Interested in improving your Russian business skills? RW3′s Sean Dubberke contributed a cultural profile of Russia, including strategies for successful business, to MOBILITY magazine this month. Click here to read it online.
The Economist this week touts a special section, led by “The Indian miracle and the future: Rolls-Royces and pot-holes”. The lead article, which is one of several fascinating, multilayered stories, declares “a new kind of capitalism…in which large family concerns, often in their second generation or older, hold remarkable sway” over the “Indian miracle”.
Culturally, it’s not surprising that family dynasties dominate in a society with an unyielding tradition of fidelity to kin and parental power. One of the first things of note in the Indian value system is the crucial, central role of the family. And, given the complexity and opaqueness of India’s legal structure and bureaucracy, dynastic businesses streamline operations and make a lot of sense.
A reader, who’s name is simply “femi,” left the following thought-provoking comment about the lead:
…It would seem from my observations, that wherever you find Indians or people of Indian descent, they are willing to go to great lengths to take advantage of the environment they are in and the people around them. Not only is this driven by a culture which you do not mention in this piece…it seems so deeply engrained in the psyche of the people and seems to have been so for centuries…This inclination to exploit is perhaps what gives India it’s energy…However, what puzzles me is that in analyzing the business environment in various countries I seem to get the impression that most commentators and analysts do not give sufficient weight to culture and the effect this has on the way businesses are run. I think as in the case of India here, more would be understood if additional effort is made to understand the culture and how this impacts on the way businesses operate…
What cultural advice would you give to journalists, writers, analysts and others in the media?
Charlene
RW3 CultureWizard
Saurabh Srivastava, left, the chairman of the Indian Angel Network, meets with young entrepreneurs in New Delhi. Sanjit Das for The New York Times
Hold on! For a society known to be among the most group-oriented and hierarchical in the world, entrepreneurs were a rare, almost non-existent breed. In fact, Saurabh Srivastava, who founded IIS Infotech in 1989 had to wait 2-1/2 years to get permission just to start the company.
But all that’s changing. Along with other like-minded pioneers and entrepreneurs, Srivastava started The Indian Angel Network that not only gives money but sends young, bright entrepreneurs to the Network’s own “boot camps” for mentoring. Do you think India’s younger generations will be able to breakthrough the cultural values of their elders to build innovative, profitable businesses? Read this New York Times article and let us know what you think.
Sure, it’s indisputable that Indian tech giants have their pick of excellent talent, but what about the cultural issues that make people hesitant to break out and take massive risks? Does this business behavior exist on a large scale in India?
Charlene
Photo courtesy of currencyhut.com
For weeks and months the Euro crisis has been front page news. Each article brings us closer and closer to the provocative question: Are there too many different cultures to make this work? Are there too many different perspectives that cannot coalesce into a unified whole?
This week alone there were two articles in the German paper, Der Spiegel, that speaks directly to this issue: “We Won’t Pay: Greece’s Middle Class Revolt against Austerity” and “Resenting Greece: Slovakia Threatens Euro Rescue Package”
As the crisis continues, do you have doubts about the future of the Union? Let us know what you think.
Charlene
Under duress, we revert to our basic cultural behavioral styles. And, taking to the streets to riot is not uncommon in Greece’s history.
As everyone who has worked in the international arena knows, culture is learnable, but not easily changeable. While it’s not too difficult to learn to adjust your behavior to accomplish objectives in a different cultural environment, the difficulty comes when you’re faced with stress. Most of us will revert back to our core cultural behaviors. The Euro Zone has learned quite well to work together across myriad cultures, but the question is: how well will it perform under the stress it is now facing? Has the Euro adequately transcended the cultural differences so as to allow Europeans to pull together with a single solution?
The struggle today in the Euro Zone is that test. Will it survive under the duress being placed on it, right now, particularly by Greece? (Click here to read our Culture Tips for Greece). This Athens News article describes the intense struggles that leaders of the EU are encountering. What are your thoughts?
Charlene
Read Sean Dubberke’s article, Middle East Culture Redux, in the June issue of MOBILITY magazine. The following blurb describes the article:
The Middle East is a vast region encompassing a multitude of distinct cultures, dialects, and attitudes toward business with the West. Dubberke addresses those issues and examines important elements of Middle Eastern cultures: communication, relationships, and rules, as well as how these cultural characteristics affect business practices. He also examines how to successfully interact with Middle Easterners.
The impossible-to-imagine three-pronged catastrophe hitting Japan right now is almost too much to take in. Yet, we do try to take it in; to make sense of it, and in some ways we share this global disaster on a human level. I lived in Japan; I have always lived in earthquake country and I’ve witnessed powerful quake damage in Los Angeles and San Francisco several times. It is scary as your home moves around you and the ground underneath you has tantrums of varying degrees throughout the days that follow. Add a devastating tsunami and the post traumatic stress of shared recollections of radiation and it really is too much to conceive.
