Effective Communication: Intercultural Challenges & SWOT Framework

This essay explores the importance of effective communication in globalized organizations, focusing on intercultural communication challenges arising from diverse workforces. It discusses issues such as inaccurate assumptions, formality differences, misinterpretations of body language, and unfamiliar phrases. The essay provides strategies for improving intercultural communication, including breaking assumptions, involving others, empathizing, and avoiding sensitive topics. Furthermore, it includes a personal SWOT analysis to identify strengths and weaknesses, followed by a SMART framework for self-improvement, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and continuous development for professional success. The student provides this document to Desklib to help other students.

Running Head: Effective Communication
Effective Communication

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Table of Content
Assignment 1.........................................................................................................................................2
Assignment 2.........................................................................................................................................3

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Assignment 1
Communication is the most important contributing factor in the success of any organization; it can
be understood as the pillar on which the success of the organization depends. Effective
communication helps businesses to convey their intentions effectively to the employees for the
fulfilment of the goals and objectives as set by the organization (Root, 2016). The advent of
globalization has changed the way organization recruits its workforce, the landscape changed from
hiring people from the same city or same country to any person across the globe. The organization
looks for the skill set before hiring any individual and does not give much attention to the culture he
hails from (Argenti, 2015)
The paradigm shift these days is from communication to intercultural communication owing to the
growing diversity in the workforce. Organizations these days hire people from diverse cultures, so
that the organization gets rich and accustomed to the different cultures. At the same time, due to
differences in the culture, communication becomes difficult at times leading to multiple conflicts in
the organization (Jandt, 2017) It is a known fact that body language, verbal communication and
cultural formalities vary across the globe, the same word or gesture which shows gratitude towards
a person in one culture might offend somebody belonging to different culture. Hence, it becomes
extremely important to understand these intercultural differences, and the aim should be to have a
wider acceptance and bridge the gap between the cultures, so that the productivity of the
employees is not hampered. (SorrelIs, 2015) I faced some problems while working with UC Browser
in India. UC Browser is a Chinese company which is into making operating systems and is soon to get
into online content streaming services. My role involved in creating a strong digital library for the
company. I faced a lot of issues due to the difference between me and culture followed by Chinese:
 Inaccurate assumption in meaning: One of the troubles with intercultural communication is
misinterpretation the meaning, as body languages in different countries have different
meaning. For example while dealing with a Chinese counterpart, when I asked him, if he has
understood the report, he gave a gesture from head, which to me seemed to be yes, later I
got to know he did not understand a word of the report I sent to him.
 Formality differences in communication: There are certain cultures which are highly
informal, like those of America, New Zealand and Australia, they use the first name in mails
to address some person, on the other hand some are more formal and they use Mr., Mrs

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along with a family name. It is often considered disrespectful using the first name. I faced
this problem many a time at my workplace.
 Misinterpretation of body language: A simple example of this is, in some culture not
keeping an eye contact shows respect towards the other person, whereas in other cultures,
keeping an eye contact means authority and in others it might feel that a person is hiding
something. This creates problem in intercultural communication.
 Unfamiliar phrases in communication: Every culture has its own acronyms or its own
phrases which they use in the business meeting, which however may or may not have the
same meaning and at the same time it becomes difficult to decode the meaning of it. For
example one of my bosses from North America in one of the team meetings asked me to
touch base with Google; I had no idea of this baseball reference thus causing difficulty in
understanding due to intercultural communication.
In companies which have global presence, it is very much essential to try and understand the
differences in the cultures and act accordingly. Some of the things which can be applied to improve
intercultural communication:
Breaking assumptions: People at times have certain presumed assumptions about a culture, which
makes them judge people from other cultures; hence if the communication has to be improved, the
head should be clear of any pre fed assumptions.
Involvement of others: In order to understand a person with different culture, one must give them a
chance to engage with them, if a person is comfortable in the company of other culture person, he
definitely will have a higher tolerance to any nuance done by that particular person
Empathizing with others: One should learn to empathize hard times a person might be facing
adjusting to a different culture, this should be understood and one should then act accordingly.
Avoiding topics which might press the wrong buttons: There are many topics which are not openly
discussed in public in different culture, a person should have an understanding of the same and not
discuss thing which might disturb the peace of person belonging to a different culture.
Assignment 2
In order to excel in professional life it is really important to identify what are the strengths and
weaknesses in an individual so that he can do a self-evaluation to tackle the challenges in the path of

