Communicating across cultures

- Does any of this sound familiar to you? You get frustrated when you have colleagues who don't speak up in a meeting. Or maybe you find it frustrating when only a few people seem to always dominate. Does it bother you when someone on your team makes a decision without talking with others? Or perhaps you don't understand why one person always checks with someone else before making a decision. Did you know that these are common complaints in cross-cultural teams? Whether we are aware of it or not, minor differences in communication styles and what is considered good business from one country to another have a huge impact on how we work together. I've recently relocated to The Netherlands, and work on a team of people from all over the world. Day after day I'm faced with the various challenges that come from living and working with people from different cultures. Although I still stumble sometimes, I've made a general success of it by following these four principles. First, establish…