Before your next cross-cultural assignment, I strongly recommend you read the journal articles and books by P. Christopher Earley. His research has focused on cultural intelligence, and he is considered a leading theorist. One article starts like this:

"You see them at international airports like Heathrow: posters advertising the global bank HSBC that show a grasshopper and the message:
‘USA - Pest.
China - Pet
Northern Thailand - Appetizer' “
(Earley, et al, 2004)

Being culturally intelligent means that you recognize what is similar about the culture of those around you, and what is different. It is more than simply learning customs. Someone working in China has studied the country and its customs and recognizes that it is common practice to name your children based on birth order. A person who is culuturally intelligent knows to drain his glass after a toast, and demonstrates that behavior at the appropriate time.

Cultural intelligence involves developing cognitive and metacognitive learning to utilize all of your senses to register the ways the people in front of you interact. I am a Sicilian who grew up in Boston. I lived in South Carolina for 13 years, and now live in Las Vegas. Cultural intelligence isn't just an international concept - it is regionalized in the good old USA. If you don't believe me, trying being a good Sicilian girl trying to fit in with debutantes in the Deep South.

Earley and his research team have developed an instrument that helps to determine how culturally intelligent one is, and the book is an easy read with great examples. One story is of an American living in Arizona at the border, running a company in Mexico. For weeks he kept inviting his line managers to lunch to thank them for their work. Finally, they both came, but quit their jobs on Monday. When the American got one of them to speak with him weeks later, he explained that he wanted to thank them for their hard work and thought that by showing he values their work that the employees would in turn gain new respect for them. He was dead wrong. His invitation was considered completely inappropriate in that culture. The two line managers were so ashamed that they felt they had to quit their jobs.

If you are working with other cultures, even if it is within your own country, you should read Earley's articles in Harvard Business Review (Cultural Intelligence) and the Academy of Management Learning and Education (The Elusive Cultural Chameleon: Cultural Intelligence as a New Approach to Intercultural Training for the Global Manager). See also the related article "International Cultural Differences".

About the author:

Cheryl Seminara is a Business Strategist specialized in Marketing, Operations and Corporate Education. Her successful strategic planning background includes marketing, advertising, sales and professional development. She is launching a course that will combine in-person instructor led sessions with online courses. The program will teach small business leaders how to write and implement a successful strategic business plan. Click here to see her full profile in LinkedIn.

Parlez-vous le project management? A cross-cultural perspective and local market understanding is always needed when delivering effective project management solutions. There are many cultural communication mistakes that have been made by well-intentioned global strategists who assumed similarity rather than difference.

In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” was presented as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.” Cisco had to re-think the design and size of its router products to suit compact Japanese offices. Nike recently offended Chinese customers when its ad campaign featured LeBron James trouncing animated dragons on the basketball court. And Microsoft created a Geo-political Product Strategy (GPS) team to avoid the number of management mistakes that resulted from a lack of cross-cultural knowledge.

Culture plays a pervasive role in identifying, recognizing, and understanding local product and customer needs. Building a consistent global image through local communication strategies can pose a challenge for corporate and country management teams. On one hand, a global communication strategy is needed to ensure consistency worldwide. On the other hand, localized communication is required to effectively connect with customers. The role of corporate is often to conceive and manage a global strategy through a specific style, tone, and image. Country management teams need to further refine this strategy to communicate value to local customers. Internal teams need to address culturally appropriate communication determined by language, terminology, design, color, style, format, and delivery.

For example, Starbucks is rapidly expanding around the world to accommodate global travelers and local coffee drinkers. However, local consumers aren't always that excited to see the green, white and black logo in their countries. After signing a lease to operate its store in the Forbidden City in Beijing China, Starbucks made its usual bold statement through its logo signage and familiar interior design. Locals protested and branded Starbucks a capitalist invader of this sacred place. Employing more discreet signage worked for some time, until new protests were led by Chinese news anchor Rui Chenggang who felt "Starbucks' presence undermined the Forbidden City's solemnity and trampled over Chinese culture." Thus, Starbucks was eventually forbidden to have its coffeehouse and closed its doors this summer. Hmm, it may have been named Forbidden City for a reason!

