From Mono to Multiculturalism

Some cultures might be described as “multicultural” since they appear to be heterogeneous, “open” and adaptive: essentially they are an “umbrella” for many diverse sub-cultures. Other cultures might be described as “monocultural” since they appear to be homogenous, “closed” and unchanging: essentially they are a unique and exclusive group. Given that mono-cultures don’t appear to change, is it actually possible for a mono-culture to evolve into a multi-culture? This question is potentially very pertinent for organisations which appear to be monocultural but wish to be more multicultural (and “diverse”) in order to adapt to a multinational business environment.

Researching the answer took me to an article by Hofsted and McCrae: “Personality and Culture Revisited: Linking Traits and Dimensions of Culture”, Cross-Cultural Research, Vol 38 (1) Feb 2004. The article is about the possible correlations between personalities and cultures and the finding was that “mean personality scores from 33 countries were significantly and substantially correlated with culture dimension scores”. What is interesting in respect of the "from mono to multi-culture" question is the interpretation of the results proposed by McCrae, in particular as to how cultures evolve.

Here is a summary followed by a consideration of further implications (“et alors”).

Cultural Evolution

In attempting to explain the correlation between mean personality traits and cultural dimensions, McCrae suggests two evolutionary theories:

Selective Migration

Individuals move in or out of a social group to “find a niche appropriate for their personality traits”. For example in cultures with high power distance, there are only a few leaders and there have to be a lot of submissive followers. This might suit introverts more than extraverts, hence over time power distance might become correlated with low levels of extrovertism.

Reverse Causation

The suggestion is that “culture may be shaped by the aggregate personality traits of its members and that value systems and their associated institutions can be seen as social adaptations to the psychological environment that a distribution of personality traits represents.” In other words, in terms of evolution, it is the aggregate personality traits of a population that form cultures.

Et alors?

These two theories tend to support the concept of mono-cultures and leave little space for multi-cultures. By the definition of the evolution (in both cases) a homogenous group evolves either by the voluntary self-exclusion of outsiders or by the institutionalisation of aggregate personality traits. In this context, it would seem that a multicultural organisation could only be seen as a loose confederation of various mono-cultures. For organisations looking to become more multicultural, this could have profound implications. First is that whatever the organisation might look like in terms of diverse and different cultures, there will in fact be a “core” culture defined by the aggregate personality traits of those who have the power (which will define and maintain a mono-culture). With particular reference to the first theory, this might go some way to explaining the paradox of why many large multinational organisations have a heterogeneous talent base but a very homogenous “top” talent pool.

The second perspective is that if the aggregate personalities of an organisation tend to be of a particular national origin, then the ensuing organisational culture will reflect that national culture. Further, it can be argued that some national cultures are more “open” to change and diversity by virtue of their low power distance and weak uncertainty avoidance. America exhibits such cultural dimensions and the macro culture is essentially an umbrella of many different sub-cultures; so too are many of its organisations multicultural. On the other hand, continental European countries which exhibit high power distance and strong uncertainty avoidance will be “closed” to change and diversity. Despite visible attempts of an organisation to become multicultural, the personalities constituting the core of many continental European organisations might innately want to define and maintain a mono-culture. In this example, changing from mono to mulitculturalism will only occur if the aggregate personality of the “core” changes to reflect traits which correlate with lower power distance and weaker uncertainty avoidance.

Managers, Experts and National Cultures

“Experts” are sometimes unwillingly forced to develop as managers and/or leaders, mostly because good performance is assumed to be an indicator of future management potential; whereas the strong performance can simply be a reflection of technical expertise (cf. previous article on performance/potential matrix). Notwithstanding the development motives of the individual which may or may not be taken into account according to the corporate culture, there might be a case that the management / expert dichotomy is influenced by national culture itself.

Laurent, in the “Cross cultural puzzle of international human resource management”, in Human Resource Management, 1986, 25 (1), investigated the theory that in many cultures, to become a manager, you first have to be an expert. The hypothesis is that recruitment is based on technical skills and then development is based upon technical competence. First and foremost expertise, management is almost an afterthought! Laurent made the statement “it is important for a manager to have at hand precise answers to most of the questions that subordinates may raise about their work” and measured the positive response rate in various countries.

Here’s the result of the studies and further implications (“et alors”).

