Check out MBA in the USA’s post on how the 4th of July is celebrated in the US. It’s great if you’re new to the holiday and you find yourself not knowing why and how it’s celebrated!
Reuters journalist Scott Malone writes an article today called “Managing cultures in a flat world.” The piece focuses on Schell and Solomon’s new book, Managing Across Cultures, and emphasizes one of its important cultural points: “Executives can more easily accept cultural differences in colleagues and employees if they take the time to assess their own cultural biases.”
Click here to read the article!
If you’ve traveled around the world, you may have noticed that the approach to organization varies widely. From your own perspective, these approaches may seem more or less organized in comparison to your own. Many times, the way things are organized in other cultures can be a distraction, since it may be hard for you to understand why, for instance, a complex bureaucracy is needed to send a package overseas, or why people resist forming into a single-file line to pay at a store. The following will help you decipher why organizational systems vary across cultures.
Above: an image by Yang Liu. To the left is the artist’s perception of how people wait in line in Germany, and to the right is the same procedure in China.
Oftentimes, ideas on organization are linked to the perception of time. In countries where time is thought to be outside an individual’s control, as in India, organization is prone to be loose and flexible, allowing for change if unexpected challenges arise along the way. Strict adherence to any formal process is not a requirement to achieve a goal.
Conversely, the attitude towards organization in countries, e.g. Switzerland, where time is highly controlled, the approach to any action is usually preconceived and quite rigidly structured. Falling outside this structure would be detrimental to the process, it would reduce your productivity and it would be seen as a lack of organization.
In either situation, it is crucial to understand that following a protocol or adhering to an outlined guide may or may not be required of you. Knowing this in advance will reduce the frustration involved in cross-cultural misunderstanding.
Going about your daily life, it’s necessary to understand the root and cause of different organizational systems in different countries. These systems are inherent to the rules and flow of traffic, parking, walking or bicycling, sanitation and hygiene. It’s also important to keep in mind the way people tend to react to hurdles, and whether a hurdle in your mind is the same in the minds of others, as these behaviors are cultural. For example, in developing countries, you’ll probably be the only person distracted by the presence of livestock in areas where humans dwell and work. In parts of the US, you might be surprised to learn that you’re legally obliged to cross the street only when a signaling machine tells you to.
Without foresight, it’s very easy to be dismissive, distracted or angry whilst visiting, working or living in other cultures. Overall, it can obstruct your understanding of others. How can you learn to be successful in these situations? The quickest route to adaptation is to confront such differences, to understand where they come from and to accept them as culturally-rooted behaviors that are deeply embedded in societies. If you’re able to truly acquiesce with the reality of the culture you’re in, you’ll soon overcome the distractions and hurdles to maintaining a familiar level of organization, allowing you to see how to work your way through a starkly different environment. Equipped with an expansive global mindset, you can tune your thinking to fit the location and the culture, which will lead to more successful planning and results.
Since the publication of our new book, Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset (McGraw-Hill), we’ve been interviewed by publications ranging from Fortune magazine and Reuters down to podcasts released in Europe. Somewhere during the interview they all ask the same two questions: Why this book? Why now?
Obviously, culture and globalization have been around for a long time. However, developing cultural fluency has become a more urgent, everyday fact-of-life. We believe the answer to these questions fall into three categories:
The first is a workforce shift to knowledge-intensive work. Although globalization has been a force in the world for centuries, the need for cultural dexterity wasn’t as great when the work being managed was related to manufacturing and production. When the work requires the ability to inspire intellectual contribution, however, the manager must be skilled in cultural knowledge.
Secondly, there has been a huge increase in global virtual work and collaboration. Everyone involved in today’s global economy frequently find themselves interacting virtually. The dramatic expansion of collaborative software and the need to use that technology everyday increases the need for cultural awareness and fluency beyond those who manage workers and those who travel internationally to a far greater range of job responsibilities and employee levels.
The third category is the growing talent migration from one country to another. No matter which country you’re working in, you’re likely to have a far greater range of cultures working alongside you in your office. As we point out in Managing Across Cultures, you now need cultural skills for “working over there” as well as for “working over here.”
These reasons may be obvious, but we always need talking points to reinforce why culture is so important when discussing these ideas with people in our organizations.
Mike and Charlene
Iran Culture Tips
The following tips on Iranian culture will be useful when in Iran or when interacting with its people.
+ The language of Iran is Farsi, otherwise called Persian. It is not a form of Arabic, although Farsi script utilizes the Arabic alphabet.
+ Everyone living in Iran, including expatriates and foreign business travelers, is subject to Shari’a law. Foreigners who break the law are penalized in the same way an Iranian would be.
