GLOBALIZATION. Many, if not all of us have been very familiar to that word.
The world is flat. Many of us have heard that term as well.

Both globalization and the term “the world is flat” is related to the way people work now. Using the technology and software advance, the people worldwide are now work together very closely.

Nowadays, to complete a circle of one certain task, there may several people from different countries have their involvement to the job. For example, the negotiation between one company with their vendor is done in one country, while the purchase order is prepared and printed by an employee in another country.

Another example is , the activity of accounting unit for a multinational company is centralized in one country, while the company itself has their operation and branch office in several countries.

Or the case where several features that are needed to build a machine that is produced by a company are manufactured in the factories that are located in different countries. It means that the engineer in some different countries should work together to build one machine.

In that kind of situation, there’s a need for the people to create a cultural understanding. To understand how to work in a cross culture organization. Otherwise, there will be one thing that may become a source of conflict : different culture.

Conflicts often arise because people from different cultures can not understand each other even though they speak the same language.

One example is about how verbal communication is being used. There’s a culture where communication is done in more verbal and direct way, while in other culture, there are many thing that will leave unspoken, and people understand other people way of thinking or feeling with observing the gesture or action of the other person.

The way the words is used can also be interpreted differently of the people that come from different culture. The people that come from the ‘soft spoken’ style of culture may feel very uncomfortable when they have to speak with a person that speak very direct and to the point.

There are many other example can be given on the difference of the culture that can cause conflict.

And why this thing should be understood and being considered carefully ?

Because, if the people that come from different culture work together and they are not aware on the differences, and have no knowledge to bridge the gap, then misunderstanding or conflict may happen.

That kind of misunderstanding or conflict can later impact the relationship between people. Fail to understand each other culture increase the risk of failure in achieving certain objective as well.

Let’s say a manager in one country that the culture is to talk in a very direct way wants to encourage the staff in another country that usually talk in a more soft way to improve the performance level. To ensure that the objective can be achieved, the manager should understand how to deliver the message properly. If the message being delivered in “the wrong way” based on a standard of the staff, the objective may not be able to be achieved. The staff may feel that the manager is too hard or even rude and instead of improving the performance, the staff can feel very discouraging and the performance level can even drop and become worse.

So, when talking about globalization, it will be good for someone to start the first step with understanding the culture of the people that she/he will work with before doing anything else… (*)
(picture taken from www.cuc.ca)