Yet, watching the televised images of Japanese reacting to the disaster reminds me again how different cultures are as they express their grief, fear and trauma. In an unprecedented event, Emperor Akihito gave a televised speech in which he comforted his people and applauded their ability to remain calm and respectful of each other.
Emperor Akihito's Speech
We are very interested in hearing your thoughts on what has happened and would especially value any accounts from individuals who have been in Japan or have heard stories from people in Japan. How would you react to the “keep calm and carry on” theme that many officials in Japan have exuded over the past few days? How is the stoic facade the Japanese have maintained connected to Japanese culture?
Below are links to related articles:
Bangkok Post: “Stoic calm in the face of utter calamity“
Japan Times: A round-up of updates
Washington Post: “Emperor Akihito gives message of comfort in televised address“
Korea Herald: “Former ‘comfort women’ pray for Japan“
We’re living at a time when social media is changing everything about the way we share information. What we don’t know is the role the organization should play in capitalizing on the social media phenomenon. That is the purpose of our survey.
Organizations around the world represent huge bodies of tacit, institutional knowledge about the best ways of conducting business globally. Social media presents innovative opportunities for companies to capture and share this competitive advantage gained through the experience of its employees, especially those who travel frequently and those who are on global assignments.
Help us understand how people like yourself and organizations around the world are using social media technology to leverage tacit company knowledge. Click here to participate in the instant survey. You’ll be able to see the survey results immediately after contributing.
Many thanks in advance for your participation.
Charlene
P.S. Bookmark the results page to return and see how it evolves!
Sarkozy and his government have not budged in raising the minimum age for retirement from 60 to 62, which means a full pension is not available until age 67 (currently, it is 65). All this is intended to prevent the pension system from going bankrupt.
According to NPR, “demonstrators say the retirement reform is unfair because the working class is being asked to bear the brunt of the burden when there is money to be found elsewhere.”
Cartoon by Arend van Dam
France is very much tied to the idea of having their first chance to retire at the age of 60, which was a policy Mitterand implemented in the early 1980s.
According to an article in the Telegraph,
…the strikes have turned into a referendum on Nicolas Sarkozy – not his actual policies, so much as his style. The perception is that he panders to the rich, an unfair one when you consider his predecessor Jacques Chirac, who never paid for any holiday he took in or out of office…
In the face of economic trouble, many countries in Europe are revising their policies on pensions, and certain countries are accepting austerity measures more willingly than others. How much does culture inform a society’s reaction to this? What are the key factors in determining the success of such measures?
Charlene
A New York Times article notes the new approaches to dress women take in traditional societies around the world. In India and Muslim countries, women’s clothing is constantly morphing and women adopt or reject new styles and revert to traditional ones under specific circumstances. The choices available to women have generated a new set of practices, culturally rooted, which inform a woman’s preference for wearing the traditional versus the modern. In general, globalization has steadily brought women closer to styles that are in vogue in countries far from home.
…Women find that their wardrobe choices are often calibrated by cultural expectations: modesty, authority, shifting ideals of femininity. What may connote tradition to a Westerner could telegraph a higher status to an Asian or African woman and her people.
Dress becomes the most obvious symbol of the way women straddle custom and change.
Ambika Nair, who leads the legal publishing business of Thomson Reuters in India, says “I actually do think the sari makes me feel a lot more authoritative. I think there is a change in my demeanor. And I don’t look at the sari or churidar as traditional, and I don’t think wearing a suit, particularly an ill-fitting one, connotes modern.”
The numerous designs Muslim women in Indonesia use to style their head scarves has also evolved. According to the article, “In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, the hijab, or jilbab as it is known there, is far more common than it was a generation ago. But it is hardly the dowdy wrap it once was. It could be a designer label scarf held in place with a funky brooch, or paired with a trendy visor to guard against the sun.”
Furthermore, for Muslim women everywhere, fashion designers have found success through the design of clothing that is chic and modest at the same time. Take Rabia Zargarpur for example and her Rabia Z line of clothing. An Emirati designer, she has found a way to appeal to Muslim women around the world by hybridizing modern materials and styles of women’s clothing with Sharia law (which determines to certain degrees what women should and shouldn’t wear in Muslim countries).
Clothing from a Rabia Z fashion show.
How do you perceive these numerous forms of women’s clothing? What does a sari or an abaya convey with regards to tradition and modern lifestyles?
Charlene
The Economist intelligence Unit (EIU) released the Women’s Economic Opportunity Index in June, which measures women’s access or lack thereof to a number of economic and other opportunities in 113 countries. Here are a few excerpts from the report, which is available by clicking on the link above.
At the start of the 21st century women are not just enfranchised and fully engaged in the workplace, but leading global corporations and countries of every size. Germany’s Angela Merkel, Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and Pepsico’s Indra Nooyi are three among many.
