Walk in their shoes – Cultural differences

It’s really interesting how much we can all learn from each other. The best way to realize that is by working in a multinational environment. And I don’t mean a global brand, but a place where you’re surrounded by people from all over the place.

I can say London is a good example of that, normally the challenge is to try to find that an English person. It’s a place where we can have Indians, Pakistanis, Polish, Chinese, Russians, Spanish, French (you get the picture) working side by side.

What we could do with such environments is not only learn from each other, but start from the scratch, by understanding there are cultural differences, even in the most simple things:

Lunch
* For an english most likely will be sandwich and crisps over the computer
* For an indian homemade food, either in front of the computer or with other indian colleagues in the nearest canteen
* For a south European – going outside for a meal or going to the canteen – something away from the computer

But why? Because there’s different cultures, because people are different. It doesn’t mean english are anti-socials or south europeans just want to spend time out. Maybe for the english they didn’t had a culture of lunch, it’s just to get some food and continue working because there’s a long journey back home. For an Indian, they would prefer the flavours from home, plus it’s less expensive too. And I can imagine the trouble of going to the canteen, especially if they are vegetarian, is not an easy task! And south europeans use the lunch breaks to expand the relationships with their colleagues – that and any break in particular. Lunch breaks are powerful tools to get to know others, to get visible as well, and to make easier any requests during work.

Or even the way people say good morning and what do they mean:
* English – Good morning, how are you? – It’s all the same sentence, it doesn’t necessarily mean they want to know the answer. It’s more a polite thing.
* German – Morgen – If they want to ask anything else, that’s because they expect an honest answer, which can be something like “Muss” – it has to go.

Let’s look at an example where someone needs to ask for progress of a certain topic:
* English – “Hello Mr xxx, how are you? would you be so kind to provide me the status of topic x?”
* German – “Mr X, what is the status of topic x?”
* Indian – someone from the same hierarchical status of person x will ask the question “Mr X can you provide me the status of topic x?”
* South european “Mr, Dr, president could you provide me the status of topic x”

So it’s easy to imagine what it would sound to a south european being asked a status by a german? Potentially it would sound rude.

This happens all the time, misunderstandings due to cultural differences. It would be so much easier to acknowledge that different people expect different treatments and try to adapt the way we behave to that and get into a common ground where we get the same results but without offending anyone.

So I guess the lesson is to try to walk in someone’s shoes before criticizing or doing any misjudgments

Related links
* How different cultures understand time
* Cultural differences in negotiations 

Note: I’ve used examples which are more familiar to me and in my own personal views.

Ticking boxes yearly process

Officially it’s called Performance Year Review, unofficially it’s most of all an administrative process which consists of trying to understand which boxes have been ticked along the year.
It’s quite a common organizational practice this days to implement performance management processes within the organization which ideally will help the employees grow, think about their own careers and reward those that have outperformed their peers.

Definitely has been quite an improving process along the years, and it’s way better than having nothing in place. But still, every time most people think about the performance year, they see it as a administrative process most of all: speak with people, populate a bunch of forms, put some objectives and in 1 year’s time get some feedback from the line managers. But why does it sound people aren’t getting motivated?
It’s the ticking the boxes… the one size fits all syndrome.

Well because it doesn’t, there should be more tools in place so that flexible adjustments can be made. For sure the peers need to be aligned and comparable, but what about during the rest of the year? It needs to be more an interactive process I would say:

* Define short term project objectives & long term ones (which should include personal goals) – after all self performance is important too

* Define steps to get there

* Regular catch ups with the line manager to assess and maybe review the objectives
Once project | objective is done close them and start a new cycle.

It doesn’t need to be all that formal, but at least the conversations should be happening. But wait, conversation means listening and I know it’s very tempting to get behind the huge to do lists and not speak with your employees. Mr Boss I can tell you you’re not doing your job! You should be making sure there’s regular conversations, that your team has what they need, either it’s more time, more coaching or more freedom to do what they have in mind. But if you don’t talk you won’t know will you?

There’s a big chance that if this process was happening and there was enough feedback along the year, maybe the results year end would be better understood and potentially perceived as fair. The worst thing that can happen is something like:

“Mr B. you’ve achieved a rate of Consistent with your peers”

“But I’ve done a lot of work and received very positive feedback from our clients. What was missing then?”

“You forgot to tick box 45, which says you should be doing more internal powerpoints to support the sales process”

Mr B sobs and goes away… “If only I had known….”

Note: This is not at all scientific, it’s all based on my personal opinion – it’s a blog anyway! I’m sure there’s loads of studies in the topic if you want something with more ground work.