Same words, Different Meanings: Active Listening in Multicultural Teams
Everyone leaves the meeting convinced that the decision was clear. Two days later, three people are working with three different interpretations of what was agreed. Nothing dramatic happened. Nobody argued. Everyone spoke English. Everyone nodded. And yet, somehow, meaning got lost.
This is one of the less visible challenges of multicultural teams. The problem is not necessarily language competence. People may speak excellent English and still interpret silence, disagreement, urgency, commitment, or feedback very differently.
In global teams, we are not only translating words. We are constantly translating context. That is why active listening matters.
A common language does not always create common understanding
People coming from different cultures see, interpret, and evaluate situations differently. They bring different communication habits, expectations and assumptions into the same conversation.
In international product and software teams, communication is shaped by several layers at once:
national and organisational culture,
professional background,
product knowledge,
specialist terminology,
individual communication style,
emotions, fatigue and time pressure,
and the fact that people are often working in a language that is not their first.
Consider a Polish-German product team working in English. During refinement, a developer says: “This could be difficult.” One person hears a warning: we probably should not do this. Another hears a manageable concern: it will take a little more effort. Someone else understands: the developer will handle it.
The words are identical. The meaning is not.
This is why asking “Does everyone understand?” often tells us very little. Most people will say yes. A much better question is: “What did each of us understand we are doing next?” That small shift changes the conversation from confirmation to verification.
Teams create their own language
Multicultural teams gradually develop a kind of micro-language of their own. It contains product names, abbreviations, technical terminology, company-specific expressions, shared jokes and phrases whose meaning becomes obvious to long-term team members. A newcomer therefore has to learn much more than English. They have to learn what this particular team means when someone says:
“It’s almost done.”
“We should look at it.”
“Maybe.”
“This is a risk.”
“We’ll try.”
“It should be fine.”
The same words may carry very different levels of commitment depending on the person, culture, and context. Over time, teams create a common repertoire that makes communication faster. But it can also create blind spots.
People stop checking what things mean because they assume everybody interprets them in the same way. This becomes particularly risky during onboarding, handovers, stakeholder discussions, and cross-team collaboration.
What this looks like at work
Communication problems in multicultural teams are often surprisingly ordinary.
Silence is interpreted as agreement.
In reality, someone may be processing the information, avoiding open disagreement, or waiting to be invited into the discussion.
A polite answer is interpreted as commitment.
“I’ll try” may mean “yes” to one person and “I do not think this is realistic” to another.
Direct communication is perceived as aggression.
The sender believes they are simply being efficient. The receiver experiences the message as unnecessarily harsh.
Indirect communication is perceived as unclear.
The sender believes they have communicated a problem diplomatically. The receiver does not realise there is a problem at all.
No questions are interpreted as understanding.
People may simply not feel comfortable exposing uncertainty. None of these situations requires bad intentions. They require different interpretations. If those interpretations remain invisible, they eventually affect decisions, delivery, and trust.
Active listening is more than staying quiet
Authentic active listening requires attention not only to what is being said, but also to the meaning behind it. It means listening to:
content,
emotions,
tone,
body language,
hesitation,
and what may remain unsaid.
Rogers and Farson described active listening as a way of creating an environment in which people can communicate more openly and be better understood.
In multicultural teams, that matters because the listener cannot safely assume that their own interpretation is the obvious one. The goal is not to analyse every sentence.
The goal is to become curious enough to check. Instead of immediately evaluating:
“That does not make sense.” Try: “Can you tell me what concerns you most about this?” Instead of: “Okay, so everybody agrees.” Try: “I’d like to hear how each of you understands the decision.” Instead of filling every silence, give people a few seconds to think. Silence is not always a communication failure. Sometimes it is where thinking happens.
Three practices you can try in your next meeting
Active listening does not require a large communication programme. Small behavioural changes can already improve clarity.
1. Ask for paraphrasing, not confirmation
Instead of: “Is everything clear?” ask: “How would you summarise what we just agreed?” This is not a test. It is a way to discover whether several interpretations are already forming.
2. Separate understanding from evaluation
Teams often jump directly from listening to reacting. Try temporarily separating the two. First ask: “What do you mean?” “What makes this difficult?” “What are you seeing that I might not be seeing?” Only once the meaning is clear should the team move into evaluation or solution mode.
