All posts by Candida Marques

Building Culturally Intelligent Organizations

Global Leadership, , , , ,

samuel-zeller-4138cropped

In China, companies are often asked to make sacrifices for the interest of the nation. That idea is strange for foreigners to grasp; however, you must be fully aware that if your organization decides to open operations in China, you must fully convince the government why your proposal is good for the nation, the economy and the Chinese people. You and your team will need cultural intelligence to manage entry into China as well as entry to any other foreign country, when it comes to conducting business effectively.

How Do You Go About Building a Culturally Intelligent Organization?

Below I give you a few best practices on building a Culturally Intelligent Organization that will not only educate your company, but that will also give you a return on your investment:

  1. Leadership commitment: Leaders need to demonstrate their commitment to cultural intelligence by demonstrating through their actions the global strategic vision that they follow and live by.

Questions to explore this commitment include the following points:

  • How does culture influence your business challenges? Look at your operations and ask yourself how culturally diverse are your customers, as well as the markets in which you operate in? How culturally diverse are your teams? Do you have global leaders in different parts of the world or traveling to different countries to conduct business? If so, look at your expats on long-term and short-term assignments. Lastly, look at your home based employee pool and get metrics on how engaged your employees are. Are they attached and aware of how diversity and culture affects your business? These insights will allow you to look at innovative opportunities, which will allow you to expand into new global markets.

Do not isolate cultural intelligence to a few global leaders, engage the entire organization. A truly global organization will integrate cultural intelligence across all functions as part of the strategic plan.

  1. Perform an Organizational Cultural Intelligence Audit. Conduct a cultural audit. The audit should focus on the organization as a whole, including divisions and teams, both in and out of your home country. Your audit should look to answer the following:

To what extent do the internal and external practices and marketing messages of the organization reflect a culturally intelligent approach?

What cultures represent the organization? Which ones stand out, and which ones fade into the background?

Do you have diverse cultural teams? How have you equipped them to represent themselves and their unique talents?

To what extent do your senior leaders demonstrate and promote culturally intelligent behavior?

Have you conducted studies as to how your organization hires and promotes diverse culturally intelligent individuals?

An audit can and should also be looking at your HR policies and practices, as well as input from customers and suppliers on how they view the cultural intelligence of the organization. Use these studies to organize and develop your organization into a culturally competent company.

  1. Formulate a Cultural Intelligence Strategy. After the audit, it’s time to formulate the strategy for becoming a culturally intelligent organization. As in any strategic plan, this plan should include milestones, action steps and target dates. Look deeply at the following areas to see where cultural intelligence should become a required skill:

Those who market, sell products and services to different cultural groups, both domestically and internationally.

International leaders, managers, teams and project managers should all have developed cultural intelligence.

Leaders on global assignments, both short and long-term, living abroad or right here at home, but operate globally should know how culture impacts the organization.

Employees who travel internationally or take on global projects should all be savvy when it comes to handling diversity in the workplace.

Members of virtual teams need to understand themselves and other company teams before picking up the phone to discuss any business issue.

Specialists, who you may hire help internally, including external consultants must be globally savvy and internationally competent.

Your home office staff and support service employees that interact with branches and subsidiaries in other parts of the world must be able to communicate and work effectively alongside people of different backgrounds and cultural influences.

Don’t overlook support staff – they too are part of your organization, they may answer emails, return calls, teach, interact with newcomers, greet guests, etc., if they are not culturally educated, you may find big mistakes will consume their time and the company’s budgets.

Ask job candidates to describe their cultural intelligence and explain how they would resolve specific intercultural and cross-cultural situations that may arise in the daily operations of their work that could affect your organization.

Reward culturally intelligent behavior and knowledge. When your hire or promote someone who has experience working effectively across cultures, be sure to highlight that part of their talent when you announce the hire or promotion and include culturally intelligent behavior on performance reviews.

