By Héctor Villarreal Lozoya and Fernando Loureiro

It’s 8 am in the morning and it is your first meeting with the top representative of a Japanese car company in a Caribbean country. You have been hired to deliver a leadership training programme and to facilitate a series of meetings, so the company can review its internal processes and align them with headquarters guidelines. Everything went reasonably well, or so you thought.

You see, when you have worked for the most part with business cultures from Western and North American standards and communication practices, you are used to becoming a bridge between those cultures and Latin American companies. You thought you had it all figured it out. Boy, you were wrong.

Later that same day you receive an additional message where you get the news that they were having serious doubts about the focus of the engagement and the whole project. You’re baffled. You start contacting your friends with experience in similar companies and asked for advice.

During that conversation, you realize your mistake. You are used to the lingo and the wordiness in the Caribbean, and even though a lot is said, there is also a lot that is left unsaid. It is considered by many a high-context culture.

However, some Asian countries and their business cultures are even higher up in the scale so your extremely passionate appeal during the meeting about the project actually had the opposite reaction than you had intended. You learn the hard way that you need to understand the cultures you are working with. All of them, all the time.

The concept of high-context and low-context culture was introduced by Edward T. Hall, an anthropologist, all the way back in 1976 in his book Beyond Culture. He uses those terms to describe how cultures manage their communications, depending on how explicit the messages are and how much context influences meaning in certain situations or conditions.

Hall, also regarded as the ‘Father of intercultural studies’ wrote that “meaning and context are inextricably bound up with each other”. To scholars of human behaviour, and we facilitators as never-ending students of it, context refers to the surrounding circumstances including the physical environment, personal relationships, local history, background, and much more.

In a high-context culture the meaning of the message will be more influenced and even defined by its context, while in a low-context culture, the message will have no further implication beyond what the spoken words mean.

A very important part to us, regular communicators, is to understand that in higher-context cultures, the way words are said is fundamentally important, and in some cases some things are left unsaid, relying on the context of the moment to impart the meaning.

Some writers relate that high-context cultures have a positive correlation with collectivism, meaning that collectivistic societies where the relationship is in higher regard than other matters, and they use a communication code that relies heavily on the context, and many things are left unsaid. Similarly, low-context cultural traits are usually found in individualistic cultures.

In reality, most cultures fall somewhere along a continuum, or sliding scale, in their perception of the importance of context. Even within the same country, there are certain higher and lower-context cultures than others, and even though the concept may be considered an oversimplification, it helps in creating awareness that we, as facilitators, need to adapt our design and method to the group’s needs and particular cultures.

For an excellent facilitation process, is paramount to take into account the culture and context of the participants, their experience and where they come from. Preparation is key. It is critical we understand their business culture but, and this is a big but, without over relying in cultural clichés that may blind us to the underlying communication needs of each member of the group. As Erin Meyer says, “Stereotyping people from different cultures on just one or two dimensions can lead to erroneous assumptions.”

Another issue that we need to be aware of is that sometimes, facilitators rely heavily in a given set of tools or activities, maybe we can even evolve into a “two-trick” facilitator, meaning that independently of the context we always use the same exercises again and again, without realizing that it may not be the most adequate solution.

Thankfully, now there are much more tools available to use and work around this challenges. We highly recommend you go and check out the IAF Methods Library with almost 500 different methods and tools for you to use.

So what to do? We have come with a set of recommendations that can help a facilitator tackle this cultural minefield as Erin Meyer puts it.

First of all, awareness and preparation are key. Knowing your participants ahead of time will help you unlock their expectations and their communications style. Individual interviews with the participants, or at least with an individual from each of the cultures that will be present in the meeting, even a video conference or a phone call can provide information that will be very important for your session design.

Pay attention to hierarchy and seniority. In case you are facilitating a session, make sure all courtesies and respects are referred to at the beginning of the session.

Second, build trust and manage expectations from the beginning and as you go. A person let’s say from Germany, Switzerland or the US may expect specific explanations, extensive background information and strict rules to follow while individuals from Japan, Mexico or the Middle East might expect that all participants respect ‘unwritten’ rules and put emphasis on relationship building first. So it it is important that all participants are aware of what everybody is expecting to come out of the session. One quick exercise to start get people building trust and managing expectations is Impromptu Network.

Are we building relationships? Are we exploring details and questions? Is it decision-making? Action-planning? All of this needs to be set ahead of time. In many high-context cultures the pre-planning relationship building of the participants with the facilitator takes time and is critical for the session success.

Third, learn and help the group to read the different languages in the room. While in a low-context culture being explicit and specific is highly valued, in a high-context culture being ambiguous may be part of the day-to-day, and being “too specific” can also be considered a rude behaviour. As a facilitator you need to read this nuances to guide and support the group in the discussion. Sometimes you need to assure the person of a high-context culture that it is all right to give a short and negative answer to a proposal that is being considered. One powerful tool to help people access hidden knowledge such as feelings, attitudes, and patterns that are difficult to express with words is Drawing Together.

Fourth, be flexible. As consensus-builders we may need to invest time ensuring that everyone is on-board with the process so it flows adequately. Spare time along the agenda to help groups reflect on the shared experience in a way that builds understanding and spurs coordinated action while avoiding unproductive conflict. W3 is one structure that make possible for every voice to be heard while simultaneously sifting for insights and shaping new direction.

And last, but not least, be prepared to change plans as new opportunities arise, or if an extra loop is needed to get people connected among themselves and engaged in the session.

Have a productive facilitated session!
Que você facilite uma reunião muito produtiva!
生産的な円滑なセッションをお楽しみください！
Haben Sie eine produktive moderierte Sitzung!
¡Qué tengan una sesiónn facilitada muy productiva!

Héctor Villarreal Lozoya is a facilitator and teamwork consultant originally from northern Mexico who now mainly works throughout the Caribbean. He has lived in half a dozen-countries in the last decade and speaks cat fluently (has 3 of them in-house).

Fernando Loureiro is a facilitator and organizational development consultant originally from Brazil, living since 2013 in Beautiful British Columbia, Canada. He is continuously bridging North and South America Cultures, exploring the beauty between both worlds.

Additional Resources

• Harvard Business Review (2014): Navigating the Cultural Minefield
• Culture at Work:  High and Low Context
• Global Perspectives Consulting:  Low and High Context Cultures
• Cascade Business News:  High-Context & Low-Context Cultures
• Southeastern University: Intercultural Communication: High- and Low-Context Cultures
• Communicaid:  Cross-Cultural Communication Styles: High and Low Context
• Colorful cultures: Strategies to close cross-cultural communication gaps
• IAF Methods Library