, ministers and political representatives meet to negotiate a possible peace, you are called to lead the debate, how to avoid a conflict?
Budapest. The plant management fails to break down production defects, any attempt to intervene in depth is in vain. What to do? In each example situation exposed, we are faced with the problem of intercultural negotiation. The intercultural negotiation capacity is in the hands of those who are most skilled in managing communication in the field, applying cultural awareness (power of awareness) in every single contact.

But let’s see some other situations.

Bologna, beginning of the third millennium: a nine-year-old boy no longer wants to go to the football school he has been attending for two years, he prefers to play with his friends on the pitch, and he doesn’t want to hear more about football and league school. Why?
Munich: a 30-year-old husband, freelance, argues with his wife (same age) because he wants to have children only when they have a solid economic base, while his wife wants to have them soon. What’s up?
Your home: you wake up in the morning and you know you had a dream that hit you but you can’t remember the details. What happened?
In your office or company: with a colleague you have not been able to understand each other for a long time, you seem to speak two different languages, the more you try and the more you do not understand each other, you begin to be really tired of the situation. What is actually happening? In all these cases the intercultural dimension enters – at various stages.

A common denominator unites all these cases: language barriers are nothing compared to the different vision of the world that people bring with them, and to the differences that exist between themselves and others, despite appearances. We do not want to reveal or propose easy or immediate solutions for all these different cases (at most, we can propose hypotheses), but we want to give only a clue on the case that is certainly more strange and difficult to frame as intercultural communication: the memory of a dream.

Well, as various researches in the field show, even the dialogue within the same person (interior dialogue) takes on features of intercultural dialogue. When different states of consciousness have difficulty in communicating with each other, eg: the rational state of wakefulness versus the unconscious and subconscious state of sleep, internal incommunicability occurs.

These states are dominated by extremely different logics, and they manage to find moments of commonality only on rare occasions (such as in border states, of semi-sleep, the moments in which neither of them manages to dominate the other). Even on an inner level, therefore, we find symptoms of a condition of intercultural dialogue. Comparison exercise and search for alternative explanations. Attempt, in small groups, to give answers to the questions posed by the cases highlighted above.

Try to highlight

alternative hypotheses or alternative explanations;
the different hypotheses on the ground;
think about the probabilities that our explanations are really the causes of the investigated phenomena;
search for one’s own evaluative rigidity, the hypotheses that start from stereotypes or unverified beliefs.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

For further information see:

In intercultural negotiation

Consonances and Dissonances Between Linguistic and Non-Verbal Styles

24 Febbraio 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

Negative Non-Verbal Signals from the Interlocutor (Tension, Disinterest)

Non-verbal communication can reinforce the verbal message or be dissonant with it. Listening carefully and nodding can signal interest much more than just a verbal statement. Saying “I am interested” with words and expressing boredom or disgust with body actions produces a dissonant signal and creates suspicion or irritation. The coherence (matching) between words and actions:

increases the perceived honesty of the subject;
denotes trustworthiness;
shows interest;
shows that we are in control of the situation;
produces a sense of security and solidity of the contents.
On the contrary, the incongruity:
creates a sense of distrust;
generates feelings of lack of authenticity;
produces doubts and suspicions of falsehood on the verbal contents heard.

Each linguistic style (on an interpersonal level) is associated with a precise modulation of the non-verbal style. We can in fact have:

situations of communicative reinforcement (the non-verbal style reinforces the verbal style);
situations of dissonance or inconsistency between verbal and non-verbal: non-verbal communication proceeds on a different register than verbal communication).

The dissonances concern every semiotic system, every sign carrying possible meanings. A company that declares itself important and does not have a website, or has an amateur site, expresses an image dissonance, just as a negotiator forgets to bring essential tools with him (catalogs, calculators, and any other necessary and expected tool ).

Non-verbal signals may indicate that the interlocutor is following the dialogue with a positive or negative attitude. Negative reactions in general are denoted by:

angulations of the body: shoulders retracted, distancing;
face: tense, shows anger;
voice: negative tone, sudden silences;
hands: movements of refusal or disapproval, tense movements;
arms: straight, crossed on the chest;
legs: crossed or moving away at an angle.

