Communication and Soft Skills

A

            Close-cultural communication has been consciously vital to business due to the enlargement of international commerce, expertise and the use of internet.  Compassionate cultural diversity is important for any organization that has a diverse workforce or schemes in conducting the global business.  This kind of communication focuses on how people from different cultures speak, correspond and recognize the world about them (Maude, 2011). 

            What she means is that the culture in which a person grows has a great influence on how the person will behave amid others. Culture is the quality and knowledge of a certain group of people defined by language, religion, custom or arts. As claimed by Tannen, “we learn the use of language as we grow up, and growing up in different country parts while having different culture, spiritual or class conditions which results in different talking ways  due to the culture that each person engrossed when growing up (Tannen, 2011)”.   

            Cross-cultural communication in business compacts with acknowledging the different business cultures, attitudes and communication plans.  Differences in verbal communication, high situations and low situation cultures, nonverbal assortment and power distance are the important features that focus the cross-cultural communication (Maude, 2011).

            For instance, Mr. Joe is a manager at a Shenzhen company in China.  He has gone to American to talk about possible business with a local American company.  His business matches to Jack who is his corresponding person within the American company. Joe has never been to America before and he is not aware of the cultural customs.  At this moment, Mr. Joe is from China and Jack is from America. When Joes communicates to Jack about the possible business, some vital issues may arise in the cross-cultural communication (Maude, 2011).   

            These issues include low and high cultural context.  American businesses care about the perspective than the terms.  Everything written down becomes a contract.  However, Chinese people focus more on what they communicate in the meeting as a promise.  The second issue is the nonverbal differences; each culture takes the body language, gestures, eye contact and postures differently.  If Joe is not aware of what the nonverbal language means, it can easily ruin the business.  The third issue comprise of language barrier and lack of proper communication. In my viewpoint, this is vital when someone is engaged in a cross-cultural business. Due to the differences in language, it is important to understand what others are trying to express.  Power distance is another challenging issue; when Joe is conducting business with Jack, he should be aware of the power distance that Jack has. This will help him to make a contract easily.  Thus, those issues can arise in the case of cross-cultural communication (Maude, 2011). 

            As many companies are currently assimilating, understanding the cross-culture communication issues within the top managerial is decisive due to the distinguished workforce that people as a whole are involving in our professions.  Managers should reflect on issues such as the diverse contact methods, dissimilar approaches towards divergence and diverse looms of making decisions (Maude, 2011). 

            To conclude the Tannen statement, “all communication is more or less cross-cultural,” whether a person is on the managerial level or in the daily working level, it is important to acknowledge the communication of different cultures (Tannen, 2011).           

B

            Communication is a crucial capacity used in life and in the working environments.  It is hard to live without talking to other persons.  As Tannen argues that when observing the communication between people, it is important to differentiate between the content of the information and metamessages.  According to the reading content, information transmits by the word meaning in a message.  The way people think and feel is the way in which information transmits by the methods of data using, figures and actualities.  They consider this as information in communication.  Without information, communication does not subsist. It is essential for information to be real, fastidious and on time (Tannen, 2011). 

            Metamessages are not similar to the information content.  Metamessage is an interior message resulting from communication. It entails to what the persons needs to communicate.  In addition, the information that people give may have different meanings.  If people want to avoid confusion that can arise when speaking with others, they have to ensure that the information ties the meta messages for us to get the precise and clear message across (Tannen, 2011). 

            In the occasion the information content and meta-messages are not well allied, it will result to a huge confusion in the communication.   Provided are some cases of a person who focuses on distributing information content to others and does not understand the working of meta messages. First, this instance happens in our daily lives. Sometimes when confused by bad emotions, we wish to talk to close friend through the phone.  However, we only concentrate on the information we give to the friends.  Our friends may respond, “I am having lunch right now” and many more but we still insist our personal issues to the person.  We never pay attention to their reactions. We think that having lunch does not affect the communication and think that they are still listening to our stories (Martha, Fanning & McKay, 2009). 

            However, their response has a diverse meaning.  Since we are close friends, they do not want to break the friendship between each other. Nevertheless, the truth is that they cannot respond to the issue, as they are busy at that moment. We never read their metamessage.  This can cause violence and misunderstanding in the communication.  This is therefore an example that makes us seem not to understand the working of metamessage and create miscommunication with others (Martha, Fanning & McKay, 2009).

