Organizational Culture: An International Challenge

Those working at international companies have undoubtedly encountered challenges when dealing with colleagues from abroad. Sometimes these challenges are due to personality conflicts, but often times the root cause is cultural misunderstanding.

Typical business protocols such as running a meeting, giving a presentation, managing a project, and negotiating a deal can differ greatly from country to country. If not understood, these differences can cause delays in reaching deadlines, a slowdown in production time, and frustration from clients - all of which can hurt your company's reputation. So what can you do?

Intercultural training can help.

There's a common misunderstanding that intercultural training is just a soft skill or a 'nice to have' - that it merely teaches people how to get along. While getting along with your colleagues from other cultures is a key goal, it's not the only goal.

Intercultural training helps organizations reach their business goals by developing people for working in today's global world.

Not quite sure if that's so important for you or your organization? Well, take a look at 2 companies who are leading the way in developing global talent.

For years, Alibaba has recognized the need for developing global leaders. They have their own Global Leadership Academy dedicated to nurturing the global skills and mindset required for international growth. They specifically state as an objective that they want graduates to “be open-minded towards differences in culture, perspective, and ways of doing business” and to be part of Alibaba’s “globalization journey.” They recognize the importance of understanding how to do business across cultures.

Another company recognizing the need for globally-minded talent is Heineken. They have an International Graduate Program designed for those with a passion for learning about other cultures and ways of working. International graduates go on three 1-year assignments to three different countries. Through this program, Heineken is hoping to create their internationally mobile leaders of tomorrow.

So what do you do about your company culture if you have a global footprint? How does having offices, colleagues, and clients around the world impact organizational culture?

Let's look at one of the top tools of choice for organizational effectiveness - The Denison Model.

The Denison Model links organizational culture to bottom-line performance - profit, growth, quality, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement. It measures organizational effectiveness and can be used to diagnose problems within an organization.

The model attempts to answer 4 questions about the organization by focusing on 4 areas of the organization:

1. Mission - Do we know where we are going?

2. Adaptability - Are we listening to the marketplace?

3. Involvement - Are our people aligned, engaged, & capable?

4. Consistency - Do we have the systems, values, & processes in place to execute?

At the center of the model are beliefs & assumptions that show how individuals think about and view their organization and its parts.

Within each of the 4 areas are 3 indexes (see image).

In global companies with offices and colleagues around the world, the breakdown in organizational culture often comes under the Consistency area, specifically under Core Values. The core values of workers from other countries can vary greatly from that of HQ. Leaders in HQ may model and reinforce what they believe to be the company's values, but those values may differ or be in conflict with those of employees from other cultures. For example,

• HQ may value employees working on teams, where an overseas office may value independent work

• HQ may value a positive work-life balance, while an overseas office may place more value on those that stay in the office until the work is completed

• HQ may value hitting high sales quotas, while an overseas office may prefer focusing on nurturing strong client relationships, even if that means less clients

So the question for those in charge of company culture becomes: "How can we keep our company's organizational culture intact when that culture might be in conflict with our own employees?"

What happens when you try to "export" your company's culture to new lands? Or you hire international workers from overseas? Or you start marketing your mission and values to clients abroad? What happens to your organizational culture then?

This is where intercultural training can help.

Intercultural training can hep you create an organizational culture that is inclusive of your international team members by narrowing in on the core values of your employees around the world. It can help you align your organizational culture with your change management, leadership development, and talent management efforts. Intercultural training does a lot more than teaching people how to get along. It helps increase organizational effectiveness and smooths the way towards achieving your organizational goals.

Contact me at hello@nicolebarile.com to learn more about working across cultures.

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