The US companies that are creating success around the world have learned to move from a US centric view to a local view. After failed attempts in trying to conquer the Chinese market, many US Internet companies have now realized the importance of partnering with local companies in order to manage local market dynamics. EBay has partnered with Tom Online, Yahoo purchased a stake in Alibaba.com, and Microsoft launched a joint venture with the Shanghai municipal government. This has created an opportunity to better understand the local customer base and particular preferences such as sights and sounds when navigating a site.

With the globalization of US products and services, there has also been an anti-globalization movement by local customers who are rejecting American style marketing. There has been so much concern over anti-American and anti-globalization sentiment that a group was formed (Business for Diplomatic Action) to improve the perception of American brands and US business overseas. The centralized global business approach driven from US headquarters by many hi-tech companies often reduces the subsidiaries authority and input on local customer needs. Feeling ignored or misrepresented, local customers may seek local competitors who can offer more customized products and services.

Since international sales is a growing priority, US companies are starting to pay attention to local market needs. A global business strategy that succeeds in avoiding local customer rejection needs to focus on localized products and marketing tools. A product needs to address local requirements for design features, packaging, and pricing among others. Marketing positioning and messaging needs to consider the language, tone, and imagery.

Instead of alienating international customers, partners, or colleagues, companies need to consider the importance of a global view with local input. In the words of my favorite Viking proverb, ‘make sure you seek out ways to be welcome wherever you go.’ In the next article, we’ll take a look at the role of planning in engaging teams and customers worldwide.

About the author:

Karina Jensen is an international management consultant, instructor and facilitator with nearly 20 years of experience in launching business and education initiatives across cultures. She is the founder and principal of Global Minds Network, a consulting firm that facilitates global market success through effective planning and execution solutions. Click here to see her full profile in LinkedIn.

You’ve developed the global project plan, polished the strategy, won approval from the sponsoring executive, and presented it with great fanfare to your worldwide team. As you wait for the accolades, the plan surprisingly draws mixed reviews from your stakeholders and team members around the world. Team Europe directly voices its discontent with the lack of local adaptability and elects to create its own game plan. Team Asia congratulates you on the new plan and quietly continues its own course for the project planning phase. What went wrong?

When there’s a lack of cross-cultural checks and system reviews, many project managers will start feeling the painful effects of a global backlash. This is often the result of a US-centric focus without local input and participation. Symptoms include the lack of a global vision, difficulties in communicating across cultures and functions, poor response from international team members, and increased delays in project timelines. According to the Global Minds Launch Survey, there are typically six warning signs or challenges that companies experience prior, during, or after a global rollout:

• Lack of effective international planning
• Loss of organizational mindshare across regions
• Inconsistent project management across cultures
• Lack of localized tools
• Delayed delivery worldwide
• Inadequate global and local response

When the cross-cultural intelligence factor is ignored, team performance and project results can suffer harmful consequences worldwide. Without an effective international roadmap and culturally appropriate tools, it becomes difficult to execute the global strategy. Frustration and anger then leads to a communication breakdown around the world. Global and local stakeholders no longer feel a strong connection to the project and become easily distracted by competing priorities.

Global project management requires the ability to build and nurture relationships based on trust, respect, and consideration around the globe. This requires local participation and input from the planning phase to the implementation phase. Engage every country team member by soliciting their input and feedback on local needs and requirements for the global project plan. Align regions through a project management process that offers a globally consistent structure yet local adaptability. Develop a communication strategy that ensures knowledge transfer across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. With early involvement and support from key stakeholders, you can ensure the successful rollout of a geo-centric plan that incorporates a multi-culturally diverse audience.

What’s your global readiness quotient? In the coming week, read the next article and get a cross-cultural check-up for evaluating your global project best practices and lessons learned. A bientot. Auf wiedersehen. Hasta luego. Sayonara.

About the author:

Karina Jensen is an international management consultant, instructor and facilitator with nearly 20 years of experience in launching business and education initiatives across cultures. She is the founder and principal of Global Minds Network, a consulting firm that facilitates global market success through effective planning and execution solutions. Click here to see her full profile in LinkedIn.

The ever-increasing globalization of business and the business workforce; and the growing awareness of cultural diversity create the need for a different type of organization, and specifically, a different type of project manager.  Culture is a critical influence on project success that must be examined, understood and continually re-visited.  Factors that affect decision-making such as ethics, country risk, and sensitivity to diversity need to be incorporated. 

