Best ways to better communicate in a multicultural remote environment?

Building cultural competencies have become a business imperative. Thus, I recommend a book by Erin Meyer called "The Culture Map," which provides a profound insight into a complex cultural landscape. The book focuses on eight aspects where cultures differ, how people from different cultures differ, and how to communicate, evaluate, persuade, lead, decide, trust, disagree, and schedule.
Here are the following eight scales:
1. Communicating: explicit vs. implicit
2. Evaluating: direct negative feedback vs. indirect negative feedback
3. Persuading: deductive vs. inductive
4. Leading: egalitarian vs. hierarchical
5. Deciding: consensual vs. top-down
6. Trusting: tasks vs. relationship
7. Disagreeing: confrontational vs. avoid confrontation
8. Scheduling: structured vs. flexible 

For instance, Americans are the low-context culture (or the most explicit) culture and communicating with the Japanese could lead to cultural clashes. Therefore, American business representatives (low context culture: good communication is precise, simple, and straightforward) in Japan (high context culture: good communication is sophisticated, nuanced, and layered) should pay attention to what their counterparts
don’t say.

https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/
https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Map-Breakin...s/dp/1610392507

I recently became a Prosci ADKAR Change Practitioner, change management is an exciting discipline, and I am still learning. Here is the link to one of the articles on the topic of communication (source: Prosci Blog).

https://www.prosci.com/blog/a-communicatio...ange-management

Thank you for your feedback. Since the lockdowns with COVID, and now with inflation, travel to reinforce relationships in a face-to-face setting has become almost impossible. Even with people whom I've grown to know over the years, the communication strain is more problematic - almost as if our patience is thinning. I need to remind myself of empathy, pause, think, and then reply. I've found that my own personality of trying to keep some conversations light and with some humor isn't always winning anyone over. I appreciate everyone's response to this question - great ideas, and excellent reminders of what to do.

Building cultural competencies have become a business imperative. Thus, I recommend a book by Erin Meyer called "The Culture Map," which provides a profound insight into a complex cultural landscape. The book focuses on eight aspects where cultures differ, how people from different cultures differ, and how to communicate, evaluate, persuade, lead, decide, trust, disagree, and schedule.
Here are the following eight scales:
1. Communicating: explicit vs. implicit
2. Evaluating: direct negative feedback vs. indirect negative feedback
3. Persuading: deductive vs. inductive
4. Leading: egalitarian vs. hierarchical
5. Deciding: consensual vs. top-down
6. Trusting: tasks vs. relationship
7. Disagreeing: confrontational vs. avoid confrontation
8. Scheduling: structured vs. flexible 

For instance, Americans are the low-context culture (or the most explicit) culture and communicating with the Japanese could lead to cultural clashes. Therefore, American business representatives (low context culture: good communication is precise, simple, and straightforward) in Japan (high context culture: good communication is sophisticated, nuanced, and layered) should pay attention to what their counterparts
don’t say.

https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/
https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Map-Breakin...s/dp/1610392507

I recently became a Prosci ADKAR Change Practitioner, change management is an exciting discipline, and I am still learning. Here is the link to one of the articles on the topic of communication (source: Prosci Blog).

https://www.prosci.com/blog/a-communicatio...ange-management

Hi Melissa thank you for the great question. I have written two Linkedin newsletters about this topic: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/level-up-yo...TDgd6sg9g%3D%3D

Regardless of the number of years, you will have issues working in multicultural teams. I've been working for 20 years in international environments and I still have issues. so it requires efforts. As Keith said, clarifying the problem is important. Sometimes we think it is a cultural issue, whereas it is an organizational issue. good luck!

Hi Melissa,

I attended a Workshop on cross cultural training, and I am sharing some of the best practices to work across different cultures.
(For example, American-German culture).

My attempt here is not to give a perfect solution. Often across borders, we use the same language and words, yet our understanding may be different.

1. Commitment: Make sure you are working from commitments by clarifying "Who will do what by when, exactly?"

Commitments are not assigned. They should be accepted.

Talk is cheap, but commitments are sacred. If you enter a commitment, do not break it.

2. Contact frequency: Contact frequency signals urgency. High frequency means high urgency

- active projects require a minimum of weekly contact. Every stakeholder need not be present physically in every meeting. Settle disagreements offline.

- Answer emails within one day. If you do not receive an answer within a day, follow up or ask again.

PS: Contact frequency should not be understood as pressure, mistrust or micromanagement. It simply signals urgency and offers alignment opportunity.

3. The Salami-tactic

- Break big task to small task. Work on small tasks, week by week, from easiest to hardest.
- Plan backwards from result or outcome to roadmap, to next milestone, and the coming week.

4. Establish guardrails

- Guardrail is a minimum outcome commitment.

5. Work with safety buffers. (5-8 percent)

- especially pertains to schedule.
- Never let time runout.

6. Help
- Ask for help
- Offer help

7. PRAISE people more frequently.

- ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE especially if you are trying to affect change.

8. ASK a lot of questions.

- Give everyone a VOICE and CHOICE.

All this comes from two different approaches. While here in the US, we believe in the theory of ABUNDANCE, and everyone has an opportunity to perform and succeed. It is not so in Europe, where there is fight for RESOURCES. Hence everything must be planned in detail. And you are responsible to take care of yourself.

The GERMAN system is designed to reach most predictable outcomes while using resources as efficiently as possible. - SECURITY/EFFICENCY.

The US system is designed to reach the best possible outcomes as quickly as possible and as conveniently. Stable outcomes can only be reached by aligning to each other.
- RESPECT/Alignment.
As a rule, anyone who acts disrespectfully, is perceived as an enemy and experiences a FIGHT, FLIGHT or FREEZE reaction.

German attempts to ensure security/efficiency often makes Americans feel disrespected. American attempts to work respectfully often make Germans feel insecure.

Totally agree. The same with words Fortnight or biweekly which is misunderstood.