When I take my daily after-dinner walk along the Zhao Jia Bang Road, in hope to find some cheap clothing stores, the staggering number of multinational enterprises operate and prosper in Shanghai always tickle my professional section of the brain. One of the first questions comes to my mind is “How do these companies overcome the cultural differences and avoid employee standoffs?” The answer to this seemingly simple question is actually fairly complicated. In the first part of my mini-series on “Suggestive Solutions on Global Employee Relationship Conflict”, I attempt to discuss and offer my view to the readers. Enjoy!

当我每天沿着肇家浜路饭后散步的时候，希望找到一些便宜的买衣服的地方，在上海日益增多的国际化公司总是能触动我的专业神经。我脑海里第一个问题是“这些公司是怎么去克服文化的差异，避免员工在文化上产生的疏远？”这个问题的答案看起来很简单但却又十分复杂。在我系列连载“给全球员工在文化关系冲突上的一些建议”中的第一部分，我将试图讨论和提供我在这方面的一些看法。希望大家能喜欢！

Many of today's global HR professionals and consultants recognize that the kind of preparation and training required to effectively communicate respect in multicultural environments does not involve a well defined solution that would work in every location—cultural diversity requires a customized approach. The key to enable respectful production in multicultural environment is developing a neutral perception that sheds the typical 'foreigner' vs. 'local' initial isolation, delusion or even standoff. Especially in cities such as Shanghai, where large multinational companies invest huge amount of resources, one must be much more sensitive about other cultures and languages, and the context that local nationals are operating in—when this is internalized, communicating respect comes across almost automatically. Sensitivity and ultimately being able to intuitively be respectful provides a venue to become comfortable with one another and build trust.

许多当今的职业人事经理和顾问都认识到在多元文化的环境中，对员工在进行有效沟通的培训上并没有很好地涉及到在特定的环境中——即有多种文化冲击下的环境，需要一种更特定化的沟通。在多元文化环境中，建立合作关系的关键是发展一种中立的观点，即避免在主观上区别对待“外来”与“本土”的差异，疏远外来的文化。特别是在上海这个已经拥有大量国际化外来投资公司的城市，我们必须对外来的文化和语言，以及他们的本土文化更加敏感。当我们的视野能变得更国际化，沟通就会自然变得顺畅。对外来事物的敏感和尊重将会在建立互相信任上，构筑良好的渠道。