The successful and effective project leader will be knowledgeable about cultural influences (e.g. negotiation, religion, dress, dining etiquette, etc.) on business in other cultures and will be able to appropriately identify differing attitudes about work, time, material possessions, and business relationships. As global project leaders we need:

·        To recognize and fully understand the cultural impacts on global project operations;

·        To give serious and careful thought on culture, its characteristics, its sensitivities, and ultimately a comprehensive approach to culture;

·        To study how cultural differences affect the project communication process, in context, in listening, speaking, in reading, and in writing;

·        To understand how global project management is reflected in inter-cultural negotiations (successes and failures), and in the complex challenges of creating worldwide strategic alliances;

·        To plan and cope with international change, particular those driven by technology;

·        To understand about managing and leveraging diversity in the global project culture;

·        To address the role of women in global business; to understand global barriers that hinder the advancement of women in business; to recognize global stereotypes; and to plan for what the future holds;

·        To develop project team members into global leaders through effective mentoring, leadership and training of organizational core competencies, leadership core competencies, interaction core competencies, and cultural core competencies; to develop global project managers that are sensitive to the broader implications of their actions and decisions;

·        To study regional parts of the world and the impact of history, political, geographical, technological advances, labor movements, and societal developments on specific cultures; 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Koger earned his PMP certification from the Project Management Institute in 2005. He is a member of PMI, the Central Arkansas Chapter of PMI and the Consulting SIG. Steve is an accomplished project manager and independent consultant specializing in project management, organizational management, and business development. See his profile on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/skoger and invite him to join your network.

 

'We need a certain amount of humility and a sense of humour to discover cultures other than our own; a readiness to enter a room in the dark and stumble over unfamiliar furniture until the pain in our shins reminds us where things are.’ (Trompenaars) 

There are many studies analysing and defining the challenges of cross-cultural management, the most referenced authors being Hofstede and Trompenaars.

Global project managers can consider these dimensions when assigning roles and responsibilities to team members from different country cultures. During the project execution activities, these differences are potential sources of conflict, but can also increase the level of creativity, bringing advantages to the project and reducing group thinking. You should evaluate the information provided in the other knowledge areas using the cross-cultural lenses provided by these dimensions, and form discussion groups to understand how the dimensions can affect your project, and how your project team members fit into the cultural patterns.

In the first chapter of my book, I explain how the cultural dimensions may affect global stakeholders. I illustrate this with real life experiences, and provide one team building exercise that can help project managers to understand how their team members position themselves on the cultural dimensions. The same exercise informs the participants about the cultural dimensions, and how they should respect and value the differences on international teams.

A company is known by the culture it keeps. This is the DNA of any company. People speak on company culture years after they have left. Hence, the right culture provides a sense of pride to the employees within and outside the workplace.

Though we live in a global village, country specific culture still plays a major role. The culture of a global company has two major contributing factors: one is the culture based on the location of the headquarters of the company, second is the local culture. There are variations in the culture based on whether they are in the east coast of the US, west coast of the US, Europe, Japan, Korea, China, and the Gulf.  Mr. Terrance Brake's "The Global Leader"  covers this topic very well.

The work force in India has worked closely with US-based companies for almost three decades and European companies (particularly, British) for a century in the traditional manufacturing, mining and service sectors. Therefore, there is a fair understanding amongst them. In the last decade, when some East Asian companies started their operations in India, there were many surprises and culture shocks experienced by both sides. It has taken time to understand and appreciate the cultures and come to a common ground. Now, people can change jobs with more ease, regardless of the culture of the parent company.

So what is special about the culture of the Indian IT industry? This is a very sensitive subject to write about, as anything written on this topic will generate plenty of criticism. It is also a gross injustice in skipping out many more aspects of Indian culture. Hence, it is best to mention a few idiosyncrasies unique to the culture and the perspective parent companies should take.

"Compare and Contrast" Culture

Indian people train children to value academic and scholastic achievements. The competitive comparison in schools and colleges carries through to the workplace, comparing salaries and performance ratings at work. This is not limited to individuals; even parents discuss their kids' achievements in their social circles, which can include details of compensation benefits and rewards.

