The Guide to Translation and Localization: Winning in the Global Market - The Critical Role of Culture

By Lingo Systems,
Portland, OR, U.S.A.

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Chapter 19: Winning in the Global Market - The Critical Role of Culture

by Danielle Walker

Consider the following Working with Cultural Differences scenario:

Danielle Walker Training Management Corporation President and CEO Over the past 20 years, Ms. Walker has worked and consulted extensively with major corporations in North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. A native of Morocco, she is fluent in French, English, Hebrew and Magrebian Arabic. She is also an author of the Doing Business Globally (1995,2003) and the Doing Business Internationally series, including the Guide to Cross-Cultural Success, A Self-Instructional Workbook, The Resource Book, Doing Business in Countries/ Regions, and Managing Across Cultures

Based on your success at the U.S.A. headquarters as a sales manager, you are sent to China to oversee the creation of a new department. You are fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese, so verbal and written communication is not a problem. During your first meeting with the new department, you discuss in detail and in Mandarin your motivation and interest in making this department one of your organization's top business units. You tell them about an incentive program you created that will allow each member to excel and be rewarded for individual contributions. You make decisions and implement changes you feel will help achieve this goal. After a few days, it becomes apparent that your Chinese subordinates are not enthusiastic about your plans.

Why are they upset?

(A) They would prefer to be treated as a group and not receive individual recognition for contributions.

(B) You did not consult them regarding your decisions.

(C) They feel insulted that you addressed them in Chinese instead of in English.

(Correct answer found at the end of this article.)

Despite nearly two decades of corporate globalization efforts, many organizations still struggle to find managers who are comfortable and effective in the increasingly global economy. Most suffer from a lack of cultural awareness when dealing with employees and overseas partners, and from a lack of experience managing increasingly complex processes over long distances.

But why is it so difficult to develop effective global managers? The answers are as complex as the world's geographies. Each company has its own specific needs and challenges, and every country presents a unique and rapidly changing landscape in which work must be accomplished.

But even so, there are steps that companies and managers can take to better prepare for the challenges of managing globally.

Why build Cultural Competence?

We believe that the Culturally Competent organization has a deep understanding of culture that:

• Serves the understanding of markets,

• Improves communication with shareholders, partners, and customers,

• Drives process and efficiency improvements, and

• Creates opportunity for creativity and innovation.

What are the specific outcomes?

Culturally Competent organizations are responsive, agile, and adaptable at many levels:

• Organization level - enabling the organization to strategically adapt and develop its culture to the changing performance and talent requirements of the global marketplace.

• Business unit/functional level - enabling the bridging of cultural gaps, the effective exchange of knowledge, creating compatible business processes and practices, and developing synergies between functional business cultures as well as customers and suppliers.

• Team level - enabling a team or work group to effectively integrate new talent, leverage knowledge and skill resources, engage its stakeholders, develop and sustain effective and inclusive operating practices, and adapt to change.

• Individual level - enabling individual employees, managers, and leaders to operate effectively in the ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity of a culturally diverse employee, customer and supplier base, and geographically dispersed matrix relationships.

Building Cultural Competence

Cultural Competence is an increasingly important aspect of a successful manager and leader. Whether one is relocating to a different country, on a temporary assignment, part of a regional or global team, or leading a regional or global project, the ability to transcend cultural differences in the pursuit of business objectives is a critical skill set. So how does one build Cultural Competence?

Five discreet personal aspects can be isolated when looking at the learning process that leads to Cultural Competence. These aspects are integral to a cumulative learning process that yields specific behavioral skills and practices.

Open Attitude

• Receptive to cross-cultural learning and maintains an open and productive attitude toward differences.

• Continuously challenges assumptions about other cultures.

Self-Awareness

•   Is aware of, and knowledgeable about, one's own cultural preferences.

•   Can articulate one's own cultural values, beliefs, attitudes, and how they are reflected in behavior.

•   Can identify how differences between one's own culture and another's culture could lead to misunderstandings.

•   Is aware of how interaction with another culture makes one uncomfortable.

•   Can identify ways to adapt that will support cross-cultural interactions.

Other-Awareness

•   Recognizes the cultural values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of others in order to develop new cross-cultural business skills.

