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Friday, September 5, 2014

Adapt to a New Culture – but Don’t Go Too Far

by Andy Molinsky | 8:00 AM July 15, 2014

One of the most popular pieces of advice that people receive when operating across cultures is, “When in Rome, Act Like the Romans.” This advice essentially means that in order to be successful in a situation different from your own, you need to adapt to the local customs, whatever they happen to be. But what happens when you don’t have a perfect read on what these customs or rules exactly are?

Imagine the following: Cheng, a Chinese professional, is starting a new job as a management consultant at a major strategy consulting firm in the U.S. Cheng is explicitly told that he needs to show his leadership potential in meetings with senior colleagues and partners by outwardly expressing his opinions and even, on occasion, directly disagreeing with his superiors. Cheng realizes this, despite how uncomfortable it feels, and decides to go for it. The first chance he gets, Cheng tells his boss how “crazy” his idea is and how a much more sensible strategy would incorporate various other features that he did not consider in his analysis. As uncomfortable as it was to call out his boss in this way, Cheng feels proud about having expressed himself.

A few hours later, Cheng gets a message to meet his boss in his office. Is Cheng’s boss likely to praise him for a job well done or chastise him for speaking about him publically in an inappropriate manner?

The answer is clearly the latter. Cheng went too far in his behavior, and unless he has a very smart“forgiveness strategy,” he’s likely to land in his boss’ doghouse. Cheng knew that he needed to be more assertive with his boss than he otherwise would have been in China, but he wasn’t able to adjust to the appropriate American level. If in China, you are supposed to act with a 1 or a 2 on a seven-point scale of assertiveness, and in the United States the appropriate level is a 5, Cheng produced a 7.

This story is emblematic of so many other similar stories that I hear in my work teaching and training people to function successfully overseas. Individuals attempt to adapt their behavior to match a particular culture but end up pushing too far, making larger mistakes than if they had just stayed true to themselves. It’s the problem of what I call “over-switching.”

I see this over-switching phenomenon quite often in my work as a business school professor. It happens when students who are generally quite deferential with professors in their native country realize that the U.S. standards are more informal, but they inaccurately calibrate where that level of informality actually is. It also happens often in interviews and cover letters. Students from countries where self-promotion is taboo learn that it’s required in the U.S., but don’t quite understand to what extent self-promotion is acceptable. I remember helping one foreign-born student with her application essays, where the first attempt was low on the self-promotion scale (talking about how “we” achieved certain individual results instead of “I”), but in the second attempt, she leapfrogged well past the level of acceptability to become overly self-promotional (touting her single-handed accomplishments on what was obviously a group-oriented endeavor). Although the student was embarrassed to see the difference, she also appreciated the feedback because it helped her calibrate her behavior the next time around to the appropriate style.

Individuals need to take steps to avoid over-switching and decrease the likelihood that it will interfere with their success abroad. One essential strategy is to develop a detailed sense of the “cultural code” — the correct and appropriate interpersonal style — for whatever key situations you’re working in. How assertively are you expected to act in your role in this setting? How directly are you expected to communicate, and with how much emotional expressiveness? Of course, the rules for how to behave are not the same in all situations you encounter in a foreign culture. Taking Cheng’s case as our example, some work cultures are extremely informal with very high expectations for assertiveness on the part of employees. Others are much less so. Some bosses also have styles that are more or less conducive to the behavior that Cheng exhibited in this situation. The overall goal is not to just learn how the new culture is different from yours. It’s to calibrate the specific level of difference and to learn how to acclimate your behavior to that particular level.

But even if you do work hard at mastering the cultural code, mistakes are still inevitable. You must also find ways to mitigate the brunt of these inevitable faux pas. Do what you can to develop a sense of rapport or, when possible, a relationship with the person you’re interacting with. Express genuine interest in the new culture and bond over areas of mutual interest, such as sports or family. And in certain cases, if the relationship allows, see if the other person might even be able to mentor you about cultural differences and the appropriate level of accommodation.

Over-switching is a natural part of the adaptation process. The trick isn’t to make it go away; it’s to try your best to convert these inevitable errors into valuable learning opportunities.

ANDY MOLINSKY

Andy Molinsky is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Brandeis International Business School. He is the author of the book Global Dexterity: How to Adapt Your Behavior across Cultures without Losing Yourself in the Process (HBR Press, 2013). Follow Andy on twitter at @andymolinsky.

Learning to Speak Up When You’re from a Culture of Deference

by Andy Molinsky | 9:00 AM July 7, 2014

Many of us are uncomfortable speaking with people of higher status. We can feel self-conscious, unsure of what to say, and afraid what we’re going to say — or what we’re saying — is the wrong thing. After these conversations, we often replay in our heads what we said, analyze what we shouldn’t have said, or realize what we should have said but didn’t.

