In “The Power of Virtual Teams,” an article our EVP, Charlene Solomon, wrote for this month’s Mobility Magazine, she explores why global virtual teams are one of the biggest workplace challenges for all HR professionals in 2011.

What is most troubling to you about being on a virtual team? Where do you find yourself struggling, and how do you help your colleagues succeed on global, virtual teams? Is cross-cultural misunderstanding an issue at your company?

RW3 CultureWizard

In “The Cost of Ignorance,” an article in Diversity Executive magazine, Nikravan explores why “Miscommunication and a lack of cross-cultural understanding are two main barriers organizations face when it comes to working globally.”

Nikravan interviewed our EVP, Charlene Solomon, to understand RW3 CultureWizard’s best practices for teaching culture to global teams, which we achieve primarily through electronic methods.

“Best-practice companies are preparing in advance and making plans,” said Solomon. “It doesn’t mean you have to change your beliefs; it just means you’re more aware of other people’s belief systems.”

She also refers to “pull” technology in the learning context: “It’s important to deliver information to adult learners in bite-size pieces for the depth of knowledge that [an] individual learner wants at the appropriate time…”

What have you found to be the most effective way of learning about doing business effectively in other countries? Is trial-and-error a process your managers expect you to go through, or do you find preparation and review of best cross-cultural practices valuable?

RW3 CultureWizard

The folllowing quote is from this New York Times article on the state of immigration in Japan:

Despite facing an imminent labor shortage as its population ages, Japan has done little to open itself up to immigration. In fact, the government is doing the opposite, actively protecting tiny interest groups, (like) a local nursing association, afraid that an influx of foreign nurses would lower industry salaries.

One of the most interesting things we do at RW3 CultureWizard (in addition to preparing people to perform in global business by familiarizing them with culture and business protocols around the world), is to make people aware of their own personal culture. It’s crucial to know how culture, unconsciously, influences the ways we act, which can cause conflict when interacting with people accustomed to a different set of cultural norms.

In light of cultural awareness, we can readily see how many of the decisions a country or even a corporation makes are often in conflict with their own best interests. As this article illuminates, so often the very things that are a country’s greatest strengths are also a significant liability. While a powerful cultural attachment to hierarchy in addition to family and group well-being might keep Japan’s crime rate, homelessness and drug use low, these cultural beliefs also create an insularity, resistance and resentment towards immigration – even at the expense of its citizens’ well being. As the article points out, this is causing Japan some major concerns as their population ages and the demand for healthcare workers grows exponentially. It’s a labor force that Japan can’t meet internally, yet the country still makes it inordinately difficult for foreign nurses and doctors to practice.

Without getting too political or polemical, can you think of other instances where a particular culture bias led a country or corporation to make a decision that seemed to immediately contradict its own best interest?

Adam

RW3 CultureWizard

Meet RW3 CultureWizard’s newest members, Harold and Lakshmi. Click below to learn about the “stuff” of culture, and don’t let cultural ignorance get you.

 When you think about culture, think about us! 

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The LinkedIn blog features the top 10 buzzwords (read: vacuous terms) US Americans use in their LI profiles to describe their personal and professional qualities. Here are the top 10 most overused words:

1. Extensive experience
2. Innovative
3. Motivated
4. Results-oriented
5. Dynamic
6. Proven track record
7. Team player
8. Fast-paced
9. Problem solver
10. Entrepreneurial

Now, for the cross-cultural analysis:

While members from the USA, Canada and Australia tend to emphasize their ‘extensive experience’, Brazilians, Indians and Spaniards identify themselves as ‘dynamic’ professionals. Members in the UK call themselves more ‘motivated’ and the French, the Germans, the Italians and the Dutch see themselves as ‘innovative’.

The ways in which we position ourselves through resume’s and CV’s in addition to the way we think our potential employers look for top notch candidates is informed by a certain measure of “culture.” In this case, we’re looking at national units, so we can refer to this concept as national culture, or the accepted forms of behavior that we can see across a broad base. My question is: why do North Americans and Australians put forward their experience while Brazilians, Indians and Spaniards highlight their dynamism?

