Cultural Diversity - It’s not just about gender

Global WIN Conference

Experiential Workshop: "Culturally Diverse Teams: How to make them Effective"

www.winconference.net

Come and join our workshop at this year’s Global WIN Conference in Rome: September 28-30. ‘Culturally Diverse Teams: How to make them Effective”. http://www.winconference.net/

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The Samba Drums are Rumbling-Working effectively with Brazilians With just over 100 days to the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games many people are getting ready to head down to Rio de Janeiro. Some for work, some for play and some for a bit of both. Most of us picture ourselves playing (or rather watching) futvolei on the beach sipping at fresh coconut water when we think of a long term project in Rio de Janeiro. So why is it that so many foreigners working in Brazil call HQ once a week with alarming stories about unmet deadlines and Brazilian colleagues who don’t do what they say they would do. The most common quips I’ve heard foreigners use when speaking of their Brazilian colleagues and suppliers is , ‘They’re insincere,’ ‘They’re not committed to work,’ or the classic, ‘They never reach deadlines’. After a few weeks of making such remarks the person resigns themselves to the fact that they're going to have a hard time getting their project accomplished but they don’t usually take the time to look into why they are interpreting the Brazilian work methods in this manner. Have you ever asked yourself what impression your Brazilian counterparts have of you? Little do we know what negative adjectives they may be using to describe our behaviour while we’re jumping up and down getting upset about a deadline that is not being met. I recently asked a former Brazilian colleague of mine what the most common adjectives Brazilians usually utter about foreigners. She came up with, ‘They're inflexible, always stressed, and they usually feel that things should be done their way (the foreign way). How can we avoid these negative depictions and enjoy the merge of cultures? These criticisms (on both sides) often come up in moments of frustration. When we’re relaxed and have time to consider why the people around us are behaving a certain way we usually find an explanation, but that still doesn’t help us achieve our goals and reach our deadlines. We need to go one step further. We need to consider what we have to change in our methods to be more effective when working with culturally diverse people who have different techniques to ours. The three points I mention below are only an introduction. I shall not endeavour to write more in such a post, the aim of which is to help those of you heading to Rio de Janeiro enjoy the XXXI Olympiad. Brazil is incredibly vast and has a huge population of over 207 million[1]) made up not only of natives but also a mixture of immigrants mainly from Japan, Germany, Spain, the Middle East, Italy and of course Portugal. It’s therefore hard to say that there is one common way of behaving, of managing teams and of communicating. Paulistas in the south will tell you that they are different to the Cariocas from Rio, who in turn say they are different to the North Easterners, and so it is. Consequently I shall try to stick to a few characteristics that most of the country has in common, with an emphasis on Carioca behaviour; we have to start somewhere. “How is your grandmother’s hip replacement coming along?” If you ask a group of Brazilian individuals what their number one cultural value is, it is likely to be, ‘smiling’. In order to be successful in Brazil the one most important word to remember is, relationship. There is little you can achieve unless you take the time and make the effort to get to know your partners, colleagues and service providers personally before going ahead and making any requests or explaining how something should be done. Imagine this scene: You’ve been sitting at your computer all morning. Your tummy starts to grumble and you realize it’s lunchtime. You mention to your colleagues sitting beside you that you’re going out to get a sandwich. You pick up your sandwich take it back to your desk and decide to continue working while nibbling at the sandwich. My dear reader, that is mistake number 1 in Brazil. Relationships are a vital part to getting any job done and therefore having lunch with your colleagues and getting to know about their families, their spouses, children, grandmother, aunts, uncles, their cats' and dogs' names and their hobbies is a vital part of learning to do