The Germans are often derided for their lack of humour, but this national characteristic has furnished the world with some hilarious situations. And not just in Fawlty Towers.

Take, for example, the brouhaha stirred up by the straight-faced comments of SAP chief Henning Kagermann, when interviewed by German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche last April.

Kagermann was asked if he'd hang up on Oracle chief Larry Ellison if Ellison called to talk about a takeover. While a typical US chief in this position might quip that all of us suffer the odd crank call, Kagermann deployed his precision-engineered straight bat. "Why should I hang up?" he replied (in German). "I would listen to him. Independence is not an end in itself. But some combinations are harder to imagine than others."

Unfortunately for Kagermann, US reporters found the tie-up all too easy to imagine and - fuelled by knowledge that a Microsoft takeover of SAP had been discussed - took the German chief at his literal word. Articles like Forbes' "SAP Chief Is Open To Merger With Ellison's Oracle" were soon on the wires as SAP's spin merchants flew into damage-control mode.

It works the other way around too, when US execs quip within earshot of literal-minded German reporters. It happened to Bill Gates last summer, when he was asked if Nintendo would make an attractive target. Again the vector was WirtschaftsWoche. An article on its web site, headlined "Bill Gates: Interest in Nintendo Takeover", quoted Gates as saying, "If Hiroshi Yamauchi calls, he'll get me on the line right away." Yamauchi is Nintendo's largest shareholder. And again PR staff scrambled to correct a misleading impression.

Even in isolation, Gates's words look more like a throwaway remark than an invitation to tender. In context, the cross-cultural misunderstanding is clearer still. Gates was answering questions during a cocktail reception after a financial analysts' meeting. Not exactly a Paxman-style grilling or press conference, then.

There's a wider context, of course. While the communication gap is at its most obvious between nations, there are other kinds of cultural schisms. Within business, IT staff are likely to have a different outlook to their colleagues in sales, finance, or business management.

The chances are that you will not see eye to eye with senior colleagues on a number of levels, due to a lack of shared experience, different assumptions, and divergent ideas about what constitutes effective communication. Most of these interface incompatibilities are easily corrected with a bit of mental middleware, but they can pose a barrier to career progress.

After all, most IT staff arrive at their career choice through an innate ability to deal with technology. Most business chiefs arrive at their post by another route that will seldom necessitate the ability to think 100 percent logically.

Ambitious IT staff who want to get on must bridge the gap themselves. A good place to start is by reading - or forcing down - the business books you'll spot on the shelves of your CEO's office.

In short, if you want to win - unlike the Germans - you must learn to think like your enemy.

I may have mentioned the war once, but I think I got away with it.