Cliché or not, it seems the former group bases competency on experience rather than a personality trait, while the latter’s best strategy is to project themselves as vigorous, energetic multitaskers. “Innovative” is the most overused buzzword in most of Western Europe, which may be connected to the continent’s reliance on brainpower rather than manpower in the post-manufacturing era. In any case, culture is a strong informant of how we perceive and brand ourselves in the marketplace. In most cases, understanding the cultural background of an individual is just as important as recognizing their qualifications.

Sean

RW3 CultureWizard

An article by Guy Deutscher titled “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” appeared in the New York Times last month. It reminded me of the ideas in a Wall Street Journal article that ran in July called “Lost in Translation” (here is our take on that article). His essential point is that:

‘Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.’ This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.

Deutscher explains how languages that utilize gendered particles, e.g. Spanish and German, inform the way we conceptualize inanimate objects that have no biological gender. He also details how the English language requires the speaker to reveal the timing of an event because of the obligatory conjugation of verbs into a certain tenses:

If I want to tell you in English about a dinner with my neighbor…I do have to tell you something about the timing of the event: I have to decide whether we dined, have been dining, are dining, will be dining and so on. Chinese, on the other hand, does not oblige its speakers to specify the exact time of the action in this way, because the same verb form can be used for past, present or future actions. Again, this does not mean that the Chinese are unable to understand the concept of time. But it does mean they are not obliged to think about timing whenever they describe an action.

Culture, which impacts how we think about time just as much as language, is another interesting way to look at this comparison. Typically, Chinese people don’t feel they have as much control over time compared to people from English-speaking countries like the US or the UK. Time is a fluid concept for many people in China, which impacts the level of importance people assign to deadlines, schedules, etc. The obvious question is: how does culture inform and reinforce language, and vice versa?

Also, because of the global nature of English, do English speakers in countries like India, South Africa and Jamaica share the same general notion of time with people in, say, the US? In general, time is also a very fluid concept in these three countries, despite the fact that many people grow up speaking English. So, we have to examine the larger cultural context of a community in order to understand how much language impacts thought processes.

The most demonstrative part of the article is in the difference between geographic and egocentric languages, or the ways in which we describe spatial orientation. An Australian aboriginal language, Guugu Yimithirr, “does not use words like ‘left’ or ‘right,’ ‘in front of’ or ‘behind,’ to describe the position of objects. Whenever we would use the egocentric system, the Guugu Yimithirr rely on cardinal directions. If they want you to move over on the car seat to make room, they’ll say ‘move a bit to the east.’”

The individualistic, egocentric nature of the English language is made obvious through the following statement Deutscher makes:

…If you saw a Guugu Yimithirr speaker pointing at himself, you would naturally assume he meant to draw attention to himself. In fact, he is pointing at a cardinal direction that happens to be behind his back. While we are always at the center of the world, and it would never occur to us that pointing in the direction of our chest could mean anything other than to draw attention to ourselves, a Guugu Yimithirr speaker points through himself, as if he were thin air and his own existence were irrelevant.

Of course, the “we” Deutscher uses above (or to the “north”?) refers to the Western English speaker.

How much does the structure and nature of language reveal about the ways we act, think and feel? How does the interplay of culture and language impact cross-cultural interaction? What does this all mean in terms of globalization and the increasingly global nature of our work and daily life?

Sean

RW3 CultureWizard

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

Interested in receiving the CultureWizard Digest every month? Click here to sign up.

Check out CultureWizard Digest #29 here!

* New TV Show: OUTSOURCED
* Global Leadership
* Advertising to Muslims
* “For rent in China: White people”

CultureLinks
+ Push and Pull in Learning Technology
+ Women’s Economic Opportunities
+ Legal Outsourcing

CultureTips
+ Panama

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According to the New York Times, outsourcing legal services to India has grown in the past few years, and is poised to expand at an even faster rate in coming years.