business in Brazil. The work sphere and the private sphere are mingled into one. If you are leading a group of Brazilian employees make sure you show your interest in their private lives. Brazilians generally prefer to build a relationship of trust and confidence with the people they do business with. Once they trust you, it will be instinctive for them to want to help you reach your objectives. If your service provider offers you a cafezinho before getting down to work don’t even contemplate refusing, irrespective of how many coffees you may already have had that day. The offer to share a coffee is not just to make sure you feel welcome, but it is a chance for them to get to know you a little bit better before deciding whether they would like to work with you. If you’re working on a big long-term project, take the time for the two hour lunches and don’t talk business over lunch; pull out your phone and share your photos of your nephews, nieces and puppy dogs too. “I’m sure she said it would be here on Thursday.” One of the most difficult issues that foreigners in Brazil tend to deal with is having to read between the Brazilian lines. How do you make a decision when you cannot tell if your interlocutor is saying yes or no to your request or when your subordinates don’t open up and debate your ideas. Think about the relationship element we mentioned, add the fact that Brazil is a harmonious culture not wanting to offend anybody (remember the smile) and add a colonial history where the big farmers were boss. It is rare to hear a Brazilian out rightly say, ‘No’. It doesn’t matter how ludicrous he or she finds your request or the fact that a government official in Brasilia cannot possibly get the fifty work permits you requested for Thursday on time for all your staff members to arrive in the country, they will rarely use the word, ‘No’. Instead you’ll often hear ‘vamos ver’ (we’ll see), or, ‘Thursday could be possible’, when in fact Thursday is actually out of the question. So on Thursday afternoon you’re looking at your watch every 20 minutes waiting to receive the fifty work permits for the staff members arriving in the country the next day. You call the official angrily telling her she said they’d be there on Thursday, your blood pressure starts to rise and then the frustrating negative comments start to pour out. Little do you realize that your Brazilian government official had actually said. ‘No’, you just didn’t hear it, or rather you didn't pick up on it. When making requests or explaining how you would like something to be done, try to pick up on the gestures and facial expressions the person opposite you feels she is openly using. You will learn to read the, ‘No’ and not fall into the mistake of waiting for something that was never intended to arrive. ‘O jeitinho Brasileiro’ I’m going to finish on an optimistic note. Brazilians are generally extremely optimistic, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’, or in Brazilian terms, ‘o jeitinho Brasileiro’. You’ve probably heard of it or even seen it done. There is so much admin and bureaucracy to get through in Brazil, that even the Brazilians complain about it knowing very well that all this red tape deters everybody from accomplishing their goals and reaching deadlines promptly. Therefore Brazilians become very creative when having to find solutions to get around red tape and generally in terms of problem-solving. They are adventurous and will look for new opportunities to find new ideas. Often they will not even tell you that there is a problem to solve because they’re proud to be able to solve it for themselves using their flexibility. The fact of not knowing there was a problem often leaves foreigners surprised and feeling that the Brazilian is trying to hide some bigger problem. Often they won’t tell you of the problem if they think you’re not the kind of person who accepts bending rules. Rules are not always followed to a T and you may not always want to know how the issue was solved, but low and behold, your event will start on time as per plan, even if it's a last minute patch up. The backstage may look little untidy but the stage will be as sparkling as the sea at Copacabana beach on a fresh midweek morning with the sunrise beaming over Sugarloaf. [1] http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/brazil-population/ Tania Pellegrini is an intercultural trainer who focuses on assisting multicultural teams to become more effective through building relationships of trust. If you wish to learn more about doing business in Brazil, visit www.culture-link.ch

