A compendium of current news and headlines with commentary providing unique cultural insight into global affairs, business and daily life around the world.

Check out CultureWizard Digest #26 here!

* Creating Effective Virtual Teams
* A British Response to an American Disaster
* How to Create Successful Global Initiatives
* The Online Lingua Franca

CultureLinks
+ Chinglish
+ “The Battle for Female Talent in Emerging Markets”

CultureTips
+ Hungary

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+ In business it is best to adopt a formal approach and pay close attention to hierarchy and status. Hungarians are highly individualistic and proud of their personal accomplishments. They work exceedingly hard and will work extra hours to complete a job to the best of their ability.
+ Both men and women greet by shaking hands, when meeting someone for the first time. Some older men may kiss a woman’s hand in greeting, although this is less common than it once was. They may, however, bow slightly when shaking the woman’s hand to demonstrate their deference. At subsequent meetings, they kiss one another lightly on both cheeks.
+ Hungarians can be quite formal and do not often call anyone outside their family and a few close friends by their first name. Do not presume this level of intimacy until invited.
+ Most Hungarians grant an automatic 5-minute grace period and expect people to arrive within that window for both social and business occasions. In many respects, Hungary is an extremely achievement oriented culture where people work extremely hard.
+ Hungarians are emotive speakers who are not afraid to argue their position. At the same time, they may use stories, analogies, or jokes to get their point across in an indirect manner.
+ Hungarians often have a dry sense of humor. They enjoy complaining or poking fun at anything that is reminiscent of the Communist era. While they may make these types of comments, foreigners should not.

- from RW3′s CultureWizard® Country Profiles

RW3 CultureWizard

Tony Hayward, CEO of BP

We couldn’t help but recognize the impact culture had on the approach British BP took to an American disaster.

Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, said during an interview with the Guardian “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

What Hayward didn’t consider when he said this is the environment, a bit of geography (gulf, not ocean) and the number of people affected by the spill in the Gulf region and the influence of the environmental movement in the US, which is smaller in the UK. Brits also don’t tend to have the more trusting, close relationship Americans have with the the press. Carrie Shearer, an intercultural consultant and former oil industry executive, opines Hayward should have apologized to the public, stated what BP was doing to correct the disaster and then recruit a crisis communication team to speak to the press, thus removing BP’s leadership from the spotlight.

Al Center, a Cornell University professor of chemical engineering, explains what he would have emphasized:

I would have had a technical spokesman go to all of the news networks to explain what BP was doing to contain the well and the spill. There are 19,000 people working on this problem and BP is spending about USD$20 million per day towards its resolution. I think if people saw the magnitude of the response the public perception of BP would be better.

Shearer explains that it’s not common in the UK to hire a PR firm or a crisis communicator to work with the press on disasters like these, as it is in the US. Regardless, Shearer emphasized that somebody should have trained Hayward on how to speak to the media, which would have saved him the loss of face caused by his reference to the relatively small amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

Public statements in the UK are less detailed than in the US, apologies are avoided and comments are understated, which conforms with British norms of communication. In response to some of the mistakes BP made when beginning to search for a resolution, Hayward said in the same Guardian interview that “it was a bit bumpy to get [the relief] going. We made a few little mistakes early on.” There was no initial apology to the public, which is what Americans look for when disasters like this happen. The British focus, as we’ve seen through Hayward’s statements, is the reparation and relief.

What do you make of this situation? How much could cultural awareness and knowledge of American media mitigate the US public’s frustration with BP’s management of this crisis? We’re eager to know your thoughts.

Sean

RW3 CultureWizard

The May issue of Training + Development magazine describes a sales coaching initiative, “Sales Coaching Across Cultures,” that was successful at one company’s offices all over the world. According to the magazine, it was successful with people from the US, Norway, Argentina, Japan, Italy and Australia.

