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Click Board! After Action Review Source The After Action Review is a extremely highly effective technique that helps teams and organizations learn how to achieve excellence. This .pdf file has the basic idea. http://www.fireleadership.g ov/toolbox/after_action_re view/aar.pdf The Art of Conversation Here is a guide for the shy person. What do you say after you say hello? What would you say after you said hello to Paul McCartney? Michael Jordan? Be prepared. http://www.entertainmates. com/experts/conversation. asp |
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Well-Spoken
"Good teaching is
one-fourth preparation
and three-fourths pure
theatre>"
Gail Goodwin
"No one realizes how
beautiful it is to travel
until he comes home
and rests his head on
his old, familiar
pillow."
Lin Yutang
"Good teaching is
one-fourth preparation
and three-fourths pure
theatre>"
Gail Goodwin
"No one realizes how
beautiful it is to travel
until he comes home
and rests his head on
his old, familiar
pillow."
Lin Yutang
ManagerZine Archive Favorite
13. Going Global Warmly: How To Do Business
Overseas
You are having lunch at a café in Paris with a group of new French
business colleagues. In your honor, they insist on ordering sandwiches a la
Americain. Your grilled cheese sandwich arrives; you pick it up and take a
hearty bite. Your friends smile smugly at your naiveté; you’ve just
committed a minor social gaffe. “In France,” a confidante whispers to hide
his embarrassment-and yours- “one uses a knife and fork with sandwiches.
One does not use fingers.”
What a Difference!
Fingers, fork, what difference does it make? Actually, a big difference. A
social misstep is only a small signal that there is a distance between you
and your hosts. The signal is reminder that you are from outside their
culture. You are an “other”. More importantly, when that difference is
magnified by how decisions are made, by the relationship of the “boss” to
employees, by how people feel about taking risks, and many other
dimensions, then trust is inevitably a casualty. When that happens, getting
things done can be difficult.
The source of this difference is culture. Culture is the collective view of
people from the same social environment concerning appropriate
behavior, beliefs and values. One prominent researcher, Geert Hofstede,
has called culture the “software of the mind.” People within one culture are
more or less programmed by growing up in a particular place.
Now here’s the rub. With businesses going global, Americans are finding
themselves living and working in different cultures more than ever. What is
so different, you ask as you arrive to your new office via the Metro, the U-
Bahn or the Tube? After all, people are people. To be sure, people are
people. However, there are culture-bound ways of interacting at work that
someone from outside has to pay attention to. Otherwise, it will be difficult
to get things done.
The Ugly American
Add to that American’s track record of not traveling well. In the late 1960s,
William Lederer wrote a scathing critique of Americans living and working
abroad, The Ugly American. The title says it all. In those days, Americans
were more insular, less worldy, and blithely convinced every Main Street
needed a McDonalds. Local culture? We knew what was good for everyone.
Has that changed? If you’ve watched the riots at recent World Trade
Organization meetings, you have to wonder. Globalization to some people
translates to Americanization and that is not widely welcome.
So, if you are an American working aboard, heading overseas, or, more
likely, in frequent contact via phone, video-conference and email with
foreign nationals in Europe, Latin America or Asia, there are some definite
factors to consider in your relationship with others. Many of these ideas are
from Hofstede and Fons Trompenaar who are business-oriented
organizational anthropologists. Their major books are listed at the end of
this article.
Bear in mind, a brief disclaimer. We are not advocating stereotypes;
however, these cultural dimensions are the result of surveys that show how
individuals in different parts of the world prefer to respond to various
situations. Vive la difference!
The relationship to power. Some people believe and accept that power is
distributed unequally, that bosses have great power and that there is a big
distance between the average worker bee and top managers. At the
opposite end of the spectrum, there are cultures where most people feel
they have a right to offer their opinion from the ranks and that the top
manager’s door is literally always open. Not surprisingly, the US culture,
along with the Australians, UK, Germany, and the Netherlands believe there
is a short power distance between the top and bottom of the corporate
ladder. Many post-colonial countries, such as Malaysia, Panama, Mexico
believe in large distances to power. And in the middle are many Western
European countries, including France, Belgium and Spain.
To a manager that means hierarchy is an expectation of work for some
people, that workers accept it and are willing and want to be told what to
do. On the other hand, taking initiative and the empowerment concept
Americans have grown up with are completely foreign to some. Example:
American boss says to a Spanish employee, “When will the report be
finished?” (Boss’ idea: Let’s get his view of the situation, and we’ll work it
out.) Spanish employee says, “Oh, next week.” (His reaction: That boss of
mine should just say when he wants it, guess it’s not that important.)