Exercises of consonance and dissonance between verbal styles and non-verbal communication styles. Initiate a dialogue on a random theme (e.g. where it is more pleasant to take holidays) and express – only through body postures – the following meanings:

I can’t stand you, you give me physical annoyance;
you are nice;  my head is elsewhere, I find it hard to follow you, I am distracted;
I have doubts about your honesty.
Second phase of the exercise. Let’s now modulate the styles, introducing some variations:
verbal expression: saying “I can’t stand you, you give me physical annoyance”, with non-verbal reinforcement (eg: grinding your teeth, clenching your fists);
verbal expression: “I can’t stand you, you give me physical annoyance”, with non-verbal dissonance (eg: smiling amiably).
Following the scheme shown:
Verbal expression: “you are nice”, with non-verbal reinforcement;
verbal expression: “you are nice”, with dissonance in the non-verbal;
verbal expression “I have my head elsewhere, I find it difficult to follow you, I am distracted”, with non-verbal reinforcement;
verbal expression “I have my head elsewhere, I find it hard to follow you, I am distracted”, with non-verbal dissonance;
verbal expression “I have doubts about your honesty”, with non-verbal reinforcement;
verbal expression “I have doubts about your honesty”, with dissonance in the non-verbal.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

For further information see:

In intercultural negotiation

Variance of Colors Between Cultures, Variance in the Meaning of Gifts

24 Febbraio 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

And Use of Pre-Tests to Evaluate the Impact and Satisfaction

A further element of symbolic communication is given by the use of colors. The use of colors and the symbolisms associated with colors also vary according to cultures. Let’s see some cases: while in most Western and Arab countries the color white is synonymous with purity, in Japan and other Asian countries white is the color of death and mourning.

Yellow is associated in Western countries with signs of attention, while in China it represents wealth and authority. Purple represents in Latin America a funeral color (death) while in Europe it is associated with royalty, with the precious velvets of the courts. It is not possible in this volume to deal with a scale of associations for each color in each nation, but we underline the need to pay attention to the symbolisms associated with colors, whenever problems arise in the choice of colors and graphics, for example in packaging, gifts. of representation, in objects.

Blue is among the “safest” colors on a cultural level, but practically all colors take on some particular meanings in some countries, such as red, the color of the celebration in China, used in events such as parties, weddings or funerals, orange which in Ireland is the symbol of the Protestant religion, or the color Saffron (light orange tending to peach), sacred color of the Hindu religion.

Even the objects and symbols are not neutral. An Italian company used hand symbols (e.g. an open hand) to create company logos and key rings, producing a wave of protests from Greece (where the open hand symbol is used to offend), while still in other countries of the ‘Latin America retailers refused to display packages containing “ok” symbols in stores because they were considered offensive.

The basic principle to avoid macroscopic errors is the use of the pre-test, the “pilot test” on some subjects, small samples, representative people of the local culture who are able to give feedback on the appropriateness of colors, shapes and symbolisms , of messages, seen from within the culture itself. The pre-test method also applies to the choice of gifts, presents, and any other symbolic action whose impact may vary on a cultural basis.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

For further information see:

In intercultural negotiation

Personal Look, Clothing, Accessories and Other Elements of Symbolic Communication

11 Febbraio 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

The Symbolic Communication Meanings

Can we assert that a manager with long hair, earrings and colorful clothes is considered the same as a manager in a dark suit and tie, in the eyes of a European bourgeois traditionalist client? And again, having a picture of Che Guevara on the wall, or a photograph of the Pope, what does it convey to those present? We can know practically nothing about the real history of the subjects, except the symbols we see and from which we derive possible meanings and associations.

Symbolic communication concerns the meanings that people associate or perceive from particular “signs” that they notice in the interlocutor and in his or her communicative space. By communicative space we mean here any area of elements that is attributed to the subject’s “system”, to its possible expressions, whether aware or not, such as his car, or the background of his PC, and any other sign from which we derive inferences, meanings, interpretations.

From the semiotic point of view, every element from which a subject draws meanings becomes a “sign”, whether the bearer is aware of it or not. Look, clothing and accessories are among the most incisive factors in building a personal image. Differences or similarities in clothing make a subject fall within the professional ingroups (“one like us”, the “equals”) or outgroups (“one different from us”), whatever represents “we” for the subject .

Among the primary elements of symbolic communication we find clothing, hair and hairstyle, jewelry, watches, professional tools (telephones, laptops and other computer tools), but also the marks on the body (cuts, abrasions, tattoos) , the condition of the skin (care, presence of beard and its condition, make-up, body and face hair, skin color, tan, sweat). In a system of enlarged signification, the symbols that express the brands used, the type of car (work, city, off-road, sports, luxury), the designer labels, and even the furniture of the offices, the paintings hanging on the walls, furniture.

Chronemic behaviors (the following of actions over time) are also broadened signals, such as the frequency we notice in changing clothes, punctuality, tranquility or nervousness in the way of driving, the times a person takes in eating or drinking (slow and calm vs. fast and voracious). Even the time it takes a person to answer a question can be significant: slow or too meditated answers can be interpreted as insincere in Western cultures, or on the contrary wise and thoughtful in “high context” cultures such as Eastern ones. It can be said that in the field of intercultural communication nothing escapes the observation of the interlocutor, and every “sign” contributes to its classification and evaluation.

