From the course: Best Practices for Managing Global Projects
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Avoiding cultural misunderstandings
From the course: Best Practices for Managing Global Projects
Avoiding cultural misunderstandings
- Cultural misunderstandings happen all the time. I remember one time the facilitators and the project team players went out for dinner to a nearby steakhouse. When the server asked one of the team members how he wanted his steak, he replied medium. The next member, a Dutch engineer, was asked how he wanted his steak and he replied large making the server and many of the team players crack up in laughter. In his mind, the context being discussed for the steak was size and not how it should be cooked. While you may have experienced some funny cultural misunderstandings, it's important to avoid these when project tasks need to be performed correctly by people from other cultures. Here are a few tips. First, remember that for many cultures, the meaning of a word is given by the context. In the US and in Germany for example, we tend to use a few words to convey a message. The meanings are implicit in the words. However, for someone from China or Mexico, it takes a series of additional…
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