Individual or Team. Some cultures place a high value on freedom, free
time and work challenges. Others value improving knowledge and skill,
good, collegial working conditions and using one’s own native talent.
Achievement is critical to the former, while belonging is important to the
latter. To a manager, the answer to the question, “Who is accountable for
such and so happening?” will get very different answers in different cultures.
The concept of accountability becomes complex, especially in countries
that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain. In those cultures, decisions and
problems were shared, and the collective approach to work groups is still
pronounced.
So, the American manager assigning roles to an individual in, say,
Hamburg, might find that individual taking a task back to his/her team and
“sharing” it. Americans can better understand decisions and relationships in
these situations if one takes into account what alliances and group
solidarity are involved.
Job Ideals. Income, recognition, promotion and challenge are important
outcomes of work to some cultures, while good working relationships,
cooperation, security and working conditions are important to others. The
income, recognition value track is also associated with non-concern for
others, materialism and workaholism. Good working relationships can also
translate into analysis paralysis or the endless search for a decision and lots
of palaver. In such an environment, a goal-oriented manager would be
frustrated to find employees engaged in analyzing a situation until all
ramifications as well as various trains of consequences are understood, past
experience consulted, and specialists drawn in. The manager is interested
in solutions, the employees are interested in the problem.
Risk Avoidance. Unknown or ambiguous situations tend to be avoided in
some business cultures with a strong preference instead for working
predictable situations and likely outcomes. When faced with uncertainty,
some people feel threatened and become stressed. The American
manager abroad might find problem solving difficult, especially in how
open people want to be about things that went wrong. This reaction is
present in many modern Western European cultures as well as third world
countries.
How does this all manifest itself? Here is an example provided by a
European manager. The topic is the introduction of a performance
appraisal system from a US-based “central office.” Notice her view of what
should be done.
According to our resource, “This is a classic case in point. Superimposing
an American system on all field offices would seems a bad idea, especially
as there is a high degree of distrust of anything that has to do with
American ways of handling staff, especially in Europe. Of course, letting
everyone do as they used to do is little better. Much better would be 1)
Open international discussion on what data is needed and why 2)
Imaginative national efforts to get the data in their own cultural ways with
the proviso that some data might not be gotten at all. The central office
has to learn that certain data being asked for are not considered “askable”
in some societies. At the same time, the field offices need to be sensitive to
the need of the central office’s point of view. All this takes a lot of talking.
“The point,” this manager goes on, “is that each culture has to learn about
the others. Decision-making has to be informed which means the cultural
consequences need to be considered.”
If your goal were to implement the already developed world-wide
performance appraisal system, how would you manage the situation?
For more examples and interesting discussion, see Geert Hofstede, “Cultures
and Organisations, The Software of the Mind,” McGraw-Hill, London, 1991,
and Alfons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, Riding The Waves
of Culture (2nd Edition), McGraw Hill, NY, 1998
Advice From Europeans To Americans About How
To Do Business There
From A Far-Flung Reader
"In my new position, I have to work with Europeans almost every day. Most
of the time this is done by phone and email, but I have made several trips
for face-to-face meetings. I find my colleagues to be enormously polite but
not very responsive when I make requests for information. Give me some
advice."
We asked five Europeans and an American expatriate for some tips and
suggestions for Americans working with Europeans. We heard from a French
manager, two managers from the UK, an Irish consultant and a German
manager. Here are their replies in more or less their own words. Note: Some
of these tips may sound unusual to you but that is the point, isn’t it?
1. Recognize that Europe is not one country, nor one culture. Northern
European business practices are distinctly different than Southern Europe.
The natives are offended if you act like Europe is one cultural zone. Over
here, people grow up knowing and appreciating the differences between
countries. That’s why it has taken so long for the EU to get going. And the
fact that one can communicate with Danish and Sicilian managers in
English should not fool one into thinking that their understanding of
situations, messages, actions and reactions is entirely the same.
Copenhagen and Palermo, Dublin and Vienna are not similar like Chicago,
San Francisco and New York, but rather like Duluth and Mexico City. And
the French belong to the South.
2. Realize that for Europeans, the US is not always their cultural and
business benchmark. Don’t act as if everyone should love Garth Brooks,
Shania Twain, McDonald’s, Ford cars, Jack Welch and the NFL. Avoid
referring to “America” and the “Rest of the World.” One of the big mistakes is
thinking Europe is just a shade different from the U.S. and thus easily
understandable and convertible to American ways. This begins with
advertising and promotion where the American way of indulging in
hyperbole to catch attention grates painfully on most European mentalities.
We go more for information and understatement.
