It's
taking me a while to get back on track with regular blogging after an almost 4
months hiatus. And I don't like it at all. But I am slowly getting back on
track. On the positive front, I have been doing a lot of reading—mostly around organizational behavior, organizational development, culture and diversity, motivation and
communication, and how these relate to social business and knowledge
management. As a community manager and social business evangelist in a highly
distributed and diverse organization, I’ve begun to realize not only the value of
but the critical need to understand these aspects.
What did I learn during the last fortnight?
It’s
essential to understand the fundamentals of how to facilitate cross-cultural
communication in order to be an effective community manager.
I
think my biggest Aha! moment occurred when I came across Geert
Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory while researching diversity as a
part of organizational behaviour. I’ve referenced the model here from Flat
World Knowledge book on Organizational Behaviour.
I highly recommend this book and others on this site for
their clear, concise, well-written and referenced matter. And one can read them
for free!
Hofstede’s
Cultural Dimension Model
Needless to say, culture is hugely significant in how people
communicate, take decisions, interact with teams and clients, and approach
their work and the workplace.
As an enterprise community manager and a proponent of
collaboration, knowledge sharing and dialogue as a means and tool for learning,
I found that this model provide substantial insight into the communication
style and preferences of individuals. Nonetheless, it’s important to remember
that this is a model that Hofstede came up with after conducting a large
survey-study of IBM employees across approximately 90 countries. And, the dimensions
may not be true for each and every individual in the country. It’s quite
possible to find a submissive Austrian or an individualistic Chinese.
When I look at this model through the lens of an enterprise community manager in a
distributed, highly diverse and rapidly growing organization, it’s worth
remembering how diversity can impact cross-cultural
communication. Even as organizations
begin to embrace the tools and technology of becoming a social business, exhort
their employees to participate and collaborate, urge their customers to share
feedback and float job descriptions to hire social media and community managers,
it seems worthwhile to reflect on this.
It’s common knowledge
that in today’s organizations with a globally distributed workforce, collaborating
on cross-functional projects across countries, partaking in distributed
decision making and more are the norm. This necessitates meaningful, timely and
transparent communication. And a successful
social business is nothing if not an organization that communicates seamlessly
and transparently at all times. However, this open communication is easier
said than achieved and often, a lack of understanding of cross-cultural
dimensions can be the barrier. It often becomes a case of:
“I know that you
believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that
what you heard is not what I meant.” Robert McCloskey
Someone hailing from a culture that extols/practices collectivism might be more willing to
see the commonalities in a forum thread discussion and respond to those,
drawing together the collective ideas of the participants. To someone from an
individualistic culture, this may smack of conformance or groupthink and drive them
to see the differences and add their own perspective to the debate. It’s
important to remember that neither is good or bad in and of itself—both debate
and consensus have their place and are necessary for healthy communication and
interaction. What is important is to maintain a balance and see the virtues of
both.
An organization that seems to uphold one over the other--e.g.,
an overly debate-oriented culture may run the risk of leaving out/alienating
those hailing from a country where collectivism is valued. This, of course, is
an extremely simplistic inference used merely to illustrate what I mean by
being sensitive to the impact of culture on one’s communication style and
preference. However, given that many organizations
are focusing on inclusivity and embracing diversity, it’s important to keep
this in mind.
Where does an enterprise community manager come in?
An enterprise community manager will typically be aware of
what’s taking place at an organizational level via the discussions, debates,
blog posts, status updates, etc. on the org’s collaboration platform. And through
skilful facilitation and community management seasoned by an understanding of cross-cultural
communication, they can not only uphold a culture of diversity but actually act
as a connector or glue that bind together people of varied background, skills,
race and nationality. They can play a critical role in helping the Human
Resource department meet the challenges of diversity creatively and meaningfully,
helping to create an organization that benefits from the different aspects of a
diverse workforce.
I will be writing about this topic for a while as I mull
over the hows and the whys…I would love to know if any research exist around the
impact of cross-cultural communication on community management.