The use of ties, dark tailored suits, high-quality shoes in shiny leather, is one of the emblems of the Western manager and represents one of the cornerstones of “image sales”. The problem at an intercultural level is given by the perception of others within the systems of personal signification. Some managers, insurance salesmen, and corporate executives in career, thinking of “loading” on the front of professionalism, are taken by the temptation to hyper-flaunt brands, luxurious shoes, designer and eye-catching ties, precious watches, unknowingly creating a greater distance than it would be desirable.

The same problem of “status anxiety” applies to the ostentation of excessively flashy cars or to any other accessory that communicates excessive superiority and produces distance. In terms of intercultural impression management (strategic image management), some behaviors – eg: arriving by helicopter – can be implemented voluntarily, to create a status barrier and create feelings of inferiority.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

For further information see:

In intercultural negotiation

Expanded Channels

11 Febbraio 2021 Nessun commento

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

The Communication Tools

Some clichés on multicultural college campuses are that whites “taste like chicken”, Asians “smell of garlic”, blacks “taste of sweat”, and other curious stereotypes. The olfactory differences on the ethnic and genetic level are really existing, but the perceived sense of smell is largely determined by cultural factors such as nutrition, cleanliness or the use of perfumes. Personal olfactory emissions are a communication tool.

It is certain that the sense of smell affects perception, and that nutrition produces essences that exude from the skin and breath. These aspects are to be taken care of for those who want to manage every aspect, even the smallest details, of intercultural negotiation and more generally of human contact The answer is not to become a hyper-perfumed manager wrapped in clouds of strawberry essence, but a conscious management of conscious and subconscious smells.

Even the smell of the room in which you negotiate, the olfactory perceptions encountered along the path, in the corridors, in the parking lots and squares, form the overall “people perception” (the image of the other). Anything that can be attributed to some extent to the subject or to the corporate environment affects perception and image. Some clothing chains have resorted to the targeted odorization of the stores to create a more relaxed and pleasant atmosphere (environmental olfactory marketing).

Smell is a remote sense of the human being, partially abandoned in favor of senses such as sight and hearing. Animal “noses” are able to pick up smells that signal sexual emotions or predispositions, while human noses seem to have lost this trait, as Hall points out: The consequence of the loss of importance of smell as a means of communication, was an alteration in the type of relationship between human beings, which has probably endowed man with a great capacity to resist crowding. If humans had noses as powerful as rats, they would forever be tied up and involved with the full range of emotions and mood swings that people around them need.

Other people’s anger, for example, would have been something we could smell. In homes, the identity of any visitor and the emotional connotations of the various objects and their history would be subject to public registration and dominion as long as their smell lasted: psychotics would drive us all mad, and the anxious would still dilate our anxiety. To say the least, life would be much more complex and intense: it would be less controlled by consciousness, because the centers that preside over smell in the brain are older and more primitive than the visual centers …

Hall’s question is what sense is capable of generating interpersonal trust. Hall points out that in animals the sense of smell is still decisive, while in humans sight and hearing have assumed greater importance: the passage of the body’s confidence from nose to eye, the result of environmental pressures, has given a completely new face to the human condition. The typical human design ability has been made possible by the wider reach of the eye that encodes immensely more complex data, thus encouraging thought and abstraction. The sense of smell, precisely because it is so intimately connected to emotionality and sensual satisfaction, pushes man exactly in the opposite direction.

The evolution of man has received the mark of the development of “remote receptors”, sight and hearing. The signals of trust and distrust, the perception of the emotions of others, are therefore to be refined above all in the negotiator’s ability to grasp the emotionally uncontrolled facial movements, the vocal timbre and the breaks in the tone of the voice that signal vocal and emotional stress.

Other studies, however, argue that the olfactory capacity has only diminished and there are continuous olfactory exchanges at an unconscious level, for example the analysis of possible sexual compatibility between men and women.

At the interpersonal level, negotiation olfactory strategies capable of recognizing emotions on a pheromonic basis (hormones secreted by human glands) are not possible at the moment, but targeted and strategic personal odorizations are still possible. There are practical implications for a conscious personal odor – avoiding foods that can give rise to strong emissions through the breath, avoiding excessive personal fragrances, being aware of personal smells (eg, sweat), considering the importance of adequate olfactory environmental marketing.

In broad terms, non-verbal communication also includes the behaviors held during the negotiation interaction, actions on objects, use and manipulation of tools. For example, during a sale in which you demonstrate how a tool works, the skill and skill with which you manipulate an instrument represents a message (and therefore a form of communication). And again, when taking notes, our interlocutor can pay attention to the care with which you write, to the ticks on the pens, to the precision shown in drawing a diagram.

© Article translated from the book “Negoziazione interculturale, comunicazione oltre le barriere culturali” (Intercultural Negotiation: Communication Beyond Cultural Barriers) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available for any Publisher wishing to consider it for publication in English and other languages except for Italian and Arab whose rights are already sold and published. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the author from the webstite www.danieletrevisani.com

For further information see: