Ch. 13 - Global Communication

Summary

In a world where technology makes it seemingly easy to connect globally, understanding cultural nuances remains crucial for effective communication. Patti Douglass explores the progression of globalization, from the Age of Exploration to the modern digital era, emphasizing how businesses like McDonald's have successfully adapted to diverse cultures. The video delves into Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, providing insights into cultural differences in power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and more. Practical tips for global communication include learning local phrases, simplifying language, understanding business cultures, and being mindful of non-verbal cues when presenting abroad. Douglass encourages viewers to embrace global interactions, whether through travel or connections with international peers.

Highlights

• Globalization's roots can be traced back to the Age of Discovery, where explorers like Columbus expanded cultural frontiers. 🌎
• The industrial revolution revolutionized trade by making products affordable, leading to cross-border commerce. 🚂
• McDonald's adapts its menu worldwide, such as using pitas in Turkey and offering unique desserts in Spain. 🍟
• Cultural misunderstandings, like KFC's slogan in China, highlight the importance of accurate translations. 😅
• Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory offers a framework to understand global cultural differences in communication. 📚
• Key cultural dimensions include power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and indulgence. 🌏
• Practical advice for global communication includes using simple language and respecting non-verbal communication styles. 🗣️
• Presenter tips: structure your presentation well and be mindful of colors and gestures significant in various cultures. 🎤

Key Takeaways

• Global communication has grown in importance due to technological advancements, yet cultural understanding is vital for success. 🌍
• Businesses, like McDonald's, tailor their products internationally to resonate with local cultures while maintaining brand identity. 🍔
• Understanding cultural dimensions such as power distance, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance can enhance communication across borders. 🌐
• Effective global communication involves learning local phrases, simplifying language, and understanding cultural customs. 💬
• Non-verbal cues vary significantly by culture, making awareness crucial when presenting internationally. 👀
• Exploring cultural dimensions online can deepen insights and improve interactions with people from different backgrounds. 🧭

Overview

In today's interconnected world, understanding global communication is essential. Although advances in technology make it easier to communicate across borders, cultural nuances can often pose challenges. Patti Douglass traces the history of globalization from the Age of Exploration to the present digital era, emphasizing the impact of cultural dynamics on effective communication.

Douglass brings attention to the importance of businesses like McDonald's, which successfully adapt their offerings to suit local tastes while preserving their core brand. This adaptability is key in global marketing strategies, as it's crucial to align with cultural preferences, whether it's offering unique menu items or tailoring marketing messages to fit cultural norms.

A significant part of Douglass's exploration involves Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, which provides a framework to navigate cultural variances, such as power distance and individualism. By understanding these concepts, individuals can better tailor their communication style, not just in language but in gestures and presentation, thereby fostering more meaningful global interactions.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 20:30: Ch. 13 - Global Communication Global Communication: While technology has made it easier to communicate globally, understanding cultural differences is crucial to achieving successful communication across diverse global audiences. Navigating these differences effectively can enhance communication outcomes, demonstrating the importance of cultural awareness in a globalized world.

Ch. 13 - Global Communication Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Global Communication is more important than ever because it is easy technologically to communicate globally but in spite of our globalization we all have very different cultures around the world and if you don't know how to navigate those it can lead to less than ideal results in your communication efforts why are we Global well it
• 00:30 - 01:00 probably started in the 15th to 17th centuries called the age of Discovery or the Age of Exploration this is when men sought out to find other n Nations Christopher Columbus mellan Pon de Leon so those were very globalizing times because we discovered another at that time then the
• 01:00 - 01:30 industrial res Revolution in the early 1900s where machines were invented just made it very affordable to make products and that opened the doors to trade with other countries because you could appeal to other countries with your lower prices then post World War II era the United States set out to reintroduce
• 01:30 - 02:00 that global trade that had been established before World War II and they made tremendous inroads as what was considered to be the most powerful nation in the world after World War II and it really global trade took off and now the internet has made it very easy to do business with one another commity communicate with one another and so
• 02:00 - 02:30 globalization is very very large it's a big piece of business and that's why businesses globalize it's called Global Marketing and what it means is just redesigning and repackaging your products to appeal to other cultures while maintaining your own brand personality you
• 02:30 - 03:00 you see it all of the time boy fast food products are very global technology products are very Global look at what McDonald's does around the world and this is just a small sampling look at the desserts that Spain gets I don't know why we don't get those look at Turkey they get their burger in a pea because that is more it makes more sense to them to eat something in a pita than around
• 03:00 - 03:30 bun and in Hong Kong they have vegetables in Turkey they have vegetables more than just lettuce and tomatoes and onions so you can see how these different places are represented culturally look at Japan they have probably oh I don't know what the green drinks are I forget what the ingredients is it could be matcha but it looks very different from
• 03:30 - 04:00 American McDonald's and even within the United States um we McDonald's will have different things you know in Boston I think they call their milkshakes fraps because that's what they call milkshakes in McDonald's I mean in Boston and you know they might have some sort of a sauce in Texas that wouldn't make as much sense to someone in Oregon so McDonald's has always done this within
• 04:00 - 04:30 the United States you have to be very careful because you can't just directly you can't depend on direct translation to make sense for instance in China in the 1980s they saw KFC's slogan it's fingerlicking good and to them it meant eat your fingers off we've all heard about Chev the Chevy Nova which Nova in Spanish means it won't go that's not good for a car there are so
• 04:30 - 05:00 many different examples you can offend other cultures with certain religious humor or you can Delight another culture if you understand something that would be appealing to them it makes all the difference I love this next part it's called cultural Dimensions Theory I took a whole course on Global Marketing or Global Communication rather and this
• 05:00 - 05:30 power distance Theory hoffstead cultural dimensions are just fascinating and I'm going to show you something toward the end of this where you're going to get to see how you can explore different culturals at these Dimensions interest you so the first of these Dimensions is called Power distance it the index measures how a society handles inequalities and power distributions in some count it makes
• 05:30 - 06:00 sense to have a very big gap between the CEO and the most menial laborer now you may think that's how it is in the United States but in truth the United States has a pretty low power index meaning that we value equality and Independence so it's not in common uncommon for you to be able to call your CEO by her first name or to be able
• 06:00 - 06:30 to have just open conversations with someone at a higher level than you I will tell you at Texas Tech I experience a lot of this low power distance I have sat at many a table with both president scen and Chancellor Mitchell and just had very open comfortable conversations about Texas Tech within our own College of media communication where I
• 06:30 - 07:00 work everyone is on a first name basis within the faculty I don't know how the staff regards it I make sure that the staff know they can call me Patty but I did talk to someone in another College who said faculty all call one another by their first names but staff calls them Dr Douglas or whatever so that can vary College to college I say president SCU and
• 07:00 - 07:30 Chancellor Mitchell but I've heard others refer to them as Lawrence and Ted and I doubt that they have a problem with that I know within our own College people will call the Dean by his first name so you it it does very much depend on the organization don't be presumptuous and think when you go into a new organization that there is a low power distance but don't be surprised if there
• 07:30 - 08:00 is a low power distance now collectivism versus individualism I think is the most famous of these de Dimensions because the United States is very famous for being individualistic that means that we really value personal freedom and self-expression and achievement we in short make it all about ourselves much of the time we are concerned with our
• 08:00 - 08:30 own goals and we are encouraged to Stand Out Among the crowd that is not true in many Asian countries and Latin American countries among others where they are collectivistic so you've heard about how probably heard about how Latin countries and even Latin Americans value family over self whereas oasian people often don't feel
• 08:30 - 09:00 the same way you know like they might put their elderly into homes rather than bringing them into their own homes that's just the culture it's you know and they may not have the means to bring someone into their own homes but it is it is often a difference in culture whereas say in Mexico they would very much bring a grandparent into their
• 09:00 - 09:30 own homes but also it's it goes beyond family people in highly collectivistic cultures tend to put the people in general above themselves now there's something called the uncertainty avoidance index how that's how comfortable a culture is with doubt with uncertainty and in the unit States we tend to be
• 09:30 - 10:00 somewhat uh accepting of uncertainty so we'll we're willing to take risks in embracing new ideas but we do have some structures in place to manage these in uncertainties then there's something called feminin femininity versus masculinity could be a little tough to understand because it's not talking about how much we value men or women it's talking about