Managers, Experts and National Cultures

The percentage of managers who agreed with this statement can be categorised as follows in addition to which I have included an analysis against Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (cf http://geert-hofstede.com/dimensions.html):

Very Low (less than 40%) e.g. Great Britain 30%.

These national cultures have weak uncertainty avoidance and small power distance. In these cultures, experience can count as much as qualifications, uncertainty can be welcomed rather than controlled, and the education systems tend to point towards more generalist development.

Low (40 – 50 %) e.g. Germany 40%

These national cultures have strong uncertainty avoidance and small power distance. In these cultures, the professions are important and “management” would not be expected to give opinions beyond their “territory”, but uncertainty can be avoided through processes.

High (50 – 60%) e.g. France 59%

These national cultures have strong uncertainty avoidance and large power distance. Beyond qualifications, the belief in expert knowledge is very strong: the more expert the leader, the better able the organisation to cope with uncertainty in the future.

Very High (more than 60%) e.g. Indonesia 67%.

These national cultures have weak uncertainty avoidance and large power distance. Expertise and management go hand in hand so that the “strategic apex” of an organisation might be seen to be “wise”, having an answer to any question presented by a subordinate.

Et alors?

Does this mean that except in Anglo-Saxon countries, leadership and management must essentially remain an extension of technical expertise? When these cultural norms are applied within their cultural “boundaries”, then yes, it might seem futile to promote Anglo-Saxon leadership to (say) Indonesian companies in Indonesia staffed by Indonesians with Indonesian stakeholders. But what if the country of business is different than the country of origin, if the staff are multinational and the business partners are from other cultures? It might not be the time (in this example) to stop developing experts as managers and bring in more generalist leaders; however once the business becomes “global” it might no longer be a competitive advantage to maintain the status quo. It is a case of balance and adaptability, but as cultures are very hard to change, this is easier said than done!

In large multinational companies, besides cultural adaptation, it might also be wise to take heed of the individual’s wishes and motivations regarding the development as an expert or a manager; however for an organisation to accept to develop “generalists” as managers there has to be a cultural acceptance that managers do not necessarily have to be experts. Similarly, to develop experts without forcing them to become managers or leaders will also take a certain amount of “cultural courage”. Back to Hofstede’s dimensions: there are some national cultures which are neither weak nor strong in terms of uncertainty avoidance and neither large nor small in terms of power distance. When creating a corporate culture for the future, in terms of leadership development, wouldn’t that mid-point national culture be a good example to follow?

Leadership, Personality and Change

In “Introduction to Type and Change” by Barger and Kirby, 2004, CPP Inc., the authors reviewed inter alia, “common” profiles for leaders in terms of the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI®). Although the results should be treated with care as there is room for further research regarding cause and effect analysis, within the MBTI® framework, 70-80% of leaders prefer “thinking” to “intuition” and 70% prefer “judging” to “perceiving”. Without going further into the details, the conclusion is that the “average” leader is likely to prefer “organising their external world in a logical manner”: they like to get the facts, decide, plan and then get things done!

In the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2005, vol 89, no 3, “Personality Profiles of Cultures: Aggregate Personality Traits”, McCrae, Terracciano et al, reviewed 51 cultures to see if there was a correlation between average personality types and the respective group culture (which was usually, but not always, a “national” culture). One of the principle findings was that Europeans and Americans generally scored higher on “extraversion” than Asians and Africans. Given that the average leader in a Western organisation is therefore likely to be extravert as well as preferring “logical decision making in the external world”, it might be worth noting the advice Barger and Kirby give on how to “deal” with these personalities in terms of change.

Here is a summary followed by a consideration of further implications (“et alors”).

Leadership, Personality and Change

The authors proposed that (regardless of whether “intuitive” or “sensing”) the following should be considered when dealing with extroverted thinking type-preferences during a change process:

Strengths and Weaknesses

• Strengths are that they organise resources and people and then work hard to achieve set goals. They appear calm, confident and self-assured and are generally fair and consistent.
• Weaknesses are that they might tend to exclude others from the decision making process and may decide too quickly, moving to action before others are ready.

Influencing their behaviour

1. Identify the problem and its negative impact on the efficient achievement of the organisation’s goals;
2. Identify possible solutions and the consequences of each as logically as possible; and
3. Ask for what is needed, with a logical explanation for how getting it will make the change more effective.

