TRUST IS KEY TO SUCCESS
ABOUT THE IMPACT OF UNDERSTANDING TRUST EXPECTATIONS ACROSS CULTURES
Creating Cross-cultural Effectiveness, Nov/Dec 2008 - Joost Thissen
Trust is key to success in business and it is also a popular topic for researchers. Recent research indicates that high levels of trust correlate
to innovation, competitive advantage, support for change
and increased productivity. It is wise for international and multicultural organisations to invest in building and maintaining trust. However, we often see that when new business units, virtual teams or multicultural teams are created, the matter of trust is rarely taken into account.
A dictionary might say that trust is ‘having belief or confidence in the honesty, goodness, skill or safety of a person, organisation or thing’.
Trust is a prediction of reliance on an action, based on what one party knows about another party. So why is trust so much more complex
across cultures? Cultural differences play a key role in the foundation
of trust and trust means different things around the world. People
tend to attribute more trust in the early stages of multicultural or
virtual teams to people they consider to be similar to them. More importantly, different cultures have different expectations about how relationships and trust should be built.
An Australian based HR executive for a multi-national organisation had successfully implemented a 360-degree feedback system (based on an USA model) to plan training and development in Australia. When asked by Head Office to implement the same system in Asia the executive ran into serious difficulties. Two years into the project - as the Chinese
pilot system was ready to be tested – the project was suddenly cancelled by the Chinese HR manager. Needless to say, the Australian HR executive was furious about the time, effort and money that went into the project, only to see it fail.
In cultures such as Australia, the USA and some Northern European countries, a higher level of tendency to trust, and higher external trust seems to exist in business relations. People are expected to be able
to demonstrate performance over time; one develops and gains the trust of one’s colleagues by delivering on time on one’s commitments. In the 360 project cited above, the Australian implementation went smoothly because the Australian organisation was well aware of the
HR executives’ high-level professionalism and proven track record.
In other cultures, including some Asia, Arab and Latin American countries, there is often a bias against ‘outsiders’, resulting in low levels of trust in cross-cultural business. Building relationships and
trust takes time and is a pre-requisite for professional interactions;
it may take many meetings or months of repeated interactions to
establish trust.
So what were the Chinese HR team’s issues with trust? They felt that they had not had a chance to get to know the Australian HR Executive prior to the start of the project. How could they really know or trust
him when he had only flown in a couple of times each year? They also felt that the executive did not understand that for them to pass on negative feedback or information, to their superiors did not sit well. They explained that subordinates do not usually trust that this type of information would be kept confidential. Another point the Chinese HR team made was that people do not really trust that 360 systems are there to help advance their careers; they expressed fear that staff would see it as a tool that could identify underperformers and risk losing their jobs… The Australian HR Executive dismissed their concerns and insisted that the system would work perfectly well just as it had done in the USA and Australia. After these discussions and a day
before the system was finally ready for testing, the local Chinese HR manager emailed the Australian HR executive that she and her Chinese team preferred their own local system and that they would cancel the project. To make matters worse, she handed in her resignation
claiming that she felt responsible for the miscommunication. The local Chinese HR team however blamed the Australian HR executive and Head Office.
It is imperative to remember that when dealing across cultures you need to take time to build relationships, trust and to discuss expectations. When cultural expectations differ, trust is undermined and the cost to business can be significant.
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