What design methods can make a standard program effective in a number of culturally distinct locales? In the above instance, it’s clear that the delivery of the sales coaching lessons was flexible enough to allow for culturally-specific tactics, which are different from country to country. Oftentimes we hear about the failure of global initiatives created in one culture that didn’t reflect adjustment when delivered in another culture. It’s important to understand cultural gaps in learning styles when training around the world. For example, how would a German group of sales managers best learn how to coach their team versus an Indian group? How does the value placed on relationships make the sales process different in these countries? How do norms of communication affect the ways in which a sales manager would coach a salesperson?

The magazine states the company learned that “a global initiative is most effective when there is a standard program that is delivered locally and with flexibility.” How would you factor cultural differences into a global program design? What would you use to support the global integrity of widespread initiatives? Please let us know.

RW3 CultureWizard

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RW3 Survey Finds 40% of Virtual Teams Underperform

New Survey Identifies Areas that Impair Effectiveness of Virtual Work

NEW YORK, NY – May 24, 2010 – According to a study released today, 80% of corporate managers work virtually at least part of the time and 63% are members of global virtual teams. The key factors that impair productivity are: cultural differences, communication styles, time-zone differences, language and a lack of face-to-face contact, according to the Virtual Teams Survey Report 2010 – The Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams, conducted by RW3 CultureWizard, an intercultural training consultancy specializing in online intercultural training for global business managers.

Michael S. Schell, CEO of RW3 CultureWizard, said “We were stunned to learn that only 60% of participants on virtual teams considered them to be as successful as they could be. We can’t imagine that this degree of satisfaction would be acceptable in any business endeavor. Inasmuch as virtual teams are such a fast-growing component of business, and global collaboration is critical to success, the organizations with the most effective teams will be most successful. Making virtual work more effective must be top-of-mind for every business leader.”

The survey identifies three challenging areas: time zone and language difficulties, communication styles and cultural differences.

1. Time Zones and Languages: 81% indicated time zones presented the greatest general hurdle to virtual teams, followed by 64% who found language (accents and dialects) to be a barrier.

2. Communication style: 94% said the inability to read non-verbal cues is very challenging, and 90% stated the absence of face-to-face contact interfered with the ability to build a relationship (which is perceived as a challenge facing virtual teams). In addition, 81% said being virtual made it more difficult to establish trust and rapport.

3. Cultural differences: 80% said that virtual teams slowed down decision making, 77% were hampered by different leadership styles and 76% felt the method of decision-making was a challenge.

“Apparently, collaborative technology has outpaced the ability of global virtual team members to work effectively across cultures,” says Charlene Solomon, executive vice president of RW3 Culture Wizard. “Companies need to be aware of the influence of culture on work styles and to develop procedures to assure intercultural effectiveness. They need to establish specific rules for respectful interaction that are already assumed to exist among members of more conventional, co-located teams where all of the participants are all from the same culture. They also need to pay greater attention to team structure and must carefully monitor and adhere to the work rules they have created,” she added.

“The good news is that there is training available to make virtual teams more effective,” concludes Schell. He explained that the new study was prompted, in part, by the growing number of collaborative software options that facilitate virtual work and make it commonplace for teams of people from around the world to work together – often without ever meeting in person. According to Schell, RW3 CultureWizard is using the findings of the survey report to develop and fine tune the components of its Virtual Team Tool – a training initiative to help organizations improve communication skills among virtual team members.

RW3 CultureWizard has made a copy of The Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams available online. Please click on the link above.

About RW3 CultureWizard
RW3 CultureWizard is an intercultural training consultancy that specializes in creating online and e-learning facilities to develop global collaboration within its client organizations. Founded in 2001, with offices in New York, Los Angeles and London, RW3 CultureWizard blends 30 years of experience with technological capabilities into a comprehensive cultural e-university, which provides tailored learning platforms. These include cross-cultural training courses, global and virtual team collaboration, international assignee support, and country-specific information.

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information, visit RW3′s website.