This is particularly important when people have different levels of seniority or different communication styles.
3. Close important conversations with explicit meaning
At the end of an important discussion, ask three simple questions:
What have we decided?
Who is doing what?
What remains unclear?
This may feel obvious. That is exactly why teams often skip it.
What leaders and facilitators often get wrong
One of the most common assumptions is: “We all speak English, so communication should be fine.” But a shared working language does not automatically create shared meaning.
Another assumption is that better communication means encouraging people to speak more. Sometimes the opposite is needed.
Teams may need:
fewer interruptions,
more space to think,
clearer questions,
slower decision-making at critical moments,
and explicit checks of interpretation.
It is also worth observing the dynamics of the conversation itself. Who is consistently speaking first? Who rarely challenges an idea? Who gets interrupted? Whose communication style is treated as the default? Who says little during the meeting but raises concerns afterwards? These are not small details. They can tell us where important information is being lost.
Good communication does not mean making everybody communicate in the same way. It means creating conditions in which differences do not prevent shared understanding.
Active listening and psychological safety
When people feel that their perspective is genuinely heard, they are more likely to speak up about uncertainty, disagreement, or potential risks. In multicultural teams, this is especially important because expressing doubt or challenging a decision can already feel more demanding when working in a non-native language or unfamiliar communication culture.
Active listening lowers that barrier. It sends a simple signal: understanding matters more than perfect wording. Someone does not need to formulate a flawless argument before raising a concern. They can say:
“I’m not sure, but something here worries me.”
“I may have understood this differently.”
“Can we go back for a moment?”
“I need a little more time to think.”
Those small moments matter.
They make it easier to surface weak signals before they become delivery problems, conflicts, or expensive rework. Over time, this strengthens trust. Not because everyone agrees more often, but because people become more confident that disagreement, uncertainty and different perspectives can be expressed without being immediately dismissed or misinterpreted.
Start with observation, not a communication framework
When communication starts to break down, the tempting response is to introduce a new model, workshop, or set of rules. Sometimes that helps. But a framework should not be the starting point. The starting point should be observation.
Where is meaning actually getting lost? Is it happening during meetings? During handovers? Between business and technology? When decisions move from one team to another? When new people join? When someone needs to disagree with a more senior colleague?
Different symptoms require different responses. A team that struggles because decisions are vague does not necessarily need the same intervention as a team in which people are afraid to challenge one another.
A team with onboarding problems does not necessarily need the same solution as a team working across several languages and time zones. Before designing a solution, understand the context.
Better communication is not about making everyone communicate the same way
The aim is not to remove cultural differences. It is not to teach one “correct” communication style. And it is certainly not to introduce another communication framework simply because a team is international.
The goal is to create enough curiosity, safety, and structure to notice where meaning gets lost - and to make it easier to check our assumptions before they become problems. Sometimes the issue will be language. Sometimes it will be unclear decision-making. Sometimes it will be hierarchy, meeting dynamics, onboarding, specialist terminology, or simply the fact that nobody has stopped to ask: “Do we actually mean the same thing?” That is where I prefer to start. Not with a ready-made framework, but with observation.
Where are misunderstandings appearing? When do people stop asking questions? Which conversations repeatedly create rework? Where does a decision become less clear as it moves through the organisation? What happens when someone sees a problem but is not yet able to articulate it perfectly?
Only then does it make sense to design practices that fit the actual team. Because in complex environments, better communication rarely comes from speaking more. It comes from understanding better.
References
Rogers, C. R., & Farson, R. E. (1987). Active Listening. In R. G. Newman, M. A. Danziger, & M. Cohen (Eds.), Communicating in Business Today. DC Heath & Company.
Bauer, C., & Figl, K. (2008). Active listening in written online communication — a case study in a course on soft skills for computer scientists. In 2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference.
Kubota, S., Mishima, N., & Nagata, S. (2004). A study of the effects of active listening on listening attitudes of middle managers. Journal of Occupational Health, 46(1), 60–67.
Zając, J. (2013). Specyficzna komunikacja multikulturowa i multilingwalna w korporacjach globalnych. Wydawnictwo Naukowe UW.
O’Bryan, A. (2022). How to Practice Active Listening: 16 Examples & Techniques.