in a low context society while we are communicating we assume that we have a low level of shared context what does that mean it means that we don't have the same reference points or the same body of knowledge or relationships that we have a low level of shared context so in a low context society we believe that good effective professional communication is a communication that's very explicit it's very simple and very clear in a low conduct society we're trained that if I want you to understand blue then I have to say blue literally we're trained
in a low context culture that if I give a presentation I should tell you what I'm going to tell you and then I should tell you and then I should tell you what I've told you why do I tell you the same thing three times because we're focused overall on making sure that the message was passed simply and clearly in a high context society while we're communicating we assume or consider that we have a larger body of shared context that we have the same reference points body of knowledge information and because we assume all of
this shared context in a high context society we believe good effective communication is a communication that's more implicit or layered or nuanced I had a German individual who said to me you know Aaron in Germany at the end of a meeting we almost always do a recap first we do a verbal recap and then we do a written recap that's low context right clarification clarification clarification he said now that I've been working frequently with the French I often find that at the end of a meeting I'll get ready to do a recap and my French
colleagues will just stand up and someone will say eh voila there it is and I'll think to myself but voila what and then I'll be very surprised to see that it just seems that people know what's been sited that they know what's supposed to happen next without going through all of those levels of clarification that I'm so used to in my own culture I had a second example I was doing some work a while ago in Istanbul and I had a Turkish client who was telling me about all of these issues that he was having
with his new American boss and I said when your boss was here did you tell him what you're telling me now and he said well you know Aaron I made it known so that he could see it if he wanted to see it and I thought to myself he probably didn't see it right I'll give you a third example from China I was giving a presentation at a conference in China last year and all the people in the room worked for the same multinational American company before I worked within the Chairman who was this American
from New York City gave a presentation that went very well and then he left afterwards when I was working with the group we were talking about this and I had the Chinese human resource director raise his hand and he said you know Aaron this concept is very interesting to me because the whole time the chairman was talking I was trying to make sure that I was listening with all of my senses that I was picking up all of the levels of meaning that he might be trying to pass now that I look at this I'm
asking myself the question is it possible that there was no meaning beyond that you know first those simple words that he was saying and I thought to myself that that chairman would have been really surprised to note think that anyone was trying to understand his message beyond the first degree you