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It's a bonza! Working with Aussies. So you've finally got the chance to head Down Under on assignment for a couple of years or you have an Australian colleague or two who have joined your project team for the next fifteen months. Don't be fooled by the laid-back reputation that Australians are renowned for; deadlines will be met and your Aussie colleagueswill let you know if they don't agree with your decisions, (if that's what you want) you just need to learn how to get them onto your side. Here are some helpful suggestions for creating an atmosphere of trust and making your team effective when working with Australians. There certainly are plenty of Aussies out there working in the international sports event world, the world of finance and generally enjoying the expat life. So don't consider it to too unlikely to have one or two on your team. 1. Equality -Australians strive for equality and will call the Prime Minister, their child's teacher and their taxi driver by their first name, no titles, surnames or special considerations. In a business situation, treat everybody equally, i.e. if you're leading a meeting be sure to ask your Aussie subordinates for their opinions, especially if they are the experts on the subject matter. 2. Be 'unassuming' - play down your accomplishments. Unless somebody has asked you about your engineering discoveries and your technological feats, don't offer the information. It's not that your Australian colleagues won't find your accomplishments interesting, but if someone asks you what you do for a living, there's no need to start the explanation with where you did your MBA to achieve where you are today; you'll put the table guests to sleep. 3. 'Mateship' - if you're the boss, don't behave in an authoritarian manner with your subordinates, take the time to get to know them and treat them as your 'mates'. Before you go to the office on Monday morning be sure to read up on the weekend sports results as they'll surely be discussed before the weekly update meeting. Enjoy an after-work drink together (it doesn't have to be alcoholic) or invite them to your Sunday BBQ. Keep in mind that if you invite them to a game of golf, your Aussie subordinates are not going to lose the game to make you look better . 4. Don't forget to use humour, especially when things aren't going well. Australian humour is often ironic and self-deprecating. It's a way to keep the atmosphere relaxed. Even if you have no idea what the joke's punch line meant, at least give an appreciative smile. One of the worst criticisms you'll hear from an Australian is, 'He can't take a joke.' 5. Don't forget that although cities like Melbourne and Sydney are very multicultural, Australia has a lot of British heritage. So remember to always be polite and don't criticise your colleagues too directly or you'll create enemies amongst your co-workers and remember that Australians generally support the underdog in any competition, so if that's not you, you won't be making mates. Use humour in situations of conflict to lighten up the atmosphere. Australia is a country of immigrants who have endeavoured to make their children's lives more prosperous than their own may have been. Each individual you meet will have a lot of different cultural influences that will dominate in certain situations, whether that be their gender, their profession, their generation, religion or their national heritage. Therefore the above five points may not ring true for each individual you meet, however it's a starting point for building your team. Tania Pellegrini is an intercultural trainer who focuses on assisting multicultural teams become more effective through building relationships of trust.

