5 Ways To Better Communicate With International Business Partners

Many trade press articles claim that globalization is reversing, citing reasons ranging from increased tensions between the U.S. and China to ongoing logistics disruptions. However, a report from the Harvard Business Review notes that global flows of trade, capital and information have already recovered beyond pre-pandemic levels by 2021, with the recovery of people flow also gaining acceleration through 2022 and 2023.

With this background, more businesses than ever are relying on international partners to achieve their organizational goals. While international partners can bring a broader range of skills and perspectives to your initiatives, communication can sometimes be a challenge. By focusing on simple ways to improve communication with international partners, you can ensure more successful outcomes.

1. Establish Cultural Fit

I’ve written recently about how cultural fit can help improve international relationships, but it bears repeating here. If you want to have quality communication with your international business partners, you must establish cultural fit before you even enter into the partnership.

This can be done by completing a compatibility and trust assessment, where you look at a prospective partner’s approach to areas such as communication preferences, team orientation, innovation mindset and performance trust. You don’t have to be from the same geographic culture to have a compatible business culture.

Ensuring cultural fit at the start of the relationship helps establish clear expectations for both parties, which will go a long way in ensuring effective communication in the future.

2. Use Clear, Concise Language

Even when you and your international partners are aligned in terms of vision and performance, language barriers can persist. Even someone who speaks your language well might not understand all the subtleties and nuances that a native speaker would.

When meeting with your international colleagues, it can be helpful to keep this in mind by using clear and concise language. You should try to avoid slang and idioms that can be confusing to non-native speakers. There are many idioms across languages that don’t translate easily or directly to other languages. Similarly, avoiding business or industry-specific jargon may be necessary to ensure effective communication.

This doesn’t mean you have to dumb down what you’re saying. But be mindful of how you communicate so that your messages don’t get lost in translation.

3. Speak The Language — Literally

Of course, your ability to communicate effectively with international partners will improve drastically if you can speak their language. Investing in language training for yourself and your staff can increase engagement and grow your skills. Such efforts can also demonstrate to your partner just how much you value your relationship.

New technology is making it easier than ever to speak the language of your partners, even if you don’t have the time to learn it. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Artem Morgunov, co-founder of GalaxyVoice AI, an AI-based tool that helps translate your voice into other languages in real time, while maintaining your true voice.

“AI is now so advanced that we can not only provide instant translations for a variety of languages and accents, but even in your real voice,” he explains.

“Thanks to voice-cloning technology and AI, it is now possible to speak in another language more easily than ever before. For example, you can give presentations in perfect Mandarin and still sound like yourself — with all your emotions and intonations. And, of course, without knowing a single word of it. The days of relying on slow and expensive interpreters or monotonous computer translations are over.”

4. Streamline Communications With Appropriate Tech

As exciting as tools like AI voice translation can be, they are far from the only tech tools available to streamline tech. As the COVID pandemic accelerated remote work, it also increased the adoption of a wide range of tools designed to improve communications among geographically diverse teams.

For example, video conferencing enables international partners to hold “face to face” meetings without the need for time-consuming travel. Workplace collaboration tools can also streamline the sharing of files, ideas, questions and more, allowing each team member to contribute from their own workspace (and time zone).

While the right tools can vary between partnerships, you and your partners should always look for solutions that will make communication more convenient for everyone.

5. Improve Your Writing

So much of business communication depends on writing. Yet many businesspeople who can communicate quite effectively when speaking struggle with the written word. A report from Verbal Identity found that while two-thirds of employees at large companies write as part of their job, bad and inefficient writing is estimated to cost businesses $400 billion per year due to time wasted, miscommunications and other issues.

These challenges are further compounded when using writing to communicate with an international business partner. In addition to obtaining language training for you and your team, you should also be mindful of your writing abilities. The ability to write clearly and concisely can make all the difference in achieving your partnership goals, especially when in-person meetings will be less frequent.

Investing in writing training (and using tools to help employees write better) will make your partnerships more effective by preventing misunderstandings and the need for frequent clarification. As you and your team become more efficient writers, other partnerships goals will fall into place.

Make Communication Your Top Priority

Your communication skills can make or break any partnership — but they are especially vital when working with an international partner. As you collaborate to find solutions that will prevent misunderstandings and keep everyone on the same page, you’ll be able to enjoy a more streamlined and efficient work process that delivers your desired outcomes.