Ultimately, this becomes a vicious circle, which can easily lead to dissatisfaction if taken beyond healthy competition. This occurrence has decreased somewhat in the last decade due to the understanding of people with more experience. However, it is still prevalent at the entry level.

This practice is not restricted within the company, but also discussed with friends across companies. They have complete knowledge of benefits and compensation that a particular company provides.

Even though they share it outside, they are sensitive to keep the company’s confidential matters within company grounds. This freely available information does have one aspect; it provides current competitive salary compensation that can help in recruitment and retention.

People do not join the company as just another place of employment, but they join it for work combined with social environment. The expectations of their supervisors extend to and include fulfilling the role of a senior family member (more prevalent at junior levels). Here they might share their personal issues. In this case, it is important to work out a win-win proposition for the employee by considering their personal circumstances, as much as possible. In extreme cases, one might have to provide a reference of good conduct to a prospective father-in-law of the employee. 

People are sensitive to criticism especially with respect to their work output. If you have to provide tough messages, most prefer it “sugar coated”, but the manager should not hesitate in providing a blunt one if the situation warrants.

As they form a social circle, it is difficult to get feedback on an employee's peers. They often address the issue in an ambiguous way, as the person will think it might affect their friendship. The positive aspect to this is an increase in teamwork. They might work together for extra hours on weekdays or come on weekends to work in addition to their social outings.

In Indian society, age and knowledge are important factors in commanding respect. Age usually takes precedence over knowledge. This is a concept, which no doubt bleeds into the workplace. Even though it is a performance-based system, it is not as prevalent as it is in the West. Unlike the US, where you can find a 33-year old VP, in India this trend has only recently started and is taking time to set-in completely. Normally for the first 5-10 years of one's career, the difference will not be drastic between the average performer and the top-notch performer. By that time, the person is already in his early 30s. However, after that, the differences based on performance will become apparent. Around this time a career crisis begins to take affect (for more detail, please refer to the chapter on people management). At this point, they may also start realizing that every organization has a pyramid structure. Some work hard to get it right, some take time to rectify it and some never learn. 

Unlike in the West, where a manager has experiences of providing higher salary to his employee compared to himself, this rarely happens in India. If this does occur, it either is corrected, or remains painful to digest. This can be due to one of two circumstances: First, a senior technical person may earn more but for administrative purposes reports to a manager in his own salary band but with a lower salary. Second, the person might be younger than the manager and be in the lower salary band, but receive high ratings year after year and might be at the high end of his salary range, which would be higher than the low positioning of the manager's salary in his band.

There are few such cases, but its prevalence should begin to take shape as India strengthens its technical ladder. Many companies have introduced a technical ladder within the last decade, but this will take time to develop completely.

This seniority feeling does not stop within a company. People may not join another company if the new designation appears to be of a lower social status than the current designation, in spite of higher responsibility and increased salary.

Layoffs at the senior level have started happening in India too and slowly like in the West, people have started realizing that today's VP can be a manager tomorrow.

One needs to understand the meaning of "no" to someone from a culture, where “no” does not mean just "no". Saying "no" can have various connotations: It can mean that the person is impolite. It can also be that the person is disobeying. Sometimes people interpret it, as a mark or a dent in a good working relationship. The above-mentioned ones are the external perspective. On the other hand, a person can think that if he says "No", the manager will feel that he has lesser skills or that he will not take the challenge as it might influence the appraisal. 

The side impact is that sometimes, when one hears "no" at such a late stage in a project it becomes difficult to save it. It also creates a ripple effect in the project.

On the upside, a person who wants to take it as a challenge will learn fast and make things happen. He will put extra effort to get it done. Therefore, the fundamental issue is clear communication. Some of them are good at stating so upfront, but most of them are still learning to say it candidly.

It is better to ask very clearly and make sure that they understand that there is no harm in saying "no". It is important to set a culture where the following ingredients are present:

·        Invite/encourage/expect that bad news should be stated early

·        Never shoot the messenger

·        Provide many opportunities in group settings and in 1on1 settings

·        Ask for bad news, risk items (including potential)

·        Responsibility on the individual to identify the risk.