The white lies TCKs tell

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An Italian lawyer travelling back home to Rome after a business trip in Japan, (let’s call her Elisabetta), thinks about the meetings she just held in Tokyo. Her gut feeling is that she wasn’t very successful but she can’t really place her finger on what went wrong. Why did she have the feeling that her Japanese business associates didn’t really consider her to be the most competent of lawyers? Trainers will often tell you that when you work with somebody who has a different cultural background to yours you need to adapt. OK, great. That doesn’t sound too hard. I mean, how hard is it to learn how to use chopsticks in Japan, or to not use your left hand at the table in Qatar? We usually don’t mind adapting when the situation calls for changing a physical habit but if the adaptation calls for a change in behaviour that contradicts our deep down values and that is contrary to the way we were educated, contrary to what we believe to be the ‘right’ way of behaving, then it becomes almost agonising and sometimes comical. Nobody had told Elisabetta that she needed to control her emotions during her business meetings in Japan. However, even if somebody had informed her, would she have felt comfortable behaving so unnaturally? Italians tend to wear their heart on their sleeves. If they’re happy they’ll smile and laugh with joy, if they’re angry they’ll grimace with frustration, if they’re confused their forehead will wrinkle in a puzzled frown, irrespective of whether they are in a business meeting or having lunch with the family. The Japanese say, “Only a dead fish has an open mouth,” and a true professional controls his/her feelings in a business meeting. Any loss of control is deemed unprofessional. So Elisabetta’s gut feeling was probably spot on. The meeting probably didn’t go down so well. Being able to build trust with your clients, colleagues or service providers of different cultural backgrounds requires “code-switching” or adapting your communication techniques and ways of behaving. Milton Bennet says that intercultural sensitivity is not natural and that ‘Adaptation means we need to consciously shift our perspective and intentionally alter our behaviour[1]. Therefore in order to become interculturally competent we need to deliberately work at certain skills that are not innate such as giving direct negative feedback to one of our very direct German subordinates even though we are the type of person who usually speaks very indirectly. It’s the kind of thought that gives you a stomach-ache just imagining the scene. The evening before an evaluation meeting, you stand in front of the mirror at home practising all the negative things you need to say and then you get to the meeting the next morning and pofff… it just doesn’t come out as you wanted. You couldn’t help but camouflage the negative points with niceties and flattery even though you really needed to tell the person in front of you that her delegation techniques are not working. So she walks away from the meeting thinking she’s had an extremely good year and that her management skills are great. So much for directness. Step 1: Know yourself The first step to becoming interculturally competent is not to know how the other culture functions, but rather to know yourself. You need to take a good look at yourself and ask yourself, “What are my preferred ways of communicating, what are my most common ways of behaving in meetings and in situations of conflict and how do I problem solve?” What’s the use of a trainer telling you that you need to adapt if you don’t know what to adapt from? Let’s take a concrete example. You’re the head of your department and you were brought up in an egalitarian society. During a meeting you would always consider asking the opinion of your expert subordinates before making an important decision because you know that their advice is likely to be vital. Now, go and sit in a meeting with colleagues who were brought up in a culture that does not veneer a subordinate’s opinion and you’ll likely come out of that meeting pulling your hair out, wondering, “Why are they all just agreeing with me, why didn’t anybody question the upcoming deadlines?” If you are used to debating in meetings and receiving assorted input, this kind of behaviour will frustrate you and worse you’ll likely start labelling your colleagues as incompetent, unreliable and just plain lazy. Step 2: Learn about the values of the ‘other’ culture (or those you mostly do business with). Working with people of other cultural backgrounds involves developing competences that we do not necessarily have naturally, such as learning to ‘read the air’ in Japan. If you’re classified as Kuuki Yomenai in Japan, it probably means that you cannot ‘read the air’, or you cannot decipher social situations, such as not understanding body language. The Japanese are usually non-conflictual and your Japanese service provider would not embarrass you or make you lose face by replying to a last minute outrageous request of yours with an outright ‘No’. He will likely say, “It would be very difficult.” Reading his body language you will hopefully understand that he is actually saying, ‘Are you insane, your request is completely out of the question!’ If you had ’read the air’ then you would quickly move on and find a new service provider. If you aren’t capable of reading the air and you’re an eternal optimist, then you’re probably still sitting around waiting for the difficult situation in Tokyo to be made possible. Step 3: Code switching – adapting your style So, if step 1 is knowing how you behave, for example, ‘as an egalitarian with indirect speech,’ and step 2 is understanding how the person in front of you behaves, then step 3 is to ‘code switch’ or adapt your behaviour and communication techniques to be more comprehensible to the person in opposite you. If we consider our style of communicating and behaving as a code that is common amongst people who have a similar background to ours then it is natural that we don’t have to explain our behaviour to them, they will subconsciously understand without having to try and decipher it. For example, a Swiss manager in a meeting with Swiss subordinates will naturally ask for the consensus of his whole team before making a decision. This allows the Swiss team to feel they have participated in the decision-making process (all related to the deep down value of direct democracy in Switzerland). Any behaviour that the manager uses which differs to that would likely make the subordinates feel as though the manager is hiding something and that he is not quite trustworthy. If he doesn’t adapt he may lose the respect of his Swiss subordinates which in the long run could lead to rebellion. So before you order that, ‘Doing Business in Australia’ handbook and learn how to talk about Aussie Rules football while sipping at a caffé latte at the Monday morning meetings, take a look in the mirror and inspect yourself closely at your next meetings. [1] Milton Bennett, “Towards Ethnorelativism: A Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity”, Intercultural Press, 1993. 21-71.

