How to handle cross-cultural differences in business | Maria Pastorelli | TEDxNYUShanghai

one of the first days I was in Shanghai I went into a restaurant for dinner I came to China to study Chinese so I thought it was you know I had to practice I went to a restaurant I ordered some dumplings and then I ordered a glass of water with my meal a relatively short amount of time later I got my food and something I was not expecting I got a glass of hot water now my first reaction was doubt ironically for a foreigner I could read and write characters better I could speak and understand

so I thought that the communication broke down somewhere probably in my terrible tone pronunciation then I thought the waiter had made a mistake I didn't say anything at the time because honestly I didn't know how and I didn't want to get into a conversation I probably would have not understood now I know very well that if you ask for a glass of water in China you got a glass of hot water in Europe you probably get a glass of cold or room temperature water a small but very important difference when you try not to burn

your mouth at the first sip I'm Italian born and raised I'm speaking to you in English and I'm standing on a stage in Shanghai China and I'm not the one with the most cross-cultural experiences in this room many of you probably all of you are sitting next to someone who has a background that is very different from yours and that difference is really important why because diversity brings growth it brings impact think of all the people that you work or study with you probably have a lot of international colleagues now globalization covid-19 the internet era

they have accelerated Global collaboration it is now unavoidable that means that professors students leaders teams and the global Workforce will interact with people they have very little in common with that's why we need to learn how to navigate cross-cultural experiences because working together is what moves us forward I have lived in China a third of my life and I have seen the Beauty and the complexity of the culture living and working in Shanghai has given me the opportunity to get in contact with people from all over the world and also be part of cultural interactions

I would never have had in Italy I arrived here in 2010 for a six months Chinese course of Udan University as you can see I'm still here what brought me here was a part of me that was always drawn to this side of the world because my mom worked in Hong Kong in the mid 80s and so I I grew up hearing her stories of travel what brought me here was my intense dislike for math like Paul and so I chose the the University degree that was probably the furthest things away from numbers cross-cultural communication

what brought me here was also my desire to prove myself to live and work in a different city in a different country my journey had his ups and downs and it still does but I am proud of all of it first because I get to stand here and share my story with all of you which is beyond my younger self wildest dreams but also because I grew as a person and I will never give that up for anything I got to experiences what differences look like and more importantly how people react to differences I have

seen people doing everything they can to avoid dealing with others that don't share their same views so my mission going forward is to create more bridges for people to collaborate instead of rejecting each other I think we can agree that the world can be a more inclusive place now it sounds easy in theory but when you're working with people spread across three different continents from five different cultural backgrounds who speak seven different languages it gets a little bit more complicated than just saying you know be nice to each other the first step we're dealing with

dealing with these complexities is understanding and acknowledging our differences because the truth is that we are different we come from different cultures we have different perspectives we enjoy a different level of privilege but often we're not aware of how different we are in my daily work I help global leaders and teams to collaborate and that means often working across cultures throughout the years I've seen a lot of different Frameworks and models that explain the the connections between differences in culture and while those can be helpful to understand differences in a in a big picture kind

of way the reality is that people are way more complex most Frameworks divide people into cultural or national groups but that doesn't really work if we have to be realistic we can say that generally speaking normally people from this culture behave in this way as a group with exceptions and when my clients are struggling to work with their International counterparts that's not really very helpful is it so what are people struggling with specifically imagine a manager arriving in China for the first time to work with their with their local team manager from Europe they get

into a meeting and they share what they think is a wonderful insightful presentation and the end of it they go now I want to hear from you do you have any questions the room is silent like this for a while despite the encouragement people don't really speak up or say anything so the manager and the team become increasingly frustrated and they end the meeting feeling it was a waste of time what happened well there might be a lot of factors that that influence this the situation but one of the things that definitely is is important

is the difference in communication styles generally speaking East Asian countries prefer to to communicate in a in a high context level of communication which means that communication is indirect people read between the lines and how something is said or not said is more important than what you say now to be relevant to our example the hierarchy and the need to keep face is probably what was important here you don't say no or ask questions directly to your boss and any feedback is given in private after building a relationship on the other side generally speaking European

countries adopt a more low context kind of communication where communication is straightforward task oriented and very direct to the manager here the importance is the ideas and speaking out initiative is encouraged if not expected so what happens when people that have different communication Styles so different when they meet well on one side you have the low context Style that gets labeled aggressive and maybe even rude on the opposite side you have the high context style that gets labeled passive and uncooperative the manager and the team are on different sides and there is no Bridge now

just because we can see the differences it doesn't mean that differences are not there and just because there are differences it doesn't mean that we can do anything to deal with them It comes naturally for us to separate things and people into neat groups like us versus them and in-group or the people that you have a lot of in common with and an out group or the people that you feel you have nothing in common with because our brain likes structure it is easier for our brain to remember differences in neat little groups that's why

we have so many stereotypes from years of research we know that our brain is a prediction machine our brain likes things that follow a pattern let me show you something show of hands if you can read this okay now it might look like gibberish at the beginning but if you understand English and I truly hope you do otherwise you've been staring at everyone making weird sounds so far you can read this whole slide you can read this slide despite the fact that only the first and the last letter in each word are in the right

place in all the other letters are in a random order this is because your brain feels a space using your knowledge of the language it is easier for our brain to rely on the information we have instead of processing a lot of new data in the same way for us it feels safer to rely on the information we think we have about others instead of being uncomfortable with what we don't know about them so now that we know that there are differences and then our brain is trying really hard to take shortcuts what can we

do to move us forward we can't pretend there are indifferences and just throw our hands in the air we can pretend that differences don't matter either because that's not how we find solutions to problems so where is the Goldilocks zone The Sweet Spot in the middle hear me out here's my revolutionary idea let's talk about how we communicate let's have conversations about how to have conversations what does that mean it means to be aware of our own preferences of how we communicate how we speak our mind how hot we like our water it means being

aware that other people have different preferences it means asking questions about those preferences it means talking about what is necessary for both sides to work together and finally it means to make time to work on that simple but not easy at this point you might ask why do I have to do all the work and other people don't have to do anything well I'm sorry but you can't change people you can't motivate people to do what they don't want to do you can tell someone else to communicate a different way but if they're not motivated

they just won't one thing you can do is to take responsibility of your communication we can't change people but the good thing about people is that we can have conversations with them and conversation can help us build those bridge to connect us so how can we have those conversations well it's not a linear process because it's not a process that has an end in the beginning it's a constant ongoing conversation a flux if you will so here are five things to remember first don't assume ask all the questions ask questions from a place of curiosity

acknowledging your own biases preferences and privileges when you ask questions ask questions that are open like what why and how listen to what people are saying and to what people are not saying and if you're not sure double confirm because you probably might have missed something and lastly give people time to process information because not everybody is comfortable reacting to questions right away in conclusion differences are here to stay there are as many experiences as there are people you will interact with people from different cultures backgrounds and mindsets it's your responsibility to be aware of

how you communicate and to facilitate discussion so that others can share their ideas it's your responsibility to start building those bridges so after this talk are you going to be brave and have the conversations that we need to have if all of us have one conversation that creates one small Bridge we all have the chance to make the world a little bit less divided and a little bit more impactful thank you thank you [Applause]