Question Your Question Mark
The world is constantly evolving.
Working hybrid or remote with people from different countries and even different continents on a daily basis, has become as easy as catching the train to work (or let’s face it, probably even easier). Borders that separate us in the physical world are irrelevant as long as you have a laptop and a solid Wi-Fi connection… But in this rapid change and globalization of companies we tend to sometimes not consider the impact of cultural differences and norms.
The Solo Question Mark
After working in three different continents in the past several years, I have first handedly witnessed the power of “the solo question mark”, as one cultural-different example, and how it can cause an organizational earthquake. In Israel, if I texted a person, and they haven’t replied for a while, it is a habit to send a question mark, which is considered a subtle reminder that lets the other person know that you are still waiting for an answer. Well, let’s just say that in Australia I’ve witnessed how a blank question mark is not considered subtle at all… In Uganda however, people have different habits with text messages. One morning, while I was living there, I received a perplexing text message from a colleague saying “Hi”. If I met him on the street that would have been trivial, but on a text message? No context, no elaboration, leaving the ball in my court so to say. Initially, this behavior felt a bit odd, but with time I realized that it was a cultural habit and I have misjudged that particular person. Come to think of it, is there a better economical and time-saving act that expresses “I was thinking about you and hope that you’re well?”.
As we lower borders and improve diversification, managers and individuals should keep examples like these in mind… It’s important to make the effort and learn as much as possible to respect each other’s norms. Sure, there could be people from multiple cultures in one organizational team and it would be impossible to learn all these little nuances in a heartbeat. The way I see it is that we should always give the otherside the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps approach it as “knowledgeable culture-miss”, as there is always something to learn from the other. Most importantly, we should gently communicate our experience of different encounters.
At Akooda, where we look at the organizational footprint to reflect when and where an organization can measure and improve its operational efficiency, examples such as these occasionally pop into my mind. Trying to bridge over those cultural gaps such as an Israeli and an Aussie professionally communicating for the first time reminded me of the first attempts of trying to make sense of the combination of different types of raw data, from multiple sources. Akooda cracked this great challenge, successfully “comparing apples to oranges”. In reality, between people, there’s still work to be done. Who knows, maybe in the future we’d all use a “Babel fish” to translate in real-time these unique cultural habits. In the meantime, why don’t we embrace each other’s quirkiness and occasional inappropriate encounters so that we would have some good stories to share?
Realizing and accepting the cultural differences out there can help great minds from across the world think together, work together and achieve amazing mutual goals.
