Global Managers' Moments of Truth

Many years ago, while consulting with the Customer Service unit of a consumer products company, I came across a book by Jan Carlzon, then president of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), called “Moments of Truth.”  This phrase, which has now entered the business vocabulary, described the contact between a customer and a company representative that can profoundly impact the customer’s impression of the product and/or the company.  In the book, this is how Carlzon described it:

“Last year, each of our 10 million customers came in contact with approximately five SAS employees, and this contact lasted an average of 15 seconds at a time.  Thus, SAS is ‘created’ 50 million times a year, 15 seconds at a time.  These 15 million ‘moments of truth’ are the moments that ultimately determine whether SAS will succeed or fail as a company.  They are the moments when we must prove to our customers that SAS is their best alternative.”       

Those of us working globally have many interactions with different stakeholders coming from different cultures.  They include customers, vendors, subordinates, bosses, and colleagues in the various places where we do business.  Some of these interactions could certainly be described as “moments of truth,” when the outcomes of these interactions can lead to a more positive path and ultimately a productive and effective relationship – or its opposite.

I’ve identified nine such sets of interactions or “hot spots” where your cultural intelligence will be put to the test.  Your ability to handle these interactions effectively will help you to survive and thrive as a global leader. 

Here’s the list.  These are not sequential, although clearly the first two can make or break a potential relationship you are trying to establish.  Some of these interactions are one-on-one, others are with a group.  The specific tactics you use will also depend on the characteristics of the person or group you are interacting with; for example, greeting a male senior executive in Japan will be different than greeting a young female professional.

 

1.     Greeting someone

2.     Establishing rapport

3.     Leading a team

4.     Conducting a meeting/participating in a meeting

5.     Providing instructions or guidance; coaching and teaching

6.     Resolving disagreements and conflicts

7.     Negotiating

8.     Motivating others

9.     Giving and receiving feedback

For example, Lucy Kellaway, the acerbic columnist of the Financial Times, wrote a column recently about the challenges of greeting people from different cultures.  She was giving a talk primarily to Asian women at a conference in Singapore and she was at a loss as to how to greet the various attendees at the conference:

“In the old days, the principle was when-in-Rome. So when actually in Rome you kissed on both cheeks anyone you knew reasonably well. In Holland, it was three cheeks. In Russia you might expect a crushing bear hug, in Japan a nod and in India hands clasped and a namaste. In the US and Germany you could look forward to a bonecrusher of a handshake, in the Middle East something more like a limp fish.

“Global business has made matters more complicated. We no longer know whose culture trumps whose. Is it the host country’s? Is it the majority in the room? As no one seems to know, what tends to happen is a general confusing, embarrassing free-for-all. We live in a permanent state of hello hell.”

She then adds:

“Now an even more unwelcome form of greeting has arrived: the hug. This is how young Anglo-Saxons routinely greet each other outside work, but now they have started doing it in the office too. The hug represents far too much touching for my liking, but is also devilishly hard to get right: there is the full hug, the side hug, and the hug accompanied by a slap on the back.

“In my other job as a non-executive director, hello hell has got so bad that I find myself dreading the start of every meeting. Diversity might be a good thing on a board, but diversity of greeting is deplorable. My European colleagues are confident and enthusiastic kissers, as is one of the British women non-execs, while various of my male colleagues seem to dislike it as much as I do. Which means I often end up kissing some of the directors but not others – which seems very wrong indeed.”

Rather tongue-in-cheek (I think), she proposes a Global Greetings Protocol, where the only permissible greeting in a business setting would be a handshake.  If it were only that simple. 

Given the research on our subconscious biases and first impressions, thinking through your approach to greeting people from other cultures is, I believe, enormously important, and deserves a great deal of thought on your part on how to approach and greet someone from another culture.

Greeting someone, of course, is just one of the key interaction hot spots (see above) that can make or break your effectiveness as a global leader.  I have three pieces of advice on how you can benefit from these interactions.  First, understand what your “default mode” is in each of these situations.  Most of us have a preferred way of approaching certain interpersonal situations based on our experiences and our own natural inclinations.  Keep in mind that your preferred way may also be influenced by cultural assumptions and norms.  For example, Americans and Germans like to resolve conflicts by being very direct and raising issues in a straightforward way – to “cut to the chase,” as the expression goes.  So what’s your typical modus operandi when you’re trying to resolve a conflict or disagreement? You might be thinking, it depends on who the person is.  Yes, of course, and that is a reasonable response; nonetheless, you are likely to have a preferred approach, one that you use other things being equal. 