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Ever wondered why you get that bitter-sweet taste in your mouth at the completion of a successful mega project that went well? You worked hard, iArabic Man Standing With Businesspeoplen fact the whole team worked hard and reached its objectives, but you don’t think any of the team members really want to work together again and certainly not with you as their leader. I recently spoke to a German who had just relocated to Zug, Switzerland from northern Germany. His intention had been to have a one-day workshop to learn more about Swiss communication techniques and working methods. During our pre-workshop phone conversation, we quickly realized that as often occurs to expats moving to Zug, he was not really going to be working with many Swiss people at all; his boss would be a woman from the USA, his assistant a young Malaysian and the rest of the team would be made up of a Greek, an Italian, a Norwegian and an Indian. Well, so much for learning about Swiss communication techniques, I guess we could throw that idea out the window. Zug’s population has close to doubled over the last 40 years. Today it has a population of around 110,000 made up of around 120 nationalities.[1] Zug has become such an international hub that more and more HR departments are requesting training for their employees that is no longer specific to working just in Switzerland, but rather how to make their multicultural teams more effective. So what’s all the fuss about you might say. Why do multicultural teams need any particular training at all, surely the people who are selected to work abroad or to manage an international team are there because they are interculturally competent, right? Not always. What does it take to make a multicultural team highly effective? In their book, Intercultural Readiness, Ursula Brinkmann and Oscar van Weerdenburg[2], state that compared to a monocultural team, a multicultural team can be either highly effective or highly ineffective. Although most of us imagine that multicultural teams outperform monocultural teams consistently because we assume they have more creative ideas and different perspectives to add to the table, these teams often have quite a few hindrances that don’t consistently get in the way of monocultural teams. Although these teams do sometimes reach their task-related objective, they usually do not wish to work together a second time round[3]. So the benefits of their success is lived short term. If we agree that a strong team needs good communication, trust and an understanding of how to resolve conflict, then we see how multicultural teams may underperform. Leading directors pull together these project-based teams from all parts of the globe eager to bring together multiple creative ideas. However what they fail to question is how the group of such diverse cultures will actually collaborate, communicate and reach personal objectives, three themes that are rarely discussed openly before the project kicks off. These ‘dream-teams’ are usually shaped by people who have differences in age, gender, national culture, religion and professional background and each of these individuals has varying needs in terms of personal satisfaction and development. Let’s look at the question of communication. Individuals of diverse cultures would generally have varying methods of communication. For example, one would ask herself, “Is it appropriate to speak up in a team meeting if I disagree with my boss even though I am the expert in the matter or shall I keep quiet (because of my respect for hierarchy)?” “Will I speak up if a deadline cannot be met, or do I not want to take ownership and responsibility for that?” “As a manager should I give feedback publicly to each individual including somebody who may be older than I am?” “Should I use brainstorming techniques for finding ideas or will that place some individuals ill at ease because in their culture it is not the accepted thing?” When we work in monocultural teams we take our communication methods almost for granted expecting all colleagues to be comfortable communicating in a similar fashion. For example, a person who is brought up in a culture that likes brainstorming sessions, in an environment where people speak their mind and throw out ideas at such sessions, (irrespective of whether they are an Associate Director or an Assistant) would tend to lead a group believing these kind of sessions are the best way forward. Does that person take into consideration the team member who may have joined from perhaps a Japanese background and environment where often communication is only vertical (usually only downward and seldom would somebody speak their mind in such an environment)? The manager of a truly multicultural team would rarely get much input from each member in such a brainstorming session and would therefore need to devise another method of communication for this team in order to make the fortnightly meetings effective. He/she would need to create a method of communication that is comfortable and appropriate for all concerned – not my way, not your way; our way - cultural collaboration. Let’s look at trust; How do we create trust in monocultural teams? I guess Monday morning in the office is the typical one that most of us can relate to. Discussing sports results at the coffee machine or discussing the latest film that we went to see on Saturday evening or even our child’s failed math test. As we get to know our colleagues we learn to confide in them and accept their ideas as worthwhile. Multicultural teams often do not get the opportunity to get to know their colleagues very well. Sometimes because they are based on different continents and only communicate virtually and then usually in written format where personal thoughts and feelings are usually left out or difficult to interpret. Sometimes it is just that we do not always take the necessary steps to get to know somebody who seems so different to us; what would a female generation X HR manager from Zurich have in common with a generation Y IT expert from Mumbai? Lack of trust and cohesion is often a cause for multicultural teams not wanting to work together on a second project[4]. So if these are just a couple of examples of what may make a multicultural team ineffective, how do we actually make such a team effective so that we can really get the most out of these culturally diverse teams and at the same time give each individual the chance to develop and want to work with her or his colleagues again? The strength of highly effective multicultural teams is that they create a third culture, one that each member can adhere to as the culture of that specific project team. A culture where items such as how to deal with conflict are discussed or, “I as the manager of this team will not be offended if the team members question my ideas in a team meeting”. Multicultural teams are effective when all team members are interculturally competent, i.e. they are culturally aware of differences and they know how to switch communication and work techniques to build trust across the different cultures within their team. So at your kick-off meeting for that dream-team being created in Zug to work on a project in Tokyo, consider the theme of reaching cultural collaboration - create a third culture. References [1] www.zg.ch/portraet/leute (15 August 2015) [2, 3 and 4] U. Brinkmann and O. Van Weerdenburg (2014), ‘Intercultural Readiness, four competences for working across cultures’, chapter 6, pp. 135-175