Geography of thought - sometimes leading to comical and sometimes to awkward situations!

It is interesting how a leader needs to look out for the ethnicity, culture etc when dealing with others. Not as a leader but as a general person I have had a few experiences which proves that communication can go wrong or misunderstood in these contexts and this can lead to such situations when leading people as well.

One of the key tasks of a leader is communication and it is extremely important for a leader to be understood correctly. I have had experiences which turned out quite comical but in a professional environment such mistakes can lead to unwanted costs.

One day in my MBA class, we were having a discussion on when each of us had graduated from undergrad degrees. During the discussion, I shared that "I Passed out" in 2003. This had the qhole class go quiet and look at me either with bemusement or shock. I failed to understand people's reaction and kept asking what I had said wrong when one of my class mates asked why I had passed out? Was I a victim of some health issue? That is when I realized that "Passed out" is an Indian term for "Graduated". Passed out for people here means fainted or blacked out. When I translated this to the class we all had a hearty laugh but this just showed how people from different ethical and cultural backgrounds can be misunderstood in their conversations even though they speak the same language.

I have noticed that at work, there are times in a meeting when things get referred to in the language of American baseball. The baseball slang. For people who are not aware of the game because they are from a different cultural background, this can alienate them from the discussion. There have been times when I have been positively offended wondering where the conversation was leading since I have been unable to follow it.

On a serious note, when I first started managing projects of ODMs in China and Taiwan I noticed that our ODM team members, half way through the meeting, broke into their local language(generally Chinese). There would be no preemptive feedback that the teams were going to start conversing in their language amongst themselves. No "Excuse me"s or "Give us a minute". Initially I used to find this extremely rude and request that they translate it immediately. I later on realized that they were not trying to be offensive by alienating me from the conversation but its just not in their culture to excuse themselves before discussing amongst themselves as it is in mine having worked in India and the US. As a leader of the project, I should have been prepared to confront the Chinese culture by learning more about it rather than coming across as a rude person myself and demanding people speak in English or translate as mentioned above.

Culture, ethnicity, geographical background etc play a key role in people's outlook and communication.