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HOW TO PREPARE YOUR GLOBAL TALENT
DEVELOPING A GLOBAL MINDSET TO COMPETE IN THE GLOBALLY COMPETENT WORKFORCE.
An Australian System Expert told us recently that when she first met her counterpart from an Indian outsourcer, he called her Sheila. When she asked him why he had called her Sheila, he said “in our preparation course about Australian culture we were told that women are called Sheila”. Perhaps we need to reflect on the depth of the training that had been delivered to this global professional - he had not made a good first impression! Matthew Szulik, Chairman of the Board and former CEO of Red Hat Inc, commented recently, “Workers are really struggling to compete in a new globally competent workforce. Workers hired from higher educational environments struggle with effective collaboration in global business reality, adapting quickly to change, being flexible in working with people from diverse cultures towards a common goal, realising the global implications of their actions, inability to work at fast pace, lack of innovation and willingness to embrace life-long learning as a necessity in fast-paced business”.
Are you also struggling to hire “globally sophisticated and flexible” professionals to deal with the complexities required to work across cultures? Australian organisations are very much part of the global business environment with China, Japan and South East Asia being large trading partners. With Australian off-shoring and outsourcing vendors from India, Malaysia and Philippines, Australian staff require cultural skills and global competence, including international sales & marketing, cross-cultural communication, global partnership development, the management of virtual multicultural teams, and global leadership strategy.
What can we do about the lack of global cultural competence that Szulik refers to? We need to concentrate on two specific areas: Recruitment and Learning & Development. Firstly, in recruitment we need people capable of adequately designing global recruitment strategies, and incorporating clearly identifiable and measurable global competences. Global competencies cannot be learned during university lectures. Competence develops over time, building on formal education. International experience is paramount, being accountable for results, and an interest in effective ongoing learning. Organisations can help drive this by requiring global talent have formal accreditation for modules such as cross-cultural or international management. Thus sending a clear message to higher education! Secondly, in learning & development we need people capable of mapping the required skills and developing competence through selecting the appropriate learning & development services that assist global professionals in developing a global mindset to compete in the globally competent workforce.
One strategy to understand gaps is the Stairway for Developing Cultural Intelligent People, Teams and Organisations®: it incorporates different intercultural learning & development needs of professionals depending on frequency, intensity and complexity of cultural interactions. We differentiate: Recognising cultural differences as the ability to distinguish between different cultural values, behaviour and practices; Managing cultural diversity as the ability to understand and deal with cultural diversity to motivate others in meeting business objectives; and Leading cultural diversity for high performance as the ability to create new settings by influencing behaviour within people, teams & organisations through Cultural Intelligent practices, and Global competence to out-perform. Organisations are therefore able to
not only attract but also retain their globally sophisticated and flexible professionals in the growing competitive ‘war’ on Global Talent.
We have moved beyond teaching simple ‘Cultural do’s and don’ts’ and unproductive stereotypical country briefings which can result in embarrassing situations such as ‘Sheila’s’ above! By using mapping tools, learning programs, and our sophisticated on-line reference resources, many organisations have realised the benefits of life-long cultural learning, which informs, prepares and develops our global talent for competitive advantage.
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column library
since 2000
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INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS RELATED
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MULTICULTURAL
WORK
PLACE RELATED
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Conflict of Interest
about the different ways people across cultures seem to have a distinct preference for dealing with conflict - in your face or without saying it with words.... Be warned!
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CQ & the Cultural Diverse Customer
about the fact that we need to be aware that customer service across cultures might require different things...
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Let the Games Begin!
about the fact that different national cultures prepare and expect different things in international negotiations - often to the frustration of all parties involved .
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Trust is Key to Success
about the way people like building trust might differ across cultures and often causes breakdown in relationships.
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Localising Global Best Practices
about the assumptions that management practices can be easily transplanted to other cultures... think global - implement local is still valid!
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Knowledge Transfer
about the notion that learning styles across differ dramatically - so why don't we pay more attention to teaching, training & coaching across the cultural divide!
