Sometimes we don´t have into account how different we are, sometimes we think our differences are between people of other part of the world but the truth is that also there exist in our continent and sometimes in our own country just because cultures depend on a lot of things as geographic location, climate, if we are near the sea or far of it, etc...
Because of this, the 2 most important topics for me of the last class were: 1. stereotypes and 2.non verbal communication.
Cultural stereotype is a standardization without an individual perception which in most of the times include negative affirmations about a group of people. Constantly we make this kind of judgements based on our own experience with 1 person or a small group. For me is one of the biggest barrier because when we have the opportunity of listen other cultures we just hear what we want to hear (unconsciously) due to our beliefs and own thinking way, i call it "own chip" where we distort the information accordingly to ours, so, is so difficult some times to get the meanings of what others want to transfer when we are closed on our own information and much more difficult when we have like a box mind believing our way of thinking is the only one and we don´t considere there could be different ones.
Having a good fluency information with other cultures required to put in others shoes, try to get information of the things they belief on and why their think that way, so it would be much easier to communicate due to we are going to have more into account some behaviors and thoughts.
So, saying that a small group of people are like this or like that is hard because this group must have something in common, a common hobby, a common like or going on a bigger scale a common language or a common lifestyle but still different perceptions and way of thinking, thats why saying all people from Argentina are egocentric is not well seen.
By the other hand, the non verbal communication is something we have to be careful with, when we communicate with people that understand and have our same non verbal knowledge is going to facilitate the meaning of what we are trying to say. But, when we have different meanings of sings, symbols etc... this, is going to complicate the communication, more when we have to interact with cultures that are so complicated and close mind or cultures extremely different from us.
Even though there are some universal non verbal communication, there are others things that have different meanings in other parts of the world, sometimes with bad meanings, thats why we have to be more soft and clear with other people when talk, the rhythm we talk also is important to make ourselves understand. Being delicate at the moment of a misunderstood and trying not to be aggressive with a bad reaction of others may facilitates it also, and instead of that let the others know we don´t have the information about what it means to them and the intention is not giving uncomfortable messages.
In conclusion, when we have experiences in other countries like exchanges or going to a negotiation is important fist to research some of the general cultural behaviors of that people, although is difficult as i say before to know punctually how people are due to our own thoughts and individual way of thinking theres general tips we could have into account like the way they say hello, bye, if they don´t like the physical contact or if they like to shake hands etc...
http://www.icebergci.com/
http://empresamundoglobalyadaptacionalcambio.blogspot.com/2012/04/entorno-global-los-estereotipos.html