…
Women, on average, earn 75% of their male co-workers’ wages, and the difference cannot be explained solely by schooling or experience. In many countries, women have fewer educational and employment opportunities than men, are more often denied credit, and endure social restrictions that limit their chances for advancement. In some developing countries women still cannot vote, own property or venture outside the home without a male family member.
While culture is mentioned only a few times throughout the report, it pervades the roles applied to women in any country. An understanding of the cultural context within which women act seems important to an understanding of the immense challenge associated with developing gender equality in countries with severely restricted economic opportunity for women. See below for the way the report defines this and a summary of the countries on both ends of the spectrum.
Women’s economic opportunity is defined as a set of laws, regulations, practices, customs and attitudes that allow women to participate in the workforce under conditions roughly equal to those of men, whether as wage-earning employees or as owners of a business. The result is a new ranking of economic opportunity for women in 113 economies. Sweden, Belgium and Norway occupy the top spots in the Index. These countries have particularly open labour markets for women, high levels of educational achievement, and liberal legal and social regimes. However, the index tells other stories as well. Hong Kong (China) performs best in the Asia region, ranking in the top 25% in most categories. Mauritius is Africa’s best finisher; its labour policies are among the most favourable to women in the region. Excluding Canada and the US, Brazil edges Chile and Mexico for the best score in the Americas. Eastern European countries, especially Bulgaria, have particularly balanced labour-law protections, although retirement ages for men and women are often different. Tunisia comes first in Northern Africa, and Sri Lanka in Southern Asia.
What part does culture play in this complex picture?
Chief Learning Officer published a story highlighting the increasing importance of “pull” technology for organizational learning, which is “a mechanism that allows people to find and access relevant resources at the point of need.” On the other hand, “push” technology has been the standard training method in the US and in many other countries, where learning is pushed to individuals from the institution through scheduled, formalized training. The drawbacks of the latter are heavily based on the fact that forecasting needs and demand for information is challenging.
‘In a world of pull, it’s about helping people to develop the capabilities to become leaders in their own context so when they’re confronting an unexpected challenge they have the initiative and the questing disposition that will make them want to embrace that challenge and find creative ways of overcoming it and addressing it, and in the process learning from that experience,’ [John Hagel] said.
Online learning platforms like CultureWizard are examples of technology that allow individuals to pull or search for information they need. The material is accessible whenever and wherever through an internet connection. Even a simple Google search, which most professionals use several times a day, is reflective of the approach many are accustomed to taking to learn.
However, according to the article, organizations looking to integrate a “pull” learning strategy should beware:
Cultivating a proprietary knowledge stock is bound for failure. Instead, organizations should focus on creating effective knowledge flows that allow people to learn faster and replenish knowledge stocks at an accelerating rate.
How do you feel about formal, classroom training in comparison to “pull” learning? Do you see the “pull” approach becoming the new standard?
Charlene
In Paris, a veritable celebration of mistakes was hosted last week by a group of academicians from a number of France’s educational institutions. The Guardian writes on the concerns of many professionals in the education field:
…The French school system is leaving children bereft of creativity, flexibility of thought and – crucially – confidence in their own mental abilities…’A large part of the French school system is based on the idée reçue that errors are negative, when in fact it is by this very process of learning … that you make progress,’ said Maëlle Lenoir, of the Association Paris Montagne.
French history is full of great inventions and inventors, artists and architects, too many to mention here. How long has this style of teaching been in practice?
The article gives a few “great mistakes” to demonstrate the power of making errors, like Columbus’ search for India, which led him to the Americas. According to the article, many young French students fear answering questions incorrectly, and are afraid of taking risks. Many of our beliefs on these issues stem from culture, which is instilled in all of us from a young age, and especially at school. Now, educators in France are looking to change these ideas with the hopes of increasing students’ propensity to be innovative and creative. The event’s leaders “hope to demonstrate to young participants the potential wonder of making mistakes through a series of science-based workshops.” This festival strives to give young students the courage to think creatively, without worrying about making mistakes.
In the US, for example, asking questions, intense curiosity and failure are all seen as important learning experiences. Curiosity can lead to failure, but failure is one way of learning, and can also lead to breakthroughs in all subjects (e.g. via the trial and error method). In the professional realm, many managers expect failure before mastery, and employees can easily recover from a loss of face due to mistakes, so long as they learn from them. Conversely, in countries like China, where the learning process is heavily based on rote and process, mistakes can cause significant loss of face, and failure is often very difficult to recover from.
What is your experience as a schoolchild? Do you remember having exploratory activites in class, like “show and tell,” were you expected to learn through repetitive action, or was there a different method?
We’re interested in hearing from you.
Charlene
Click here to read an interesting story in the People’s Daily that stems from the time zone difference between China and South Africa, where the World Cup is being held this year. The games are so important to many workers in China, they spend all evening watching the game, and have been experiencing extreme fatigue at the office in days following major matches.
What do you think of their strong desire to watch the games?
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