Second, consider the cultural background of the person or group you will interact with.  As mentioned above, most of us will recognize that we will need to adjust our approach depending on the specific characteristics of the person or group we are interacting with (e.g., their age, gender, position in the organization, educational level).  What I am suggesting is that you include culture as another dimension to consider.  For example, Hannah is a manager of a global IT consulting company who was recently appointed to lead a team of Indian consultants in Bangalore.  Hannah has a reputation as a good leader who likes to empower and delegate.  But aware of the cultural expectations of her Indian staff, Hannah has had to adjust her style to make sure that she is more directive and explicit about her communication, at least initially.

Third, adjust your approach so that it is culturally appropriate for that person or group.  What this means is that you will have to develop a repertoire of approaches, and not always rely on your default mode, difficult as that may be at times.  We naturally gravitate to behaviors that either come naturally to us or that we have been used to because we have been doing it for a long time.  The challenge for many global leaders is not only to stop and think about other cultures, but also to go into manual mode and use those behaviors that are most appropriate for that culture.  For example, this may mean that you don’t always look a person directly in the eye in a culture where doing this with very senior executives may not be considered appropriate.

This also means that you may have to practice some new behaviors and, as Molinsky so eloquently describes in his book Global Dexterity, expand your personal comfort zone.  It’s not always easy to do this, but you can make a conscious effort by practicing some new behaviors incrementally. 

For example, Feng was a Chinese student in my class who was not used to speaking up in the classroom.  In China, students are not expected to raise hands, nor are class discussions encouraged.  As a result, when she signed up for her MBA classes, she felt overwhelmed and intimidated.  In advising her, we worked out a goal of being a more active participant in the class.  She started out by writing down a question beforehand that she would ask the professor.  So when, towards the end of a lecture, the professor would ask if there were any questions, she would raise her hand and ask a question.  Eventually, as she became more comfortable in asking questions, she then wrote down a couple of points she wanted to make about whatever was being discussed that day, and raised her hand to offer her opinion when her professor asked for comments.  By the end of the semester, she was a more active participant although she still cannot just “jump in” to a discussion – at least not yet.

Carlzon, J.  (1989).  Moments of Truth.  New York:  HarperBusiness.

Kellaway, L.  Do we hug?  Kiss?  Shake hands?  Bow?  Financial Times, September 22, 2013.

Molinsky, A.  (2013).  Global Dexterity.  Boston:  Harvard Business Review Press.

Slicing the Culture Pie

In her book “Overwhelmed” (on the pressures of work-life balance, among other topics), Brigit Schulte describes her trip to Denmark and her interviews with working couples there.  Here’s what she writes about work life in that country:

“Danes don’t live to work.  Danes work hard … but they work in a very focused way.  Lunch is usually no more than half an hour …  Most Danes work the standard thirty-seven hours a week.  Long hours are outlawed for most workers under the European Union’s Working Time Directive … no European is allowed to work more than forty-eight hours a week … Workplaces tend to be flat, without a lot of layers of management … Most Danes don’t feel obligated to check their smartphones and e-mail after hours … people who put in long hours and constantly check e-mail after hours are seen not as ideal worker warriors, as in America, but as inefficient … “

And yet, Schulte points out, “The Danish economy is one of the most competitive in the world, just a few rungs below the United States.  And it’s one of the most productive, ranking just behind the United States … Denmark has a low unemployment rate and one of the highest standards of living in the world.  It has one of the smallest gaps between rich and poor of any country on earth … and only 6 percent of Danes find it difficult or very difficult to live on their current income, compared to 21 percent of Americans …”.

Those of us who have worked in several countries are fully aware of the differences in workplace cultures from country to country.  And scholars from Hofstede to Trompenaars have constructed outstanding frameworks to help us understand and explain variations in these cultures.  In applying some of these frameworks over the years, I have found them helpful to some extent.  It is important to have a common vocabulary to be able to compare different cultural values, especially those relevant to the workplace.  In personality research, there is general agreement on a few selected taxonomies like the Big Five (McCrae and Costa) that most mainstream psychologists use to describe people’s personalities.