3. Understand that “Global” and “International” are not the same. “Global”
usually refers to a one size fits all type of organization. Does one size really
fit all? At what point does a global solution need to interface with local
business best practices? Is it really a best practice? From my perspective, a
US-based company should leverage its power, resources and knowledge so
that the local business gets a significant commercial advantage in their
own territory that otherwise it wouldn’t have.
4. Arrange your P&Ls so that there is no conflict between corporate and
local needs. For example, Head Office says: “We don’t care if you don’t
make a profit in Spain, but service the important client there. Spain
Country Head says: “Okay, but you will penalize me if my expenses exceed
my revenues locally. Que pasa?”
5. Get to know the legal rules of the game and respect them. Laws
regulating labor and the working environment are very different from
country to country. Some rules are so outrageously different from what
American would consider common sense that newly arrived managers have
a tendency to ignore them. For example, in France, if a person is going to
be laid off, the manager has to make sure that the person fits the
government labor inspector’s criteria and that a rigorous step-by-step
procedure is followed. That includes informing the person selected by mail
to come to an interview in a week hence. Meanwhile, no one else on staff
can be told what is going on. To disregard this nonsense is a big mistake
and potentially a costly one. Employees all seem to know what their legal
rights are. Some countries have a lot more socialisme than you are used to.
6. Don’t talk too openly and too soon about money. This is important in
selling or recruiting situations. Generally, Europeans are more discreet
about financial matters. Money is often the very last point and most private
part of any discussion.
7. Especially in Southern Europe (Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal), people
like to meet personally rather than talk on the phone. In fact, the phone is
used to make appointments for lunch! In Spain, people meet and have
long lunches (2-3 hours) where business matters are resolved. Expect to
drink a glass of wine at lunch; everyone does in most parts of Europe. Wine
is considered food.
8. Many employees in Southern Europe are not independent in terms of
taking on a project and running with it. They need constant direction and
supervision. On the other hand, some Northern countries have a highly
decentralized and compartmentalized culture in which the individual and
his/her working unit are ultimately held responsible for getting a job done,
and are left alone to do it under their own steam after full input has been
given. Micromanagement from the top is anathema; German managers are
expected to solve their own problems, not make waves, and not present
problems to others for resolution. Business hierarchies and lines of authority
in the compartmentalized matrix system must be respected religiously;
changes of procedures are to be avoided at all cost.
9. Socializing is important, very important. Because many managers work
late, there is always some time for socializing during the day. Trips out of
the office for coffee or a beer happen all week long. I suggest that despite
your jet lag you go to dinner with your European colleagues. You will be
surprised how much business is done between courses. The point is to build
long-term relationships.
10. Tone down what we see as the slightly confrontational, in-your-face US
attitude, particularly when dealing with older employees. Respect for each
other is deeply felt and practiced here. People tend to be very polite.
© 2006 Singularity Group
13. Going Global Warmly: How To Do Business
Overseas
You are having lunch at a café in Paris with a group of new French
business colleagues. In your honor, they insist on ordering sandwiches a la
Americain. Your grilled cheese sandwich arrives; you pick it up and take a
hearty bite. Your friends smile smugly at your naiveté; you’ve just
committed a minor social gaffe. “In France,” a confidante whispers to hide
his embarrassment-and yours- “one uses a knife and fork with sandwiches.
One does not use fingers.”
What a Difference!
Fingers, fork, what difference does it make? Actually, a big difference. A
social misstep is only a small signal that there is a distance between you
and your hosts. The signal is reminder that you are from outside their
culture. You are an “other”. More importantly, when that difference is
magnified by how decisions are made, by the relationship of the “boss” to
employees, by how people feel about taking risks, and many other
dimensions, then trust is inevitably a casualty. When that happens, getting
things done can be difficult.
The source of this difference is culture. Culture is the collective view of
people from the same social environment concerning appropriate
behavior, beliefs and values. One prominent researcher, Geert Hofstede,
has called culture the “software of the mind.” People within one culture are
more or less programmed by growing up in a particular place.
Now here’s the rub. With businesses going global, Americans are finding
themselves living and working in different cultures more than ever. What is
so different, you ask as you arrive to your new office via the Metro, the U-
Bahn or the Tube? After all, people are people. To be sure, people are
people. However, there are culture-bound ways of interacting at work that
someone from outside has to pay attention to. Otherwise, it will be difficult
to get things done.
The Ugly American
Add to that American’s track record of not traveling well. In the late 1960s,
William Lederer wrote a scathing critique of Americans living and working
abroad, The Ugly American. The title says it all. In those days, Americans
were more insular, less worldy, and blithely convinced every Main Street
needed a McDonalds. Local culture? We knew what was good for everyone.
