Say Anything to Anyone, Anywhere: 5 Keys To Successful Cross-Cultural Communication

Chapter 7

It’s a Matter of Respect

Create Cultural Trust and Understanding

Establishing respect between individuals from different cultures isn’t always as easy as we may think it will be. There are many degrees of respect—from the most basic to which every human being is entitled, to a deeper respect that can take years to develop. And when you combine these varying levels with the different multicultural expectations surrounding respect, the process can be even more challenging.

At times, it’s difficult to determine whether we are respected or not. We usually share a degree of general respect for the individuals with whom we are interacting for a common purpose in social and business interactions. However, deeper levels of respect take on many forms and come in many shades—and it’s possible to respect certain personal attributes and not others. For instance, we can respect someone because of a specialized ability and at the same time not respect the way that person handles certain things. We can respect someone because of his or her title, degree, age, position, or hierarchy and completely disrespect his or her behavior in some way. We can respect or even admire a person’s business savvy and yet wonder why that person’s personal life is in chaos.

We can develop genuine respect only over a period time. That time varies with each individual and with every culture. In various cultures, some levels of respect are more superficial than others. For instance, I learned when I first ...