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by Richard Pooley When cultures collide Developing an awareness of cross-cultural factors in international business and handling them properly is es:c;:ential if you want your global business activities to be effective. 28 T he client rang me out of the blue. Could I fly to Munich and help solve a crisis11 agreed, but after hearing a brief account of what had happened, I wasn't optimistic ) COL,ldprovide a 'olution. Eighteen months earlier two fJmous intcrn"t,onJI companies. one Japanese, the other German. had signt:d a joint venture agreement to develop, produce and launch a prod~J(t that had the potential to capture a new market. The joint venture would combine the marketing skills of one co:npany with the technology and d~ign skUls of the other (my client). To the management of both it must hal/e seemed the perfect busin"ss marria!}", Within '''''i'k, of the deal being signed. a group of Japanese design engineers was sent to Bal/ana to work alongside a German team of similar size and expertise. The energy and enthusiasm surrounding the deal was infectious. But, within a few days of their Management Services Spnng 2005
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Page 1: When Culture Collide

by Richard Pooley

When culturescollideDeveloping an awareness ofcross-cultural factors ininternational business andhandling them properly ises:c;:entialif you want your globalbusiness activities to beeffective.

28

The client rang me out of theblue. Could I fly to Munich andhelp solve a crisis11 agreed, but

after hearing a brief account of whathad happened, I wasn't optimistic )COL,ldprovide a 'olution.

Eighteen months earlier twofJmous intcrn"t,onJI companies.one Japanese, the other German.had signt:d a joint ventureagreement to develop, produce andlaunch a prod~J(t that had thepotential to capture a new market.The joint venture would combine the

marketing skills of one co:npany

with the technology and d~ign skUls

of the other (my client).To the management of both it

must hal/e seemed the perfect

busin"ss marria!}", Within '''''i'k, of

the deal being signed. a group ofJapanese design engineers was sent

to Bal/ana to work alongside aGerman team of similar size and

expertise. The energy and

enthusiasm surrounding the deal wasinfectious.

But, within a few days of their

Management Services Spnng 2005

Page 2: When Culture Collide

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arrival; the Japanese engineers were

In a state of shock. They fOlJnd theirGerman collabvrators to be rude,

inconsiderate and lazy. The Germans

Interrupted during meetin<Js andpresentation,. and showed no

Inte' est in r...,,,ching consellsus

through thl' IIumerous 'p'(- meNln.(meNmgs th,,' are an inteyral pan ofJap"nese u,,"",ess ~ultu,,' The

Japanese were un~omfortilble with

the German WdY of aryuill'oJ

everythinq out in front of eve')'cne

1o, the Jap" ,,'S(-, th" pOI,.nt'31 forloss of face -,.)S just too bHJ. The.,.

also disliked "...hat they saw as ttl('

Germ~ns' willmgness to gu harTH',"ven when tasks were unflnoshed

A< for th.. ejermans, the.,. were

equally unhappy with the Japanese,

flIdny of ,V;10111seemed unable tvsp,'ak English, the supposed cammon

1;.1I\9uage of !'le tedl.,. The (,eIOl.1'l\lon'pl<,i"'>d I'ldt ev"n tho" who.0Clld sp!"dk 'drch.t.sti,t.. their

OponlOns dhilly and fr.mkl{. By thetime I was c;,lied in, the two sides

were haodly speaking to e:Jch ottH.,.

They ..xpres,,(od opiniom that canonly be ces",bed as racist.Commun;catll,n had broken down

comiJletely. The. team was dlsb'lnd"d. How ,,"porta.1t

is PUll, T:JaUtyand sr,' kmg todead/llw,?

Unfortunately, it is still rare fo,senior exeult,.es to take cros~-cultt;ral dille, enees ~eroously wh..nmaking decisiom on mergers,aC4uisitiom, joint ventures i'ndlicensing agreement> in theinternational arena. It cI':)l-sn't h"lpthat institutional shareholders and

analysts rarely regard cross-cultu,alrli~ferences as sj!Jnific~nt, eil"er Ve~there is pl~nty of evidence tt'atcultural differences are a majorreason why so many of cross-bvrde,joint ventures fail.

It is rare for orgdnisations tobother with the nitty-gritty detaolsof how the people lower down thehierarchy will run meetings. make

answer is that the two organisationsshould have been aware of the

dangers thllt clln arise when tea.ms,or individuals, from different

cultures are suddenly brought

together in the workplace.- -...-----

"We are all influencedby the culture from

which we originate."

------------..---...

Wf"re all the same. aren't we?So what had gone wrong? The - '"

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decisions, solve problems. managestaff and communicate proposals.

Yet. people from different cultt;,es

curry out all these proceduresdifferently in diverse ways. Thetrouble is, each culture assumes

their'wdY is the 'normal' one.Unexplained deviations from thesl.'

norms are perceived as, well.deviant and even devious. People

start to thInk: can we trust people

from other countries who do things

in this sir ange '''ay7In the case 01 the German and

Japanese companies, neither

organisation b;)thered to gi':e their

people any understanding of thecultural attill-des and behaviour cf

the dlnN side. No attempt was

:r1dd" to get th£: r.ew team tudiscuss their dIfferences.. and

similaroties. For eXi'mrle, both the

)"panese anJ Germans expect

punctu..l.ty .Jnd clear, detailed

olg~ndo1s. The ~eam pad no chance

to establo~h ~he best way to work

to\;etf)el.

What's the iolution?

Different types of cross-border dealsrequire a vallety of solutions. ThelOmpany for which I work, C/lnning,has been helping organisations fineand deliver the right mix ofsolutions to cross..cultural IHuessince 1965.

