Blog Post 2 : Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

Hi Everyone, I am back with my second blog post on the evaluation of intercultural behaviour. Being a person who really enjoyed my National Service Experience, I shall talk about my time during my Company Tactics Course(a course to train army captains) about 2 years back. The course was held at SAFTI Military Institute which is a military school that invites international officers over for training as well. During my course, I had the privilege of training with 2 International Army officers, 1 from France and 1 from India.

Here is a photo of us back in 2011

My Intercultural Communication Experience

As we all know, communication is of utmost importance in the Army especially during combat missions where miscommunication can bring about dire consequences. Non-verbal communication is even more important as soldiers try to maintain noise discipline in the jungles to prevent enemy detection. During one the tactical mission with Major Chau, a miscommunication occurred causing us to make a wrong decision for the mission.

During the mission planning phase, Captain Fabian asked Major Chau whether he needed more support for his capture of Objective .226. Major Chau wobbled his head. Taking that as a no, Captain Fabian did not allocate extra troops to Major Chau. When the actual mission started, Major Chau realised he had not enough soldiers and firepower to overrun the enemy on Objective .226 and in the end, the mission was a failure.

During the After Action Review(AAR), Captain Fabian realised that Major Chau meant YES instead of NO when he wobbled his head. To most people, a simple wobble of the head may mean a no, but to Indians, the way they wobble their head have different meanings. If Captain Fabian had understood this better, he would have clarified with Major Chau and the mission could have been a success.

A lesson to learn

Therefore, it is important to know the cultural behaviour of people of different cultures so that we will not misunderstand them. And therefore in my research of Indian head wobbles, it lead me to this article on BBC. 

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-26390944

This means YES

This means NO

This means maybe/maybe not

This article shows a video on the different Indian head wobbles and their interpretations. Although the video has been exaggerated for a comical effect, its accuracy still remains true according to the article.

I hope that my blogpost has been informative and entertaining. Do comment on any similar experiences you've had in the comments. See you all again next blog post

Regards,

Terence