Has that changed? If you’ve watched the riots at recent World Trade
Organization meetings, you have to wonder. Globalization to some people
translates to Americanization and that is not widely welcome.
So, if you are an American working aboard, heading overseas, or, more
likely, in frequent contact via phone, video-conference and email with
foreign nationals in Europe, Latin America or Asia, there are some definite
factors to consider in your relationship with others. Many of these ideas are
from Hofstede and Fons Trompenaar who are business-oriented
organizational anthropologists. Their major books are listed at the end of
this article.
Bear in mind, a brief disclaimer. We are not advocating stereotypes;
however, these cultural dimensions are the result of surveys that show how
individuals in different parts of the world prefer to respond to various
situations. Vive la difference!
The relationship to power. Some people believe and accept that power is
distributed unequally, that bosses have great power and that there is a big
distance between the average worker bee and top managers. At the
opposite end of the spectrum, there are cultures where most people feel
they have a right to offer their opinion from the ranks and that the top
manager’s door is literally always open. Not surprisingly, the US culture,
along with the Australians, UK, Germany, and the Netherlands believe there
is a short power distance between the top and bottom of the corporate
ladder. Many post-colonial countries, such as Malaysia, Panama, Mexico
believe in large distances to power. And in the middle are many Western
European countries, including France, Belgium and Spain.
To a manager that means hierarchy is an expectation of work for some
people, that workers accept it and are willing and want to be told what to
do. On the other hand, taking initiative and the empowerment concept
Americans have grown up with are completely foreign to some. Example:
American boss says to a Spanish employee, “When will the report be
finished?” (Boss’ idea: Let’s get his view of the situation, and we’ll work it
out.) Spanish employee says, “Oh, next week.” (His reaction: That boss of
mine should just say when he wants it, guess it’s not that important.)
Individual or Team. Some cultures place a high value on freedom, free
time and work challenges. Others value improving knowledge and skill,
good, collegial working conditions and using one’s own native talent.
Achievement is critical to the former, while belonging is important to the
latter. To a manager, the answer to the question, “Who is accountable for
such and so happening?” will get very different answers in different cultures.
The concept of accountability becomes complex, especially in countries
that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain. In those cultures, decisions and
problems were shared, and the collective approach to work groups is still
pronounced.
So, the American manager assigning roles to an individual in, say,
Hamburg, might find that individual taking a task back to his/her team and
“sharing” it. Americans can better understand decisions and relationships in
these situations if one takes into account what alliances and group
solidarity are involved.
Job Ideals. Income, recognition, promotion and challenge are important
outcomes of work to some cultures, while good working relationships,
cooperation, security and working conditions are important to others. The
income, recognition value track is also associated with non-concern for
others, materialism and workaholism. Good working relationships can also
translate into analysis paralysis or the endless search for a decision and lots
of palaver. In such an environment, a goal-oriented manager would be
frustrated to find employees engaged in analyzing a situation until all
ramifications as well as various trains of consequences are understood, past
experience consulted, and specialists drawn in. The manager is interested
in solutions, the employees are interested in the problem.
Risk Avoidance. Unknown or ambiguous situations tend to be avoided in
some business cultures with a strong preference instead for working
predictable situations and likely outcomes. When faced with uncertainty,
some people feel threatened and become stressed. The American
manager abroad might find problem solving difficult, especially in how
open people want to be about things that went wrong. This reaction is
present in many modern Western European cultures as well as third world
countries.
How does this all manifest itself? Here is an example provided by a
European manager. The topic is the introduction of a performance
appraisal system from a US-based “central office.” Notice her view of what
should be done.
According to our resource, “This is a classic case in point. Superimposing
an American system on all field offices would seems a bad idea, especially
as there is a high degree of distrust of anything that has to do with
American ways of handling staff, especially in Europe. Of course, letting
everyone do as they used to do is little better. Much better would be 1)
Open international discussion on what data is needed and why 2)
Imaginative national efforts to get the data in their own cultural ways with
the proviso that some data might not be gotten at all. The central office
has to learn that certain data being asked for are not considered “askable”
in some societies. At the same time, the field offices need to be sensitive to
the need of the central office’s point of view. All this takes a lot of talking.
“The point,” this manager goes on, “is that each culture has to learn about
the others. Decision-making has to be informed which means the cultural
consequences need to be considered.”
If your goal were to implement the already developed world-wide
performance appraisal system, how would you manage the situation?
