A Role-Playing Exercise for Analyzing Intercultural Communication:

Getting the message right the first time is fast becoming the motto of successful businesses in today's highly competitive environment. Although this concept typically is applied to total quality management (TQM), it is equally relevant to intercultural communication. Corporate downsizing has forced a smaller number of employees to do more work. After all, the work load does not change just because hundreds or thousands of people have been terminated. The only change is in the structure of the organization. Because of this, effective communication has become a key way to coordinate the activities of the "survivors." Moreover, these survivors are under considerable stress because of overwork and anxiety about whether there win be yet another reduction in force. At this time management must go beyond simply disseminating information. It must make certain that communication is heard and interpreted properly. Employees must understand each other the first time and every time. Thin profit margins have forced businesses to reduce costs in other ways as, well. One of the more effective ways of doing this is by reducing the size of inventory kept on hand, which has led to the rise of "just-in-time" delivery of parts and materials. Such an inventory system requires precise coordination between the shipper and the receiver. A communication failure here may mean an entire plant sits idle awaiting required materials. Conflict is almost inevitable in today's dynamic and highly competitive business environment. Unfortunately, conflicts are likely to occur with increasing frequency largely because of the cultural diversity now found in almost every workforce. Today national borders, in many ways, are irrelevant as business issues now straddle continental borders. Yet the fall of international borders is being accompanied by the development of "cultural borders" within firms. The U.S. workforce looks and sounds vastly different from that of 20 years ago. African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians will be the faster-growing groups in the employee mix. By the end of this century, African-American women will actually outnumber African-American men in the labor force (Mirvis, 1993). In fact, by the year 2000 they will account for roughly 27 percent of the U.S. workforce. People from such different backgrounds as today's workers invariably bring different values, attitudes, and perceptions to the workplace. This diversity will lead to misunderstandings and missed opportunities to improve both the workers and the organization. Thus, today's managers must be able to communicate effectively with subordinates of different races, ages, and nationalities. Efforts to improve performance must also apply to the quality of communication. Many managers believe that most problems caused by miscommunication can be corrected. However, research has shown that senior managers often place more weight on one vivid piece of evidence than on a whole body of outcomes when evaluating subordinates (Sullivan, Kameda, and Nobu, 1991). Thus, an incident that a junior manager might casually brush off as "a little misunderstanding" may result in his or her supervisor's labeling him or her careless and unmotivated. This failure to communicate might very well affect the young manager's career for a long time. All of these complicating factors mean that reasonably intelligent adults may find it difficult to communicate when faced with the intense pressures of today's environment. In light of this, we offer the following exercise for accomplishing three objectives: (1) help your students comprehend how difficult it is to communicate effectively, (2) present a systematic process for identifying communication road blocks occurring on the job, especially when communicating with people from diverse backgrounds, and (3) attempt to understand why these obstacles have occurred in order to prevent the same mistakes. IDENTIFYING WEAKNESSES IN A COMMUNICATION EXCHANGE To maximize the effectiveness of this experiential exercise, allow class time for students to develop a fundamental understanding of the communication process - the skills required of sender and receiver, the channel selection, the feedback cycles, and the multitude of barriers that can sabotage effective communication. …