Do you say things as they are, express requests and disagreement without beating around the bush? Or perhaps you soften the message, expressing your needs and opinions indirectly? Does a person need to understand the context to decode your message or what is being said is easily understood independent of the context?
Another cultural dimension we are looking at in this article is High and Low Context Communication. I highly recommend that you also read about some other dimensions to increase your understanding: Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism-Collectivism, Power Distance.
What does High and Low Context mean?
As defined by the Cultural Intelligence Center, Context is the extent to which communication is indirect and the degree to which the context is used to provide meaning. It is the degree to which you prefer communication that is explicit, direct, and clear versus communication that is more indirect, emphasizes harmony, and saving face. The two ends of this cultural dimension might also be called Direct (=low context) and Indirect (=high context).
People with a strong preference for low context, or direct, communication would say what’s on their mind and their words would mean what they wanted to really say. Most often, in cultures which are closer to the Direct side of the spectrum, you can expect that what is being said has the most value. People say what they mean and mean what they say. Countries, where strong preference for low context communication is on average very high in the society, include for example: Israel, Netherlands, US, Germany. Interestingly enough, Erin Meyer’s research shows that preference for Direct communication generally, does not always equal the preference for giving direct feedback!
On the other side of the dimension we have the high context, or indirect, communication, in which context plays a bigger role. You need to listen not just for what is said but also what is not being said. In the very high context cultures, you can often also expect to have to read the clues between the lines. The way you are dressed, your tone of voice, or where people are seated can also matter. Examples of countries where you are, on average, more likely to experience a very high context communication styles may be: China, Japan, Indonesia, Kenya.
It is a tricky one as even a small difference in the relative position of your preference versus the other person can already cause misunderstandings! It’s often the dimension that brings the cultural differences to the surface the fastest.
Where does Context matter?
This dimension especially is visible almost in every aspect of our day-to-day work and lives. After all, whenever we communicate with another person, we do it in a certain (usually preferred by us) way. But there are also ways in which we can adjust our preferred style to achieve better results.
If you are in an environment where you prefer clear explicit communication, perhaps also feedback (Netherlands may be an example of the country where this approach exists), and have a person in the team who is not as comfortable with such direct communication style, what could go wrong? 🙂
Let’s say as an example that the colleague with preference for a more indirect communication style, may not have told you directly about a certain system issue, which has caused further problems.
They would have hinted it in, what they perceived as, an obvious manner during the team meetings – – but you didn’t get it. So you may end up frustrated, or start perceiving the person as untrustworthy, like they’re hiding something, dishonest perhaps. You would have preferred if they told you straight up that there is a problem rather than, say, “I’m spending a lot of time on this [part of the system] recently”. They, on the other hand can see that same situation differently and think of you as incompetent and ignorant (why wouldn’t you act when they told you about the problem…you ignored them!), also untrustworthy because they can’t trust you to help solve it if they tell you something’s wrong.
If we reverse this situation and imagine a direct colleague in a higher context culture, similarly unpleasant consequences may come up resulting from those different communication styles. If there is a problem in a high context culture, it’s likely to also be addressed in a team meeting, but not in such a blunt and direct way to just say “Tom, you’ve made a mistake here, this element doesn’t seem to be working now – how can we fix this, what do you guys think?”. Oooh, that can feel very confrontational to a colleague who is not used to such directness, causes others to lose face. Rude, arrogant, difficult, aggressive are adjectives that come up often. Even though the direct colleague did not mean to make any personal insults, they can be perceived as such. Even though they just wanted to indicate that they know where the error in the system comes from and wanted to move on to brainstorming ideas to solve it…
We don’t need to look at the extremes of the spectrum to notice the differences. Let’s just take the US and UK as an example. Both are countries from the Anglo-Saxon cluster, but generally much closer to the direct side of the spectrum than the indirect one. And yet, many Americans coming over to the UK are surprised by how many qualifiers are used here and how seemingly indirect the British people are.
Let’s say you are cold and want to ask your colleague who sits closer to the window to close it.
The simple, clear and explicit way of expressing this request would be “Could you close the window please?”.
What you are more likely to hear in the UK, which is a slightly softened, but in the grand scheme of things still actually direct and explicit request for closing the window is this: “Excuse me, sorry, would you mind closing the window please – sorry, I’m just really cold.” Perhaps there would even be an addition of “if it’s not too much of a problem”. But even with those softeners and a bit of beating around the bush with all the ‘sorrys’, it’s still easy to understand what the request is.
What would be a highly indirect example of such request is “I’m cold”. A statement which does not actually necessarily express the request explicitly, but when it’s put in the context that a) your colleague sits next to you, b) the window is open, c) there is a bit of a draught and d) he’s saying that he’s cold – you are supposed to know that this means a request to close the window. If you don’t close it, that’s rude and inconsiderate. How can you not know that this is what he means?! 😉
How to work with those differences?
It’s probably slightly easier to move on this spectrum from the higher context to lower context, given that the level of explicitness increases when we move that way. The other way around may be more tricky as context, various cultural customs and norms may play a big role in understanding what is actually going on. Nevertheless, it’s good to have this on your radar and simply reflect on whether a certain challenge or misunderstanding could be cultural or not.
If your preference is for higher context (more indirect) communication than the person you’re working with:
- Express your thoughts, needs and requests directly and explicitly
- Be prepared to hear directly formulated comments, also as feedback (though not in all ‘direct cultures’), and don’t take it personally – it’s usually contesting the idea, not you as the person
If your preference is for lower context (more direct) communication than the person you’re working with:
- Be vigilant and pay extra attention to what is not being said and the surrounding environment
- Get comfortable with silence and just being with people without having to fill every minute with words