Brazil’s hunger for growth is noteworthy on many fronts. Working long hours to make new sales targets and developing business at all hours of the day has become the norm for many Brazilians. So much that President Dilma Rouseff enacted a law ordering companies to pay overtime for emails or calls taken after the normal work day (versus the VW approach to prohibit this activity after employees leave the office).

In the Financial Times, a professor of accountancy says, “Brazilians are always late, meetings never start on time…You sit there for two hours talking about one thing, then another.” The argument is that because of the pace of business and the fluidity of “Brazilian time”, it may often become necessary to address certain emails and business needs outside of the regular work day.

In the CNN report below, one labor lawyer talks about “technological slavery” – that it’s impossible for us to disconnect from the internet, from our phones and thus from our jobs.

What do you think is more feasible: shutting down servers after hours to prevent work from taking place, or having the employer compensate the employee? Is responsiveness more important than work-life balance?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

While the source of this is unknown (we found it posted somewhere on Facebook), we believe it’s quite true to form! Is there anything you can add to this list?

If you’d like some more culture tips for the UK, click here to read our previous post on the matter.

Mark
RW3 CultureWizard

How’s this BBC piece for bucking the trend?

Volkswagen has agreed to stop its Blackberry servers sending emails to some of its employees when they are off-shift. The car maker confirmed it made the move earlier this year following complaints that staff’s work and home lives were becoming blurred.

Could you imagine your employer doing this?

Even more so, after a near-decade of cell phones and the internet keeping you constantly connected to your work, how would you feel about this? I know the idea of disconnecting from your work and fully connecting to your family and leisure time is a lovely concept, but would there be a downside to the business?

This begs the question that VW is attempting to answer: does your connection to work on a non-stop basis actually make you a more productive worker?

More and more, a disease of distraction affects modern workers. Enabled by the constant connectivity via smart phones and computers, and a myriad of other modern sociological issues, US workers waste nearly two hours a day doing non-work things. And, the US is not alone in this growing trend. Believe it or not, even the efficiency envy of the world, Germany, is dealing with a growing apathetic workforce that wastes significantly more time than their recent forebears (according to the same Inc. story).

Do you think VW and their works council made a wise move in limiting post-shift emails? Do you think allowing for more unfettered personal time creates a more inspired and focused employee?

Adam
RW3 CultureWizard

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here’s a story in the Huffington Post I think many of you will relate to in one way or another (Emerson certainly did). Recently, in Honolulu, a former Air Force sergeant, her husband and their two year-old daughter stop at the local supermarket, a national chain, to pick up some groceries. The mom, who happens to be 30 weeks pregnant, is famished and feeling faint. She quickly eats a $5 chicken salad sandwich. She pockets the sandwich wrapper with every intention of paying for it, finishes shopping, heads to the register with her husband and daughter and pays for her $50 worth of groceries.

The family exists the store and is immediately confronted by a security guard who informs her that she has just shoplifted. Surprised and embarrassed, the mom apologizes profusely and offers to immediately return inside to pay for the $5 sandwich. The security guard refuses her request, EVEN THOUGH SHE JUST BOUGHT $50 WORTH OF GROCERIES, and brings her, her husband and daughter to the store manager.

Now, here’s where the tale gets truly Orwellian. The supermarket manager, while sympathetic to the woman’s plight, is unwilling to break from store policy and calls the police. The police arrive, see that the “apprehended suspect” has a child with her, and, unwilling to break from policy, call in Child Services. Child Services arrives, and, unwilling to break from policy, TAKES THE CHILD INTO PROTECTIVE CUSTODY while the former Air Force Sergeant and 30-week pregnant mom and her husband are arrested and brought to jail.

Finally, after 18 hours in custody and posting $50 dollars bail, each, the mom and dad are reunited with their child, the national supermarket chain gets united with a public relations nightmare, and the couple starts fielding enquiries from a bevy of enthusiastic and skilled lawyers. And all for a $5 chicken salad sandwich. But here’s the rub, along every step of this terrible and ridiculous ordeal, the technocrats following the orders were fully aware of the absurdity of the policies they were enforcing but were unwilling to contradict them.

Now, in some ways we see this happening in the business world all the time, especially in an international arena, where the adherence to rules can vary significantly between cultures. Whether rules are applicable universally or on a case-by-case basis is often a hallmark of culture. According to psychologist Barry Schwartz and his compelling TED Lecture, the difference between a great manager and/or worker and a mediocre one is the wisdom to know when to follow a rule and when to ignore it. His lecture is a near case study in how humanity and wisdom make the world and workplace a better and more productive one.

