Cross-Cultural Learning

The Importance of Communicating with Cultural Intelligence

Whether you realize it or not, thanks to the Internet, everyone is part of the global marketplace. Just look at the billion+ people who use Facebook worldwide. To thrive, all companies must develop a multicultural perspective, cultural intelligence, or cultural literacy. When exporting and using digital platforms like Facebook to support those efforts, you must try your best to understand people, no matter where they are from.

In this chapter, I’ll discuss the elements of cross-cultural consciousness and how it can make or break your business success. I’ll also offer a short list of online resources, books, and intercultural tips to help you minimize embarrassments and misunderstandings so that your global negotiations proceed comfortably and productively.

What is culture? It’s how people learn, it’s the way people do things, or how they share and interact with each other. Culture affects every part of daily life and makes up one’s social heritage. From a business standpoint, ­culture ­consists of many components—language, social interactions, religion, ­education, and values, for example—that create diversity among peoples and it influences our expectations of what is appropriate or inappropriate. For the aspiring exporter, recognizing cultural diversity is imperative. The greater your ­commitment to expanding your cultural consciousness, the more comfortably and effectively you will function within business and social environments beyond your own borders.

Soon Ang and Linn van Dyne define cultural intelligence—or literacy—as “a person’s capacity for functioning effectively in situations characterized by ­cultural diversity.”² In another instance, van Dyne, professor of management at the Eli Broad Graduate School of Management at Michigan State University, says: “Knowledge of your Cultural Intelligence provides insights about your capabilities to cope with multi-cultural situations, engage in cross-cultural interactions appropriately, and perform effectively in culturally diverse work groups.”³

If you want to derive the greatest personal and professional profit from your travels, your goal should be no less than to enter a different culture and engage successfully in cross-cultural interactions. This goes back to the global mindset I talked about in Chapter 1: the ability to venture out in the world and adapt as you go. You must also have the propensity to learn and ­succeed in your endeavors. Don’t just go to another country, take care of business, and come home. Confront the differences and let them affect and alter you. International travel is one of the most exciting, memorable, and precious experiences that any of us will ever have. On-the-ground exposure to other cultures and other ways of doing things helps develop skills in dealing and working with people from other cultures. And you will enjoy the experience much, much more if you can cross your own mental borders to experience cultural diversity in the process.

For the businessperson, selling a product or service overseas takes particular sensitivity to the values and concerns of overseas customers. International training, including language acquisition, is vital to building an optimal trade relationship in your target market. Things move very fast in the business world of the twenty-first century, so it’s best to learn at least the most fundamental social norms and basic grammar now—not later. Don’t wait for your product or service to take off—it will be too late!

Are You Culturally Aware? Test Yourself!

Here are some questions to ask yourself to see how well you know your prospective target market:

1. How do people typically dress there? Casual or formal? Dark or light clothing? Are any body parts to be covered at all times when out in public or when making business calls? Are there different norms of dress for men and women?
2. What do body mannerisms convey? Are your customers’ arms always folded when discussing serious issues? Do they wave their hands a lot while talking? Do they avoid your eyes while speaking to you? Do they grin while you are telling them bad news?
3. Do your customers expect you to accept all hospitable ­gestures and participate in all group activities when visiting? If they ask you to join them for a smoke and you decline, will that mean no business? If they smoke and you make a big fuss, will that hurt business? If they offer you an alcoholic beverage before noon and before you’ve even started business discussions, what should you do?
4. What about religious or political issues? Will your customers be flattered or offended if you partake in a religious ceremony when it is clear that you are not a practitioner of that particular faith? Should you go toe to toe with the head honcho in a political discussion or had you best just back off?
5. What are the customs that are considered offensive? Your host cleans his teeth during dinner. Would his countrymen regard him as a vulgar clod? Should you do the same? Should you be shocked?

If you fumbled for answers to some of these questions, it’s time to ­cultivate some intercultural awareness. First of all, cultural ignorance sets you up for culture shock, which compounds the stress of international travel and deprives you of much of its pleasure. Second, culture is so subtle and pervasive that there is no way of estimating how your ignorance might impact your business. You will feel paralyzed and inept because you won’t dare to take any initiatives for fear of looking foolish and offending your customer. Why spend anxious hours wondering if something you said or did with a prospective overseas customer helped or hindered your efforts? The more you learn, the more freedom, mobility, and confidence you will have.

Get the Global Edge: Learn the Language!

Learning the language is arguably the best start you can make in your cultural training. Language acquisition gives a global marketer a definite edge in a new market by reducing the stress of cultural adjustment and increasing rapport with overseas associates. Language itself primes an individual’s cultural values and attitudes, which can affect behavior. It also empowers you by increasing awareness of what is happening during negotiations and by earning immediate respect from your hosts.

You’re probably asking yourself, “Must I learn a whole new foreign language before I can do international business?” Yes and no. Yes, it helps—the payoffs are incalculable. No, you don’t have to. But I have found that my most gratifying and profitable business relationships have happened in those parts of the world where I’ve made an effort to study the language, learn the culture, read the national history, and visit in person as often as possible.

