Intercultural training programs are designed to develop cultural awareness and speed the transition process, by providing employees and their families with the knowledge, skills and tools necessary to effectively interact across cultures.
“When we think about how people work, the naïve intuition we have is that people are like rats in a maze,” says behavioral economist Dan Ariely in today’s talk, given at TEDxRiodelaPlata. “We really have this incredibly simplistic view of why people work and what the labor market looks like.”
When you look carefully at the way people work, he says, you find out there’s a lot more at play—and a lot more at stake—than money.
The less motivated an employee is, the more money he is asking !
If employees are not intrinsically motivated chances are very high that they are not creative as well. and won’t work hard enough as passionate people do.
Being passionate is coming from the inside-out. You can break somebody’s motivation very easily but it is very hard for leaders to inspire people to give happily the best of what they have to offer if they don’t want to and don’t have trust in the management.
The Three ‘E’s of Engagement: Engage, Empower, Enable:
Engage
leaders must provide a clear view of the company’s future, connect the company values with the individual life purpose, identify individual contribution to a higher level than self . Employees who feel good about themselves and think they belong to a team get the intrinsic motivation to deliver performance.
Empower
Let people decide how to set goals, how to get the expected results. Increase their personal power in making decisions at all level of the organizations. The leaders’ role is to coach and mentor individuals and teams to remove self-limiting beliefs, provide immediate feedbacks and develop strengths while minimizing the impact of weaknesses
Enable
Provide highly personalized support and enough resources. Lead teams based on matching personal communication, behavior and management styles of each team member. Provide talent development programs.
Learn some common mistakes to avoid when traveling or working in a different culture.
Quote from the article:
The Importance of Cultural Awareness
It’s not just professionals working overseas who need to learn cross-cultural business etiquette. Stop and think about how many different cultures you come into contact with at work.
Even if you work in your home country, your colleagues and suppliers could hail from other cultures. Your organization might decide to acquire or merge with an organization in a different country. And your customers, too, may be located in dozens of countries worldwide.
Considering Cultural Differences:
Consider the following questions when thinking about how a culture might differ from your own:
What values does this culture embrace? How do those values compare with those of your culture?How do people make decisions, conduct relationships, and display emotion?How does this culture treat time and scheduling?What are the social rules and boundaries surrounding gender?How does this culture display and respect power? Which authority figures are revered?How do individuals relate to their employers?How do people in this culture communicate? How direct are they in what they say and mean?
Key Points
Cross-cultural awareness is an essential skill, regardless of whether you’re working overseas, leading a cross-cultural or virtual team, or dealing with a global customer base. Learn about the culture of the country where you’re doing business to avoid cultural mistakes, and to demonstrate respect and understanding.
Research key differences in decision making, relationships, dress, food, dining, and social etiquette before working with or traveling to a different culture. Your hosts will notice your efforts, and appreciate that you took the time to learn about their culture.
Cultural intelligence cannot be learned by simply visiting different countries for few weeks, learning languages, attend cross-cultural webinars or read books.
Cultural intelligence is acquired by being exposed directly to cross-cultural challenges at work and everyday life, preferably with family.
This article posted in www.expatica.ru is giving a great overview about cross-cultural training
Expatriate failure is defined in literature in a variety of ways, with intentions to leave listed prominently
Anne Egros‘s insight:
Tailoring cross-cultural training programmes to the individual’s situation
Cross-cultural trainings should start by the selection of the best candidate for a specific international assignment. Succesful international leaders share some personality traits such as:
-Active listening skills
-Curiosity
-Emotional intellligence
-Global strategic thinking with understanding of local issues/market
-Influencer
-Life long learner
-Creative
-Diplomatic
Expectations and goals should be clearly defined as well as the key performance indicators including both contribution to local and global performance with in mind long-term impacts of the decisions taken during a short-term (2-3 years) mission. Including colleagues of the host country in the decision process is also a good idea.
Ideally, the family should be assessed too or at least get pre-departure cross-cultural trainings and transition coaching
” Creatures of a very particular making, we need to know the cultural blinders that narrow our world view as well as the psychological blinders that narrow our view of our personal experience”-Christina Baldwin
What an Intercultural coach does practically:?
Patricia Comolet from CamComCoaching, wrote a very good article, The rise of intercultural coaching and I have extracted some key concepts about intercultural coaching/
Coaching creates the space to explore cultural keys, allowing clients to consider the differences and to project themselves within the confines of a new cultural framework.
Coaching doesn’t impose new ways of seeing and doing, but rather opens up for consideration postures and options to choose from.
Intercultural coaching takes a frank look at our own cultures and assumptions. This awareness brings reality to an otherwise nebulous idea of what the future holds in store. It allows the evaluation of the difference between cultures, rejects the notion of judgment while placing the question of identity squarely at the forefront.
How does the client see himself within his new cultural context?
Where will flexibility open up new worlds and experiences for him?
Where will he set his limits, based on his values, his interests, and his objectives?
