I would like to share about an email I received from my boss
back when I was an intern at an international bank in 2010.
Initially, there were only three of us in the department
before S joined. S was scheduled to start work on the 20th, a
Wednesday. The day before, on the 19th, I received an email from my
boss (who was then overseas), he wanted me to help S settle in and in his own
words, asked me to “help get her a subway
card”.
(*At this point, I would like to ask the reader to take note of the first thing that comes to his/her mind with regards to the word “Subway”.)
For a brief moment, I was stunned because the first thing
that came to my mind was the sandwich chain “Subway” and I knew they did not
have any promotional card or any card in fact. However, I quickly realized that
my boss was actually referring to the MRT.
Although the word “subway” means the train service, I feel
that my boss should have used the term “MRT” instead. To be fair to him, he is
an American. However, he has lived and worked in Singapore for the past 15 years and on that basis, I
believe that he should have known that Singaporeans do not refer to the train
service as subway.
This might be a very small issue but it certainly led to
some confusion.
Therefore, my question is, as future managers (since the
majority of us are Business students), do you think it would have been better
if my boss used the term “MRT” instead?
Please let me know what you think. I will post my thoughts
on this matter either on Sunday night or Monday morning.
Have a great weekend!
Cheers!
Joey
When I read the "help get her a subway card", I wondering what he refer to. It takes me a while to realize that he was referring to MRT card.
ReplyDeleteAlthough he is American, but he is working in Singapore, it would be better for him to use the term MRT card. Since he has lived and worked in Singapore for 15 years he should know the cultures in Singapore and the common terms or Singlish we use. In order to communicate better and avoid misunderstanding he should try to communicate like a Singaporean.
He was lucky that Subway(sandwich chain) does not has member card or else I would think that S needs a Subway member card instead of MRT card.
However I cannot said that the boss is wrong, as in his country MRT is known as Subway. We should have intercultural awareness when we are communicating with people from different culture. Joey, you has displayed culture awareness in the situation, as you knew that your boss refer to MRT card.
I, myself believed that if I am living in a different country or different cultures I should follow the cultures to avoid confusions and misunderstanding. Most importantly is that following their cultures will help me understand them better.
Thanks Li Qi! I can't disagree with you.
Delete"when in Rome, do as the Romans" sums it up perfectly.
Hi Joey, I would agree with you that future managers should use terms that locals could understand because these foreign terms might sometimes cause considerable confusion and embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don’t blame your boss for that because he might not have realised such terms are causing confusion. Just take a look at ourselves; we might have also done something wrong for years and yet, we are still committing the same mistakes (e.g. pronunciation of certain words). That is because most of our friends around us are sensitive to our feelings. As a result, they do not correct us and instead, try to accommodate/empathize to our mistakes. Therefore, I don’t see why we should blame him even though he has been living here for 15 years.
In our everyday life, everything is a two-way thing. He might be at fault but you could also take the initiative to ask him directly what he meant and perhaps, you could have also told your boss that using “subway” to mean “MRT” might lead to confusion.
I realised that many conflicts and misunderstandings are resulted because one party is afraid to reveal his feelings and thoughts on the matter. It could have been easily resolved if both are willing to talk things out (of course - the way you talk, your tone, your body language would also matter but talking things out is definitely the “first step” AS WELL AS a “great step” towards effective communication).
Anyway thanks Joey for bringing up this very interesting article :)
Hey Qi Long, thanks for your comments!
DeleteI totally agree with you that communication is a two-way thing and that we could have been making certain mistakes for years without realizing it.
I also like to clarify something which I think you misinterpreted. When I wrote this post, I wanted to share how even the little things matter in intercultural communication. Hence, I used the "subway" example but I have never blamed my boss for it or meant for my readers to feel this way. I hope you see where I am coming from.
Again, thank you for your comments. Really appreciate it.
Hey Joey, although your own anecdote was pretty simple, the underlying conflict is actually very serious indeed. In your case it was simply confusing Subway with the food chain Subway and the subway system, but I recall a case where NASA collaborated with other space institutes and the scientists exchanged correspondence using different units (imperial for NASA vs SI units for others) for their calculations and caused some grave miscalculations to occur. Although I do think that your boss should have used the term MRT, as many in Singapore would be unfamiliar with his 'subway' term, I'd think that actively clarifying would have been better, especially if something bigger was at stake.
ReplyDeleteAs promised, I will share my thoughts on my post.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe that the key to any success in life especially in the business field, is adaptability. And a huge part of being adaptable is the ability to pick up cultural nuances. Very often, it is the small things we do that really matters. Hence, I feel that for us (biz students) to be really successful managers or even CEOs of international companies in the future, we have to be mindful on how we communicate. After all, effective communication is about ensuring the other party understands the message.
Thanks for the post, Joey. It's clear and concise, and it presents an interesting scenario.
ReplyDeleteI think the question is not the best though. Obviously, considering the context of Singapore and 15 years experience, we ought to answer that your boss should have said "MRT."
But wouldn't it be more interesting to know from your colleagues **how** they might have approached the same boss to "correct him"? Answering that would require some interpersonal understanding, and effort.
Hi Joey,
ReplyDeleteOverall, I felt that your language is good with the exception that you could have used the word "may" instead of "might" in the later part of your content.
In addition, you are consistent with the use of past tense to relate the entire story.
Also, I felt that you are clear, concrete and concise in the way you delivered your content.