            Second, if one person is from Japan and the other from Germany, the one from Japan communicates in Japanese while the other communicates in German.  Both subjects experience their communication in their personal language and are able to understand each other’s language.  However, the native linguistics comprises many meta messages that they are not aware in this case.  They only understand the universal idea and not the message behind the meta messages.  Therefore, this is still an example that shows the importance of understanding metamessages (Martha, Fanning & McKay, 2009). 

            As a result, people give other meanings through their meta messages that occurs differently from their information.  This means that is important to acknowledge the functioning of meta messages (Tannen, 2011).   

C

            There are two kinds of communication indirect and direct communication.  Direct communication involves saying what a person thinks, feels, and manifested by listening actively and giving effective feedback.  It is clear and involves two ways of sharing thoughts, which are the feelings, and opinions.  There is no deception or concealed messages in direct communication and its main aim is to give information from one person to another or from a group to another.  Its disadvantage is that it easily causes conflicts to other people by discounting their mindset.  In indirect communication, the use of words does not outline the meaning but the nonverbal manners (Tannen, 2011).

            The overall goal of the communication is sustaining harmony.  Indirect communication main purpose is to stay away from variance, anxiety and unstable conditions.  In a high-based civilization that may be comparatively homogenous and have a tendency to stress the confidence and communal connections, inhabitants get insensible perceptive of what the culture expects. Due to the shared prospect about behavior, the speaker can change the approach to express communication (Tannen, 2011).

            Such matters as the individuality of the presenter, statement features that are not considered all expresses the statement.  In oblique statement, the audience has to acknowledge the ethnicity to appreciate the connotation of communication.  The audience is accountable for memo interpretation (Tannen, 2011). 

            Mainly in America, disapproval of oblique statement is common. Tannen spot the persistent disbelieve of implicitness conveying that many Americans experience it proved that openness is sensible and connected with influence whereas obliqueness is an approach to deceit and shows dishonesty. Straight speakers anticipate and value sincerity, frankness and take oblique speakers as motionless, violent and scheming.  In addition, in America, the issue of efficient statement appears to lay on those who are oblique and appears as the accountability of the oblique talker to show the statement rather than the accountability of the audience to recognize it (Tannen, 2011). 

            As the straight speakers have problems with oblique talkers, those who anticipate indirect answers affronts by talk in any other way.  Direct communicators seem unsuitable and rude which can cause interpersonal nervousness, insight of poor presentation and other challenges.  Essentially, direct communicators do not appreciate how indirectness functions and do not apprehend what is missing.  Thus, it is unfeasible for the straight individual to appreciate the intricacy of obliqueness in anticipation of having been involved in it.  As a result, straight speakers can be aggravated and puzzled in an oblique situation and many know that something is not functioning, but may not recognize their responsibility may be mistaken.  This is for the reason that indirect communicators bound them and no one will directly tell them what they are doing is wrong (Tin-Toomey, 1999). 

            Despite these pessimistic statement policies, Tannen claims that not anything is mistaken with being straight or oblique.  Both policies have compensations.  The trouble arises when there are dissimilarities in policies or diverse potential about the exploitation of the policy in a fastidious condition (Tannen, 2011).  

            Tannen stresses that elasticity and common respect are main features in dealing with communication different styles.  Understanding direct and indirect communication is one feature to use when we interact with others.  When people consider that dissimilar message policies may be a component of the setback, we use straight and oblique message to people.  The trouble is that the straight speaker does not distinguish the oblique status of the surroundings and does not recognize the importance of the message approach on others.  People in this condition practice logic of reprieve when specified the way to consider their condition.  Occasionally people understand that this condition will not function and they decide to depart while at times they may adjust to the situation prearranged to the response and develop to be effective with an oblique communiqué background (Tannen, 2011). 

            Therefore, indirect communication has its advantages in that it creates strong awareness communication indications and manages communication with care.  Its disadvantages are that it causes misunderstanding in the communication and appears unclear and untrustworthy (Tin-Toomey, 1999).    

 

 

 

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References

Martha, D., Fanning, P., & McKay, Matthew. (2009). Messages: The Communication Skills Book. New Harbinger.

Maude, B. (2011). Managing cross-cultural communication: Principles and practice.

Tannen, D. (2011). That's not what I meant!: How conversational style makes or breaks relationships. New York: Harper.  

Tin-Toomey, S. (1999). Communication across cultures. New York [etc.: The Guilford press.