The coaching process also takes the client into the shady side roads to face the doubts, concerns and fears which often lie unaddressed, pushed under the growing list of “to dos”. By facing these elements within the confines of a confidential space, what seemed like insurmountable obstacles such as a lack of self-confidence, anxiety over communicating, or fear of not being able to rally a foreign team to the expected results, can become manageable challenges.
In preparation for an international move coaching encourages clients to consciously construct a specific personal project within their professional objectives.
This brings meaning and purpose to the move, creating strong personal motivation. This personal motivation is the root of the energy and determination necessary to succeed both professionally and personally in a new environment.
The established trust and confidential space provides a release valve for the pressures involved in “making his mark”. Cognitive behaviours are examined and response options are explored.
As in any coaching – the client remains responsible for his choices and actions. But coaching provides the “rest stop” on the road to expand the available options and integrate the cultural elements active in the situation.
What makes a business leader a true global business leader?
One of the most important mission of a business leader is to improve bottom-line results by having a clear vision, shared values and a mission statement that inspire, motivate and engage employees .
The job of a true global leader is the same as any business leader except that for companies operating globally those executives MUST integrate in the company strategy the cultural differences in customers’ preferences and local social rules to lead employees across borders.
Developing cultural Intelligence is key for global leaders who usually share same curiosity and interest in other cultures, do not judge but have a thirst to learn cultural differences.
Cultural intelligence cannot be learned by simply visiting different countries for few weeks, learning languages, attend cross-cultural webinars or read books.
Cultural intelligence is acquired by being exposed directly to cross-cultural challenges at work and everyday life, preferably with family.
Regarding following spouse and children, too often their role in the expatriate executive’s performance and success is overlooked. From personal experience the working partner and the following family members face totally different challenges.The addition of the two experiences deepen the acquisition of the local culture.
The executive team should reflect the diversity of the company’s customers and employees. Unfortunately there is still the “white men” , ethnocentric leadership style that is most prevalent today, except for companies such as America-based Coca-Cola or German-based Henkel that have long history of having a multicultural top management team.
In a previous article why white men can’t leadI gave several references gathering evidence that today’s leadership models, although they may differ from person to person and method to method, generally have a common bias toward Western or European-influenced ways of thinking.
How To Develop True Global Business Leaders ?
Future global top executives must manage their career both horizontally across functions and countries and vertically starting by spending some time being one of the front-line employees (sales and customer services, research or manufacturing for example). They can acquire knowledge in the same company if this one has a good global talent development program but most global executives have experienced different companies and various industries.
This practical experience is needed to develop the skills of a global leaders because “global” does not only means cross-cultural leadership but also to have a holistic view of the company as a whole entity including:
1-A strong corporate culture: Company explicit and implicit rules and guidelines, leadership style, vision, values, mission
2-Local cultures: Countries and regions where the company operate: Language (verbal and body language), religion, cultural values and norms, communication styles
3-Each individual team member’s own culture, values, beliefs, set of norms
To develop cultural intelligence you need to be a chameleon who is able to change its color to reflect its environment. Usually it is mandatory to have lived several years abroad, in at least two totally different cultures, across different continents, speak minumum two languages including being fluent in business English.
Effective global leaders must create TRUST regardless of ethnicity or country of origin by actively listening to everybody’s ideas before making a decision concerning the introduction of a new product or service in a foreign market.
Here a great video illustrating the process of acquiring cultural intelligence:
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Are you a global leader ? Please share your story on how you became one
I have read an article “White Men Can’t Lead (everyone) from the American Management Association and I basically agree with the ideas:
Today’s leadership models, although they may differ from person to person and method to method, generally have a common bias toward Western or European-influenced ways of thinking.
We’re leading as if our companies are filled only with white men and, quite clearly, that’s no longer the case.
Contemporary leadership theories exclude the enormous contributions, potential learning, and valuable insights that come from leaders in diverse communities.
Multicultural leadership encourages an inclusive and adaptable style that cultivates the ability to bring out the best in our diverse workforce and to fashion a sense of community with people from many parts of the globe. (reference: www.techrepublic.com)
Although this article was written in 2007, nothing really changed. This “white men” leadership style is still highly prevalent in multinational western companies and how they manage their local affiliates.
In most headquarters in America and European countries, the “non-invented’ here syndrome makes management ignoring local consumer tastes and cultural values thinking that what works home works everywhere (ethnocentric management style).
Recently an article published in Forbes “Sayonara Sony: How Industrial, MBA-Style Leadership Killed a Once Great Company. demonstrated that Sony, a market leader for 40 years with its strategy of innovating new markets, has now lost money for 4 year because they adopted the western industrial strategy based on volume and cost obsession.
After two years of study the Military Leadership Diversity Commission (in America) released its report in 2011 on efforts to create more diversity among the top military brass, in the article, Are There Too Many White Guys Leading Our Military?, The report notes that 77 percent of active duty senior officers are white, 8 percent are black, 5 percent are Hispanic and 16 percent are women. Those numbers have to change in order for the military to reach its goals concluded the report.
