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INT. MGNT
Managing Multicultural Teams
One of the challenges that teams face is Direct versus indirect communication, or as other might say direct and explicit. Basically, a listener does not have to know much about the context or the speaker to interpret it. In other cultures, this is not true because meaning is embedded in the way the message is presented. For example, if a Western negotiator got crucial information about the other party’s preferences and priorities by asking direct questions; then the Westerner would have difficulty understanding the indirect communications of the non-Westerner.
Also, if a Japanese individual says “Yes”; it doesn’t really mean yes they are actually acknowledging that they are listening to you. The Japanese are the type of business people that like to make sure that there is harmony in the rest of the organization; before making any decisions they have to consult the issue with the others. Another challenge multicultural team’s face is trouble with accents and fluency. There are many misunderstandings or deep frustration that could occur because of nonnative speakers’ accents, lack of fluency, or problems with translation. In Latin America, a multicultural team was upset that the Koreans would caucus at the table by speaking Korean. So, therefore they would just do the same but in Spanish; furthermore, both teams in the end result decided to cut back on sidebar conversations. The third challenge would be differing attitudes toward hierarchy and authority. This states that a challenge inherent in a multicultural teamwork is that by design, teams have a rather fl ...