In a complimentary lecture, take a look at how one visionary CEO, the largest manufacturer of carpets and flooring in the world, decided to trust his wisdom over prevailing opinion and make his company entirely green. It’s a story of exquisite executive foresight, courage and profitability. Believe it or not, in the 14 years since the company began their green and zero-impact protocols, sales have gone from $591 million to nearly $1.1 billion! How’s that for wisdom?

By the way, do you ever find yourself eating or drinking something you plan on buying at the supermarket before you pay for it? Couldn’t you compare this to dining at a restaurant where you eat first and pay later?

Adam
RW3 CultureWizard

恭喜发财! Happy Chinese New Year, or literally, Congratulations and be prosperous!

Check out the Baidu.com homepage (China’s biggest search engine) for an interactive dragon animation.

QUIZ: which famous Chinese animal is not part of the zodiac? And, why do you think so? Leave your answer in the comments area below!

RW3 CultureWizard

This NDTV video (New Delhi Television) reports that a Norwegian government agency, Child Protective Services, took an Indian couple’s children into custody due to their inappropriate behavior: the parents hand fed their children and slept in the same bed as their children.

What do you make of this story? Is this truly a cultural difference and an excessive abuse of power, or is it clear that we are missing some key information?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

At first glance, this fascinating TED lecture about outlier communities where life spans are demonstratively longer and healthier than the norm has seemingly little to do with the world of international business and cross-cultural relations. After all, what does an isolated mountain town in Sardinia, an island village in Okinawa and a community of Seventh Day Adventists in Southern California have in common with a globe-trotting maven?

What the National Geographic writer-researcher and his team of PhDs found was that all of these so-called “Blue Zones” share certain consistencies that aid longevity and vitality. They are:

1) An inherent, but low-level of physical exertion. Not exercise, but a natural movement factor that is embedded in their daily life.
2) A near daily connection to nature.
3) A contemplative aspect that causes them to slow down for a least a part of every day.
4) A sense of purpose, regardless of age.
5) A value and respect for elders.
6) Natural, plant-based diets that emphasize caloric restriction.
7) An authentic connection to community, friends and family.

Now, here’s the aspect that’s worthy of contemplation: if these are the seven consistent factors that make for a long and joyful life, just how at odds are they with the demands placed upon a modern business person—especially one who travels frequently? It’s not at all hard to picture a modern manager who:

1) Travels often and spends much of their time in front of a computer in a solitary office with hardly anytime for exercise.
2) Is a car-owning city-dweller who works long hours and has virtually no connection to nature.
3) Works non-stop with an ever-present cell phone ringing and pinging away.
4) Constantly questions what they’re doing with their lives and just why they are doing it.
5) Knows that with age, health insurance costs make them more of a liability than an asset to their company.
6) Eats inconsistently, unhealthy and often excessively.
7) Lives away from family and friends.

I’ll ask these questions:

How might you apply the insights offered in this lecture to create a more balanced and sustainable approach to your work?

How many of these habits are rooted in culture, one that we share as a community or nation?

Is longevity a universal value?

Adam
RW3 CultureWizard

In May of 2011, “…Merkel hinted that southern Europeans take too much holiday and retire too early,” which infuriated people all over the continent.

A report by Natixis’ (a bank in France) chief economist Patrick Artus claims the contrary: “Germans worked less annually and during their lifetime than Southern Europeans, and did not work more intensely than their neighbours either.” This news comes from Mercopress, a Uruguay-based independent news agency.

Here are the stat’s according to Artus’ study:

Hours of work per year
Germany: 1,390
Spain: 1,654
Portugal: 1,719
Italy: 1,773
Greece: 2,119

Real retirement age
France: 60
Italy: 60.1
Greece: 61.5
Germany: 62.2
Spain: 62.3
Portugal: 62.6

Of course, efficiency and productivity levels must be factored into this information, and the study claims Germany is on par with most of Southern Europe.

The cultural stereotype Merkel used (think siesta in Spain, for example) was just that, a stereotype. On the other hand, the cultural norms that display Southern Europeans’ value for work-life balance may still apply, but surprisingly to some, this value certainly exists in Northern Europe, too. Clearly, the data indicates a penchant to work less hours, which is corroborated by what we know about the stark division of business and private life for many Germans.

What does the data say to you?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

Read Charlene Solomon’s article in MOBILITY magazine, “International Assignments: Then & Now”.

RW3 CultureWizard

Brian Hults of Newell Rubbermaid (VP of global organizational and people development) cited CultureWizard in Talent Management magazine.

Here is the relevant excerpt:

Newell Rubbermaid, which has employees in more than 70 countries, requires its vice presidents and above to go through its Working in a Global Matrix program to help those leaders build skills they need to be successful in a global environment.