But imagine what communicating up the hierarchy is like for people from countries and cultures where notions of hierarchy are much deeper and much more ingrained than ours. Where even as a small child you are taught to speak only when spoken to, and that in the presence of authority figures, like your parents, your teachers, or your boss, you should remain quiet, put your head down, do solid work, and hope to be noticed.

I teach and work with people from such cultures on a daily basis, and I can tell you that it is extremely challenging to learn how to function outside your cultural comfort zone when interacting with authority figures in different cultures, especially in cultures where the rules are much more lax and you are actually expected to voice your opinions, be assertive, and even establish relationships with these taboo figures. I call this the liability of deference: the fact that people from deferential and polite cultures often struggle quite significantly trying to make their way in less hierarchical cultures. This problem can be debilitating to the individuals and their careers, and it also hampers their organizations’ capacity to leverage the human capital that they have worked so hard to select, train, and cultivate.

The problem is a pervasive one. It manifests itself in the classroom, where students from cultures where participation is not a typical feature of classroom dynamics are forced to participate in the U.S. and some other cultures, and they struggle to make the cultural switch. Here, for example, are the words of a former MBA student from Vietnam who struggled with the difficulties of classroom discussion: “I know participating in the U.S. is required to get good grades but somehow deep inside I felt like I was doing something very wrong. I was trembling, sweating. I just couldn’t look at the professor or my classmates in the eyes. I felt guilty.”

This same issue also manifests itself during the job search process. The following is a quote from one of my former MBA students from Nigeria about the challenges of overcoming the liability of deference at networking events:

It felt very uncomfortable and artificial to be expected to participate in an informal conversation with this senior person. Thoughts going through my head were, “What can I possibly have to say to this man who has much more experience than I do?” The values that were instilled in me were to “speak when spoken to” and “children are to be seen and not heard.”

Finally, this liability of deference also impacts people at work. They can struggle to participate in meetings, can avoid calling senior partners by first names (and, as a result, can appear quiet or standoffish), and can struggle to cultivate rapport and relationships with senior colleagues, which is critical for their advancement.

So what can organizations and particularly leaders of organizations do to lessen the brunt of this liability of deference for their employees from other cultures?

The first critical thing is to educate themselves and their employees about these differences, and to develop a solid level of empathy for the challenges that their employees may face — especially those from hierarchically-oriented cultures — in adapting to the American workplace.

Sensitizing managers to these differences is critical for them to be able to make accurate attributions for their employees’ behavior. For example, if an employee doesn’t speak up in a meeting, it may not be because the employee doesn’t have anything to say. Or if an employee offers to take on a new assignment, but without the unbridled, “go-getter” type of enthusiasm the manager is used to from his American employees, this may just be a difference in communication style instead of a difference in motivation to do the work.

On the employee side, companies should develop robust training and mentoring programs to help their employees take the leap and learn to act outside their cultural comfort zone. Such programs should of course highlight the cultural differences that employees face in adapting their behavior to a new cultural environment. But to be successful, they must go beyond that, helping employees actually take this knowledge of cultural differences and then go the next step, learning to translate it into effective behavior in a new cultural setting.

Employees need to have opportunities to practice and hone their new skills, make mistakes in a forgiving environment as they work on customizing a style for interacting with authority figures that is effective and feels authentic, and then, having cultivated a new style, have opportunities to practice that new approach in realistic and challenging situations, ideally with feedback from a mentor or cultural coach. Intellectual understanding of differences and the capacity to develop global dexterityand actually shift their behavior are two very different challenges and skill sets. Training and education should follow accordingly.

For organizations to thrive in a global economy, everyone needs to pitch in. But when pitching in means speaking out, don’t forget the liability of deference.

ANDY MOLINSKY

Start the Year in the Right Rhythm

by Ron Ashkenas | 9:26 AM January 4, 2012

We don’t often think about it, but life is based on natural, recurring rhythms: Days, years and even our own lives have predictable cycles that allow us to navigate through time. Our morning activities differ from our evening ones; we plan vacations around the seasons; and we focus our energy according to the stages of our careers. Without these cadences the music of life would be chaotic, and it would be hard to build a common social experience with other people.

The turning of the calendar year is a reminder that organizations also need rhythm. Some of it derives naturally from the sun and the moon, financial reporting requirements, and the social fabric of society. But leaders need to provide the rest of the music to give investors, employees, and customers a sense of consistency. From my experience, there are at least three types of cadence that leaders need to create:

Planning and Budgeting: First, leaders need to make sure that an effective planning and budgeting cycle is in place at an organization level. This is the cadence that forces people to set strategies and goals and translate them into plans. Gauging the right timing for this cycle and how much detail it requires is almost always a challenge, and many companies stumble trying to get it right (or perfect). For example, one large health care company recently discovered that they could take five months of “churn” out of their planning by simply starting it later in the year.

