Hi, I’m Sally Walker, director of SW Career Coaching Limited, and I’m a career and intercultural coach. I’ll be guiding you through this video, which is designed to help you, as PIs, gain top intercultural tips to use when working in multicultural work settings; in particular, when carrying out interviews, leading and participating in meetings, and in the use of email.

The aim in so doing is that you develop more effective relationships at work and achieve greater collaboration and productivity. Please do refer to the accompanying workbook as well for full information and further resources.

As a result of engaging with this recording and the workbook, I hope that you’ll become more consciously aware of when unexpected intercultural incidents are occurring and will have gained some key intercultural tips to address these situations going forward.

Here is an outline on screen of our agenda. Let’s remind ourselves of the definition on screen of intercultural competence as the measure of your effectiveness when interacting with others who don’t share the same cultural background as you.

It’s helpful to reflect how regularly you consciously demonstrate the skills and attitudes, which combine to make up intercultural competence or global mindset. Where have you shown a tolerance for newness or uncertainty recently? Where have you used the skills of active listening, asking questions, reflecting back what’s been said by paraphrasing, and then suspending judgement whilst you evaluate a situation? How do you build trusting relationships, showing empathy and sensitive cultural curiosity? How would you rate your language, foreign language skills, and how comfortable are you with different types of non-verbal behaviour?

Organisational cultures in academia and beyond can vary widely. Cultures are fluid rather than fixed; as a PI you have an opportunity to influence and even create the culture within your multicultural research teams. When you interact with somebody who is operating to a different set of cultural norms to your own, it’s possible that you might experience a sense of surprise, tension, or even conflict at certain points.

These unexpected moments can be described as intercultural incidents. They most frequently happen when you’re first meeting someone from a different cultural background. For example, during the recruitment process; at initial meetings; when exchanging gifts; during the appraisal process; via our email communication. In addition to the top intercultural tips that I’m going to share with you in a moment, you can also use the dimensional framework and three-R model which are mentioned in the Building A Multicultural Team Culture Using Intercultural Competence video on the Prosper website, to help you interpret and learn from these incidents.

As a PI, you’re likely to be involved in the application and interview processes of your academic institution. As mentioned earlier, when you’re reviewing an application, or carrying out an interview with an individual with a different cultural background to your own, it’s possible that unexpected intercultural incidents might arise.

So, first off, raise your awareness of this possibility. In addition, aim to put yourself in the shoes of the interviewee. What different intercultural expectations might they have of this situation? What interview style might they be more familiar with? If you’re unsure, then seek out the advice of an intercultural mentor, somebody who’s familiar with the applicant’s culture in question. Do be conscious of the important intercultural concept of saving face and ensure that you make the applicant feel welcome and respected.

The applicant may treat you with more deference than you’re used to, for example, by preferring to use titles rather than first-name terms. You can ask them to adopt your cultural norm; be accepting if they find that challenging to do so, if at all. Do make sure to monitor your assumptions about acceptable body language and non-verbal behaviour.

Don’t assume that all cultures have the same norms. Nodding and shaking heads, eye contact or no eye contact, can all mean very different things depending on the cultural background of the individual you’re interviewing. If you come from a culture where eye contact is viewed as a mark of honesty and sincerity, and the lack of eye contact suggests a lack of trustworthiness or self-confidence, then do remember that in some cultures a lack of direct eye contact reflects respect for seniority.

Do be accommodating of language challenges, consciously speak more slowly and clearly, and aim to avoid jargon and institution-specific acronyms. Agree that it’s acceptable to ask for the applicants to repeat something and for them to ask you to do so as well.

Be aware of your own preferences as an interviewer. Do you have an informal or a more formal style, which might indicate preference for either egalitarian or hierarchical culture? Are you task or relationship orientated? If the former, then interviews you conduct are likely to be results-focused, diving in straight away to competency-type questions. If the latter, and you’re relationship-orientated, you would concentrate on building rapport, discussing common interests or connections between yourself and the applicant.

Ideally, I would aim for a combination of the two approaches, so that whatever the applicant’s own preference or expectation is, they will feel comfortable with at least part of the interview.

Finally, consider if you have an explicit communication style, meaning you’re naturally direct, or if you have a more indirect preference. If the latter, then you might need to consciously simplify your questions and make their intent more explicit, particularly if the applicant doesn’t share the same mother tongue as you.

Whether you’re leading or participating in a multicultural meeting, the following strategies may help to demonstrate your intercultural competence and achieve more effective outcomes. Aim to gain a balance of task and relationship building in the meeting, where you create time for introductions and interactions.

You could include a cultural icebreaker activity at the start of a meeting, such as the Culture Flower Exercise, which is demonstrated in the video entitled Cultural Identity and Assessing Your Current Level of Intercultural Competence on the Prosper website.

In addition, what about agreeing on a longer communal lunch period or more coffee breaks for interaction? In a meeting, do all that you can to help participants find common ground together by introducing knowledge of their culture into the content of the meeting. For example, by including words from their language into a presentation or by celebrating special cultural dates.

Another useful tip to ensure more equal engagement in a meeting is allow time for team members to write down questions or comments and share them, potentially anonymously, in advance rather than seeking spontaneous input during the meeting. Culturally, this is far more likely to lessen verbal power and status issues and will also better accommodate those who have a more reflective preference.

Finally, in terms of our third set of top intercultural tips, these relate to how you communicate via email in a multicultural environment, particularly where colleagues or postdocs don’t all share a common mother tongue or fluent language ability. Focus on sharing factual information in your emails rather than criticism or emotions. Aim to keep your email relatively short, simple, and polite. Make clear what’s being requested, and within what timeframe. Be very sensitive about using jargon or slang or proverbs, complex words, and acronyms, in case your reader is unfamiliar with these. So, keep these to a minimum.

Obviously, they might lead otherwise to misunderstanding or might highlight a power status difference. Remember to be sensitive as to how you address people. Echo their use of titles and credentials. In general, always aim to respond rather than react to emails.

Consider if you might be misinterpreting what someone else has written, or the tone used, due to cultural differences. Let things cool off overnight before replying. Finally, I’d recommend that you don’t rely on email. Make the effort and take time to communicate in a variety of ways, including phone, video, platform, and face-to-face, to build trust and common agreement and to avoid misunderstandings. The effort taken to build multicultural relationships will mean that your project or research task actually will get completed more quickly. I hope that you’ve now refreshed your understanding of the concept of organisational cultures and recognised your opportunity as a PI to build an effective team culture.

I hope too that you appreciate the impact of intercultural competence when you’re interviewing, leading or participating in meetings, and using email; that you feel you’ve gained numerous practical tips for better handling these specific situations in future where intercultural incidents frequently arise. Please do refer to the list of resources included in the workbook for further information on the topics covered here. Please do reach out, stay in touch, and let me know if you have any queries or comments.

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