For people who come from cultures that don’t make a lot of small talk (I’m looking at you my German friends!), the start of an international business meeting is probably pretty high on your list of stressors.

It might not be fun, but it is one of the key things you can do to start your meeting off right – coffee bar small talk.

First, let’s talk about why small talk is so important in an international setting and is one of the skills you should be constantly perfecting. Then, I’ll tell you why doing that dreaded small talk is best handled at your company’s coffee bar.

As you probably already know, or gleaned from the beginning of this post, there are some cultures who prefer to make small talk and those that see it as superfluous. If you’ve ever met an American, I’m sure you realized quite quickly – we’re a small talk culture. Likewise, if you’ve ever tried to chat with a  German, maybe you caught on quickly that it’s not their favorite pastime.

A big part of whether a certain culture likes to make small talk or not leads back to the question, are they a peach or a coconut?

No, I’m not crazy. The Peach-Coconut Continuum stems from Fons Trompenaar’s Model of National Cultural Differences. Following this model, some cultures (Americans and Japanese for instance) are peaches – soft on the outside, but tough on the inside – while others (e.g. Germans and Russians) are coconuts – hard on the outside and soft on the inside.

Peach cultures are generally polite, smile at strangers, and make more small talk. Many of them also require small talk to be made before getting down to business, like the Chinese. Coconut cultures are more direct and often feel no need to make small talk in a business context.

This can naturally lead to some misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Germans might think American businessmen are not serious about the meeting because they keep talking about their hobbies, while the Japanese might feel hurt that the Russia hosts didn’t ask about their flight or offer a coffee before starting the meeting.

So, while small talk might not be your favorite thing, it is vital to cultivating strong international business relationships.

Finding a good topic can also be tricky as some cultures are more sensitive than others to certain topics. In general, it’s best to avoid talking about politics or religion and any overly personal questions. What can you talk about? Here’s a short list of go-to topics that should work for most cultures:

1. Their journey (how was the flight?, did you come by car?, did you find the company alright?)
2. Their hotel (how is the hotel?, what hotel are you staying at?, how was the breakfast?)
3. Their role in the company / their job (I hear you work in Purchasing, how is it? how long have you been with Company X?)
4. Giving them a short tour / introduction to your facilities

Point number four brings me to the second point of this article – the coffee bar. If you’re not the biggest small talker, giving a short tour or presentation of your facility and letting your guests ask questions can make the small talk portion of the meeting a bit easier. You have some concrete talking points and some external stimuli to keep you talking (the architecture, the other colleagues around you, the coffee / food…).

If it is a morning meeting, this short introduction could optimally end at the coffee bar or canteen to pick up some fresh coffee. Alternatively, it could lead you into the conference room to drink your coffee there before getting down to business (but somewhere outside the meeting room would be best, I’ll explain why soon). If it’s an afternoon / lunch meeting, it could end in the canteen to grab a bite to eat.

Why am I suggesting this? Well, because food and drink are a cross-culturally acceptable ice breaker and perfect for lightening the mood. Being somewhere outside of the conference room also gives the whole chat an atmosphere of congeniality rather than being a super serious business context. Also, being somewhere more open and social can give you more things to talk about (the coffee machine, the furniture, if they already had a coffee this morning, how they like their coffee, if they prefer coffee or tea).

Once you’ve broken the ice and had your coffee bar small talk, the act of physically leaving the social space and entering the meeting room can also facilitate the transition to business topics, which would be more difficult if making small talk in the same room as the meeting will take place. There’s really no good way to change gears from social to business that doesn’t sound at least a little bit awkward, whereas moving your body to a new place creates a natural transition as the small talk normal ceases while everyone takes their places, unpacks their laptops, etc.

The next time you are hosting an international meeting, consider holding the small talk portion of your meeting (which you should absolutely do!) in a neutral social space rather than the conference room.

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He who knows nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of his own. / Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One of things that has always fascinated me, ever since I started to learn foreign languages, was the similarities. Finding little pieces of one language in another always feels a bit like opening a present for me. I love to look for them and I love to learn about them. I adore it when one of my English students tells me “hey, that sounds a lot like X that we say!”

These connections and patterns are like a giant jigsaw puzzle, if you can figure out how/where/why these words transferred from one language into another, you’ve probably learned a bit about history, about your language, and about how we all fit together.

I like to remember, no matter how different our languages seem, we are, in essence, just trying to communicate with our fellow humans. That’s why we often steal words from other languages – because we didn’t have a word for it, or someone else’s word was just so much better, or it brought a new nuance in meaning. Of course these similarities can also be used to track human migrations and the expansion of civilizations (Rome and the Latin footprints it left all over most other European languages is a prime example).

Linguists theorize that at some time in the past there was only one language. But of course tracking it down and proving this theory is impossible, as those humans would have never written their language down. However, we can see evidence that points us in this direction in the Indo-European languages. Without getting too technical, that’s why the word for brother in most of the European languages start with b or p or sometimes v or f – these sounds are very similar. Linguists track these similarities across thousands of words and hypothesize about what the base word in Proto-Indo-European would have been. (It would have been bʰréh₂tēr, if you’re wondering.)

So, when it comes down to it, we’re all speaking various forms of the same proto-language and each language carries around the evidence of its interaction with other speakers from different areas, of different eras in time, and connects us through time and space with the humans who came before us and those that will come after us. Language is a powerful thing.

Language Tree created by Minna Sundberg for her webcomic Stand Still Stay Silent.

The idea of working interculturally is not going away. Businesses are becoming more and more international and cross-cultural office spaces are the new norm. You might have business partners in just one other European country or spread all over the world. Either way, it is important to start learning the basics of intercultural communication.

The topic of writing interculturally sensitive emails frequently poses some difficulty in my seminars. Perhaps it’s because where I teach in Bavaria some folks are known to be ornery about change and doing things differently (phrases such as “what the farmer doesn’t know, he doesn’t eat” – “was der Bauer nicht kennt, frisst er nicht”, are common place). However, change is something that many people have trouble dealing with, so maybe it’s a general problem and my students just aren’t the subtlest bunch.

Nearly every year we do some practice on writing more indirectly and politely, as Germans are often known for being blunt and far too “to the point”. I present my students with a set of very direct and frankly rude emails and ask them to rewrite each one using the phrases we’ve gone over beforehand. While some students take to the exercise well – often ones who have extensive international experience – others struggle and devolve into a “my way of writing is fine and everyone else is wrong” mentality.

Their point being that they should not have to write their emails differently, but that all the other cultures they deal with (USA, England, China…) should learn to put up with their German directness.

Now, they’re not totally wrong; they’re just missing the main point of the exercise. We shouldn’t totally change ourselves to make someone happy – enough self-help gurus have already told us this – but we should be flexible enough to make some changes where need be. See it as meeting in the middle rather than a total 180° turn.

After a few hours of practice, I don’t expect my students to be able to write perfectly crafted and polite emails like a native Englishman. I hope that they have learned a few skills they can put into practice when the going gets tough and their projects get thorny. I hope they can learn to be more subtle when subtlety is required. And I hope they have become more understanding of those other cultures – to try to communicate with others how they want to be communicated with.

Interculturality is mainly about understanding. Learning to understand other cultures and to communicate with others on their turf, in their words. You don’t have to be perfect at it, but if you approach the situation with understanding and compassion towards the differences between you, most people are more willing to work with you.

So, the next time you’re in an international situation, remember to bring that understanding to the table and see what happens.