‘The program allows leaders to learn how conflict can be used to reinforce relationships within the organizational structure,’ Hults said. ‘[It] helps them understand their personal leadership style and how that can both help them and hinder them when working internationally. They can then use these insights to help them make adjustments in how they lead to be more effective outside of their home country.’

Further, every employee can access free of charge the CultureWizard, an online tool that provides an array of information about a country’s population, culture, economy and other stats. ‘It gives them an opportunity to learn a bit about the culture and the people that they’re seeing before they go into a country,’ he said…

By taking proactive steps to identify and develop the next generation of global executives, organizations can march boldly into today’s uber-competitive business battlefield.

Click here to read the full article. Thanks, Brian!

The Economist highlights the increasingly popular trend to marry individuals from outside one’s country of birth – at least 10 million marriages in “rich countries” are international. All this boils down to one concept: globalization (for the most part). The more global mobility becomes an everyday occurrence, the more we come into contact with diverse peoples from countries outside our own, and at the same time this interaction is normalized.

The tricky thing is to keep track of these marriages, and to define what is international and what is not. In any case, certain places attract couples for their wedding tourism packages, like Cyprus in the graph below. In Taiwan, men marry Vietnamese women to strengthen their business ties in Vietnam. Men in East Asia also have a hard time finding local brides due to the “marriage strike” women in the region have been on (see our earlier post on this topic, which The Economist covered in detail).

What benefit is there to cross-border marriage?

Their unions are symbols of cultural integration, and battlefields for conflicts over integration. Few things help immigrants come to terms with their new country more than becoming part of a local family. Though the offspring of such unions may struggle with the barriers of prejudice, at their best international marriages reduce intolerance directly themselves, and indirectly through their progeny.

My parents had different passports when they married, and the result was a childhood that exposed me to two different sets of values, some aligned with mainstream US society and some not. It forced me to take a number of perspectives into consideration, which is certainly a skill everyone needs when doing business today. I’d say the trend will undoubtedly continue, but what is your sense?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

The Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s state news agency, released scenes of mourners in Pyongyang, most of whom display deep agony, some of whom are kneeling and pounding the ground with open palms. The video captures a powerful demonstration of national culture: the mourning ritual, the response to the loss and more specifically the uniformly intense act of weeping. We thought it would be good to draw attention to these customs and behaviors in relation to Korean culture.

In South Korea, when a parent passes away, how much a child cries translates to how faithful they were. Explicit, outward expression of emotion is avoided in most circumstances per Korean cultural norms, but death merits the anguishing expressions we see in these scenes. Read this GlobalPost article on how Korean culture plays a role in the reaction to North Korea’s leader.

In this New York Times article, the mourning ritual is attributed to Confucianism, the root of many Asian cultures.

Contrived as they might look to Western eyes, the wild expressions of grief at funerals — the convulsive sobbing, fist pounding and body-shaking bawling — are an accepted part of Korean Confucian culture, and can be witnessed at the funerals of the famous and the not famous alike in South Korea. But in the North, the culture of mourning has been magnified by a cult of personality in which the country’s leader is considered every North Korean’s father.

We invite you to comment on what you think and experience after watching this video, both from your own perspective, but also from what you perceive to be the perspective of a North Korean.

What do you think is happening? Is this a manifestation of national culture, is it emblematic of something entirely different or is it a combination?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

Joe Lurie, an intercultural trainer and consultant based in San Francisco, reflects on his observation that the English Americans speak is riddled with words, phrases and terminology rooted in gun metaphors and firearm related concepts. I’d argue this is a unique characteristic embedded in the American lexicon (which has certainly spread to other English-speaking regions and peoples through popular culture). Lurie’s essay was published earlier this month in the SIETAR Europa Journal.

Here is an excerpt demonstrating the violent nature of the language:

As I flipped through tv channels, watching left and right wing politicians and pundits battling in a ‘cross-fire’ of blame, each side looking for a ‘smoking gun’ to explain or cast blame for the Tucson tragedy, I became increasingly aware of how we US Americans unconsciously use gun language to express ourselves, even during the most innocent interactions.

In conversation, we often value the ‘straight shooter,’ yet are wary of those who ‘shoot their mouths off,’ those who ‘shoot from the hip’ or glibly end an argument with a ‘parting shot.’ We caution our friends and colleagues to avoid ‘shooting themselves in the foot,’ and counsel them not to ‘shoot the messenger.’

In other kinds of sensitive business negotiations, I’ve advised patience, urging colleagues to avoid ‘jumping the gun.’ When the moment is right for getting the biggest ‘bang for the buck,’ I’ve agreed to bring the ‘big guns’ to the table. We look for ‘silver bullet’ solutions, hoping for ‘bulletproof’ results.