+ Iranians can be superstitious and believe receiving compliments or good news attracts the evil eye. Therefore, they tend to downplay compliments and are hesitant to publicly admit their good fortunes. The expression “mash’allah” (”as God wills it”) is often said to ward off the potential negative effect of a compliment or personal achievement.
+ Iranians see themselves as having two distinct identities: zaher (public) and batin (private). When they are in public, they conform to accepted modes of behavior. In private, behaviors are not as restrained.
+ Ta’arouf is a system of politeness that includes both verbal and non-verbal communication. Iranians protest compliments and attempt to appear vulnerable in public. They belittle their own accomplishments so that they appear humble, although other Iranians understand that this is custom and do not take their words at face value.
+ Iranians are indirect communicators who employ allegory, poetry, and proverbs to make a point. They can spend a long time talking around an issue, which can be frustrating for people who come from more direct cultures.
+ Iranians do not harbor negative ideas about foreign women. The way a woman is treated generally has more to do with her personality rather than her cultural or religious background.
+ Foreign women must adopt the local dress style. This means covering the head with a scarf (a rusari) and wearing a chador (a long-sleeved coat) over clothes.
- provided by RW3’s CultureWizard™ Country Profiles
An article in the Telegraph informs us that the BBC will eliminate the airing of offensive, vulgar language and images after 9pm. The British media giant took the cultural mores of its viewers into consideration after conducting their own survey on public attitudes towards their programming.
“Viewers said the BBC should be regarded as upholding standards in British broadcasting, but instead had stooped to the level of its commercial rivals.”
A really interesting quote from BBC’s research comes from a man in his twenties: “I swear when I’m in the pub with my mates, but I’d never swear in front of my mum. I’d hate it if the BBC just gave up on the idea that you don’t swear in certain situations.” It’s remarkable to see that even younger generations, whose attitudes are often quite different from senior generations, experience discomfort with vulgar language when in the presence of elders. This is the stuff of culture.
Japan Culture Tips
The following tips on Japanese culture will be useful when in Japan or when interacting with its people.
+ Harmony is a key value in Japanese society. Harmony is the guiding philosophy in family, business and in society as a whole. However, younger generations are shifting to more individualistic norms.
+ The basic precept of harmony is that the individual alone is incomplete and can only find fulfillment by being part of the group. People believe that the needs of the society supersede their personal desires.
+ Face is a mark of personal dignity and means maintaining high status with one’s peers. The Japanese try not to do anything to lose face. Therefore, they do not openly criticize, insult, or put someone on the spot.
+ The Japanese are very conscious of age and status. In general, the elderly are treated with the highest regard.
+ The aesthetics of food, its presentation, and eating are as integral to the culture as the Japanese language. More than simply a way to gain sustenance, food is presented and eaten in a stylized, elegant, artistic way, replete with protocol. It conveys respect.
+ Japanese businessmen may have difficulty seeing a businesswoman as the final authority. In general, a businesswoman will be more successful if she establishes a relationship and strong credibility by forwarding a brief bio including her academic background, title, and professional accomplishments.
+ Japanese communication is somewhat vague and roundabout, placing emphasis on non-verbal cues and subtle nuances of tone and wording. The Japanese value a well-crafted message that is subtle and polite.
- provided by RW3’s CultureWizard™ Country Profiles
RW3 hosted a very successful party for the publication of Managing Across Cultures on June 18th. Perhaps some of you will recognize people in these pictures! All proceeds from the sale of the book were donated to the Adaptive Sports Foundation in Windham, NY.
Schott’s Vocab is an interesting, somewhat lighthearted linguistics blog on the New York Times website. There’s an interesting post on American-influenced words that Iraqis use as a part of their everyday vocabulary. The most notable would be “Am-raqi,” or an Americanized Iraqi who has incorporated various American cultural objects and ideas as a part of their own life. American rap and country music, an unlikely pairing of genres, are favored by young Iraqis, according to an article in the Washington Post. Even tattoo artists have been able to make a living in the country, despite Islam’s strict rules against tattoos. In markets, cowboy and motorcycle boots are sold alongside an assortment of inevitably falsified American movies on DVD.
Culture changes, albeit slowly, so it is important to know how this happens. The mainstream adoption of material culture (culture one can see and feel) is usually a sign that the invisible aspects of culture are also changing. The influence can come from both directions, material influencing invisible and vice versa. For Iraq, foreign agents of change are not new, as history shows us, but in order to understand how to most effectively establish relationships with people from other cultures, knowing its evolution, and even its historical trajectory, is an invaluable competency.
Learn more about Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset by watching this YouTube video of Charlene Solomon presenting the new book.
Also, visit the Managing Across Cultures Online Community to participate in discussion or to share your own cultural experiences.