What they want

• Information which must be presented in a logical cause-and-effect manner.
• To be included in the decision process; in developing the plans; and in evaluating the results.

Et alors?

The above only relates to the expected mean personality type of a “leader” in a Western organisation. For any one organisation however the distribution can vary enormously from one “extreme” where there are clusters of this type of personality preference amongst the leaders due to industry or educational “norms”; through to the other “extreme” where all the leaders’ personality preferences are as diverse as possible. Moreover, it is arguable that adaptive change in an organisation is more likely to occur when there are diverse personality preferences (where not everyone says or agrees to the same thing). In terms of leadership and change, this highlights a key paradigm:

Cultures tend to be self-replicating. In other words, those with the power in any group or organisation tend to replace themselves with those who demonstrate similar values and behaviours. Personality preferences are a key influence on behaviour. According to the statistics, leaders with preferences for “thinking” and “judging” therefore appear to be replacing themselves with other leaders who have the same preferences (hence the need for further research on cause and effect…). To the detriment of the diversity of personality preferences which by virtue of being diverse could assist change, the “old-guard” does not change…

So if the organisation does not already have a culture that is adaptive to change, how can leaders introduce change in order to become adaptive? For an average Western organisation, the answer can be found in “influencing their behaviour” (above)! This does however highlight the fact that to get out of the “groove” and make the initial change there has to be willingness and a motive amongst the external thinking types to increase personality diversity and move to a culture that is adaptive to change. The starting point seems to lie in presenting the information in a logical cause-and-effect manner…

Corporate Culture and Performance

Many large organisations lament the lack of innovation; the lack of agility; and the over centralisation of decision-making. A further analysis of these “ailments” often leads to the conclusion that performance is not as good as what it could be; in other words the company is not achieving its potential. If innovation, speed and empowerment are considered to be symptoms of a corporate culture rather than processes in themselves then it seems that there might be a link between corporate culture and performance.

The answer as to whether there is a link or not is to be found in a book by Kotter and Heskett of the same title (1992, The Free Press). They specifically set out to determine whether there is a relationship between corporate culture and long-term economic performance. The term “corporate culture” was relatively new at the time, but twenty years on, their findings are still pertinent, relevant and applicable today.

Here is a summary followed by a consideration of further implications (“et alors”).

Corporate Culture and Performance

The authors studied the culture of 207 companies and analysed their respective financial performance over an 11 year period (revenue growth, net income growth, and increase in stock value). There are three key findings:

Strong Cultures

A “strong” corporate culture is where “almost all managers share a set of relatively consistent value and methods of doing business”. In particular, a new employee is as likely to be corrected by her subordinates as by her bosses if she violates the organisation’s norms.

At best there could be seen to be a very-loose correlation between short-term performance and strong cultures. On the other hand, strong cultures are considered by analysts to be diametrically opposed to long-term economic performance.

Strategically Aligned Cultures

Here the content of the culture is more important than the strength of the culture. The corporate culture is only “good” if it “fits” its context. The context can be the business strategy or the “objective conditions of the industry”.

The concept of “fit” appears to be useful in explaining short- to medium-term performance; however both the “fit” and the related performance appear to be temporary and cannot explain long-term economic performance.

Adaptive Cultures

Here “managers throughout the hierarchy provide leadership to initiate change in strategies and tactics whenever necessary to satisfy the legitimate interests of not just shareholders or customers or employees but all three.”

There is a strong correlation between adaptive cultures and long-term economic performance.  12 companies with the most adaptive cultures (compared to the 20 with the least) had better revenue growth at 682% (cf. 166%); better net income growth at 756% (cf. 1%); and better increase in stock value at 901% (cf. 74%).

Et alors?

So why doesn’t every organisation adopt an adaptive culture? Firstly because when organisations have a strategically aligned culture, the firm performs well and there is no incentive to change or be prepared for change. Management can become not only complacent but arrogant. Inevitably, the environment changes (regulations, competition etc.) and because the strategies and tactics are not developed and successfully implemented, the culture no longer “fits”. Performance deteriorates but there is no perceived crisis and the organisation tends to become stuck in a “strong” but-no-longer-appropriate culture.

