Questão 611498

Text for questions from 21 to 25.

1 ____ In companies where everyone is located in the sameIn companies where everyone is located in the same

country, passing messages implicitly is frequently the norm.

The closer the space we share and the more similar our

4 cultural backgrounds, the stronger our reliance on unspoken

cues. In these settings we communicate in shorthand, often

without realizing it — reading our counterparts’ tone of voice,

7 picking up on subtext. A manager once told me, “At our

company, managers didn’t finish their sentences. Instead,

they would begin to make a point and then say something like

10 ‘OK, you get it?’ And for us, that said it all.”

____ A lot of work is done in this implicit way without

anyone’s taking note. If I walk by your office and see you

13 studying October’s budget with a worried look, I might send

you a comprehensive breakdown of my costs for the month.

If I see you shrink in your seat when the boss asks if you can

16 meet a deadline, I know that your “yes” really means “I wish

I could,” and I might follow you to your office after the

meeting to hear the real deal. In such ways we continually

19 adjust to one another’s unspoken cues.

____ But when companies begin to expand internationally,

implicit communication stops working. If you don’t tell me

22 you need a budget breakdown, I won’t send one. If you say

yes even though you mean no, I’ll think that you agreed.

Because we aren’t in the same place, we can’t read one

25 another’s body language — and because we’re from different

cultures, we probably couldn’t read it accurately even if we

were within arm’s length. The more we work with people

28 from other cultures in far-flung locations, the less we pick up

on subtle meaning and the more we fall victim to

misunderstanding and inefficiency.

31 ____ The obvious solution is to put in place multipleThe obvious solution is to put in place multiple

processes that encourage employees to recap key messages

and map out in words and pictograms who works for whom,

34 with what responsibilities, and who will take which steps and

when. For many organizations, that kind of change is largely

positive.

Internet: <https://hbr.org/> (adapted).

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