CNN reports that Twitter has been used by both the media and the masses as an informational resource on the developments of the Presidential election in Iran, since many media sources have been shut down or expelled from the country.
The U.S. State Department has found information taken from Twitter, Facebook and even YouTube to be a critical source on the progress of Iran’s current situation. “Senior officials say the State Department is working with Twitter and other social networking sites to ensure Iranians are able to continue to communicate to each other and the outside world,” CNN states. It’s amazing how the manner of communication via social networking websites is able to pervade cultures across the world, as nearly 150,000 Iranians use Facebook, says Reuters, to spread awareness of their opinions and the daily reality of living in Iran. Is this a sign of a growing global culture (which communicates electronically), if the term could even be used?
This isn’t the only case where this kind of technology has been used to preemptively report on events before official media channels are able to authenticate them. News on the spread of wildfire that damaged large portions of Southern California in 2007 were largely disseminated via Twitter (click here to learn more).
How do you see this technology playing a role in your life? How has it connected you to other people and places?
Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas is a major cultural event that will be taking place in New York City from today, June 5th until June 14th.
“The arts and cultural exchange programs have the unique power to create new connections between people locally and globally. On behalf of all of us at Asia Society, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), and New York University Center for Dialogues, we are pleased to welcome you to Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas—the largest, multi-venue celebration of Islamic cultures ever presented in the United States. ”
Read an interesting New York Times article on the festival, too, which reports that “the cross-cultural dialogue will be explicit as well. About 50 artists, scholars, religious and community leaders from around the world will gather…in Brooklyn Heights on Saturday and Sunday to discuss new ways to use cultural diplomacy and gain audiences for Muslim artists.”
Above is an interesting video from the Project New Media Literacies (NML), a research initiative based at MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program (click here to view the video if it’s not working above).
The website states that the Project “explores how we might best equip young people with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape and raise public understanding about what it means to be literate in a globally interconnected, multicultural world.”
How wonderful! This is connected to the cultural agents of change that social networking websites represent. We’ve written on the culture of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in the Culture Tips section, so be sure to check these posts out.
The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that President Obama said US relations with the Muslim world will “require…a recognition on both the part of the United States as well as many majority-Muslim countries about each other, a better sense of understanding and the possibilities of achieving common ground” during an interview with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Cultural understanding is paramount to the mutual interest and respect he aims to engender through his position as President.
Earlier today, the New York Times tells us that President Obama implored “America and the Islamic world to drop their suspicions of one another” during his first speech from the Muslim world at Cairo University. The process of learning culture is, more or less, a proxy creating trust and respect for a culturally distinct community. Because of the President’s life experiences in numerous cultures, he brings unique insights and sensitivities that enable him to speak with authority in these situations. For example, Obama greeted the audience with a linguistic gesture of goodwill by using a common and important Muslim greeting: assalaamu alaykum, which literally means “peace be upon you” in Arabic. This demonstrated his awareness of culture and led him to cite the Qur’an, which was another culturally sensitive action that acknowledged his audience.
How did you react to his speech? Let us know.
Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company, based in Chengdu, plans to buy GM’s Hummer, according to the New York Times. The chief executive of Tengzhong said that they will be “…investing in the Hummer brand and its research and development capabilities, which will allow Hummer to better meet demand for new products such as more fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S.”
This deal could be the very first purchase of an American car brand by a Chinese company. However, as a culturally Chinese organization, Tengzhong may find it difficult to market and sell Hummers to American consumers. The NYT article reminds us that “the brand has long sought to emphasize patriotism, stressing that the Hummer H1 was essentially the same vehicle built in the same factory as the Humvee that carries American soldiers into battle in Iraq and elsewhere.” How will future Hummer vehicles be able to reproduce this image while reforming its gas-guzzling reputation, which has led to a stark decrease in sales over the last several years? How much influence would Hummer’s Chinese owners exert on its American management team and dealer network?
Tengzhong could also sell in the Chinese market, but a tax of 40% would be imposed on any Hummer with an engine in excess of 4 liters (most of them exceed this measurement). Culturally, the Hummer line of cars is too “American” for China, and it’s obviously turned out to be a little too “American” for the US market, too. American automakers are having to rethink the value of large SUVs in an era where excess, especially in gas consumption, is frowned upon. Historically, US culture has grown alongside a general abundance of resources, which is one of the country’s hallmarks that has influenced the auto industry. However, it’s now easy to see that culture is malleable, especially when influenced by economic challenges, as large cars are no longer viewed as better cars (see the Fiat story for more on the introduction of small car technology in the US).
What other cultural roadblocks would Tengzhong face if they acquire Hummer?