Secondly “strong” cultures (including many erstwhile good “fit” cultures) can become too strong especially in terms of management versus leadership. There are no leaders and so change becomes very difficult not least since managers may be hostile to any fundamental change. The authors identify this as an “unhealthy” culture where the management care about neither shareholders, nor customers, nor employees but just themselves. Accordingly, there appears to be a thin line between strong and unhealthy cultures. Both are far from being adaptive and the difference is only minor in how much the management’s behaviour is arrogant, self-centred, insular, political and essentially bureaucratic. Hence the financial analysts’ dislike of strong cultures!

It therefore requires a strong leader to implement an adaptive culture and the reason a lot of large companies do not get there is “(1) a strong culture can blind people (even smart, experienced and successful executives) to facts that don’t match its assumptions; and (2) an entrenched culture can make implementing new and different strategies very difficult”. There are however two solutions, but neither are quick fixes. For the long-term, a robust leadership development program needs to be in place to balance management with leadership so that if (and when) change is required, there are the resources in place to achieve it throughout the organisation. In addition, usually precipitated by a crisis, the leadership to change the corporate culture has to come from the top. This is the medium-term “project” and in particular, the best-placed individuals to effect the change are those who can maintain an “outsider’s objective outlook” but have built a robust credibility and internal power-base…

Organisational Culture and Leadership

Both culture and leadership relate not so much to “what” is done but to “how” things are done. When culture and leadership are mentioned together, it is often in respect of change management and not always a positive citation: the leader often drives forward change only to have the best efforts thwarted by cultural constraints. To achieve change the leader therefore needs to pay attention to the current and desired organisational culture. So how can organisational culture be defined and how can it be changed?

Hofstede is well known for his work on national cultures; however he also performed extensive organisational research and accordingly identified six “dimensions” of organisational culture. These dimensions represent a continuum between two poles, neither of which is right or wrong. This easy-to-reference analysis is taken from “Think locally, act globally: cultural constraints in personnel management”, Hofstede in “MIR” Vol. 38, Issue 2, republished in Bertagni et al, “’Glocal’ working: Living and working across the world with cultural intelligence”, 2010, FrancoAngeli.

Here is a summary followed by my leadership-biased critique (“et alors”).

Dimensions of Organisational Culture

The author describes six different dimensions of organisational culture:

Process versus Results Orientated

The former are dominated by technical and bureaucratic routines; the latter by a common concern for outcomes.

Professional versus Parochial

Also known as cosmopolitan versus local, in the former the members identify with their profession; in the latter they derive their identity from the organisation in which they work.

Tightly versus Loosely Controlled

This dimension deals with the degree of formality and punctuality within the organisation (and can also to relate to the amount of discretion individuals have to carry out their tasks).

Pragmatic versus Normative

This describes the flexible or rigid way in dealing with the environment, in particular with customers.

Open versus Closed

This refers to the common style of internal and external communication and the ease with which outsiders and newcomers are admitted.

Job versus Employee Oriented

The former assumes responsibility for job performance and nothing more; the latter assumes responsibility for their employees’ well-being.

Et alors?

Further studies have shown that the first four of these dimensions mainly relate to what the organisation does. For example a fast moving consumer goods company is likely to be pragmatic and results orientated; a legal firm is likely to be “professional”; and so on and so forth. In Hofstede’s own terms these four dimensions principally relate to the “outer” layers of culture – the symbols (words, gestures and pictures); the heroes (exemplary models of the desired behaviours); and the rituals (collective activities considered socially essential). They do not necessarily relate to any “inner” values; however once the business is defined, the culture becomes ingrained and is very difficult to change. It is not simply a question of changing the business – collective habits have to be re-engineered and changing them is, according to Hofstede, “a top management task that cannot be delegated”.

Then there is one dimension which does relate to values (as well as the other cultural layers) but those values tend to reflect the cultural values of the nation in which the organisation is to be found. This is the “open” or “closed” dimension and has its origins in the national “norms” regarding the level of power-distance acceptance and “weak” or “strong” uncertainty avoidance. In terms of leadership and change management, there is not much that can be done regarding this dimension: it is something that has to be dealt with and potentially worked around.

