General Skills

Cultural Differences

Communicating effectively with people from different cultures is very challenging.  It can be a struggle to understand someone’s speech or interpret their behaviour even if they are speaking the same language. This can be consistently seen in a workplace as it is common to face barriers or challenges to effective cultural communication. Ineffective cross cultural communication can harm employees, customers and others in a business so it is extremely important to understand the barriers and knowhow to overcome then.

 An example of a cultural difference can be language and misunderstandings which are common among people who speak the same language so it is not surprising that people from another culture face barriers of communication. For example, if a sales director from London asks a contractor from Spain to do something, the two parties may have interpreted some words wrong and language is a reflection of culture and different cultures have very different ways of assigning meanings to words.

Another example of cultural barriers is behaviour, cultural differences in body language and other behaviours can cause miscommunication. For example, in the UK it is important to make eye contact with someone who is speaking to you as it shows you are concentrated and interested in them. On the other hand, in many Asian countries eye contact can display disrespect or challenge of authority, there are also many other behaviours that can cause ineffective communication. Some of these can include facial expressions, the use of nodding, and the amount of time to give someone when they reply to a question.

 Techniques for engaging audience

This next communication skill that is important is engaging your audience, this is important as you need to retain your audience’s interest. An example of this is when giving a presentation and you just be blunt and tell them what you have to say and leave it as that, this could make the audience bored and uninterested. The main aim for engaging your audience is to just keep the audience entertained and interested.

An important factor to take into consideration when engaging the audience is the use of humour, if your sense of humour is different to that of the audience then you could look a bit stupid and embarrassed if you make a joke and no one laughs. Worst case scenario is that they might find a joke that you make offensive but just using humour engages your audience so much more. Another way to engage you audience is the use of technology, technology is another important thing you must consider when engaging the audience. Technology can help you in lots of different ways, it can make presentations a lot easier by using programmes such as PowerPoint as there are lots of different features on there that makes your presentation look great and stand out. Technology can also be used in a presentation by using a video to get your point across even more and the use of pictures but overall, its best to keep it simple and not overdo it.