I’d bet many of us don’t think twice about the provenance of these everyday expressions. America’s historical relationship with guns and explosives is an obvious link, but how else has the obsession transferred to language?

Please tell us what you think about this unknowingly violent way of communicating. How does it impact the business process when Americans are taken out of their own cultural context and placed in another, e.g. in China where an interpreter is employed?

For more information about Joe Lurie and his work, click here to see his LinkedIn profile or contact him at joelurie@gmail.com.

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

Winning the hearts and stomachs of people around the world might be one of the most effective ways of bridging cultures. For centuries, food’s diplomatic prowess has provided a channel for introducing and exploring new cultures, often earlier than substantial human-to-human contact is made. The token trip to New York’s Chinatown for an authentic dim sum experience or to Brick Lane in East London for a Bangladeshi meal is a typically modern food experience many of us in the West know well. In Hend Alhinnawi’s blog post, she cites Paul Rockower’s definition of gastrodiplomacy: a way to use “culinary delights to appeal to global appetites, and thus helps raise a nation’s brand awareness and reputation.” Alhinnawi goes on to say:

It is an important tool in building cultural understanding, and in turn, breaking down traditional barriers by providing insight into a culture that might otherwise be unknown to a person. While many Americans may never experience the joys, sights and sounds of Incredible India, they can taste the culture through a culinary sampling at their local Indian market or restaurant. By bringing the food to their local communities, these outlets are great for engaging audiences through gastrodiplomacy, one palate at a time.

“Vindaloo Against Violence” is a project one Australian launched in 2010 to combat hostility towards Indians in her city, Melbourne, by encouraging people to dine at Indian eateries. It was effective – 17,000 people signed up to partake (we all know that the prospect of good food is an effective way to gather support!).

I wrote my graduate thesis on how mainstream American society shifted from initially shunning Italian foods to consuming it at very high levels. This started with the en masse migration of Europeans, many of whom were Italian, to North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At first, North American society saw Italian foods in the same way it perceived the people who created and consumed them: suspicious, foreign and unpalatable. The historical trajectory of the cuisine is remarkable, as gastrodiplomacy gradually brought people to love Italian pizza and pasta – foods consumed in countries worldwide. This was in part due to the energies of the Italian diaspora and the success they had as entrepreneurs, restaurant owners and purveyors of food in general. In my thesis, I linked the increasingly saturated Italian food industry to the Italian community’s integration into US society, and how the food acted as a diplomat by building awareness of Italian values and traditions for mainstream society.

Where have you experienced or seen gastrodiplomacy at work? Do you think food has the power to unite people from different countries and different backgrounds?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

I don’t mean to post yet another story on the challenges related to German culture (here’s another recent post on how to split the restaurant bill in Germany), but re-visiting Mark Twain’s essay on the incredibly difficult nature of the German language was irresistible. Patrick Schmidt of SIETAR Europa updated Twain’s famous satire on the bizarre mechanics of Deutsch (click here to read the original, published in 1880).

One of the poignant thoughts Schmidt shares is that “to be taken seriously in the German language, one needs to conceal the meaning of a sentence by placing the main verb at the very end.” Thus, one must listen to the entire statement, however long, to extract the full meaning. Because the sentence structure follows the subject-object-verb model (and not subject-verb-object, as in English), “action” doesn’t take place until the end…

It seems when Germans are listening to someone, they are intensely waiting for the speaker to tell them the last word. And when it is finally announced, you see an expression of climactic relief on their faces.

I once asked my father, who is native to Hamburg, to tell me the longest German word he could think of. The word that came to mind is of a strange origin, but it illustrates the synthetic nature of German, whereby several words are combined to create a single meaning. The word was impressive: hottentottentittenattentat (that’s 12 t’s!). Four words strung together to become an idea whose meaning (and purpose) may evade the hardiest of German students. However, it’s not only the arcane that merits long winded orthography, but everyday words, I would argue, that are on average longer in German than in English. Instead of using one word to convey a complex idea, many words are synthesized to create a very straightforward approach to communicating concepts and meaning, which relate to the brutally direct nature of the typical German communication style.

How much does language lend itself to cultural values? I’d say a fair amount considering the central value of precision and orderliness in German society. Thoughtfully constructed sentences and products are a result of these cultural values. While English is unarguably a global language and has evolved through numerous cultures and communities around the world, the German language evolved in a much smaller space, which I suspect has allowed for less foreign influence and thus less tinkering over the ages. A language that is based on so many things, often requiring much calculation and foresight (how do you spontaneously express yourself if you don’t already have the ending verbal statement in mind?) have most likely influenced many of the deeply embedded values of Germanic peoples.

What do you think?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard