How to avoid misunderstanding while working with foreigners
------Glenn Yuan 11/12/2007
I am an R&D engineer, specifically an electric engineer work with a foreigner invested firm. In our firm, foreigners are allocated in different department in a big office, sales, project management (PM), etc, especially R&D.
We would work together when a new project was coming, to finish the quotation, DFA (design for assembly) meetings, DV (design validation) meetings and so on. Some of them can speak English and Chinese well, but they may in different professions, and some times it was difficult to us to understand the unfamiliar technical terms, we only got the roughly mean of what they said, someone even worse, if you just nodding or shaking your heard to responds, it would lead some new issues on.
Below are the experiences you have been using, but never noticed, they were useful.
1, prepare a memo note, a pencil with rubber, take them with you when you want to talk to someone. It can help you a lot when something needs to explain well, your foreigner workmates can write or draw their ideas down on it, or some pronunciation that you could not understand.
2, Do not use the telephone when you need to talk some important technical things to foreigner workmates, instead of Email.
3, Bring some samples with you if want to explain your idea clearly. Where your need it to be to cut, modified, or just moves a little bit. If you’re discussing function problem of a product with the software guy, a specifically idea, or a main structure of function you want is necessary.