In previous post I introduced the concept of “Third Culture Teams” that has been used to describe how to create congruence of three cultures:
1-The Corporate culture: Company explicit and implicit rules and guidelines, leadership style, ethnocentric or diversity-centered, cultural traits of the country where the Headquarters are based
2-The local country culture: Language (verbal and non-verbal), religion, cultural values and norms, communication style
3-Each individual team member’s own culture, values, beliefs, set of norms
The idea of third culture teams is based on the human need for belonging: People like to feel that they can relate to someone and those who share similar interests.
You can be a white man and a great global leader but you need to be a chameleon who is able to change its color to reflect its environment. Effective multicultural team leader must create trust regardless of ethnicity or country of origin by actively listening to everybody’s ideas before making a decision concerning the introduction of a new product or service in a foreign market.
What skills Do You Think Are Most Important for Global Leaders ?
Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions is Guy’s tenth book. In it, he explains how to influence what people will do while maintaining the highest standards of ethics. The book explains when and why enchantment is necessary and then the pillars of enchantment:Likability, Trustworthiness, Great Cause.
If you want to change the world — or even part of the world, this book is for you. To interact with the Enchantment community, go to the Enchantment Facebook page
Change is inevitable, we all agree on that, but are we always forced to change because we live in a highly connected fast-paced global environment ? I think change for the sake of change has nothing to do with true innovation and fostering creativity or acquiring new knowledge and learning the necessary new skills to stay competitive. I am not going to talk about creativity and change management here but you can read a very good article about The Innovation Catalysts on how to change ideas into great products or services.
If you are a small business owner, a corporate executive or an employee, do you think you have to change if you are satisfied and successful with who you are, what you do and with most of the components of your work and life environments ?
I think there is a difference between being reactive to changes and anticipating changes but in both cases you need to balance the costs and risks associated with change versus the benefits you can expect to gain. You also need to plan carefully the changes by having first some research conducted and a sound strategy before implementing any new tactics, even a small one like changing a logo on a product or a color in your website.
For big or small businesses any change in brand identity such as image, logo, slogan, has an impact on the brand image and how the customers perceive the products or services.
People make decisions to buy from you or hire you more based on emotional needs than rational reasons. Buying is based on TRUST.
Changing any brand attribute may have a different impact if you consider potential new customers or existing loyal brand lovers with emotional bonds attached to it. In a majority of cases, loyal brand lovers hate change, so why taking the risk of changing anything if you are not forced to do it due to change in competitive environment for example ?
So the question to ask before implementing any change is :
What additional value do I bring to my customers, employees and other stakeholders ?
Do you have experience with companies that changed just for the sake of change and fail ? We all lean from failures but we don’t need to be one
The answer to that question is YES and most probably the person is YOU!
For small business owners like me Internet is really a double edge sword. I have access to people from all over the world and get my business ideas and clients mostly online. I am really enjoying learning about what makes my clients wake up at night, their issues and hot topics in their industries. I spend a fair amount of time managing my emails, paying bills online, read many magazines and articles and participate actively in online group discussions, writing articles and testing new marketing tools.
If you use your time instead of paying someone to help you create your social media content for example, it is easy to fell into the trap of wasting too much time online on non-important activities and get distracted. You need to be conscious about how you spend your resources and time is your most precious asset. It might be difficult to calculate a ROI on your time spent on each online platform but you need to have a social media strategy (WHO to target, WHAT to say , HOW to communicate and HOW to measure the impact of your efforts.) you also need a good discipline and effective time management tools.
The frontier between professional and private usages of the internet is becoming more and more fuzzy with the development of social media and mobile technologies, As a consequence it is becoming harder and harder to stay focused on the bottom line and multitasking is decreasing productivity, tremendously.
People compensate partly by working longer hours but this is not sustainable in the long run especially if you become sleep deprived. Employees from small or large organizations are increasingly facing similar issues in time management.
How Do You Manage Your Time Online To Be More Effective ?
Here the seven habits I have already implemented:
1-I do not switch my computer on in the morning before I clean my desk and make my “to do list” for the day on a piece of paper.
2- Doing first things first: I focus on what is important and urgent first: pay the bills on time, shop, cook, clean before I make any contact online unless it is part of my to do list
3-I allocate time to spend on each social network and best timing to reach my favorite friends and target audience,
4-I use a timer to control my time online: Better spend 15 minutes 4 times per day (every 2 hours or so) than one hour at once except when I am blogging or working with clients.
5-Make sure I spend 80% of my time planning, reading and sharing content that brings value to my specific audience.
6-Allow me to spend 20% of my time online for fun: chat with friends, share funny videos or quotes, put serendipity at work.
7-Use tools to save time without losing interactivity as nobody likes talking to robots, so I follow people manually but use Buffer.com for example to send content while I am sleeping since my audience is living worldwide.
Intercultural Executive Coach and International Career Consultant
I help international managers adapt their leadership style to local cultures, develop global leadership. Multicultural team building training.
I coach expatriate spouses to help them define their personal project, career change and job search. Expat life coaching includes work-life balance, handling culture shock, life transitions and middle-life crisis
I am passionate, curious, an everyday learner and creative.