Organizations with employees who have high cultural intelligence can expect the following outcomes:

  • An organization that effectively expands into diverse markets.
  • High-quality service for customers and clients.
  • Effective operations that work with speed and efficiency.
  • Productive assignments that get completed on time and within budget.
  • To win the war for talent, by becoming the employer of choice. Believe it not, today’s talent is looking for companies who embrace diversity and understand cultural differences. Good talent wants to expand in the global arena and be part of the global stage.
  • To have diverse team effectiveness and synergy within and outside of the organization.
  • To become profitable while cutting back on expenses caused by serious cultural mishaps.

“Remember – you are a foreigner everywhere except in your own culture.” © 2017, Global Arrival, LLC

 

You are a Foreigner Everywhere

The Global Citizen

Many times you may find yourself working in different situations and struggle to adapt to the local scene. At times, you may cope by stating that you already know all there is to know about your situation. How many times have you thought or commented to yourself the following?

“I know how to change already!” “I work with people who are different than me all the time, what’s so special about culture that I need all this help?”

Now that’s a fair question, when it comes right down to it; no two people are exactly alike. People from your own culture may be very different than you; their personalities and backgrounds may be different but they still hold many of the same fundamental values and beliefs that you do. Chances are what you perceive as being natural and normal will also be natural and normal to them.

However, when working with people from other cultures, there will be many profound differences in values, beliefs and worldviews that will place you in a separate category from working with someone from your own culture.

This doesn’t mean that every global engagement will be difficult, or that the your people skills will no longer apply when you interact with foreigners, but it does mean that whatever adeptness you have in working with people who are different from you, regardless of the difference, are now going to be needed all the more because the potential for misunderstanding will be greater when you are in a different environment than when you are in your own. In addition, you are almost certainly going to need information and knowledge that you may not currently possess.

To say, “I know how to change already,” implies you can easily adapt yourself to the minds of people from other cultures and that you understand why they think and act the way they do, and can quickly and easily become what you think they want, when in fact, that is impossible since you cannot possibly know how to change for everyone and for every situation you find yourself in.

Humans are not like traffic signals that are timed to change, there is a process of learning and understanding that must go into adapting and making changes. You can’t change on the spot and if you try, you will come across as being fake no one will trust you. This perception will cost you money, friends, business and professional advancement. It limits, alienates and hurts you and others around you.

Developing global awareness is no longer a subject taught in college or for globe-trotting executives; it is a basic survival skill for almost everyone.

Few of us live in a monoculture world. Even in your own culture you work with people from other cultures, you may live next door to them, study with them, they may be your customers, your competition; they may even be your in-laws.

The point here is that you are a foreigner everywhere except in your own culture.

Heaven and Hell

Cultural Diversity, Global Leadership, Uncategorized, , , ,

jin-hyeong-kim-358799

 

Below I tell a story of a mind-bending mystery from the world of folklore, see if you could solve it on your own, if you struggle, reach out to me for the answer:

 

People are always wishing. But once in China a man got his wish, which was to see the difference between heaven and hell before he died.

When he visited hell, he saw tables crowded with delicious food, but everyone was hungry and angry. They had food, but were forced to sit several feet from the table and use chopsticks three feet long that made it impossible to get any food into their mouths.

When the man saw heaven, he was very surprised for it looked the same, big tables of delicious food. People were forced to sit several feet from the table and use three-foot long chopsticks that made it impossible to get any food into their mouths. It was exactly like hell, but in heaven the people were well fed and happy.

Why?

How to Spot a Global Leader

Global Leadership, , , , , , ,

jimmy-bay-207382NewWhat does a global leader look like? Are they walking around with any distinct features, or special characteristics that brand or identify them?

Just because you have an excellent executive in your home country who has given you great results year after year, doesn’t mean you can place them on a jet and send them to work overseas, it also doesn’t mean he/she will be ready to lead your global initiatives right here at home.

