Global Dexterity. Andy Molinsky

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СКАЧАТЬ meetings. Nothing. Not a word. This was especially unusual given the culture of this particular firm, where, according to Robert, people typically had to bite their tongues not to speak and be noticed. Senior mentors would coach Feng, explaining that to get ahead, he would have to come at least halfway into the culture of the firm. They would encourage him to participate and contribute because they knew he had the chops. But Feng simply could not do it.

      Robert himself tried to work with Feng to overcome these differences. He helped create a special role for Feng in these meetings, which would be an explicit role of authority—it would be Feng’s job to own and drive the agenda within the meeting, and everyone would know that. Feng seemed to react positively to the idea, and Robert was encouraged. He was excited for Feng and also proud of himself for developing what really was a very clever idea. But it didn’t work. Feng came to the meeting in this explicit facilitator role but remained silent, as he always did. Robert was tremendously frustrated. He wanted Feng to succeed, and the firm had spent a great deal of time and money trying to help him get ahead. But for some reason, he simply could not adapt to the culture. In the end, Feng ended up leaving the firm because of a “bad fit.”

      What You Will Learn in This Book

      It’s not easy to learn to adapt your behavior. And as we have seen, the stakes can be quite high. Failing to adapt successfully can have serious consequences—for people and for companies. But don’t worry. This book will give you the tools to learn how to adapt your own behavior successfully in any situation you face and in any culture in which you operate.

      The first lesson is that people can face three core challenges when learning to adapt their cultural behavior:

       The competence challenge: Feeling that your knowledge and skill is not up to the task of adapting behavior

       The authenticity challenge: Experiencing the new behavior as being in conflict with your accustomed way of behaving and with your preexisting cultural values and beliefs

       The resentment challenge: Feeling that the very act of adapting cultural behavior is a burden and an imposition.

      Individually, any one of these challenges can be taxing, and collectively they can be very difficult to overcome. When you feel resentful about having to adapt behavior in the first place, embarrassed and anxious about your ability to do so, and awkward and uncomfortable about how disingenuous it feels to act so differently than you are used to, it’s very hard to muster the psychological resources necessary to adapt your behavior.

      So what can you do to overcome these challenges? How can you find a way of adapting behavior that does not feel so uncomfortable and inauthentic? It sounds impossible, but in fact, with the tools and frameworks that you will learn in this book, it’s really quite straightforward. The key is to realize that you have much more power than you think to craft behavior that fits the new culture and that also fits you.

      The first step is learning the new cultural rules, or what I refer to as the cultural code. Learning this code is key because it’s the first step in helping you devise a way to feel authentic and be effective at the same time. It provides you with insight into the particular set of challenges you face when adapting your behavior in a particular situation and how you might be able to adjust your behavior in order to respond to these challenges.

      What do I mean by the cultural code? You will learn that each situation you face—whether it’s learning to give constructive criticism, make small talk, negotiate, participate at a meeting, or ask a favor of your boss—has certain rules for appropriate behavior in a given cultural setting (see “On Diagnosing the Cultural Code”). Although there are undoubtedly many different ways to characterize these rules, I portray them in terms of six dimensions that capture the expectations that others have for our behavior in a foreign setting:

       Directness: How straightforwardly am I expected to communicate in this situation?

       Enthusiasm: How much positive emotion and energy am I expected to show to others in this situation?

       Formality: How much deference and respect am I expected to demonstrate in this situation?

       Assertiveness: How strongly am I expected to express my voice in this situation?

       Self-promotion: How positively am I expected to speak about my skills and accomplishments in this situation?

       Personal disclosure: How much can I reveal about myself in this situation?

      On Diagnosing the Cultural Code

      As you read through the book, you’ll notice that instead of providing you with the cultural code for every possible situation that you might face in a foreign culture, I instead provide you with a tool—the six-dimensional framework—that you can use to decipher the cultural code on your own.

      Why not just provide you with an encyclopedia of all the cultural codes that you could possibly encounter, detailing, for example, how exactly you need to adapt your behavior to act effectively in China, India, France, and so on? Such a resource would certainly be useful and convenient. The problem is that it would be impossible to create—at least in a way that would provide you with practical information for the particular situation you’re facing. That’s because cultural codes are not generic. People often mistakenly assume that there is an “American” or “Chinese” or “Indian” code for behavior, and that once you understand this country code, you’re set to interact successfully in any situation you encounter. But this is simply not true. Rather, these codes depend a great deal on so many other factors other than country-level differences.

      Regional differences, for example, often matter a great deal—such as the difference between the Midwest and Northeast of the United States, southern and northern Italy, or the urban cities and countryside of China. Company and industry cultures also greatly affect the cultural code for the particular situation you face in your work abroad. In China, for example, state-run enterprises tend to have more “classically” Chinese cultural norms—emphasizing indirectness and modesty, for example, than Western- or non-Chinese-owned companies. And of course, company norms vary tremendously and make their own contribution to the cultural code for any particular situation. Finally, the preferences and backgrounds of the particular people you interact with may change the cultural code in your situation. You may be in a culture that emphasizes assertiveness, but be interacting with people who are quite atypical. As a thought experiment, imagine trying to explain to someone how “directly” you are expected to communicate in the United States. In very general terms, you might say that communication norms in the United States are quite direct, compared with many other cultures, but does that hold in all cases? Would there be differences debating your case at a vigorous brainstorming session with investment bankers in downtown Manhattan, as opposed to a similar discussion with more mild-mannered colleagues at a small bank in central Illinois?

      The point is that cultural norms are not generic and that context matters a great deal. For that reason, it would be unadvisable to provide a list of cultural codes for you to simply slap on to your own circumstances, because such a list would likely be inaccurate and dangerously misleading, So, instead of a list, I provide a flexible tool (detailed in chapter 3) that, with the help of knowledgeable colleagues and mentors, you can apply to any situation you may face in your work abroad to get a valid and reliable portrait of the local cultural norms.

      Each situation you encounter in a foreign setting will have a specific cultural code for behavior along each of these dimensions. When motivating workers in India, there is a certain level or amount of assertiveness that you will be expected to show as a leader. When bonding with work colleagues after hours at a restaurant or bar in Japan, a certain level of enthusiasm is expected, СКАЧАТЬ