Managing Multicultural Teams

The reading, Managing Multicultural Teams names one of the main challenges on a multicultural team as the form of communication, either direct or indirect. The article states that Western communication is direct and explicit where as in other cultures meanings may be embedded. The article goes on to talk about a Japanese-American multicultural team that had communication issues. 

I can understand this problem fully because I have experienced it. I have gone along on two missions trips to Guatemala. Once there we stay and work at a children's home. At the home we work along side American missionaries who run the home. Sometimes we work outside of the home, or take the children on trips into Guatemala City or Antigua. There is a distinct communication difference not only when we travel outside the home but also inside the home. The children are split into houses on the property by gender and also by age. Each house (there are 4) has what is called a home mom. These are Guatemalan women who live in the houses with the children. We eat dinner inside their homes while we are there. I have communicated with the home moms who speak some English. I experienced the same kind of situation the article describes; when they nod along with what you're saying it is their way of telling you they understand you, not that they are agreeing with you. Similarly when they furrow their brows at me they are saying that they don't understand my English not that they are confused by what I am saying like it would mean in America. 

In working with the house moms to prepare dinner I also experienced the trouble with the trouble with accents and fluency , I can understand some broken Spanish, however I need someone to speak it to me  slowly and break up their phrases, however the house moms will tell you to do something just speaking regularly, they think I don't know how to do what they're asking but really I can't understand them.