Cash-conscious Wall Street banks, mining giants, insurance firms and industrial conglomerates are hiring lawyers in India for document review, due diligence, contract management and more.

Legal outsourcing firms are also hiring experienced lawyers from Western countries to handle more complicated projects, something many lawyers would not consider in prior years based on a general aversion to outsourcing legal work and relocation to India. The article highlights the challenges of moving to India and working with Indians:

Moving to a legal outsourcing firm, especially in India, is not for everyone. About 5 percent of Western transplants cannot handle it and move back home, managers estimate.

Some find it hard to adapt to India. Other times, the job itself does not suit them — after spending years working nearly independently as a litigator, for example, it can be hard to transition to managing and inspiring a team of young foreign lawyers.

Cultural preparation is supremely important to living and working in a new culture. While many people are inherently suited to assignments in countries around the world, the vast majority of people won’t be equipped with the skills to succeed without sufficient intercultural training. How will this new trend impact internal needs for cultural training? The article predicts legal outsourcing will climb to over $1 billion in revenue by 2014. What are organizations doing to support global initiatives like this? What are the challenges of virtual, global teams that span time zone differences of 10 hours or more and cultural, linguistic and religious barriers?

Sean

RW3 CultureWizard

The Harvard Business Review interviewed Mansour Javidan, dean of research at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, who also wrote an article for the same publication called “Managing Yourself: Making it Overseas.”

According to this article, employers frequently assume “that a good track record at home is a predictor of success in the global arena, and that exposing high performers to new cultures will set them on the path to becoming effective multinational leaders.” While international assignments are certainly an important developmental tool for potential leaders, an individual desire to learn and know about different cultural perspectives and people with a certain intellectual curiosity, among other qualities, are vital to success abroad.

This mind-set has three main components: intellectual capital, or knowledge of international business and the capacity to learn; psychological capital, or openness to different cultures and the capacity to change; and social capital, the ability to form connections, to bring people together, and to influence stakeholders—including colleagues, clients, suppliers, and regulatory agencies—who are unlike you in cultural heritage, professional background, or political outlook.

RW3 CultureWizard’s Global Leadership Development Tool, developed in collaboration with Dr. Paula Caligiuri, is an assessment which identifies a leader’s strengths and abilities in working with and managing people from other cultures. It enables leaders to examine their readiness for global leadership and the areas in which they may need to develop. Specifically, the tool can:

+ Assess the scope of your global leadership activities
+ Create an awareness of your intercultural behavioral style and experience
+ Suggest approaches for enhancing your global leadership skills
+ Direct you to learning resources to maximize your global leadership effectiveness

What do you think are the key skills global leaders need? What is your experience with leaders moving between domestic and international contexts?

Grayson

RW3 CultureWizard

Listen to The American Entrepreneur radio segment “Crossing That Cultural Chasm: ‘The International Capitalist’ Talks With Two Experts” (be sure to click on the second clip), in which David Iwinski interviews RW3 CultureWizard’s CEO, Michael Shell, and EVP, Charlene Solomon. Below is a blurb from the show’s website:

So how do you take your business global? “The International Capitalist” David Iwinski has some answers, as he takes over the hosting reins on American Entrepreneur Radio to discuss that very topic. He’ll talk with the authors of two of the hottest books on the market when it comes to globalization. First, Charlene Solomon and Michael Schell discuss how to effectively manage when your people are scattered around the globe, as covered in their book, “Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business With a Global Mindset”.

RW3 CultureWizard

Home to a large refugee population, and the largest Burmese community in the US, Fort Wayne, Indiana has experience teaching new arrivals about local culture, as NPR tells us.

Nearly all refugees in Fort Wayne frequent the Refugee Resource Center. It offers services and classes in everything from how to clean a home, to proper indoor plumbing etiquette. These are sometimes new concepts for people who have only lived in rural villages or refugee camps.