Reporting and Pivoting: People at all levels value rhythms for assessing progress and making improvements to achieve their goals. But this rhythm often breaks down due to lack of discipline, transparency, or the avoidance of tough discussions when things go off track. In fact, a common reason that companies struggle with execution is that the “reporting and pivoting” cadence includes too much improvisation, which means that problems are addressed too late or not at all.

Human Resource Staffing and Development: At an organization-wide level, this means identifying needed skills and resources, closing gaps between current and future needs, moving people to appropriate roles, and rewarding or recognizing people for success. Within each work unit, this rhythm also includes periodic recalibration of unit structures, disciplined performance feedback, mentoring, coaching, and training. Again, while many organizations have yearly cycles for these activities, they are too-often viewed as one-time reporting exercises rather than part of an ongoing rhythm. And at the unit level, most managers do not create a predictable mini-rhythm for these activities, but instead squeeze them into the calendar as ad hoc tasks when a problem arises.

Establishing the right rhythm for each of these streams is an important but extremely difficult part of the leadership job. Not only does each stream need to be done well, but the combination needs to form a symphony. This way, progress reviews and talent development mesh with planning cycles, both at a macro-level and within each work group. Otherwise managers feel constantly pulled from one set of rhythms to another, without an ability to connect the dots.

It’s easy to wait for senior leaders to assemble these rhythms — but managers at every level also need to work at harmonization. One way to do so, particularly in January, is to create a “master calendar” for your team and yourself. Mark (or estimate) all of the key dates and requirements that are part of the corporate process. Then put in the recurring notes that you require for your own rhythm: one-on-ones with direct reports, skip-level meetings, project reviews, mentoring sessions, team off sites, etc. Once you begin to see how it all fits together, you can make adjustments, do forward planning, and alert your people far in advance about what is coming down the pike.

Every organization has a certain kind of music; making it harmonious is at least partly up to you.

What are your ideas about harmonizing the rhythms of your organization?

RON ASHKENAS

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting. He is a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.

In Presentations, Learn to Say Less

by Ron Ashkenas | 2:11 PM January 10, 2012

Imagine that you had 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes at the next executive staff meeting to get your message across. Would you be able to focus your energy on the most compelling way to convey your most important thought?

Honestly, many of us would be flustered by the limitations. But the ability to sharpen an idea so it can be communicated quickly and effectively is becoming critical. In most organizations today, information has expanded while time for analysis and decision-making has shrunk. We can’t afford to wade through reams of material and convoluted arguments. We need to get to the core of an issue as quickly as possible.

But zeroing in is not easy. I once sat through a lengthy presentation where the senior manager politely asked the presenter to summarize his point in one or two sentences. The presenter looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Without his slides, notes, charts, and illustrations he was lost. And the presence of all those props was losing everyone else: After the meeting, the general consensus was that the presentation was unclear.

Why is it so difficult for people to get to the point? Certainly it’s not a lack of examples: We are constantly bombarded by sound bites and tweets, all of which convey short bursts of focused information. Yet the skill to turn a “presentation” into a “tweet” remains elusive for many. Let me suggest two largely unconscious reasons for this recurring pattern: Too much data and too little self-confidence.

Managers often deal with problems that have no right answer, which leads us to collect more and more data. Eventually, when the deadline arrives and we still don’t have a clear answer, we end up presenting stories, facts, figures, and other interesting tidbits hoping that someone else will be able to make sense out of this ambiguity.

But even if our analysis does lead to a conclusion, many managers lack the self-confidence to state it and stand behind it. What if a senior person disagrees? Will the message upset someone? With these doubts in mind, many of us hedge our bets, avoid uncomfortable discussions, and surround the message with so much fluff that the real conclusion is barely visible.

So how can you get better at clearly conveying a message or helping your people develop this skill? Start with these steps to get it right:

When you prepare a presentation, work backwards. Start with the key message or takeaway that you want to convey. Then imagine that you had to send that message via Twitter instead of using slides, charts, documents, and discussions. Force yourself to summarize your key points in no more than 140 characters. Based on that focus, then think through what other information you’ll need as backup and support.
Practice making your presentation without any slides or other supporting materials — and limit the time to six minutes. Think of it as a TED talk that’s going be watched by millions of people on YouTube. Doing this (and getting a friend to capture it on video) will force you to be very clear about what you want to say and how to say it with conviction and zest.
Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and imagine how they might react to your condensed message. What questions will they ask and what concerns might they have? How will you address these, and how open will you be to alternatives? Speculating about these scenarios ahead of time will give you confidence to state your position clearly and respond to audience feedback.

It’s not easy to say less and convey more. But if you learn how to do it well, you’ll have much more impact on your audience and on your organization.

What are your suggestions for learning how to say less? All comments are welcome — as long as they are less than 140 characters!

RON ASHKENAS

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting. He is a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.

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Friday, September 5, 2014