NPR’s “All tech considered” takes a look at the increasing use of languages other than English on the web. In the early age of internet use, English was the dominant language. As a language that bridged communication, it served the majority of people who had access to the internet. However, access to the world wide web has reached a critical mass of people who prefer to communicate in their native language.

“According to Internet World Stats, Arabic users on the Internet have increased by more than 2,000 percent over the past decade. Chinese will soon replace English as the most-used language on the web.”

NPR’s story poses a question: as more non-English speakers use the internet, how do we prevent a sort of language balkanization of virtual space?

But first, why should we avoid such a fragmentation? Obviously, the inability to read and understand web material is a downside, but English remains a global language and the language of global business. As it is, the segment notes that 73% of the internet right now is not in English. For now, NPR notes that the mechanization of translation is a wobbly, yet improving solution to using parts of the internet in other languages.

It seems that English is a suitable and durable ‘online lingua franca.’ After all, cross-cultural communication requires some common linguistic ground. Nevertheless, an opportunity for non-English speakers to learn via the internet seems to be a major benefit to new users around the world.

What do you think?

Click here to read the story.

Sean

RW3 CultureWizard

Check out the curious translations of Chinese signage into English, or what many are now calling Chinglish, from the New York Times.

Many of us might understand what the English translation was intended to describe, but for anyone who can read Mandarin Chinese, is there an alternative translation you can offer?

I think these photos show some of China’s growing pains as a developing country. I wonder if one were to look around China’s cities during the last decade, would there be any bilingual signage? I think it’s important to understand the attempt to translate for an English-speaking audience that perhaps wasn’t there before.

Credit: Brett Wines

Sean

RW3 CutlureWizard

As we all know, India is generating computer scientists and engineers in huge numbers. Without question, India is already a technology powerhouse. Just look around the city and you’ll see that any player of consequence has facilities here or nearby. Many of these companies spend time on training and cultural integration because India’s education system, while turning out terrific engineers and computer programmers, stills leaves them with a cultural gap that presents a challenge to Western managers. And, nowhere is this more pronounced than in the way hierarchy manifests itself in the workplace.

This isn’t surprising because Indians are raised to have profound respect for parents, teachers and authority in general. When we teach culture, we often talk about the impact of religion and cultural heroes on cultural values of a country. There’s an illuminating Hindu tale about two brothers—Lord Ganesha and Lord Subramanya (Kartikya) who went to Lord Shiva to settle a dispute. The elder, wise lord gave them each a vessel filled with oil and asked them to travel around the universe without spilling a drop and that would settle the argument. Kartikya set about on his journey around the world and proudly returned showing how he had, indeed, not spilled a drop of oil. His brother, Ganesha, took the vessel and carefully walked around his parents and said, “My parents are the entire universe.”

Lord Ganesha

This devout honoring of parents transfers to teachers, leaders and the overall hierarchical structure of business. Of course, the Indian business leaders we work with realize that egalitarianism and being able to question business leaders is an important part of the business scene, and in general, they master the ability to function in an egalitarian environment. However, the deeply seated cultural values imbued in childhood are still present.

We saw this in an interesting way. While in Bangalore, we met with several clients. One of them described different brainstorming sessions, telling us an Indian leader will come to a brainstorming meeting with PowerPoint slides and charts because the leader is expected to have an underlying wisdom and expertise, so it would be inappropriate for him to walk in and “shoot from the hip.” While he will ask his subordinates for their ideas, he comes prepared with well thought-out concepts himself.

Charlene

Read an article by Sean Dubberke of RW3 CultureWizard, titled Culture and Communication 101, which made the front cover of this month’s Mobility magazine. Below is a synopsis from the editors.

“Behavior and communication are interpreted through a cultural filter. As global thinkers with international and multicultural experiences increasingly interact with each other in the business world, opportunities for misunderstanding and communication breakdowns increase. Dubberke offers methods for identifying cultural clues among your colleagues and clients and how to best use them for addressing communication issues.”

RW3 CultureWizard