Grappling with Cultural Miscommunication (w/ Kyle Hegarty)

My guest this episode is Kyle Hegarty, Singapore-based entrepreneur with an expertise in sales training and development. For years Kyle has worked with multinational and Asia-based sales teams and culled from this experience a treasure-trove of tales on what it takes to do business in this part of the world. His new book, soon to be released, is titled, The Accidental Business Nomad: A Survival Guide for Working Across A Shrinking Planet. Kyle’s diatribe comes at an interesting moment. There are countervailing forces in play. On the one hand, global commerce and Internet access are bringing people closer together. On the other hand, some countries are starting to think that too much economic integration is a bad thing. The prospects of Recession are on the rise and leaders from the US to the UK are calling for protectionism to safeguard jobs and bolster homegrown businesses. Just as there’s no stopping the political winds from shifting, nor can one prevent the wings of commerce from beating. People are at the heart of all commercial exchange, and so it is that Kyle has turned his attention to the many things that can go wrong when diverse cultures meet in the marketplace. In this week’s episode we discuss tales of cultural communication mishaps.