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Inter Cultural Management Associates (ICM)
presents :
" Culture Bridging (for International performance)
"
By Irene Rodgers
The challenge of Cultural differences
Too many mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures do not
meet the hopes placed in them. When two companies "marry",
they do it for well thought-through strategic reasons.
They hope to develop a shared mission and way of doing
things to which the management will feel committed. During
the due diligence phase, experts of all sorts point out
the issues and potential pitfalls. The decision is made
in an informed context. And yet, there are failures.
According to Business International, the two principal
causes of failure are poor communications and inability
to manage cultural differences. Cultural differences can
deal a rude blow to corporate alignment. They can slow
or even stop decision-making; they inhibit management
consistency and block information flow. The uncertainty
caused by the nex shareholder structure triggers a much
higher need for face-to-face communication across hierarchical
levels. And yet, management teams working overtime throughout
the integration process to get the job done, rarely give
managing cultural differences and communications the importance
they merit.
These integration managers need to find innovative alternatives
to their habitual, mono-cultural approaches to achieving
results. For example, how to:
motivate an anxious workforce that fears downsizing
and shut-downs and probably doesn't fully understand what
is now expected of them;
build trust and relationships, including in environments
where attitudes to work, human rights, environment, and
ethics, are very different from their own personal values;
implement processes and deliver results that meet the
new shareholder expectations at the same time as they
take existing cultural realities into account.
And yet,
cultural awareness is not a pre-requisite for international
senior management positions and cross-cultural sensitivity
is less likely to develop in the mono-cultural contexts
of most management teams. Many leaders lack the attitudes,
skills, and behaviors that are needed to deal successfully
with culturally diverse stakeholders.
The challenge of
Culture
A first step towards acquiring these skills is to gain
better understanding of culture generally. Three points
are worth noting:
1. We're all collectively programmed
Geert Hofstede's definition of culture: "The collective
programming of the mind that distinguishes one group from
another", tells us that we are all collectively programmed.
Thus, each of us wears "cultural glasses" that
condition how we view the world:
what we accept, and what we reject,
what we consider as right and what we consider as wrong,
what we call " normal " and what is outside
those norms, etc.
This affects daily managerial interactions, and determines
the way in which managers set objectives, give feed-back,
run meetings, make decisions, hire and promote staff and
delegate. Since the cultural program is likely to be different
in a different cultural context, managers are likely to
run into misunderstandings, resistance and even hostility
if they try to implement their "normal" way
of doing things in a different cultural context. This
is when trust begins to go down and so do results.
2. It's also about "me"
Our own cultural programming is so tied to our sense of
identity that it inevitably triggers negative reactions
in us when people behave according to another "program."
As an example, let's look at the following three quotes
picked up during the same international meeting:
An Italian participant, talking about a German colleague
at the meeting says :
" The Germans care more about the agenda than about
the subject under discussion. "
A German participant, talking about a British colleague
at the meeting says :
" I can't understand why the British are always joking
even when the matter is very serious. "
And a British participant, talking about an Italian
colleague at the meeting says :
" "Italians never stop talking, and they always give me the impression
they're fighting. "
There is nothing very " diversity-friendly "
about these comments but the more interesting issue to consider is : Do they tell
us more about the person described, or more about the speaker, or more about the
interaction between the two? Another truism about inter-cultural situations is
that what matters are the interaction patterns between the specific cultures involved,
not the characteristics of any one culture in isolation.
3. Everything isn't important everywhere
The same thing holds when managers try to work in teams,
build trust, or make decisions across borders. Different
cultures handle the same issues in very different ways,
and what appears legitimate in one culture is not at all
acceptable in another. The clues in one culture may mean
something very different in another. Managers who proceed
from their own cultural vantage point alone are therefore
likely to make costly mistakes.
Consider these examples:
Imagine a Franco-British j-v in a high tech sector.
Bi-cultural teams of engineers are working on new product
development. All team members want an outstanding product.
But the British engineers integrate market and commercial
considerations much earlier on in the product development
process than the French do. They prefer to focus on technical
considerations at the outset. The arguments continue,
each convinced the other is not being professional. This
is an " either-or " mode, where neither party
is able to acknowledge the legitimacy of the others' position.