• 10:00 - 10:30 male typically described as male and female traits so in a masculine Society you tend to Value competitiveness assertiveness success achievement material achievement climbing the ladder to the top in terms of material things you can buy with that and also power feminine culture tend to be the opposite
• 10:30 - 11:00 and might you know believe in cooperation and modesty quality of life valuing those things so yes women might value those things more but in a feminine culture everyone tends to Value those things more so the United States is more is higher in masculinity we do value material things more than
• 11:00 - 11:30 say quality of life issues and this could be shifting of course but that that's just you know like that's why people really put a high premium on Career achievements and you know winning and that kind of thing and then there's short-term versus long-term orientation this is whether we focus more on the future or the present and the United States focuses very much on the
• 11:30 - 12:00 present and a lot of people I'm not a futuristic thinker that that is a strength in strengths binder or strengths Quest if you've ever taken that assessment but so some people are futurists but we believe or we appreciate immediate gratification in the United States whereas other cultures might forgo immediate gratification for
• 12:00 - 12:30 a future of quality and then restraint versus Indulgence is about how a culture tends to allow free gratification of desires and that is indulgent or they control them them through strictness strict cultural norms that is called restraint the United States is very much an indulgent culture
• 12:30 - 13:00 encouraging individuals to pursue happiness and downtime and self-expression say what you think and we we really like our fun our freedom and um personal fulfillment and yeah I think I'm very much in that category because of where I have lived for six decades and it's it's an interesting measure want to show you something fun if you look down at the
• 13:00 - 13:30 bottom you see a web address to the culture factor and you can go to this little country comparison and pull up one two or many many countries to compare I just kind of I didn't randomly choose the United States but I randomly chose Vietnam and Vietnam is represented here in Gray or the bars on the right United States is orange or the bars on the left left and you can see that power
• 13:30 - 14:00 distance for the United States is lower than Vietnam so that's where you know we call our CEOs by their first name and we talk to them comfortably and we might have flatter hierarchies within our organizations we are higher in individualism as I discussed and Vietnam is an Asian country so they tend to be more collectivistic motiv a toward
• 14:00 - 14:30 achievement and wealth we are higher in that than Vietnam uncertainty avoidance we have a higher tolerance for uncertainty than Vietnam not by a lot now long-term orientation and and I said that we're high in short-term orientation but actually we're right in the middle because 100 is the highest score so we're right in the middle Vietnam tends
• 14:30 - 15:00 to be a little less oriented toward the long term and in Indulgence we do score high besides power distance that's our highest score so we are no I'm sorry that was Vietnam that had the high score so our highest score is on Indulgence we're very indulgent of of just quickly expressing ourselves and and and just indulging ourselves in things that
• 15:00 - 15:30 make us happy and you know like we we love fast food we love running to Sonic to get our favorite drink maybe more than one time a day uh I you know like if we have a little more money like you might go to Starbucks a lot that kind of thing but Vietnam is much lower in that than the United States so I urge you if you if you are interested in that these dimensions to go and play with this tool
• 15:30 - 16:00 I actually did a whole class project on it and just had so much fun with it but you can put in maybe the country where your grandparents are from or where you have a friend or maybe you have a a classmate here at Texas Tech who is from another country and you're kind of curious about that and it can help you to communicate better with them so what are some tips for communic ating globally with someone in another country
• 16:00 - 16:30 well it's nice if you can learn some local phrases they'll appreciate that but avoid your own native slangs and figures of speech I mean just think about what it might mean if you were to say cool or sweet or wow I am really laid-back so don't worry about calling me by my first name or whatever all of those terms might sound really strange to someone else if they have more literal translations of
• 16:30 - 17:00 them be sure to speak in short and simple sentences make it easy to understand if they if you're talking to someone whose first language is not the same as your own and pause so that they have time to process it if you know just a little bit of Spanish or another language you know what a struggle it can be if you did not learn it as a child to understand what the other person is saying so you want to give them time for
• 17:00 - 17:30 that and then of course understand their business and just cultural practices so that you don't step into it you don't make faux paw what about presenting let's say you're going to go and present in Vietnam or somewhere else well people human beings are really acclimated to structure so be very cognizant of using you know your rules of TH or cause and effect or chronological organization
• 17:30 - 18:00 give it some sort of meaningful structure when you present and know those cultural norms for non-verbal communication because people who speak different languages natively are going to rely on ver non-verbal communication oh but that varies a lot globally we teach everyone to have great eye contact with the audience that is just rude in some countries and
• 18:00 - 18:30 threatening in others and sometimes they like a balance we probably in the United States like a balance of eye contact and no or looking away because it can become unnerving if someone just keeps staring at you as an audience member you want them to move on or even if you're just face Toof face with someone it seems more credible if they look up to think of something or they look down to reflect it doesn't look
• 18:30 - 19:00 natural to have constant eye contact but we like a great amount of eye contact and gesturing is so different in every country some is probably rude to gesture and there are certain gestures that you might not use in other countries that we see as very normal no the meaning of colors because for instance red I'm wearing red today no particular reason but I have a lot of
• 19:00 - 19:30 red because of Texas Tech but in I forget which country it is but in at least one country red is a color of mourning I am not wearing this to mourn you know I don't I see red as vibrant and patriotic and celebratory so know those kinds of things and then of course be just very sensitive to all cultural practices before you present before a
• 19:30 - 20:00 global audience I hope those are some fun things for you to take away to learn and I hope you do get to travel in the future and present to people in other countries and if not I just hope you get to talk to a lot of people in different countries or from different countries