Knowledge, experience and competencies are all critical, but being a global leader requires some unique qualities. For example, can your best leaders be molded? Can you teach them sensitivity? Can you teach them energy?

The best global leaders are a breed in and of themselves, partly because of nature and partly because of their life experiences. They have a “magic mix” of skills and behaviors that come together to create a competitive advantage for your company.

Whether your leader is at headquarters or globe-hopping they need to succeed across countries, economies and cultures, they must be able to have excellent people skills and know when and how to adapt instantly. Here are some of the differentiators that spell success:

Ambassadors – Global leaders are the company they represent. They stand for and represent the company’s core values. People may never get to visit your headquarters to see how you operate; a global leader brings corporate culture to them, they are your spokesperson.

Explorers – Effective, successful global leaders love exploring new places and learning about new environments. A global leader once told me there are two kinds of global travelers, those who arrive, go directly to the Westernized hotel, visit the office and leave, and those who arrive early and have passion to understand the native culture. They want to know how do things work in this country. They take the time to learn how the unique, local environment impacts what individuals do. They are willing to look at changes in the business landscape. They visit and stay in local places and delve themselves into the local flare of their environment. Global explorers are passionate and inquisitive about understanding their surroundings, if you want to spot someone like this, look for the person who isn’t afraid to ask questions. As the quote on the back of Jacques Cousteau’s research vessel said, “ll Faut Aller Voir,” which means, “We must go and find out for ourselves.” Global explorers are curious by nature, they find things out, they are information seekers.

Energetic – The most successful global leaders have high amounts of energy. Imagine flying across the globe, going through customs, traveling to your branch office and walking into a meeting ready to conduct business. You must have a huge amount of energy to complete this task alone. Global business happens 24/7; there is no time to pause. This type of fast-paced environment requires boundless energy. A global leader is always on.

Vision – Epic global leaders possess visionary skills, they must be able to leverage themselves in any environment. They must think entrepreneurial in order to be able to utilize highly developed analytical and decision-making skills to successfully manage in unfamiliar places. With their vision, they are able to take business to a higher level. Take for example, Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of India’s Reliance Industries, who is creating what he promises to be the world’s largest startup. He plans to create 1 million jobs and reach $25 billion in annual sales by increasing the standard of living in India, by setting up airlines and trucking routes that never before existed. The vision is: we are not afraid, we can see what needs to be done and we know how to get there. Excellent global leaders follow their dreams.

Mobilizers – The best global leaders I’ve had the pleasure of working with are masters at mobilization. Many are required to mange or start-up new operations, and sometimes don’t have enough resources or information. They need to influence decision makers and work with, not through them to obtain what they need to get the job done. They need to learn how to utilize local resources, to find the right people for the right job, how to organize the right teams to accomplish their goals and most importantly, be where their people are.

Personal Integrity – Integrity and acceptable business practices vary from one culture to another. In challenging local conditions, global leaders must demonstrate the highest level of integrity. They must be honest, committed and able to perform consistently in many differing situations. They must be genuine, true, transparent and real in order to gain trust from those they lead.

Chameleons – Effective global leaders are chameleonic, able to adjust to their surroundings without standing out. They must be able to adapt their behaviors and beliefs to unfamiliar roles and environments. This skill is important in any leadership role, but with global leaders it is imperative to adapt to your local environment instantly. You can’t change a person, but you can teach them to be sensitive to what’s acceptable within the different cultures they operate in. In addition, they must be able to understand their own personal leadership style as well as how to adjust their style in order to be effective in diverse situations.

Black Belts – Black belts represent the highest level of mastery in martial arts, in business it’s Six Sigma, at the global leadership level it’s mastery of cultural diversity and emotional intelligence. This type of mastery involves knowing and understanding how to engage, motivate, and inspire individuals within various cultures. Excellent global leaders know how to adjust their styles according to each situation. When it comes to understanding the importance of forming a human connection, global leaders are masters, the black belts of communication, and experts in what they do. For example, engaging and motivating in France requires a different process than what is needed to get the same result in Germany. Global leaders don’t fail because they lack technical skills or experience, they experience difficulty because they don’t have people skills, the ability to stop, listen and understand. An effective global leader is always respected by those they influence and lead.