I don’t believe we are at a similar point with regard to describing different workplace cultures across countries.  There has been outstanding research in this area, pioneered by Hofstede; his dimensions have scores by which we can compare different countries.  Although his methodology has been criticized, his analysis seems to make a lot of sense to many managers and students.  There has also been considerable research on organizational cultures (Cameron and Quinn, Denison and Mishra), with a few of these dimensions (e.g., adaptability, hierarchy) overlapping with those of Hofstede et al. 

In my experience and interviews with managers globally over the years, I have drawn from these past scholars, as well as the more recent work by Lane et al. to offer a framework that is still a work in progress, but I believe is useful to managers working globally. It can be easily remembered with the acronym FASTAIDE, which stands for the first letters of each of the eight dimensions of workplace culture.  The idea here is that there is a set of dimensions by which to compare different countries’ cultures as they relate to workplace behaviors. 

1.     Formality – How formal should I be? At the one extreme are cultures where people are very informal, not only in terms of their interactions with one another but also in terms of how decisions get made, their appearance and the physical environment.  In the workplace, people refer to each other, and even senior executives, by their first names.  Dress is typically casual, and there are not a lot of rituals involved in meetings and business discussions.  At the other extreme are cultures that are quite formal, from attire to the way people address each other to the way meetings are conducted.  Titles are important, and offices are designed to reflect this.  In general, countries like Australia and the Netherlands tend to have informal cultures, while countries like France and Russia tend to have more formal workplace cultures.

2.     Authoritarianism – How directive should I be?  Some cultures such as France and Mexico expect bosses to give orders and run a command-and-control type of organization, while other cultures such as Israel expect their bosses to be more participative, asking for input from others and valuing a more bottom-up approach. 

3.     Structure – How much detail should I provide; how explicit should I be?  In some cultures such as Greece and Uruguay, employees prefer to have things spelled out in order to reduce any ambiguity.  For example, job descriptions are essential, and employees have handbooks that describe the company’s procedures in detail.  In other cultures such as Sweden, employees have a higher tolerance for ambiguity.  Hofstede refers to this as uncertainty avoidance.

4.     Time Orientation – How concerned should I be about time commitments?  Some cultures such as Switzerland and Germany are very strict on time, whether it’s when meetings start and end, or on deadlines for projects.  Hall describes this as linear or monochromic time.  Other cultures such as Central and South American countries are more fluid and flexible about time.  Promptness and following a schedule are not as important as focusing on relationships.  So schedules are not adhered to strictly and interruptions are welcome.  Hall refers to this as flexible or polychromic time. 

5.     Aggressive – How aggressively should I behave?  There is a lot of evidence of differences in aggressiveness across cultures.  And some would vigorously defend promoting aggressiveness in the workplace, suggesting that doing so improves productivity and profitability.  In countries like South Korea, it is not uncommon to have shouting matches among co-workers.  There is a tendency towards pushiness, an in-your-face mindset.  In other cultures like Canada, workers can still be competitive but will not be as confrontational.

6.     Individualism – How much should I focus on individual needs and goals versus group needs and goals?  In some cultures, such as the U.S.A. and Australia, the emphasis is on “I” and self-reliance.  These cultures value individual over group identity, and individual rights are very important.  Managers hold individuals personally accountable.  In other cultures, such as China and some Latin American countries, the emphasis is on a larger entity, such as the group, organization or tribe.  The good of the group often trumps the individual rights of individuals.   

7.     Directness – How straightforward should I be?  Some cultures such as Australia and the U.S. encourage managers to get straight to the point.  In other cultures such as some East African countries, the message is more subtle and indirect. What is implied is more important than what is actually stated.  People in these cultures place a lot of emphasis on nonverbal communication.  This is similar to Hall’s concept of high and low context cultures. 

8.     Expressiveness – How much should I show my emotions and be transparent?  In countries like South Korea, this is well accepted in the work place, while in countries like Russia and Hungary, you almost have to wear a poker face, or at least not reveal what they are really feeling.