Sometimes the <lnsw(:(can lie Inproviding a combination ofintensive language af1d cross-wllur,,1 tr..ining for key person"e!.Or v..e may join in tl,e kick-offmet'ting for a new OIult!nation<J1t{'am and help team members learnabout the cross-cultural differencesand similarities of their new

colleagues. This work offers teamr",embers use1ul insights into howthey can best work together. aprocess that can be lurthetfacilitated by other assistance weoffer. We may run i: series ofgeneric cross-cultural courses to tryand make staff rcallse that 'the waywe do things around here' is notnecesssrll, the w,.y that Klaus orFran~ois do things there.

Renault dedded very early on in .its alliance with Nissdn to invert

massively in cross-cultural training,team hllildin,:, anrl consl/ltilncy fC'rmanagers at all levels of thecompany, They wanted to be surethat their mostly French staff had agood understanding of the culturalnorms and expectations of theirJapanese partners. Over the pastfour years, Canning has trainedmore than 1550 Renault employees

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Page 3: When Culture Collide

on over 140 courses about Japanesebusiness cultur~. And since 2002,Canning's office in Tokyo hasdelivered a mirror course on Frenchculture to more than 400 Nissa!'!employees. Unlike the disa~trousGerman-Japanese case chronl:ledabove, the Renault-Nlssan alliamehas been successful.

Do they like tobe frank anddirect?

Offshore! Englishin .i'Ctipn

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~ ,oumi;t'OP~ttpnl5fP~;~i\i1ey:ralc~.~<:nj~ But;t~{to~U$efJjcjutmlY~~ptv~f"~..~~.. :I,~- ,,'. . ,~.~.~~~t~~ *,sl!-and,,",PIe;;~~}'I?Urse'(:to,.

91¥!ideaper.~n~o~; " >, ' "',, ..EqgUsh hanl:'II'ge{VjXab.~fary tfjar\f?~ CJJ.talrlln~

'IWof1'l9lishWOfds(an ~an E'SsPrrtiall1:m~sam~

,~h.~9i"n'Jr~~I.S;".~~rid'~t~~rmank'!~an and,.~pdrnavian) ,!.IndRomaJ'l(e (ba~,q'1S,ipIYllrou~dd.iSslcellatiri, mid/aval Latin anqFfenCh};}When

. sp~8krng. the Bri!ish tend ,to us~ w()r~4erjvt'<1 frorn

the Germanic side.Whon we writ~ ho~~\(er, the

,vQ(.ibularyJs,moreJto~~~.~d~%1~t is~ '" .I~.more ,.Jt

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What kind of tralr./ng really Vltorks7You can only handle di~ferencesproperly if you understand that youyourself are far from b(.;n~ dneutral observer, but arc startingwith many ingrained prejudices andpreconcepliom of your own. Thefact that you start with these isnothing to be ashamed of. We areall influenced by the cultUJ. fromwhich \'Ie originate.

At Canr.ing, we believe there arefour key stages necessary for peopleto develop cross-cultural awareness.First~y,you need to know yourself.You must Identify and be aware otwhat .:onstltute5 'normal' behaviour

for you. What arp. your values? Howdo you see the world? What kind atbehavlours and preconceptions insocial and business settings do youregard as the norm? Of course.what you regard as the norm is notreally an objective norm, but onlyyour take on tt But Y;JUneed ~oundef!,tand this before you canmove on to the next stage.

Next, you need to understand thefactors that halle determined whatyour counterparts in differentcountries regard as the norm. AtCanning we like to analyse this in a

thre~folu ma~ner. which we referto as Facts, Attitudes, Behltvlour.This consists o')fthe facts (eg the,,~ogldrhicoll, uern0!}raphic,historica!, religious. education/II,economic fartors) that have createdthe attitudes which shape thebehaviour of the people from thepdrticular culture you are dealingwith.

Particular att~ntion should be paidto thinking about the attitudeswhich you and others are likely totake about the followlny:. Time. How important is

punctuality and sticking todeadlines?

. Truth. What is their attI"Lude

towards honesty. r1gM andwrong1

. F\elationships. One examplewould be how do they regardpeople who arp ,,'npr or senior T<'them?

. The human condition. What is

their attitude to risk and do theybelieve they have free choke?

. Communication. Do they like tobe frank and direct?

Everyone, even from the same

Management Services Spring 2005

Page 4: When Culture Collide

~especially :\eed to be aware of anynegative perceptions they mighthave.

The fOl<rthstep is to learn to--adapt. whilst remaining true to your

own values. But you can, andfrequently should, mal..e a consciouseffort, in a non-patronislng fashion,to alter your communi{atlon style ifyou I!rCto work effectively withpeople from other wltures. Inparticular, think. at.out how you use

. English. The box contains some tipsfor how you can modify your use ofEnglish into what we at Lanning call'OHshore English', i: slmplitiedEnglish that.h is helpful to adoptwhc:n doing business with 11011-,.atlv£: speakers.

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counlry. ..e,,, Ihese fador\ to somt'

extent in dltkrenl ways, but people

fro", the s"'rH,, country 9""erally, .

though not ,,,~vjt~bly, tend 10. exhibit cert;,in 'cluste~in9s' in thei.

cultural assumptions and attitude..,

By examining these clusterings, it IS

pcssiule to ulJild up a useful picture()f the kind 01 cullurdl perceptiol1\

and attitudes likely to beinfiuendng peop:e flOm the co~nl' y'n question.

tnI.' third step of handling cross.cultural diHerences Is to know howothers see you. It is essential youdevelop an awareness of howpeople from oiher cultures perc\:lveyou and YOUIown culture. You

Cor;JnI.i"icationhad b" ''''endown

compi,o[dy.

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