Resources for Cultivating Cultural Awareness

You don’t need to go far off the beaten path to acquire the information you need to jump-start your cultural learning. Start with your bank. Many big international banks, HSBC for example (https://globalconnections.hsbc.com/global/en/tools-data/country-guides), offer country guides right on their site. Universities also offer a rich, in-depth pool of resources covering cross-cultural country insights. A good example: Michigan State University’s globalEDGE: http://globaledge.msu.edu/global-insights/by/country. Then start searching for what you are looking for on the Internet. After that, visit a store that specializes in world travel equipment and incidentals (like http://www.WorldTraveler.com). They typically sell books, CDs, and digital recordings with which you can brief yourself on the economy, dress, cuisine, etiquette, and other vital statistics of just about any country in the world. Some specialize in lessons on what to do and what not to do when conducting business in specific foreign countries.

Travel bookstores (Magellan’s, for example: http://www.magellans.com/country_guides/country-guides); Amazon; and bookstore chains like Barnes and Noble usually have a respectable selection of sophisticated country-by-country travel guides. You’ll find more than enough to get you started.

I particularly recommend the following books:

• Roger E. Axtell’s Gestures: The Do’s and Taboos of Body Language Around the World (1977) is a simple, amusing, and informative survival guide to understanding cultures other than your own.
• Dr. David Livermore’s Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success (2009) provides solid academic research and years of experience on how to become more adept at managing across cultures. He’s also written The Cultural Intelligence Difference: Master the One Skill You Can’t Do Without in Today’s Global Economy (2011), which is also worth a look.
• Axtell’s Do’s and Taboos of Hosting International Visitors (1990) is another good guide to everything from entertaining, to business protocol, to what overseas guests find peculiar about the American way.
• Terri Morrison and Wayne A. Conaway’s Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands (The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More than 60 Countries) (2006) discusses cultural overviews, behavior styles, negotiating techniques, protocol, and business practices in sixty countries. They also have books in the same series for Asia, Europe, Latin America, and on sales and marketing.
• Jerome Dumetz and colleagues’ Cross-Cultural Management Textbook: Lessons from the World Leading Experts (2012) helps people develop the behaviors and skills necessary to adapt to a culturally diverse world.

For more country-specific cultural information, you might also try the ­following online sites:

• National Geographic (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/)
• Lonely Planet (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/usa)
• Fodor’s Travel guides (Ireland’s guide, for example, can be found here: http://www.fodors.com/go-list/2013/ireland/)
• US Commercial Service “Market Research Library” (http://www.buyusainfo.net/adsearch.cfm?search_type=int&loadnav=no)
• Central Intelligence Agency’s “World Factbook” (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/profileguide.html) offers information beyond a country’s culture, including on geography, the people, government, economy, and transportation.

Cross-Cultural Training

If you truly value cultural literacy and want to learn more and leverage that knowledge as a competitive advantage for your firm, you might consider participating in a cross-cultural training program. A good program will address the very deep issues of the different ways in which people live their lives and how they see the world. These programs offer best thinking and best practices on conducting business in different countries, modifying your own behavior, and working confidently with cultural differences in a virtual context or face-to-face meetings.

Although such training can be helpful, some experts find training may have more impact after a person has some firsthand experience to reference. Say you just started exporting to China, for example, and your key manager runs into communication problems not tied to a language barrier. They have more to do with a stylistic or behavioral issue on the part of the manager in that she likes to confront every detail in a conversation as if she’s trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark to score a home run, and this is too contentious for the Chinese communication style. After all, that’s how she is accustomed to behaving at the home office in the United States and with much success. The Chinese, on the other hand, like to minimize provocation and keep complaints or disagreements polite and discreet. That prods you to figure out how to keep the communications fluid and make a success out of your interaction with this market. Dealing with reality that something isn’t working prompts questions, and questions lead to solutions.

If you get stuck and have doubts about how to handle a particular situation in an overseas market, training might be your next step. Conduct a web search on “cross-cultural training” and several resources will come up, including web-based training available at your convenience. The US Department of State offers a list of companies that offer cross-cultural training and consulting programs (http://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/79756.htm). Before participating, be sure to get references from people who have used these services successfully.

Quick Intercultural Tips

It’s unlikely you’ll be able to learn everything there is to know about any given overseas country, so I’ve constructed a list of quick tips to apply to interacting with all cultures. These tips are based on what a typical international traveler usually does wrong when trying to conduct global business. Keep these guidelines in mind and you will be a global chameleon:

• Slow down! The rest of the world does not do business at lightning speed. Practice patience. This can actually be enjoyable if you are an American, because you probably don’t often get the chance!
• Decide by consensus and take your time arriving at one. Refrain from making unilateral decisions. The more opinions and comments you can get from all parties involved, the more satisfactory your final decision will be. It’s always better if everyone feels like the decision was a consensus of the whole group, anyway.
• Show sincerity. Listen to what your customer is saying and be interested. Don’t be superficial—a plastic cheerleader smile won’t cut it. You are building a long-lasting relationship.
• Embrace the environment and its people to make it your own.
• Take a passive approach rather than an overly aggressive one. Go with the flow. Don’t arrive with an ironclad action plan geared toward achieving results within a week.
• Smile and communicate contagious enthusiasm.
• Act ridiculously polite. Be forever trying to win them over with your humble, courteous manner. Too often people take an adversarial approach to business deals, as if the other party is one to be gotten the better of.
• Make on-the-spot attempts to learn the other party’s culture. Try to master some words and phrases of their language, ask about their history, observe their ways.
• When in doubt, get over your embarrassment and ask questions. Gather input to find solutions and to learn as much as you can. You have nothing to lose, and it shows them you care.
• Compromise when you should. Collaborate as needed. Be open to possibilities that may leave you feeling vulnerable, yet grow the relationship.
• Wear a pin or accessory that symbolizes a global perspective, not a national one. A symbol that represents world peace can only help.
• When you catch yourself being driven by an ingrained ethnocentric attitude, pull it up out of your subconscious and take a good hard look at it. Remember that no matter how ill at ease you are, you should welcome every encounter with the unknown and unfamiliar as an opportunity to cultivate your global mindset (review Chapter 1). And expect to be ill at ease, because we all believe that what we are accustomed to is the natural order of things! This is why we need to keep a sense of humor about our own and others’ interpersonal missteps. Exercise tolerance and make good-faith efforts to bridge differences and find common ground.

Cultural differences and quirks make our life rich, diverse, exciting, and unnerving—and in the fast-changing world of international business, they will play an increasingly important part in all our lives. How you deal with the ­differences can make or break your business success. Your mastery of culture will enhance your competence in all areas of your international business—in coping with the simple logistics of living and getting around in another country, in establishing trust, in pacing negotiations, in knowing which gifts and gestures will please people of that nationality, and in knowing whether you’ve got a deal or not. There is no better way to understand the people who are going to buy or use your product twelve thousand miles away than by meeting them, literally or figuratively, on their own ground. Start getting ready for your cross-cultural encounter today.

A Real-Life Example of Learning Culture on the Fly

One of my most delightful and memorable encounters with another culture happened in my own hometown—in fact, practically in my own home. Some very dear Japanese friends, a gentleman and his two daughters, were staying in a guest suite next door to my apartment. We had spent several activity-packed days together, but on the last morning before my friends were to return to Japan, we found we didn’t have enough time to go out for a proper leisurely breakfast. Naturally I hated the thought of just saying goodbye from the lobby and sending them off on their long, wearying flight overseas. So I got up early, boiled a huge kettle of rice and phoned them an hour before I knew they had to leave to see if I might help them with anything. My friend replied, “My daughters are complaining they are hungry.” I said I would be right over. I grabbed a carton of eggs, some butter, a frying pan, a bunch of chopsticks, and my kettle of rice. The latter was my contingency plan—I knew that Asians eat rice at every meal, but I frankly had no idea if the Japanese ate fried or scrambled eggs, for breakfast or otherwise!

I walked in and announced that I was going to make a quick American breakfast of either an omelet or scrambled eggs. I don’t know if the girls even heard me, though—their eyes fell on that kettle of fresh steaming rice and their faces immediately lit up as if they had never been offered anything so delicious in their lives! Before I could say another word, they asked if I had soy sauce. Thanking my lucky stars that that Asian staple has been a familiar American grocery item for decades, I ran back to my apartment and grabbed my bottle from the refrigerator. By the time I returned, the girls had begun cracking raw eggs into the rice pan. Then they set the pan on the stove and slowly stirred in the egg, carefully adding just the right amount of soy sauce. Once done, we all happily dug in with the chopsticks.

I had improvised the best I could, but I had no idea that I was offering my guests such a satisfying and familiar breakfast—or that I would find myself eating barely cooked eggs in rice with soy sauce! And to think that my friend asked if I had any relish to go along with it! Sometimes on cold winter ­mornings I make this dish for breakfast and fondly remember my friends from overseas who shared it with me.

The same thing will happen to you in the international marketplace. If you do your best to act with cultural sensitivity, value your own culture, learn about your associates’ culture, and then let them meet you halfway, you can build a cross-cultural bridge and achieve world-class excellence together.

Summary

You don’t want to show up to a meeting without preparing in advance. The same holds true for understanding other cultures. Don’t assume that a market is like that in America. Even if you think it is (in Ireland, Australia, or the United Kingdom, for example), you don’t want to export or travel to it without first learning everything you can about the culture. Whenever you feel you have underestimated the importance of cultural differences, come back to this chapter for a refresher. It will mean everything to your customers and might make or break your export business. Last, keep an open mind, be flexible, and place trust in your international business relationships, and encourage cooperation. Profitable exports will surely follow.

Now that you’ve mastered the basics in cross-cultural learning, you are ready to develop your moral compass, which intersects with intercultural intelligence. Read on.

¹ David Livermore, Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success (New York: AMACOM, 2010), xiv.

² Soon Ang and Linn van Dyne, Handbook of Cultural Intelligence: Theory, Measurement, and Application (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2008), 415.

³ Linn Van Dyne, Linn van Dyne, “Cultural Intelligence (HQ),” http://www.linnvandyne.com/cq.html.