Understanding International Business Culture

If you want to succeed in international business, understanding western culture is at least as important as understanding English.

I have a lot of friends who have high positions at multinational companies.  They often tell me how it is doing business in different countries.

They tell me that the people who understand western culture do better at work than those with better English skills.

A lot of business is about building trust and good relationships with many new people.  If a lot of people like you and trust you, they are much more likely to do business with you.  Of course, you still need to understand English and business very well, but this cultural understanding is often overlooked.

Things like going golfing or meeting the guys out for a beer after work can be as important as what happens at the office.  It’s necessary to learn how to have fun and be active in these international groups.  English is the international language of business.

Hang out with these westerners more and learn how to have fun in a new culture.  Don’t be fake, but challenge yourself to look at the world in different ways.  You will be well rewarded in many ways if you do this.  Of course, you will still have a deep cultural influence from your own culture, but it’s quite possible to learn a new one and be flexible when dealing with different kinds of people.

If you want to learn real international business culture, you need to learn the slang and sense of humor.  Learn the way that culture views the world.  you don’t have to agree with everything, just try to understand it.

Here is a great program for that:  Real American English

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 7th, 2010 at 7:57 am and is filed under Negotiation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.