Intellectual Stamina – Operating as a leader at the executive level is complex in any country. Operating a global organization with multiple regions, economies, political, social, and cultural factors; and understanding the factors that influence strategy is even more complex. Global leaders are sharp, they possess “street-smarts,” which is the ability and the intuitive knowledge needed to survive in difficult situations. They are on their feet and thinking all the time. They must be able to deal with ambiguity and crunch a lot of information into the smallest amount of time.

Research shows that there a significant difference between excellent leadership and excellent global leadership.

To effectively answer the question on how to spot a global leader, you need to delve into getting to know your people, dig in, ask questions, observe, listen and understand them and you may wind up finding your diamond in the rough.

 

Unconscious Bias Training… Does it Work?

Cultural Diversity, Uncategorized, , , ,

Unconscious bias is all the talk in diversity these days. It is as if someone turned on a switch and companies everywhere are adding unconscious bias training to their diversity programs.

I am not against it, but it has been part of cultural training and diversity for decades. The only thing that happened is it became zeroed out as a point to focus on. Much like repacking products for sale at the grocery store; where the company will come out with a new and improved version, which is basically the exact same thing as the old product.

Whether you are a large or small company, a leader in your own home turf or overseas on a global assignment, diversity issues are everywhere. Singling out one area of it and focusing only on that one theme fails to address the bigger picture. And the big picture is that culture is the driving force behind much of human behavior.

If you are not addressing the cultural background and belief systems that individuals hold, you will be misunderstood.

The central contradiction of unconscious bias training is that you can’t train something you can’t control. Most of us can’t control what our brain does. You can’t become more objective just by learning about or thinking about biases; unconscious bias training does not actually provide you the tools to do something about how your brain behaves.

This is the basic problem with using unconscious bias as the starting point to improve functioning. You can show someone that he or she has an unconscious bias, and you can even identify what some of those biases are. But then, what do you do about it?  How do you use this information to effectively create positive change?

It’s like designing a weight loss program that consists of two steps, Step 1: proving to people that they eat too much and exercise too little, Step 2: tell them to eat less and exercise more.  Guess how well that program is going to work!

Reality is that it will only produce a slight improvement in a small fraction of people, for the very reason that the forces that drive the problem are unconscious.

These forces are not subject to conscious control, which is why the problem of obesity is so widespread and difficult to solve. At best, one can increase awareness, which will create a very small marginal improvement, but likely to fall far short of the results that organizations want to achieve.

So the common sense conclusion is that unconscious bias training is not likely to create much change in how people actually behave. Experience has shown me that this conclusion is accurate. However, I wondered what the scientists who do research in this field have concluded. They spend a lot of time researching unconscious bias, and they must know something about it. Do they agree with me?

Some of the best, and most honored, scientists in this field work on a program called Project Implicit, at Harvard and some other top universities. So I decided to take some of their unconscious bias tests and to see what practical recommendations they would have to improve an unconscious bias.

Their test is called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT, and can easily be taken in about 15 minutes online on their website at implict.harvard.edu. They have versions for several different kinds of unconscious bias. The tests are well-designed, scientifically accurate and fun to take.

To give an example, one test is called the Gender-Career IAT. This test identifies unconscious bias that associates Career with Male, and Family with Female. Even if people consciously believe that females are just as appropriate for careers as males, and males are just as appropriate for raising families as females, the test can detect subtle reactions that indicate there is still bias in the associations of the unconscious mind.

This test has been given to thousands of people and shows that 75% have this particular unconscious bias.

