Working successfully with people from different cultures
The best organizations recognize that, in a world where standardization and processes dominate, it is the combination of different people and the fusion of different ideas that generates progress and promotes success.
The best businesses reach out to customers and employees, managing and valuing cross-cultural relationships and ensuring maximum productivity, innovation and sales. Cultural diversity can be a valuable differentiator, enabling organizations to attract and retain the best people and helping them achieve their full potential.
Managing cross-cultural relationships is achieved by making decisions based on merit, encouraging different perspectives and challenging those behaviors that undermine other cultural or gender groups. It also means developing attitudes, practices and procedures that provide genuine equality of treatment and opportunity for all employees. Several specific techniques are particularly valuable.
Prepare for working across cultures
Broaden and develop your perspective by considering the following:
• Your own culture is unique. When working across borders you are the stranger.
• The culture you ignore most is your own. Look at yourself from the outside: What do others think?
• Others think and act differently from you.
• While your behavior needs to adapt to norms, expectations and local customs, this does not mean imitating.
Be patient
Accept that your concept of time may be different – time frames may not be shared.
Beware of the ‘denial of difference’ and `illusion of similarity’
People may be excessively polite as a way of denying difference. Statements such as ‘We share the same language … we are united by the same industry, business or values’ can hide a desire to avoid confronting the reality of cultural differences. Denying difference matters because it means we achieve only the lowest common denominator.
Take care when making jokes
Some jokes not only fail to travel across cultures, but they also cause offence. Humor can be a great support in cross-cultural situations but can also be culturally insensitive.
Understand each individual
Check your views and assumptions with others and:
• recognize that you may hold stereotypical views
• accept that cultural factors are mistakenly attributed to both sides
• understand motives behind a specific behavior. Don’t superficially judge behaviors against your own standards.
Reconcile differences
Resolve cultural differences by doing the following:
• Look for opportunities and the value of both perspectives, rather than favoring one or the other or seeing conflicts between different values.
• Define issues in terms of dilemmas or end results – what it is that needs to be achieved – instead of focusing on the means. Find ways to avoid compromise as this is often simply the lowest common denominator.
• Reach out to colleagues of different orientations. Their different perspectives and experiences are potentially interesting and a valuable advantage.
• Be willing to invest effort communicating across cultural boundaries.
Respect and practice generic and local business customs, especially when it comes to communication.