Don't Use Idioms

The American at the podium was speaking to a group of businessmen and women in Delhi when he said, “To be successful in business one must serve with excellence 24/7.”

I glanced around the room and looked at the puzzled faces of the audience as the guest speaker spewed out more idioms.

“Don’t lose your cool.”

“That’s a bunch of baloney.”

“Put the cherry on the top.”

In communicating cross-culturally one of the cardinal rules is don’t use idioms. I understand what it means to serve with excellence at all times, but the shops here don’t operate all night and every day, so the audience didn’t understand the metaphor. It’s true that a person should treat their customers with respect and without losing their temper, but I’m pretty sure many of the crowd did not get it when the speaker lost his cool and produced an American idiom. Should we put the cherry on top of the baloney, and by the way, what is baloney anyway? In a vegeterian country processed meat is non-existent. Though the audience was educated and international, I wondered how much of the message got lost in the idioms?

Communicating cross-culturally takes effort. You can be an expert in your field and lose your audience by turning a phrase that is meaningless to your audience. When speaking to the masses, keep in mind those who are listening. Don’t use idioms.