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Cultural Clashes in Communication
about a preference for directness or indirectness and perceived bluntness across cultures...
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Hitting the Cultural Celing
about the assumptions we hold that everyone has similar access to careers - and fails to explain the lack of cultural diversity at some managerial levels
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The Accidental Business Manager
about the fact that the length of stay in a new culture has an impact in how well you understand the culture you are dealing with -
a look at culture shock!
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E-mail Effectiveness: the Art of Small Talk
about the assumptions we hold about writing good & effective emails - and the surprises we get while emailing across cultures.
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Operating in a Globalised World
about the fact that communication in global virtual teams not only needs a comprehensive understanding of intercultural communication preferences but also implement the appropriate communication technologies.
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When no News is Bad News
about the importance of understanding how much participation is seen as 'normal' in multicultural teams - and how about managing those expectations?
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S t r e t c h a b l e Time
about the different ways cultures look at time: can you make time, spend time or buy time? You might not be understood in cultures who prefer stretchable or rubber time approaches...
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I am - We are Australian
about the diffculties some people experience while they are trying to adopt to the business culture of the new country without realising the impact of the 'old' one.
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Rules are Rules, Right?
about the different ways different cultures look at rules and how they are applied. We make a distinction between universalists and particularists and how it creates cultural challenges...
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If you Think Training is Expensive,
try Ignorance
about the impact of only training one culture in cultural competence and management practises - and why it makes so much more sense to make training a two-way street process.
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Outsourcing Across Cultures
India: Minimising the Cultural Clash: although outsourcing promises huge cost savings & quality improvements, some cultural factors might be a nuisance in reaping the benefits...
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World Soccer - Showing our True Colours
So who where you favourites during the world championships... The home culture, or the adopted culture? The impact of soccer on showing our true colours....
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A Passage to Australasia
About the head, heart and body approach to developing Cultural Intelligence in your organisation
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I'm Stephen Miller, but call me Steve
How egalitarian are we? We often assume that people across cultures have the same understanding of hierarchy - however we seem to get in trouble time and again
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Rationalising Japanese Logic
Logic and reasoning are not necessarily universal concepts and might confuse cultural others...
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Lost in Translation
About the skill to translating documents in foreign languages without losing the 'real' meaning...
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(De)motivation Across Cultures
Do we simply transfer our motivation theories across cultures, or do we need to be a bit more considerate towards motivation across cultures?
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Corporate Values in Organisations
The difference between values and practices can make a whole world of difference across cultures and what the vision of our business leaders actually stands for...
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When In Rome
Do we simply copy the behaviour of cultural 'others' or de we need to put a little more thinking in our appropriate behaviour while dealing across cultures?
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Living Culture
How much have people from other cultures acculturated into our society and how much
did they unlearn to fit in?
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Accentuating the Differences
Run into painful or frustrating miscommunications with people from different cultures? Be prepared!
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Battling with Cultural Awareness
How cultural aware are we and do we understand our own culture? About becoming more aware about the multicultural society we live in.
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Multicultural Teams - Yes or No?
About the advantages and disadvantages of multicultural teams and the management implications in a multicultural work place.
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The
What, How and Why of Management
Can we implement standard management practices across
cultures? How we can avoid making costly mistakes.
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Look Alikes
About
misconceptions about people's appearances while grouping
them together: Who are Asians or Europeans in a cultural
perspective anyway?
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How
effective is memorising lists of do's and don'ts for
the international business manager? Magic lists and
their shortcoming exposed.
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The Matrix Reloaded
About
problems arising from implementing standardised international
management concepts in multinational organisations,
and how they effect cultural 'different' people.
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Efficiency: Giving them Curry...
A
Western business visitor gets annoyed by an Indian CEO
who keeps interrupting their meeting for phone calls,
and discussions with others. However, who is more effective?
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When Humour Doesn't Travel...
Irony, sarcasm, taking the mickey out of one selves compared to some Asian accepted ways of humour. When certainly NOT to use your jokes as a ice-breaker.
