Joi Podgorny

SXSW2008 – Flat World? Secret Strategies, Tips and Tools

March 8, 2008 at 2:43 pm Leave a comment

Catherine Crogo – Diversity Unlimited

Thinking about the weekly meeting and seeing if that if conducive for the collectivist culture mkts
- higher freq, low duration communication
- sometimes for infrastructure reasons and sometimes for understanding/translation
- asking “are their any exceptions?”, not “what is your status?”, is the norm in most collectivist cultures

In some cultures a task is only completed when the relationship is maintained
- making sure the team is happy is part of the project

identifying the cultural aspects of each of the countries you are dealing with
- how is communication different in London than in India, than in Japan

differences in tone (i.e. london less direct, india more direct)
differences in how the culture treats time affects risk management

rapid fire starter ? – why did you do a instead of b?

use of passive voice is interpreted different to different cultures

In many collectivist cultures, the feeling is “i will do what you tell me and not question your judgement, even if I dont agree” and the transaction desired in that choice is loyalty not mindlessness

should you use a standardized means of communication for updates/reports?
- using small group standardized forms of communication
- style guide of communication, including
    – vocabulary,
    – part of communication (context, status, action/nextsteps) use square, upside triangle, down triangle

determining how staff can communicate emotions in a safe and comfortable way

4 key findings
- do my team member know everyone’s availability?
- does your team need to read every email in order to stay up to date? (push vs pull)
- the sender prioritizes the information, not the receiver
- when i dont understand the email, i know where to go to find the info i need
    – 10-15% of their time in same time communication, in 1-1 communication.  meetings dont count
    – talk not ness about the proj, but what happens is that you discover how you talk about risk

GREAT Session!    Didn’t get to write all my thoughts.  Ask me more if you want to.

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Tags: outsourcing, international business, project management, communication plans

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