I want to make three points about this framework.  First, each of these is on a continuum and while countries can be arrayed along this continuum, it is important to consider the relative standing of countries on each dimension rather than their absolute position.  Second, like Hofstede, these dimensions tend to be relatively independent of each other, although there may be clusters.  For example, informal cultures also tend to be non-authoritarian cultures.  Third, these are average or central tendencies.  It does not mean that everyone in that culture behaves in accordance with these dimensions.  For example, you may meet a Chinese executive in Beijing who might be expected to behave a certain way based on your categorization of Chinese work place culture.  Yet you may discover that this Chinese executive actually went to college in America, worked for a Swiss company in Lucerne, and got his MBA at Insead.  She would not be expected to fit the typical profile.

Cameron, K. and Quinn, T.  (1999).  Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture.  Reading, MA:  Addison-Wesley.

Denison, D., and Mishra, A.  (1995).  Toward a Theory of Organizational Culture and Effectiveness.  Organization Science, 6, 2, 204-223.

 

Hofstede, G.  Culture’s Consequences (second edition).  (2001).  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage Publications.

Lane, H. et al.  International Management Behavior (sixth edition).  (2009).  United Kingdom:  Wiley.

McCrae, R. and Costa, P.  (1987).  Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instrument and observers.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 81-90.

Schulte, B.  Overwhelmed.  (2014).  New York:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Trompenaars, H.  Riding the Waves of Culture:  Understanding Cultural Diversity.  (1993).  London:  Economist Books.

Mental Models of Cultural Adaptation

Kanji Nagano was a Japanese manager for a global financial services company in Tokyo.  Although well educated, having gone to one of Japan’s exclusive universities, he had never been out of the country and had always worked for Japanese companies.  He showed strong leadership qualities even when he was in school, where he was elected to many leadership positions.  In his fifteen years with different Japanese companies, his superiors recognized his leadership abilities by promoting him to bigger and bigger jobs. 

When he joined a German-based financial services company in Tokyo, Nagano-san inherited a team of 15 direct reports.  He quickly established rapport with his team by holding frequent group meetings, and built strong interpersonal relationships with his team members.  When he learned that he was being sent to Germany for a six-month assignment, Nagano-san was a bit apprehensive at first.  He knew that the German team he was to lead would have different expectations.  Yet he was not quite sure whether to change, or how to change, his leadership style.  Nagano-san’s leadership in Germany was not a success.  The German team members who reported to him felt that he wasted too much time trying to get consensus.  They felt frustrated at the way he ran meetings, where he expected everyone to agree to his decisions. 

By contrast, Jack Ellis was a marketing manager for a global consumer products company who was sent to the Philippines for a two-year assignment.  Jack was born and raised in the East coast, and graduated from an Ivy League school, where he spent his junior year in Thailand.  Jack relished the opportunity to work overseas, and he quickly embraced the Philippine work culture.  Recognizing the more authoritarian style of leadership in the Philippines, Jack decided that he needed to adapt his leadership style so that he could become more effective in managing his team of Filipino subordinates.  At times, Jack felt uncomfortable at how directive he was becoming, but he felt that this was the price he had to pay in order to become an effective leader in this setting.  Jack started taking language lessons so he could understand and speak to his staff in their native language.  He even learned how to curse in Filipino, and some of his team members commented that he was more Filipino than some of the local bosses.  Jack felt at times that he was compromising his values (especially when he was confronted with situations where bribery was involved), but he rationalized it all by remembering that “when in Rome …”.

In my experience, many managers in in cross-cultural settings use one of these two mental models in leading people from different cultures.  The first mental model is based on the assumption that to change your style is to be inauthentic, to not be true to yourself.  This then leads many managers to insist that they should not change, regardless of whether or not their style is appropriate for a given culture. In some cases, such as Nagano-san’s, the leader may believe that he may have to change, but does not know how.  In either case, leaders tend to use the same leadership style they used in their home culture when they lead people in other cultures.

The second mental model is based on the assumption that leaders have to be “cultural chameleons.”  When in a different culture, some managers believe the most effective strategy is to adjust your behavior and your style to what is expected and appropriate in that culture.  In Jack’s case, he decided early on that he would do whatever it took to fit into the local culture, even if by doing so he may be going against some of his deeply held beliefs and values.

