 Communication between people of different cultural backgrounds is becoming increasingly common in nearly every facet of our lives. From politics and business transactions to scientific research and websites, it is important to recognize that what you are trying to communicate is being received by a diverse audience from all parts of the globe. This video will highlight some simple guidelines to facilitate intercultural, personal, and professional interactions. First, let us consider different styles of communication. Two basic kinds are explicit and implicit. An explicit communicator assumes that their audience has little to no knowledge of background information or related topics and considers it their responsibility to supply such information. On the other hand, an implicit communicator assumes that the listener is already fully aware of the subject and relays information accordingly. Thus, an explicit communicator may find implicit communication confusing or vague, while an implicit communicator may find explicit communication overly comprehensive. Nonverbal communication can be even more difficult to interpret. It goes without saying that eye contact, body language, and hand gestures vary dramatically across cultures. For example, a simple OK sign that is commonly used in the US and UK to symbolize absolutely fine or great can be taken to mean zero or worthless in some European countries. In yet other countries, like Brazil and Germany, this sign has a more crude connotation. Conflict, whether in a professional or personal setting, is also dealt with differently. Some cultures find open conflict and loud voices perfectly acceptable, while others would rather avoid face-to-face confrontation, preferring to work the situation out over a written exchange. Two other challenges that we may face in regards to cross-cultural communication include task completion and decision-making styles. Different cultures have various approaches to completing tasks. When having to work with a differing style than your own, you may be left with anger, frustration, or confusion. Depending on the resources available, notions of time, and varied ideas about relationship building and task-oriented work, task completion styles will vary. For example, European Americans focus on the task at hand and let relationships develop with the progression of the task, while Asian and Hispanic cultures work on relationship building prior to working on the task at hand. Decision-making styles vary across cultures as well. For example, Southern European and Latin American countries place an emphasis on individualized decision-making, and in contrast, the U.S. makes decisions based on the delegations by an official. Westerners tend to dichotomize between the person and the words or acts. We rather freely evaluate in others' words, ideas, or actions, believing that our comments are not personal and should not strain the relationship. For most people in the world, however, this free evaluation may be constituted as an attack on a person and is perceived as crude if not vicious. Different cultures handle personal disclosure differently. In the United States and other Western countries, it is common to leave personal issues out of any business discussion. In fact, many Americans tend to keep their business and personal lives completely separate. However, in other countries, Japan, for example, is customary to ask non-business-related questions like asking about their family or the weather prior to conducting business. This being said, the Japanese tend to be more private about specific aspects of their life. For example, Procter and Gamble used a commercial in Japan that depicted a woman bathing and her husband washing her back. The Japanese audience considered this an invasion of privacy and the commercial was not well received. Different cultures also interpret or understand information differently. When trying to communicate persuasively, this is very important to take into consideration. Western cultures tend to rely on facts such as statistics, numbers, and accomplishments. Other cultures may put more importance on more abstract concepts, such as serving the need of the nation, total customer satisfaction, trustworthiness, or environmental issues. However, this is not to say that Western cultures do not care about these abstract issues like the environment or customer satisfaction, or that Eastern cultures do not take facts into consideration. When dealing with other cultures, keep in mind how they handle different forms of communication, body language, decision-making styles, task completion, ways of understanding information, and handling business versus personal life. When working with people from other cultures, be sure to educate yourself about their culture, have an open mind, be patient and cooperative, and understand that misunderstandings will occur, and when they do, work to correct them.