How Culture Controls Communication
Culture is joining the list of barriers to effective communication. Getting one’s meaning across in the midst of cultural diversity can be quite the challenge. Organization X's Founder and Director shows that he is definitely up for that challenge.
Communication is vital in business. Businesses operate through collaborative activities between and among the employees and the superiors. This coordination, negotiation, and mutual understanding that exist between the two entities accounts for the creation of quality goods and services. Effective communication must be imperative for a successful execution of daily operations.
With globalization, communication styles present in the workplace vary enormously around the world. As culture serves as the context by which people operate, the increase of global trade paves the way to the meeting and blending of different cultures. But along with this phenomenon comes its downside: effective communication barriers.
According to Lunenberg (2010), effective communication barriers occur when noise exists in any of the following elements of communication: the sender, the encoding, the message, the medium, the decoding, the receiver, and the feedback. Since communication is a complex, give-and-take process, complete clarity of meaning and understanding will not occur if such noise exists in any of the elements.
In a business occurring in an intercultural context, there is a high need for both the subordinate and the superior to understand cultural differences and overcome language barriers. To overcome this challenge is to benefit not only the organization, but the employees and the superior as well.
Fortunately, Mr. Will is more than ready to take the challenge head on.
The Monster in Organization X
Organization X is a creative-services company focused on integrated marketing solutions. Established in 2008, it offers marketing, public relations, digital marketing, and event production services. The company is divided into three divisions: the Public Relations Division, the Fashion Division, and the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) division. Its notable clients are Red Bull, United Colors of Benetton, Seattle’s Best Coffee, The North Face, The House of Marley, and Columbia.
Will is the founder, managing partner, and director of Organization X. He has been with the company for more than six years. As the overseer of all the activities done by the company, his primary job is to manage the clients and their demands, to monitor client updates in both traditional and digital media, to engage with external contacts, and to coordinate with the employees under the existing company divisions.
Ironically, among the list of arduous tasks Will has to achieve, the hardest would have to be the supposedly easiest one – the coordination of the employees. To make matters more interesting, communication between the employees is not the challenge – communication between him and the employees is.
The elephant in the room is that Will is an American superior in a Philippine-based company. His subordinates are all Filipinos. While the age group of the employees in the company are relatively near to each other, with most of them from Generation Y and Millennials, communication efforts between the superior and the subordinates still pose to be an obstacle. With the relatively small size of the company (an average of ten employees), interaction and communication are unavoidable.
Aside from his business partner, Will’s constant companion in the company is Ralph, the public relations officer. Since the primary service of the company is public relations services, Will and Ralph communicate all the time. Outside of business matters, they also talk about other things that interest them both – but only minimal.
Compared to the rest of the employees, Ralph is light-years away when it comes to interacting with Will.
For this reason, Ralph became the resident mediator between the employees and Will. Oftentimes, whenever Will is not around, the employees would go to Ralph and request him to talk to Will about different matters. Once, when there was a signal warning of an incoming typhoon for the following day, the employees pressured Ralph into asking Will if there would be work the next day. Ralph, being the friendly and jolly person that he is, accepted the request.
Most of the times, it did not bother Ralph, but he had already blurted jokingly, “Ano ako, interpreter ninyo?” (What am I, your interpreter?) a few times.
The Filipino employees always converse to one another in the Filipino language. They ask each other about queries related to work, tell jokes every now and then, and talk about the latest happenings in their lives.
But real and full conversations rarely happen between Will and the employees.
Most of the times, when Will would call a meeting, the flow of conversation is one-sided. The scenario is that he would discuss the agenda, the target, and what he wants to see in their specific works, and then the employees would simply nod and say “OK” and “Yes” in agreement. Follow-up questions from the employees are very minimal.
After the meeting and during lunch breaks, the employees would ask each other, “Ano daw sabi ni Sir Will dito? Bakit daw niya pinaaayos ‘to?” (What did Sir Will say about this? Why does he want us to fix this?).
The main communication tool used by the employees of Organization X is electronic mail. Most of their transactions happen online, and emailing is their primary source of communication – both internally and externally. Articles, follow-ups, summary reports, and graphic designs made by the employees are sent to Will through email.
This affects the interaction that could have possibly occurred between the subordinates and Will. Instead of face-to-face communication, the employees rely largely on the communication happening online. What’s even worse is that the office is simply a big room filled with computers. Cubicles do not separate the employees’ office spaces, thus there is freedom to talk with one another and to Will whenever they want to.
There is an obvious lack of non-verbal cues in the digital media. These verbal cues are said to be a more effective way of communicating than mere verbal cues. The chance of penetrating Will’s social onion diminishes as the employees harness the use of digital media more.
The interactions of the employees with their internship applicants mirror the same process. The employees do issuing the commands and the instructions regarding work-related things through email. Even mere gestures of thanks are sent through email. The lack of personal touch of emailing may be a factor that may discourage face-to-face communication.
