The Hindu Business Line : Keep it simple

Recently, a manager I know wrote to an American client: “The agreement is attached for your perusal and signature. Quality is sustainable only when you have a long-term contract with the same client. Let’s hope this fructifies quickly!”

Nothing wrong with this on the face of it. But as I told him later, Americans are really into simple words and, perhaps, it would have got across better if he had replaced “for your perusal” with “for you to go over” and “hope this fructifies” with “hope this happens.”

From years of experience of working with clients from various nationalities and with constant inputs/corrections from a sister who’s a ‘naturalised’ American, I can say that when it’s all about communication, it’s best to keep it simple. Our efforts to sound ‘official’ and ‘correct’ often go awry and just end up confusing the recipient .

Further, we Indians have a habit of picking up catchphrases from the West and using them liberally in conversation and written communication. Unfortunately, we forget that we need to be steeped in the social, political and cultural nuances of another country before we can use the idiomatic language of that country appropriately. In other words, when we use phrases and expressions from the West that catch our fancy, we often don’t use them in the correct context and so inadvertently cause much merriment among our friends from outside India!

Also, we often only hear the phrases and don’t see them written down, so chances are that we assume some things incorrectly. I have found myself red-faced on a couple of occasions.

Take the time an American client used the expression “when the rubber hits the road” meaning ‘practical and hands on’. But hearing it as rubble and associating the phrase with the rubble that is used to lay roads, I convinced myself that the expression was “when the rubble hits the road.” I used it happily and only when I saw some grins going around the room did I discover that it was a reference to the tyre (rubber) on the road!

On another occasion, a client referred to “getting down to the wire” and I nodded sagely, thinking he was talking of some electrical project going on in his house, when he was really referring to a deadline that had to be met! My mistake!

If you hear a phrase that is unfamiliar , ask the user to explain it instead of guessing at both the words and their meaning. Then you’ll be sure of using it correctly yourself.

“Cool”, “hot”, “rocking”, “awesome” these are bits of Western lingo which we have now made our own. But ensure that you use the correct terms. Remember, they change faster than the seasons.

Some young friends of mine were talking of a film actor as ‘hot’ recently, when an older person commented that ‘cool’ had been the popular expression just a short time earlier. The youngsters replied that ‘cool’ was out and ‘hot’ was in. At this, a precocious pre-teen who was trying to be part of the group wanted to know if, by and by, the correct usage would be ‘lukewarm’! Jokes apart, the point is valid — popular lingo is easily dated and if you use it, make sure you are in tune with the times.

Another hurdle is ‘Indianisms’ that we take for granted in normal communication with our compatriots. “Going out of station” is a well-understood phrase here, but Westerners would know it as “out of town”. Asking a person for his “good name” could be puzzling to a foreigner as also inquiries regarding his “family” when the questioner actually means “wife”. Also, the tendency to end a comment with the word “no” is very common here; you often hear people say something like “It’s very hot, no?” The Indian will correctly interpret this to be an invitation to agree with the comment, as it is just a poor translation from the vernacular, but most expatriates wouldn’t know what to make of it. The correct usage would be “It’s very hot, isn’t it?”

The Indian tendency to use acronyms liberally is usually terribly confusing to the foreigner. As a country, we seem to have a special talent for reducing organisations, names and classifications to a set of alphabets. To us, things like NRI, FDI, TRAI, NIFTY, BSNL, TN, UP and ISRO are familiar, everyday terms. But to a foreigner, they sound like code and make communication very difficult. Even AC is not easily interpreted as air-conditioner by the foreigner as many of them don’t need it in their colder climates. My advice would be to drop the use of acronyms when communicating with a foreigner .

In short, keep it simple and straightforward new managers.

(The writer is Founder CEO of Global Adjustments, a relocation and cross-cultural training company and author of Doing Business in India for Dummies. She can be contacted at info@globaladjustments.com)