Communicate at the lowest cultural context

Multicultural teams must communicate in the lowest context for the cultures in that group.

People in the United States tend to have the lowest communication context of any cultural cluster in the world. On the polar opposite, those in Japan communicate with the highest context ((Meyer, pg. 40)). What explains this?

The history of the United States is a short story of migrants from all cultures and backgrounds trying to live together under one government. There are low-context Brits and high-context Arabs; high-context Chinese and low-context French (comparatively). While there is a culture in the United States that’s more than the sum of its parts, communication has been deeply impacted by mingling many cultures in an environment where they must communicate with one another.

On the opposite side, Japan’s history reflects a single culture over thousands of years. Many of Japan’s leaders actively secluded the Japanese people from outside influence. To this day the Japanese people maintain their unique language in spite their proximity to China or their global connections.

What do we learn from the history of the United States and Japan and its impact on their communication culture? Multicultural teams must communicate in the lowest context for the cultures in that group. For example, if you have an American, a Brazilian, and a Pakistani on a team, the team’s communication must standardize at the American’s low-context level. Again, if you have a team composed of French, Chinese, and Korean team members, you must standardize your communication context to the lowest level present - French. This might appear like a form of preferential treatment, especially coming from a low-context person, but history backs up this decision. When nations maintain a homogeneous population each citizen shares more in common with their peers and therefore can communicate implicitly without misunderstanding. Likewise, when a nation has a heterogeneous population, they must be explicit in their communication or risk misunderstanding.

There is one exception to this rule: when two high-context cultures are paired. Because the implicit messages that make up most high-context communication may be dramatically different there is a greater likelihood for misunderstanding than with a low-context and high-context interaction. Therefore, though it may be difficult for both parties, choosing a more low-context form of communication may help to clarify expectations and relay messages between both cultures.

Even though low-context is better for multicultural teams, one-on-one conversations with someone from another culture require give-and-take. I cannot demand low-context communication from high-context individuals simply because we’re likely to lose data in our conversation; I must also learn to read and speak more implicitly. In some respects implicit communication is preferable simply because it’s not so laborious! This becomes even more important as I gain further education since higher learning “tends to move individuals towards a more extreme version of the dominant cultural tendency ((Meyer, pg. 44)).” This requires me to think carefully in two different contexts: 1) in a group of three or more cultures and 2) in conversation with an individual. For example, when I’m working with an Indian client it’s important to adjust my communication and expectations based on the differences between our cultures. When I’m communicating amongst our team, where many cultures are represented, I may safely default to low-context communication.

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