•   Correctly identifies the cultural preferences of one's counterparts and how these preferences are expressed in their behavior.

•   Observes and articulates areas of shared cultural perspectives to find common ground.

•   Gauges one's counterpart's willingness to learn about one's own cultural preferences.

•   Identifies ways to build stronger cross-cultural relationships.

Cultural Knowledge

•   Has acquired, or can acquire as necessary, a comprehensive knowledge of other specific social and business cultures.

•   Correctly identifies the general knowledge needed about a culture.

•   Gathers specific business or industry knowledge to conduct business in this context.

The Guide to Translation and Localization

• Studies how the culture's outlook on life has been shaped by history.

• Can identify how in this culture conflict is resolved, decisions are made, problems are solved, people are motivated, performance is rewarded, relationships are established and maintained, negotiations are conducted, people are led.

• Knows where to get necessary information and builds networks of contacts who can offer insight into other cultures.

Cultural Skills

• Has the necessary skills to work effectively across cultures in many different business contexts.

• Can translate cultural awareness and knowledge into skills. Improves one's own ability to work in multicultural situations.

• Continues to refine and improve skills.

• Adapts own business practices or management skills appropriately to particular cultures and situations.

• Negotiations are conducted and people are led.

•    Knows where to get necessary information and builds networks of contacts who can offer insight into other cultures.

We have identified four interrelated skills that define the critical skill set of culturally competent managers and leaders.

1. Cultural Due Diligence is the practice of assessing and preparing for the possible impact of culture and doing preparatory activities that involve (1) investigating and determining the cultural backgrounds and orientations of one's colleagues, counterparts, partners, clients, etc; (2) evaluating potential and actual gaps; and (3) developing a strategy for minimizing any resulting negative effects.

2. Style Switching is the ability to use a broad and flexible behavioral repertoire in order to accomplish one's goals. It may be the result of Cultural Due Diligence.

3. Cultural Dialogue is the ability to elicit cultural information through conversation, and thereby illuminate cultural underpinnings of behavior and performance, close cultural gaps, and create cultural synergy.

4. Cultural Mentoring is the ability to facilitate cultural understanding and integration to a new and different cultural environment. Whether it is assisting a new colleague in decoding the cultural norms of a new organization or team, helping two groups integrate practices, or coaching an international assignee in managing the difficulties of culture shock, this skill amounts to utilizing one's awareness and knowledge to bring about cultural integration and effectiveness in one's sphere of influence.

About Culture

AtTMC, we believe that most approaches to culture awareness fall short and are not well matched to the types of cultural challenges typically faced by globalizing organizations and by global managers and leaders. To be useful, a perspective on culture needs to be of practical value in helping us to (1)

navigate a broad spectrum of differences; (2) understand the fundamentals of various cultures and cross-cultural interactions; and (3) translate this understanding into personal behaviors and organizational expectations. To guide us in our endeavor, we have developed several axioms about culture:

Axiom 1: Cultural Boundaries are Not National Boundaries

In the field of cross-cultural communication, the concept of cultural boundaries is often used interchangeably with those of geographical and political boundaries (i.e., the nation). This perspective delineates different values and belief systems largely on the basis of national boundaries and nicely matches the contemporary understanding of the world, in which we have institutionalized the boundaries of sovereign nation-states as the universally recognized boundaries between peoples.

This notion has served well those businesses that divided the world into neat geographic regions and serviced them with a multinational organizational structure. However, with the dynamic expansion of globalization, using geographical/political worldviews to represent cultural differences is no longer useful and in fact carries with it rather dangerous baggage.

The habit of atrributing characteristics to nationally defined groups is both unrealistic and unproductive in the global work environment. First, less than 10 percent of the world's nation-states can be considered homogeneous. In only half of these nation-states is there a single ethnic group that makes up more than 75 percent the population. Multiculturalism is surely the norm and cultural homogeneity the exception.

Axiom 2: Culture is a Shared Pattern of Ideas, Emotions and Behaviors

Culture operates on both a conscious and unconscious level; it is both a characteristic of groups and is carried by individuals. Many of the commonly used definitions of culture highlight these features.