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his own personal and professional development. I have been working in the position of Assistant
content manager with UC browses for the past two years, while working I realized certain weakness
in my personalities which needed to be addressed, thus a friend of mine guided me to use SWOT
tool for analysing my strength, weakness, opportunities and threats.
SWOT Analysis
These are the set of SWOT I did after doing a self-evaluation, and I was surprised to see the number
of elements in the weakness column as I was under the assumption that my work will speak for
myself. However SWOT analysis was an eye opener for me. I did not stop after doing a self-
evaluation, I went to few of my peers and my friends, and all of them had more or less the same
thing to say about me. Based on the finding I decided to develop a SMART framework to address my
weakness.
Strength
Strong technical understanding.
Expereinced in digital ecosystem
Good communication skills
Team player
Weakness
Give less attention to other members
views/opinion
Indiscipline and lack of focus
Require breaks in equal intervals
Does not care much about work life balance
Stage Fear
Opportunity
To lead the online content team
Opportunity to go overseas and work with
Goolge
Threat
SUbordinate getting promotion over me.
Fear of earning bad reputation in fornt of the
senior management
SWO
T

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S-Specific  Give equal attention to other team
member’s point/opinion and show
respect towards their views.
 Set proper routine for myself in order to
lead a disciplined life.
 Restrict the breaks to only lunch and
coffee breaks.
 Refrain from the multiple time wasters
 Strike a chord between my personal
and professional life
 Work on stage fear by giving
presentation in team meeting and be a
confident speaker. Proactively
participate in office activities and try to
lead from the front.
M-Measurable  The above goals will be evaluated
against the benchmark standard I will set
for myself. I will also encourage my
peers to give me feedback on my day at
work. Based on their feedback and my
self-evaluation, I will be in a position to
measure the goals I set for myself.
A-Achievable The above mentioned goals are achievable and
all the more, they have to be achieved if I have
to climb the ladder of professional success
R-Relevant The goals are highly relevant for my professional
success. Overcoming stage fear will help me
become a good orator and I can be a part of
client meetings. Working towards balancing my
personal and professional life will get me peace
and stability, both at work and home. Discipline
is much required for success, I have hardly
encountered an indiscipline person who has
climbed the ladder of success. Reducing my
breaks and time wasters will help me focus more
on my work, this will effectively help me in
increasing my productivity at work, leading to
accomplishment of my personal/professional
and organizational goals
T-Timeline 12 Weeks
These are the SMART objectives have defined for myself, and I am absolutely sure that I will achieve
the goals set for myself in the aforementioned timeline and move forward in my professional career.
It is highly advised to everyone to evaluate one-self, because a person himself is his own best judge.
Thus once the weakness are identified, one should start working towards them. It is a said fact that
continuous improvement in the personality of a person is the reason for sustained success. Self-
confidence comes from commitment to work, which in turn is a resultant factor of team cohesion
and discipline at the work place. This exercise is useful not only for the individual but for the

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organization as a whole. A disciplined, self-aware individual will contribute more to the success of
the organization and continuously look out for the ways by which he can contribute more. I have a
dream of leading the team of online content manager, and all these goals are aligned towards the
path of reaching that position. In the process I will improve my people skills and will be in a position
to better conduct myself in team meeting, a preposition which was certainly lagging in me, and was
one of the biggest obstacles in my path of success. SWOT analysis is a fantastic exercise to
understand where a person presently stands in his professional journey and based on the finding of
SWOT to create a SMART framework leads to a clear cut path of sustained growth and success.

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References
Argenti, P.A., 2015. Corporate communication. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Jandt, F.E., 2017. An introduction to intercultural communication: Identities in a global community.
Sage Publications.
Root, G.N., 2016. The importance of communication between different departments in an
organization.
Sorrells, K., 2015. Intercultural communication: Globalization and social justice. Sage publications.