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Losing
Face, and Losing the Deal
While knowing that some of the Asian cultures need to
be giving face you might find yourself in a difficult
situation when business ethics come into play: do you
or don't you give the required amount of face...
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It is What They Didn't Say That Counts...
Realising that 65% of communication
is done through non-verbal behaviour
demands a good understanding
about the body language of
other cultures to be able to
avoid miscommunication. |
Negotiation Challenges in China
Negotiation
with the Chinese does require a thorough understanding
about some tactics that might come into play. If they
surprised you, you might actually be too late to get
the respected results. |
Just
Do It
An expatriate Australian sales manager in Korea slashes
the entertainment budget and tells his salespeople to
stop getting drunk with customers and get on with business.
This approach proves disastrous.
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Closing the Deal
Closing
the deal while choosing between two sellers, and how
the wrong seller was chosen due to miscommunication
with the Japanese 'right' seller: a couple of million
dollar deal becomes a million dollars loss.
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Cultural Differences and Sports
The world championships soccer analysed: how the Koreans
made use of their cultural behaviour and turned them
into effective competencies. |
Us vs.
Them.
about Myths and misleading assumptions
Do we need to learn others to become more like us:
becoming more efficient and better communicators? Some
myths dealing with Us versus Them.
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Polite, more Polite, most Polite...
Polite
behaviour around the world can be completely misunderstood
by different cultures and regarded as lying, untrustworthy
and often hamper the business deal. |
Hiding
Behind Culture.
Are Those Real Croc-tears?
Every
culture has its own unique characteristics; although
some of these characteristics are often regarded as negative
by other cultures - we like to hide behind them occasionally...
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The Matrix
The matrix organsiation proves to be a complex system
for employees to deal with for a lot of cultures but
some cultures in Asia can't simply relate to report
to more than one manager.
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Bending over Backwards
Are
we all the same or does culture have an impact on our
behaviour in the work place? Is there one best strategy
that fits all or do we need to look a bit better at
the specific situation... |
To Be or Not To Be On Time
How
a preference for a certain time orientation can effect
the cross-cultural encounters between Australasian cultures
while keeping in mind that you either 'can', 'can't
buy time', 'spend time' or 'do one thing at a time'.
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The Cross-cultural Conference Call
Complaints about ineffective behaviour during conference calls makes working in a MNC difficult: too much talking versus silences is one of the issues between the Australians and some of their Asian counterparts. |
How Intercultural Can One Be?
An
Australian
manager who is aware about the cultural differences
between him ans his Thai team, and even warns others for making
mistakes loses the plot while under pressure.
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I Know
it Seems Like a Stereotype, but...
What
do we expect from our future leaders; how do they
deal with stereotyping and ethnocentrism.
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Misunderstandings Between Australians and Americans
Both nations derived from an Anglo-Saxon background: sharing so many values and yet so different in their business behaviour. A couple of key-differences to avoid irritations.
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Information
Road Blocks
How
does information flows in culturally diverse organisations
and how much time is required while gathering information
and getting back with a response? Different cultures
have different ideas...
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Multicultural
Meeting Matters
Ineffective
behaviour show up when Australians meet in multicultural
settings; 'switching off' and 'not giving appropriate
'face' proves to be disastrous while meeting with e.g.
Japanese or Malaysians. |
Cross-cultural
Training Insights
The
Western and Eastern preference for learning style differs
quite extensively: effectively training our multicultural
workforce requires a better understanding about exactly
how different cultures prefer to learn.
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When Yes Doesn't Necessarily Means 'Yes'
An
Australian manager thinks he is making progress with
a Thai group in negotiations to set up a joint-venture.
Every time when he asks the Thais if they are interested,
the Thai would answer "Yes" but nothing happens. |
Multicultural Workforce: Truth or Dare...
About the fact that we live in a multi-cultural society and that more than half of our organisations think that multiculturalism benefits others and not our own business.
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