The moment of truth comes after you complete the test, when they give you your results and you are left asking yourself, “What Can I Do About an Implicit Preference That I Do Not Want?”  I think their answer says it all:

”Right now, there is not enough research to say for sure that implicit biases can be reduced, let alone eliminated. Packaged ‘diversity trainings’ generally do not use evidence-based methods of reducing implicit biases. Therefore, we encourage people to instead focus on strategies that deny implicit biases the chance to operate, such as blind auditions and well-designed ‘structured’ decision processes.”

I don’t know about you, but I found it encouraging that, at least in this case, top scientists reach the same conclusion as common sense.

Practically speaking, according to the scientists, the best proven way to reduce the effects of unconscious bias is to set up an environment where personal reactions can’t occur. For example, have the hiring decision made by a person who doesn’t know whether the applicant is male or female. If this is impossible, you can set up a detailed and complicated process where a large amount of objective data drowns out personal reactions.

Such strategies could be a good idea for some decisions about hiring and promotion. But they are impossible to implement in the situations that matter most– the day to day interactions between real live people from diverse backgrounds and different cultures.

If your company is experiencing difficulty because its retail clerks are offending customers, identifying unconscious bias is not going to solve the problem. If your top male executives are having trouble working with female bosses, or making blunders while on an important overseas assignment, then unconscious bias training is not going to solve the problem.

The best approach is a cultural approach: one that gets to the root of culture and cultural differences that explores the cultural norms, expectations and beliefs that every person has.

One objection to a cultural approach is that it involves stereotyping people from different cultures. So how does one go beyond stereotyping? The answer is that every human being is different, no matter how many characteristics he or she might share with other members of his or her culture. Only an individualized approach can work.

It may be that an executive lives out a particular normative behavior from the culture they came from, and expects others to do the same. But the personal meaning of this varies greatly from individual to individual. The more you explore the things that members of a culture have in common, the more you realize just how unique each individual is.

For example in an overseas assignment, the starting point to cross cultural training is not giving the transferee a list of stereotypes about the country and culture he or she is going to. The starting point is exploring the employee’s own cultural background, in the context of the real-life, day to day, problems that they encounter in their daily work.

 

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

 

Breaking Paradigms: The Beatles

Global Leadership, Uncategorized

In developing global leaders one of the most important principles is that a deep understanding of one’s relationship to one’s own culture is crucial for top performance in a new culture. Our customs, attitudes and ways of getting things done, things that we take for granted in our own lives, are not just “the way things are.” These unwritten rules, or paradigms, are specific parts of our particular culture. They are the paradigms that we have to break to function in a new culture. The better that global leaders can understand the paradigms of their own cultures, the better they can move outside of them to function in the new culture.

True global leaders repatriate to their own countries with a fresh vision that enables them to see things in a new light, to go beyond the paradigms that hold back those who have not acquired a true global perspective. This is what happened to the Beatles when they went to Hamburg, Germany, as an unknown and inexperienced rock group, in the summer of 1960.

Faced with the culture shock of being in Germany and the need to get big things done internationally (playing six to nine hours every night), they adapted quickly to a completely different set of expectations. The German audiences wanted more a “show” than British ones and the Beatles loosened up and livened up on stage in a way that would have been unacceptable back in England. Their music progressed quickly and began to attract, not just the raunchy crowds that frequented the clubs in Hamburg, but painters and photographers wanting to see musical performance that was fresh and new.

A brilliant young German photographer named Astrid Kirchherr was brought to see them by her boyfriend, a talented illustrator named Klaus Voorman. She was fascinated by these “beautiful boys.” British culture had had the paradigm of the celebrity artist as rebel and outrageous anti-hero outside the pale of society, but the ideal of the celebrity artist as a beautiful and sensitive genius at the heart of society was a German paradigm. By integrating this ideal into their wisecracking Liverpool personalities, John, Paul and George created their global leadership persona™.