Sources:

Brake, T. (1997) ‘The Global Leader: Management Insights from Around the World’ (IRWIN Professional Publishing, 1997)

About the author:

Mr. Utkarsh Rai is the Author of "Offshoring secrets" and the Head of India operations of Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) for over 5 years by building and successfully running the operation in Bangalore, India. His leadership style is "Lead by example", "build and retain a highly performing team", and "flawless execution". This has always helped him in achieving the right goals by building products from V1.0 onwards. Click here to buy his book from Amazon "Offshoring Secrets: Building and Running a Successful India Operation" Click here to see his profile on LinkedIn.

The Collaborative Research for Global Projects at Stanford University defines "Global Projects" as projects that involve participants from multiple societal or cultural systems and/or geo-spatial locations.

In the CRGP website, there is a series of academic sources that can provide a solid basis for any research on the topic:

· Journal papers (Many of them available without fees)

· Book chapters

· Conference papers 

· Working papers

Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner defined a different set of dimensions during their cross-cultural studies, using a database containing more than 30.000 survey results. The following classification shows the main dimensions defined by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (2005) and summarised by Trompenaars and Woolliams (2003).

Universalism versus particularism  – The first dimension defines how people judge the behaviours of their colleagues. People from universalistic cultures focus more on rules, are more precise when defining contracts and tend to define global standards for company policies and human resources practices. Within more particularistic national cultures, the focus is more on the relationships; contracts can be adapted to satisfy new requirements in specific situations and local variations of company and human resources policies are created to adapt to different requirements.

Individualism and Communitarianism - This dimension classifies countries according to the balance between the individual and group interests. Generally, team members with individualist mindsets see the improvements to their groups as the means to achieve their own objectives. By contrast, the team members from communitarian cultures see the improvements to individual capacities as a step towards the group prosperity.

Achievement versus ascription - This dimension, presented in Trompenaars studies, is very similar to Hofstede’s power distance concept. People from achievement-oriented countries respect their colleagues based on previous achievements and the demonstration of knowledge, and show their job titles only when relevant. On the other hand, people from ascription-oriented cultures use their titles extensively and usually respect their superiors in hierarchy.

Neutral versus affective - According to Trompenaars, people from neutral cultures admire cool and self-possessed conducts and control their feelings, which can suddenly explode during stressful periods. When working with stakeholders from neutral countries you may consider avoiding warm, expressive or enthusiastic behaviours, prepare beforehand, concentrate on the topics being discussed and look carefully for small cues showing that the person is angry or pleased. People from cultures high on affectivity use all forms of gesturing, smiling and body language to openly voice their feelings, and admire heated, vital and animated expressions.

Specific versus diffuse - Trompenaars researched differences in how people engage colleagues in specific or multiple areas of their lives, classifying the results into two groups: people from more specific-oriented cultures tend to keep private and business agendas separate, having a completely different relation of authority in each social group. In diffuse-oriented countries, the authority level at work can reflect into social areas, and employees can adopt a subordinated attitude when meeting their managers outside office hours.

Human-nature relationship (internal vs external control) - Trompenaars shows how people from different countries relate to their natural environment and changes. Global project stakeholders from internal-oriented cultures may show a more dominant attitude, focus on their own functions and groups and be uncomfortable in change situations. Stakeholders from external-oriented cultures are generally more flexible and willing to compromise, valuing harmony and focusing on their colleagues, being more comfortable with change.

Human-time relationship - Trompenaars identified that different cultures assign diverse meanings to the past, present and future. People in past-oriented cultures tend to show respect for ancestors and older people and frequently put things in a traditional or historic context. People in present-oriented cultures enjoy the activities of the moment and present relationships. People from future-oriented cultures enjoy discussing prospects, potentials and future achievement.

A second division of country cultures is based on the time orientation, in which sequential cultures drive people to do one activity at a time and to follow plans and schedules strictly. People from synchronic cultures can do work in parallel, and follow schedules and agendas loosely, taking the priorities of the individual tasks being performed as a major rule.

Sources

Trompenaars, F. and Hampden-Turner, C. (2005) ‘Riding the waves of culture: Understanding cultural diversity in business’ (Nicholas Brealey, UK) 

Trompenaars, F.and Woolliams, P. (2003) ‘Business across cultures’ (Capstone, UK)

Hofstede built his theories after extensive surveys of IBM managers in 64 countries. The studies were later completed by similar surveys in other companies, resulting on five independent dimensions of national culture differences:

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