Global business success is achieved, in part, by helping employees and managers develop a global mindset and skill set.
A global mindset is an awareness that people around the world think, act, and communicate in fundamentally different ways. Global skills are used to bridge language and cultural barriers.
Employees with multinational responsibilities must bridge cultural and language barriers so they can achieve more effective cross-cultural business relationships and improve global performance.
At minimum, they need to:
• Identify their own cultural values, learn how these values affect behavior, and consider how their values might differ from those of others around the world.
• Experience how it feels to cross cultures.
• Understand different dimensions of culture that help them relate to differences in culture: concept of time, role of business relationships, use of power (hierarchical vs. collective), risk orientation, importance of the individual vs. society and how they perceive context when communicating (how literally they take things).
• Communicate across cultural and language barriers and address context and both verbal and nonverbal business communication.
• Learn about culture shock – what it means, how it influences business, and what they can do when they sense others are experiencing it.
• Network cross-culturally to continue creating their global resource network.
According to research by Wilson Learning Worldwide, there is an, “iceberg of culture,” of which we can only see the top 15 percent: food, appearance and language.
We really need to appreciate the 85 percent that is below the water line to work well across cultures.
Here is what is not apparent initially, when working with other cultures:
• Expectations
• Work tempo
• Communication styles
• Negotiation styles
• Attitudes toward planning
• Concern for efficiency
• Priorities
• Role expectations
• Perception of professionalism
• Nonverbal communication.
The big challenge we have that is different from many other countries is that our boundaries have isolated us from learning cultural subtleties as children, except those contained within our own country.
As easily as we know how cultures differ between the West and East coasts, for example, Europeans know how Spain and Portugal differ; as a general rule, we don’t.
So, when we enter the European business landscape, we are at a complete disadvantage.
The same thing happens in the Pacific Rim or Latin America where lots of countries have been interacting for centuries.
For globally minded people, the Midwest is about the worst place to live because we are land-locked. I followed my brother – Dr. Mark Bower of Ferrell-Duncan – to the Ozarks. We grew up in Kansas City with great appreciation for this area. As adults, we could deal with our isolating geography, but then my brother had a daughter.
My brother and his wife, Jan, a special education teacher at Carver, are providing an exceptional example of global parenting.
Their 14-year-old daughter, Lara, has been to Japan, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and Canada and has taken several trips to Europe.
It’s not just the travel that is helping Lara become globally minded.
Before going to Japan, for example, Lara learned the tip of the culture iceberg by using common Japanese words, practicing Japanese customs and eating Japanese food. She read about the culture and used the Internet to learn about where they were going.
My brother says it’s not important that Lara remember the specifics about the places they’ve been and things they’ve done. They want her to realize that there are other people in the world besides Americans. He and Jan believe that the exposure will give Lara a great advantage as an adult.
For now, Lara’s having fun visiting penguin colonies and dogsledding and doesn’t realize the extent to which she is gaining a global mindset.
The world is hungry for people who can cross cultures effortlessly. They can write their own ticket to success anywhere. Just seven years of experience working primarily outside of America distinguishes me in my profession, even though six of the years have been from Rogersville.
Mostly what I’ve learned from working cross-culturally is how much I don’t know.
It’s been hard to understand cultural differences as an adult. I want to believe that even if America’s children don’t get to travel outside of our country that we are at least exposing them enough to embrace our beautifully diverse world.
Linda Bower is a speaker, executive coach and human performance improvement consultant in Rogersville.
