Language may be very similar in Latin America, but each country has its own dialects, habits, rules, culture and nature. That’s why it’s so important to use intercultural communication, and hire a local public relations agency instead of using the same strategies all over the globe.
Latin America begins on the border between the USA and Mexico, and ends in The Land of Fire (Tierra del Fuego), in the extreme south of the world. This vast territory has a huge biodiversity of forests, mountain ranges, savannas, deserts, swamps and many more landscapes that invariably lead to different lifestyles.
Not to mention that Latin America is a blend of numerous foreign nationalities: African, Indigenous, French, Asian, Portuguese, English, Spanish, Dutch, etc…
First of all, let’s look at what culture means. According to the cross cultural expert Pellegrino Riccardi, culture is “a system of behaviour that helps us act in an acceptable or familiar way”. In other words, how we see someone or something is influenced by our cultural perspective.
One example of this perception is a landscape:
For someone living in the Amazonian Rainforest or on the riverside neighbourhoods of Manaus, this landscape is pretty common. But for a foreigner traveller, even from Latin America, it may be the most diverse place they have ever been in their life.
Therefore, intercultural communication is about seeking the differences and similarities between your culture and others, and finding a way to express your ideas without cancelling out or offending someone else’s. It’s all about empathy, and not seeing unfamiliarity as something negative.
How do different cultures trade and do business? When communicating across countries, here are some things to watch out for:
- Hierarchy and formality: how important are they?Approaches to decision making: who makes decisions and how are they made?
- Accuracy: is the project good enough, or does it need improvement?
- Eye contact: are people used to making it?
- Attitudes towards time: is lateness tolerated, or expected? In Argentina, for example, people are expected to arrive a little bit late to a meeting. There is no need to be offended.
- Points of view on different cultures and customs brought to the table: “what do I know about this person’s culture?”
Let’s suppose you are an American employee trying to negotiate a price to sell flip flops from a company from Brazil. Someone from a highly collectivist culture, like Brazil’s, is likely to focus on the relationship and would rather stay with the same negotiator throughout the whole process, instead of rotating as would normally happen in other countries.
Why bother putting all this effort into practice? Well, here are just a few reasons:
- Connecting with people globally, professionally or as friends;
- Avoiding intercultural misunderstandings;
- Closing international deals;
- Making successful campaigns in other countries;
- Having a global mindset based on all that you’ve learned from other cultures.
Connecting with people is something humans are very good at. It’s in our nature to interact with others. So the first step towards practising intercultural communication is to be curious, and a good listener.
Pay attention to what people are saying, and what they’re not saying. Be perceptive and tolerant with the answers you receive, and practice flexibility.
You can also count on us. Sherlock Communications offers Marketing and Public Relations services to help companies establish effective intercultural communications on multiple platforms — from traditional media to social media — lending on-the-ground support and boosting our client’s growth.