While the Refugee Resource Center has focused on the basic building blocks of etiquette and protocol, where are the lessons that provide a deeper level of understanding? How can immigrants and refugees begin to understand the reasons behind typical behaviors in the US without some orientation to its history and values? And, how can those helping refugees from places like Burma, Darfur and Bosnia better understand the culture in which they’ve been socialized? We often receive questions from businesspeople working across cultures like “what should I do and not do?”, and the answer is generally a list of actions or expressions that exist outside of a cultural context. As a result, individuals have to memorize the do’s and don’ts, versus gathering a certain sense of the key values and beliefs of a culture, which informs etiquette, protocol, behavior and more.

The image below was taken inside a laundromat in Fort Wayne, where ethnic Burmese frequent. Betel nut, or the areca nut, is the seed of a palm tree native to many parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. It is chewed, much like tobacco, for it’s effects as a stimulant, much like the effects of drinking coffee. However, the nut is chewed and disposed of, not swallowed. If a coffee-drinking individual were to walk into a laundromat with a sign displaying “No Drinking! No Coffee!”, I believe the person would be compelled to question why the sign existed.

Fort Wayne has won the All-America City title thrice, and the work of the Center is an important resource to refugees. Do you have experience with a similar center? Have you worked with refugees? If so, what are some of their dilemmas in relation to cultural adjustment? Please let us know!

Click here to listen to the NPR story online. Click here to learn more about the tradition of chewing betel nut.

Sean

RW3 CultureWizard

Do you find that group activities, whether in a classroom or on a project team, exacerbate differences or provide a safe space to learn about and synergize with your colleagues? An article by Wei-Wen Chang in Training + Development argues that group activities characterize the former without proper facilitation and can lead to “segregation and misunderstanding.” Chang says that in groups, people “sometimes become more aware of the differences and consciously or unconsciously want to maintain their cultural identity,” thus leading them to a personal, cultural extreme. Could this perhaps be due to the pressure a team can exert on an individual to perform? A common intercultural lesson is that we revert to our cultural roots when under pressure and lose a certain amount of perspective. Can you relate to this experience?

An individual’s preferred method of learning also impacts the ways people interact, or do not interact, in a group. Direct interrogation is common in North America, while silence and contemplation are valued methods of learning in Asia. Facilitators of training can conflate these very different approaches by asking for written or verbal responses to activities, according to Chang. A specific intercultural awareness training I recall for a bi-cultural team of Malaysians and Americans included quizzes on US and Malaysian history and geography. The facilitator gave the quizzes to all participants to demonstrate the lack of knowledge both cultures had of their counterparts country’s. While this activity deliberately segregated the two groups in a very explicit way, it also served to unite them through an informal question and answer session that followed amongst the team members. This allowed the team to engage on matters they knew well, which strengthened their relationships.

How else have you seen group activities encourage or discourage learning in multicultural settings? What did you do to overcome any challenges?

Sean

RW3 CultureWizard

A BusinessWeek article explains how new Dean Peter Henry of New York University’s (NYU) Stern School of Business plans to re-focus the school towards industries outside of finance. Since the troubled financial industry is no longer the best option for new job hunters, Henry plans to transform the school’s orientation into one that is global, equipping its students with the skills to go beyond the environs of New York.

“Henry tells the story of a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who once told him that he knew emerging economies would be the best place to grow his company, but he was terrified of sending employees because they lacked the skills needed to operate in that environment. ‘At Stern we want to create leaders who say it is a corporate imperative that we train people who are as comfortable in the Middle East as they are in Manhattan,’” he explained. Intercultural training is typically conducted in classrooms, but innovative technologies can recreate the classroom into a virtual one, allowing students, graduates and professionals to build cultural awareness online through e-learning tools and resources.

Henry moved to the US from Jamaica when he was 9 years old. He “…knows how to assimilate and adjust to new cultures, and he wants Stern students to do the same.” One of his challenges will be to develop the academic materials and courses required to produce the kinds of graduates that global organizations want.

Click here to jump to the article.

Grayson

RW-3.com