For more examples and interesting discussion, see Geert Hofstede, “Cultures
and Organisations, The Software of the Mind,” McGraw-Hill, London, 1991,
and Alfons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, Riding The Waves
of Culture (2nd Edition), McGraw Hill, NY, 1998
Advice From Europeans To Americans About How
To Do Business There
From A Far-Flung Reader
"In my new position, I have to work with Europeans almost every day. Most
of the time this is done by phone and email, but I have made several trips
for face-to-face meetings. I find my colleagues to be enormously polite but
not very responsive when I make requests for information. Give me some
advice."
We asked five Europeans and an American expatriate for some tips and
suggestions for Americans working with Europeans. We heard from a French
manager, two managers from the UK, an Irish consultant and a German
manager. Here are their replies in more or less their own words. Note: Some
of these tips may sound unusual to you but that is the point, isn’t it?
1. Recognize that Europe is not one country, nor one culture. Northern
European business practices are distinctly different than Southern Europe.
The natives are offended if you act like Europe is one cultural zone. Over
here, people grow up knowing and appreciating the differences between
countries. That’s why it has taken so long for the EU to get going. And the
fact that one can communicate with Danish and Sicilian managers in
English should not fool one into thinking that their understanding of
situations, messages, actions and reactions is entirely the same.
Copenhagen and Palermo, Dublin and Vienna are not similar like Chicago,
San Francisco and New York, but rather like Duluth and Mexico City. And
the French belong to the South.
2. Realize that for Europeans, the US is not always their cultural and
business benchmark. Don’t act as if everyone should love Garth Brooks,
Shania Twain, McDonald’s, Ford cars, Jack Welch and the NFL. Avoid
referring to “America” and the “Rest of the World.” One of the big mistakes is
thinking Europe is just a shade different from the U.S. and thus easily
understandable and convertible to American ways. This begins with
advertising and promotion where the American way of indulging in
hyperbole to catch attention grates painfully on most European mentalities.
We go more for information and understatement.
3. Understand that “Global” and “International” are not the same. “Global”
usually refers to a one size fits all type of organization. Does one size really
fit all? At what point does a global solution need to interface with local
business best practices? Is it really a best practice? From my perspective, a
US-based company should leverage its power, resources and knowledge so
that the local business gets a significant commercial advantage in their
own territory that otherwise it wouldn’t have.
4. Arrange your P&Ls so that there is no conflict between corporate and
local needs. For example, Head Office says: “We don’t care if you don’t
make a profit in Spain, but service the important client there. Spain
Country Head says: “Okay, but you will penalize me if my expenses exceed
my revenues locally. Que pasa?”
5. Get to know the legal rules of the game and respect them. Laws
regulating labor and the working environment are very different from
country to country. Some rules are so outrageously different from what
American would consider common sense that newly arrived managers have
a tendency to ignore them. For example, in France, if a person is going to
be laid off, the manager has to make sure that the person fits the
government labor inspector’s criteria and that a rigorous step-by-step
procedure is followed. That includes informing the person selected by mail
to come to an interview in a week hence. Meanwhile, no one else on staff
can be told what is going on. To disregard this nonsense is a big mistake
and potentially a costly one. Employees all seem to know what their legal
rights are. Some countries have a lot more socialisme than you are used to.
6. Don’t talk too openly and too soon about money. This is important in
selling or recruiting situations. Generally, Europeans are more discreet
about financial matters. Money is often the very last point and most private
part of any discussion.
7. Especially in Southern Europe (Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal), people
like to meet personally rather than talk on the phone. In fact, the phone is
used to make appointments for lunch! In Spain, people meet and have
long lunches (2-3 hours) where business matters are resolved. Expect to
drink a glass of wine at lunch; everyone does in most parts of Europe. Wine
is considered food.
8. Many employees in Southern Europe are not independent in terms of
taking on a project and running with it. They need constant direction and
supervision. On the other hand, some Northern countries have a highly
decentralized and compartmentalized culture in which the individual and
his/her working unit are ultimately held responsible for getting a job done,
and are left alone to do it under their own steam after full input has been
given. Micromanagement from the top is anathema; German managers are
expected to solve their own problems, not make waves, and not present
problems to others for resolution. Business hierarchies and lines of authority
in the compartmentalized matrix system must be respected religiously;
changes of procedures are to be avoided at all cost.
9. Socializing is important, very important. Because many managers work
late, there is always some time for socializing during the day. Trips out of
the office for coffee or a beer happen all week long. I suggest that despite
your jet lag you go to dinner with your European colleagues. You will be
surprised how much business is done between courses. The point is to build
long-term relationships.
10. Tone down what we see as the slightly confrontational, in-your-face US
attitude, particularly when dealing with older employees. Respect for each
other is deeply felt and practiced here. People tend to be very polite.
© 2006 Singularity Group