This team could not integrate diversity and did not produce
a product that was both technically outstanding and eminently
competitive. It should come as no surprise that this alliance
did not last.
Imagine now a Canadian petroleum engineer who moves
out to Saudi Arabia. As protocol requires, he is invited
to meet with Minister of Energy to review projects. He
reviews all the files and prepares for the meeting. Fortunately,
this engineer has been briefed on the importance of building
trust. He spends two hours talking with the Minister and
resisting the temptation to pull out his file. They talk
about holidays in the desert. The files remain closed.
After two hours, the Minister gets up, shakes his hand
and says, " Thank you, I'm sure we'll have no difficulties
doing business together ". Despite his anxiety, this
engineer was able to engage in diversity-friendly behavior
and guarantee the on-going level of business for his organization.
Finally, imagine a Franco-German joint venture. The
French marketing manager and her team is making a proposal
to the management team about a new advertising campaign.
After some discussion, she says, "I think this is
the right approach." The French team members go off
and begin implementing the plan: a decision has been made.
Their German colleagues do nothing. They heard no decision
being made. Neither will be aware of the misunderstanding
until time and resources have been allocated in two different
ways, and the resulting distrust is likely to hamper this
team unless they can take distance and learn to Culture
Bridge.
The challenge of Culture Bridging (c)
In working with multicultural teams to help them be more
effective together, we have identified a something we
call Culture Bridging(, which we define as: "the
ability of people and organizations of different cultures
to build effective, rewarding relationships and high performance
across borders." Managers who are looking for high
performance in different parts of the world need to master
Culture Bridging (c).
It is difficult to isolate skills that are relevant only
to global, cross-cultural business interactions, since
to a degree, interacting across borders is an extension
of interacting within borders. But it is possible to identify
those that are particularly relevant in the cross-border
context. But they can be learned, so managers can become
more aware of the issues and improve the effectiveness
of their behavior accordingly.
1. Focus on process and adapt it when necessary
Don't only focus on content--that is, what needs to
be done--but pay a great deal of attention to the process--that
is, how you're going to do it.
Because norms and ground-rules are not shared across
boundaries they need to be made explicit to be sure everyone
understands the same thing.
Coaching on process takes time and needs to be planned
for.
Be open to adapting your process to the new cultural
context.
2. Be actively observant and seek increased clarity
Develop observation skills to pick up details you would
otherwise not notice
Watch for non-verbal cues. The strongest message comes
from non-verbal communication. Who sits next to whom;
who speaks and when will tell you more about who has power
and responsibility than words alone.
Develop and use active listening skills, in particular
summarizing, reformulating and clarifying. You cannot
overuse these.
3. Understand the impact of your own cultural
"baggage"
Be sure you make your own implicit norms, values, and
attitudes explicit to others.
Monitor your own negative feelings and ask yourself
if you are reacting out of a stereotype.
Understand your own personal limits for cultural adaptation
and be prepared to articulate and act on these.
4. Go for the meaning behind the signs
Pursue curiosity about the other culture, history, and
politics openness to other ways of doing things;
Seek out systemic explanations that give meaning to
individual cultural contexts and to behaviors
5. Actively build trust
Be sensitive to the pace, rhythm and time management
of others
Listen to the "music " behind the words, pace
and rhythms of speech and behavior.
Give relationship-building the time it needs as a step
to developing open, transparent interactions.
Communicate, communicate, communicate, face-to-face.
These Culture Bridging (c) skills are
obvious and make good common sense. But they are generally disregarded and in
any case are unexpectedly difficult to implement. The benefits are that they will
allow you to monitor and review interactions, avoid stereotyping, build effective
cross-border relationships and reduce cross-cultural misunderstandings. This is
the way to draw on the innovative potential of cultural diversity, gain the commitment
of your people and create a high performance organization.
Irene RODGERS is a partner with Inter
Cultural Management Associates (ICM).
ICM is a Paris-based consultancy which since
1983 has been helping organizations manage change successfully in an international
context.
Inter Cultural Management Associates
2, rue de l'Eglise - 92200 Neuilly sur Seine
icm@icmassociates.com
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