The Unrequited Feelings of Employees in a Small-Size Comapny
Hayana, the company’s graphic artist, has a lot of hidden feelings when it comes to the work she was doing. As an SEO marketing company, there are many collaterals, graphics, and videos needed to be done for a single website. Added with the need of the Public Relations Division for striking and unique posters, flyers, and online ads, Hayana’s job is one of the toughest in the company.
While walking home, Hayana spilled out her feelings to an intern. She said that she did not sign up for the job. “Nagulat ako na ganito pala ‘yung trabaho na kailangan ko na gawin.” (I was surprised that this is the kind of job that I would need to do). She said that she was supposed to apply for a video productions company but Sir Will offered her a bigger salary for a graphic designer job. Needing a bigger income, she accepted the job.
Since the company is handling one SEO client at a time, she was getting sick of the graphics that she was supposed to do. It was almost the same thing day-by-day – graphics and videos for plastic surgery procedures. This was not clearly explained to her by Will. She said that her job was OK but if she had a better offer, she would not hesitate to take.
Hayana said that she could not possibly talk to this about her boss because Will is her superior, and because Will is an American. “Hindi niya siguro ako maiinitindihan.” (I doubt that he would understand me.)
However, Hayana is not the only one who is suffering in silence.
Ralph, the company’s one-man Public Relations Team, also have strong feelings when it comes to his job. He always complains about his workload, the complexity of his job, and that his job should not be under one person only – whenever Will is not around.
Will, being the young entrepreneur that he is, has other companies to manage. He would spend some of his time for his other company but majority of his time is dedicated to Organization X. But that is not how Ralph sees things. He feels hurt whenever Will would entrust him most of the job for a certain client while Will would do other task for his other companies.
Ralph mentioned that there was one time that he had to answer for Will’s error and he really had to adjust with the backlash for a long while. Of course, he did not dare to tell the problem to Will.
Leading People the American Way
According to Yuan (2009), intercultural communication is the “communication between people different national cultures”. As cited by Yuan (2009), Dodd (1998) argued that the ultimate goal of intercultural communication is effectiveness. Effective intercultural communication produces three outcomes: task effectiveness, relationship effectiveness, and cultural adjustment.
Will is more than ready to rid his company of this communication barrier and to achieve the goal of intercultural communication. Although his employees do not verbalize the their thoughts and feelings, Will is willing to take the extra mile.
Most of Will’s employees arrive early before him. He would come at the office around 10 AM, an hour later than his employees’ arrival due to his other responsibilities in his other companies. But when he would enter the office, he would don his bright smile and greet, “Good morning, guys!” without fail.
Will would greet his employees one by one, mentioning their names, and even asking how their weekends went. Most of the time, Ralph would be the only one holding up conversations with Will but some of them are also opening up sometimes.
The Best Way to An Employee’s Heart is Through His Stomach
Aside from the constant and jolly greetings, Will sees to it that he treats his employees every once in a while. To foster companionship and to chip off the existing communication barrier, he would bring food to the office, much to his employees delight. From pizzas, mojos, fries and burgers, a week would not pass without seeing Will holding such take-outs on his hand. During his employees’ birthday, Will would bring cake to surprise the celebrator. There was also a time wherein Will ordered sundaes for everyone to dispel the office static.
One unique culture persistent in Organization X is the monthly game of Jeopardy! – a quiz game show famous in America. Will came up with the game for employees to have fun and to bring in familiarity.
For every correct answer, Will would give PHP 20. During the end of the game, a final question will be asked wherein the prize would be anything from The Shelf – or the shelf holding all mementos, books, DVDs, earphones, bags, and wallets from their previous clients.
Aside from the team-building side of the game, this is also the rare time where employees hold short and fun conversations with Will.
Born an American, Filipino by Heart
After a Filipino client insisted to speak in Tagalog and after Ralph insisted that he should learn Tagalog, Will decided right then and there that he would learn the language. He expressed that he was living in the Philippines for more than 5 years already, so he thought that maybe it was about time.
At first, his employees thought it was just a joke. Bu then, much to their surprise, Will started saying, “Salamat,” (Thank you.) to them – complete with the American accent. His employees positively received this action, so Will thought of something better. He decided to take it to the next level – by seeking his employees’ knowledge about the language.
Constantly, Will would lift his head from his laptop and would blurt out, “What’s the Tagalog of ‘Good morning?’” His employees would find it amusing and would enthusiastically answer the question.
The next morning, a resounding “Magandang umaga!” would be heard throughout the office.
All in all, Will’s efforts to eliminate the cultural differences that produce communication barriers are not going to waste. So far, his employees regard his efforts positively. Step-by-step, little by little, Will is on his way to becoming the best superior he could ever be.
Organization X employees would be in need to step up their game soon.