Neither mental model is effective for managers leading across cultures.  However, I have found that you can be yourself and be an effective cross-cultural leader at the same time.  Here are three pieces of advice for how you might reconcile these seemingly contradictory positions:

1.     Separate your values from your behavior.

2.     Learn and/or practice different behaviors through practice and coaching.

3.     Integrate cultural differences by considering different aspects of yourself.

Let’s take as a third example Emile, who was a fast rising star for a global pharmaceutical company that had a subsidiary in Canada.  He had an aptitude for science, and had a warm, appealing way of establishing rapport with people.  Starting as a sales rep in Montreal, where he delivered outstanding results year after year, he was eventually promoted to become the head of sales for the subsidiary.  Recognizing his potential, senior management recommended him for a position in the U.S. headquarters of the company to head a marketing team.  Once again, he shone in his role.  Emile showed many of the qualities of leadership admired within the company.  He not only believed passionately in the mission of the company, he also had outstanding communication skills (even though as a French-Canadian, he did not learn to speak English until he was in his teens) and consistently exceeded objectives.  He had a reputation for building high-performing teams, and his 360-degree feedback results showed that Emile was a leader who involved and empowered his team, was a good listener, treated others with respect, maintained high standards, and had integrity.

For his next assignment Emile was sent to Mexico to head the company’s subsidiary there.  Even though Emile did not speak any Spanish, senior management felt that Emile was a good choice since the subsidiary needed an effective leader who would be able to build on the subsidiary’s success and introduce some needed changes.  It was an organizational situation that Michael Watkins describes as “realignment,” where a previously successful organization is now faced with some new challenges.  The Mexican subsidiary was certainly not a start-up, nor was it a turnaround situation.

Having established success using his participative, empowering style, Emile went down to Mexico excited at building his new management team, all of whom were Mexicans who had been with the company for many years.  Although he had done his homework on the business issues facing the subsidiary, Emile had not really put it much thought to how he would do things differently in Mexico.  After all, he had been successful in Canada and in the U.S. with a particular leadership style that he believed in strongly.  Why should he change?  Although he did not have an MBA, Emile was an avid reader and learner, and he realized that the command-and-control style of management was an antiquated way of leading people.

Emile’s first month in his new role was a near disaster.  As he told me years later, the Mexicans in his team were used to being ordered by their “jefe.”  They expected him to tell them what to do and to follow orders.  After all, he was the “hot shot” from headquarters who was selected to make the subsidiary successful.  Where were his ideas?  Why was he asking them what they thought?  Didn’t he have the answers already?  To the Mexicans, Emile seemed indecisive and unsure.

Fortunately, Emile had the emotional intelligence to recover quickly.  He realized that Mexican work culture favors strong leaders who appear authoritarian.  Yet he also believed strongly in his leadership values.  So how did he reconcile these conflicting practices?  Emile knew he could not make changes overnight. 

Using the three suggestions above, here’s what Emile did.  First, he learned how to behave differently while still believing in the value of participation and empowerment.  During team meetings, he made sure he was in control of the agenda at all times and ran a very tight ship.  He started off the meeting by reviewing the decisions from the last session and by providing his team with information and updates from corporate.  This was his way of conveying that he was in charge and that he had access to senior management.  He ran the meeting but he also made it a point to make sure he invited participation.  While this may have been a subtle shift, it made an impression on his Mexican team.  In short, he changed some of his behaviors while still maintaining his values.

Second, Emile began to learn and practice some different and/or rarely used behaviors.  For example, rather than going to his subordinates’ offices to visit and discuss issues with them, he had them go to his office.  While this may seem like a small gesture, it was symbolic and conveyed to his subordinates that he was indeed the boss.  He began to seek advice from an American executive he met at a business forum in Mexico City.  The American had been in Mexico for over twenty years, and helped Emile gain a different perspective on managing in that culture.

Third, Emile surfaced aspects of himself and his behavior that tapped into his more authoritarian self.  For example, in previous assignments in Canada and the U.S. where he had to push his team against tight deadlines, he had to adopt a very tough, no-nonsense approach so the project could be complete on time and on schedule.  So he drew on these parts of himself when managing his Mexico team.  These were behaviors that were already part of his repertoire but seldom used.

Over time, as the Mexican team began to develop trust and respect for Emile as the boss, he began to shift his leadership towards a more participative and empowering style.  He asked for their input before implementing new initiatives from corporate.  He encouraged them to take initiative on some of their key responsibilities.  Emile became an effective leader in the subsidiary who also gained the admiration of the locals.  After a successful four years, Emile was promoted to head the Latin American region for his company.

Watkins, M.  (2009).  Picking the right transition strategy.  Harvard Business Review (January), pp. 47-53.