The most obvious form of this was the new haircuts, soon to become their international hallmark. Up to this point, they had worn the swept-back, heavily greased, juvenile delinquent manes (a la Marlon Brando) that were the style paradigm for most rock musicians. The new haircut, cleaner, with soft hair over the ears and girlish bangs, was unheard of back in England, but quite appropriate for a young philosopher or artist in Germany.

These and other changes were not just adapted in a calculating or imitative way. They were the result of their relations with Kirchherr, Voorman and other young German intellectuals.

Each of them had their own relationships with other cultures. John had long been influenced by African-American jug band and skiffle music. Paul’s vocal style was influenced by the energetic African-American singer Little Richard. George was very much attuned to French gypsy jazz traditions from Dzango Reinhardt and others. And all three of them were heavily influenced by the African-American dancing and church music traditions expressed in new form by Elvis Presley, and the Mexican rhythms and music structure in the work of Buddy Holly. At the same time, the Rolling Stones were immersing themselves in the hard-driving, electric guitar, Chicago style of Muddy Waters.

All of these global leaders, the Beatles, Stones, Presley and others were not just imitating or using styles or paradigms from other cultures. Nor were they just smashing up the paradigms of their own culture. They were engaged in a constant cycle: increasing their awareness of their own place in their own culture, using this awareness to find ways to be themselves in the new framework of a different culture, then using these newfound abilities in the new culture to increase their awareness of their own culture even further.

This type of ever increasing cross-cultural awareness gives global leaders the ability to get big things done in foreign places. It also completely changes their relationship to the paradigms they grew up with; and this enables them to know what paradigms can be broken, how to break them and how to make the process of paradigm breaking lead to success.

What if your next overseas assignment became your “trip to Hamburg?”

Acknowledging Performance What’s Your Focus?

Global Leadership, Uncategorized

When communicating, the American is listening for signs that his or her individual accomplishments have been noted and appreciated: a compliment, a positive tone of voice, some evidence that the other person is impressed is what he or she is expecting.

The American, however, is not likely to get much attention from some of their overseas counterparts who have different expectations.

For an American, individual performance is acknowledged and rewarded. However, in many cultures, performance acknowledgment is group oriented, group rewarded and group focused, not individually focused.

Because of these differing attitudes, American leaders are sometimes viewed by persons from other cultures as being arrogant. This is a false assumption.

In turn, Americans may tend to view people from group oriented cultures as being weak, which is also a false assumption.

What is your attitude? What is your focus?

The Power of You!

Uncategorized

Your global leadership persona depends on your knowing about yourself… including your culture.

Once you understand your own cultural values, you will then be able to develop a global leadership persona that is true to you and that will allow you to understand your surroundings.

You will be able to work within a global environment, because you are true to your natural tendency and ways of doing things. You can bring the power of you to every situation!

Illusions

Uncategorized

While on my daily run, I saw a large child’s play gym set firmly on a neighbor’s front lawn. I thought… oh my, what have they done, placing that large structure on their front lawn? How silly.

As I approached the house, I kept trying to find the gym, but, it had disappeared. I wondered, could my eyes be playing tricks on me? As I ran closer to the house, I suddenly noticed that the play gym was not on the front lawn, but nicely placed in the back yard.

The angle I was running towards made it look like the play gym was on the front lawn. The road had a slight curve, and from my point of view, it looked like the gym was on the front yard, when in fact, it was in the back yard.

My mind immediately judged.

This is what happens when you travel overseas. You enter a new culture with your own set of beliefs about what you consider normal. When you realize the way they “do things there,” are not the same as how you do things, you begin to judge the other culture. You criticize and blame them for not doing things in what you consider normal.

But, what is normal? Sometimes people have very good reasons for doing things the way they do.

Experiencing culture requires that you suspend judgment. So what if my neighbor had placed his gym in the front yard. Does that mean he is dumb? Has poor taste? Is trying to annoy me? I doubt it.