We suggest that it is useful, in attempting to understand the programming language of culture, to think of it as an iceberg. The proverbial "tip of the iceberg" symbolizes the level of behavior and other observables/tangibles (i.e., the world of manifestations). Beneath the level of our daily awareness, this behavior is linked to a world of values and meaning that is shared by a group. This internal world, which consists of ideas and their emotional value, is symbolically expressed as the "bottom of the iceberg."

In simplistic terms, the shared linkage between a behavioral expression (a handshake or a bow) and an idea or notion constitutes a norm. If we observe, for example, that a particular group of people tends to shake hands upon meeting, we may call this behavior the social norm for this group. The shared linkage between an idea/notion and an emotion can be considered a value.

The Cultural Orientations Approach recognizes the connection between norms and values by defining culture as the complex pattern of ideas, emotions, and observable/symbolic manifestations (including behaviors, practices, institutions, and artifacts) that tends to be expected, reinforced, and rewarded by and within a particular group.

Axiom 3: Cultures Reflect Distinctive Value Orientations at Various Levels

We may describe culture as holographic. Holographic images are built in such a way that the smallest part contains the entirety of the image. The magnificence of the entire three-dimensional image that we behold is the result of the amplification and magnification of the totality of the smallest parts. Culture seems to work in much the same way in that its smallest part, namely the individual, contains within it the deep structure of values and norms. Both are amplified and reinforced in interpersonal interactions. The small group - or, in a business context, the team - further magnifies and reinforces cultural configurations. The same thing happens again at the larger societal level, or, in a business context, at the organizational level.

It is useful for our purposes to distinguish four interrelated levels of culture:

1. The individual, interpersonal level. This level is the primary building block of culture. It is at this level that we most significandy experience and create culture, specifically through, and in, interactions with others. We may think of ourselves as reflections of a societal pattern of values and norms, a reflection that we exhibit through our actions and interactions. Through ourselves, we can both become aware of the larger societal patterns and also effect cultural changes through active shifts and changes in these patterns.

2. The group or team level. This level refers to social groupings of varying sizes as well as to functional/professional groups and teams. Each such group requires a set of values and norms if it is to be cohesive. As our interactions shape the dynamics of the group or team of which we are members, we as individuals direcdy affect the pattern of values and norms that define that group or team.

3. The organizational level. This level is a further amplification of basic cultural themes and configurations. It represents the deep patterns of values and norms that define societal institutions, including business organizations.

4. The societal level. This level involves the distinctive set of values, norms, practices, and institutions that define what it means to be a member of the society. It is the largest frame in which we feel membership, such as the nation or modern society.

Summary

When organizations globalize, the skill base of every manager changes and the importance of cultural awareness becomes increasingly important. Every cultural group is characterized by a distinct set of behavioral norms, practices and institutions. An effective training and awareness program will embrace these differences and improve the ability of individuals, teams, and organizations to perform across a broad cultural spectrum. Most importantly, it will also enable individuals and groups to contribute to their fullest potential by leveraging their unique experiences, perspectives, and viewpoints for the collective benefit of all stakeholders.

About TMC

Training Management Corporation (TMC) serves more than 40 corporations from the Global Fortune 100, delivering pragmatic consulting and personnel development solutions that meet the operational challenges of today's multicultural global business environment. Through improving business performance and productivity, TMC's clients are guaranteed a competitive advantage.

With offices in the U.S., Singapore and Belgium, TMC is proud of its exceptional growth and unparalleled client satisfaction as a leading provider of global assessment, training, development and integrated business solutions in more than 60 countries across 5 continents. TMC has ensured over 22 consecutive years of profitability by relying on its three operating principles: Optimizing Team Performance Across Cultures, Driving Inclusive Leadership, and Building Cultural Competence.

Correct Answer to Working with Cultural Differences:

(A) You have inaccurately assumed that the competitiveness used as motivation and an incentive to sales forces in the U.S.A. will have the same impact with members of a Chinese sales force. Such an approach may be unpopular with the Chinese for at least two reasons: The culture is much more cooperative in nature than in the U.S.A., using established networks to accomplish goals; and the Chinese would prefer group recognition to having individuals excel.

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