The final dimension, “job” or “employee” orientation does not relate to what a company does and is not related to values; instead it is simply a practice to which members of the organisation have been accustomed without reference to any values (national or otherwise). It is potentially one of the easiest dimensions to change and can be done at any level in the organisation (as long as there is some sense of collective change). As mentioned at the outset, neither “pole” in the dimension is right or wrong: the “accent” is on how to balance the needs of the job with the needs of the employee; but leaders anywhere and everywhere can make this change tomorrow!

Multiculturalism and Creativity

Many multinational organisations wish to develop “global” leaders who can lead across cultures. Beyond the need for international managers in such an organisation is there actually a business case for having multicultural leaders? The business case might be found if the company seeks to improve innovation. Without creativity, innovation cannot happen and apparently, multiculturalism increases creativity. Increase multicultural learning experiences and creativity improves! That’s according to an article in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (psp.sagepub.com) called “When in Rome ... Learn Why the Romans Do What They Do: How Multicultural Learning Experiences Facilitate Creativity.” W. W. Maddux, H. Adam and A. D. Galinsky, 2010 36: 731.

The caveat to the research is that creativity (insights, associations or solutions) is only improved when the multicultural experience came from living abroad and adapting to foreign cultures. (International tourism does not count!) Further, to adapt, the individual usually has to be open to experiences in the first place: in particular multicultural learning is the catalyst to increased creativity. The multicultural learning is only achieved when the individual engages in two (or more) cultures simultaneously. This therefore highlights that the way in which the individual “acculturates” to the new environment is important.

Here is a summary of acculturation experiences followed my culturally biased critique (“et alors”).

Multicultural Learning Experiences and Creativity

The authors state that to benefit from increased creativity, only the “bicultural integration” experience is positive whereas there are three other commonly observed experiences which do not have a positive impact on creativity.

Bicultural Integration

The individual identifies with the host country but keeps strong ties to the home country.

Assimilation

The individual identifies with the host country but cuts ties with the home country.

Separation

The individual maintains the home culture identity and rejects the host country identity.

Marginalisation

The individual loses identity with both host and home country.

Et alors?

Large organisations tend to expatriate experts and leaders. Beyond all the usual reasons for expatriation, if the organisation has a strategy to improve innovation, then multiculturalism and its link with increased creativity could be a good business case for developing multicultural leaders and experts. However, the way in which the expatriation (or “multicultural learning experience”) happens is just as important as the idea itself. Without the notion of “bicultural integration” to aim for, many protagonists in a multicultural experience will be drawn to either assimilation or separation, with marginalisation a possible consequence! This is potentially compounded when there is another cultural layer, namely corporate culture. If the corporate culture is ethnocentric (see September blog) then the assimilation/separation continuum can become polarised.

Consider a large organisation with its head offices based in one particular country with the country’s culture being strongly reflected in its global corporate culture. When a local employee from head office goes overseas, the starting point for the acculturation experience is likely to be separation (ie rejection of the host culture) because of the strong links back to the home culture not only individually but on a corporate level. Most of the other expatriates are likely to be from the same culture, the working environment will bear a strong resemblance to the “home” culture (language and working hours etc) and there will not only be personal visits home but working visits home.

Then consider an overseas employee who is expatriated to head office in the same organisation. The starting point for the acculturation experience is likely to be assimilation (ie rejection of the home culture). This might not be intentional on behalf of the individual but given the strong corporate culture which also reflects the host culture, there might be expectations by the hosts that the visitors fully assimilate. If not, there is a high risk that the individual could be marginalised or fall back into a “separation” acculturation experience.

Note that in both cases these are merely hypothetical starting points. The actual experience could be different and indeed possibly result in a creativity-boosting “bicultural integration”. This objective already demands a lot on behalf of the individual in terms of energy and openness, but if large corporations want to benefit from increased creativity then they also need to support the individual in their multicultural learning experience. Creativity will not be increased by simply sending head-office staffers overseas in a globally ethnocentric corporate culture. Likewise if all visitors to head office are expected to fully assimilate to the national (and corporate) culture, then again, creativity will not be increased!

From Ineffective Management to Effective Leadership

There are an enormous amount of “how to” books on the market with multi-step guides for self-development as a leader. Similarly, there are numerous formulae and models for moving “beyond” management to become a leader. So for anyone with fresh leadership ambitions the obvious starting point is to ask which theory is the best! Unfortunately, “best” is very difficult to define and there is no short answer to that question. Most “how to” leadership models focus on business change and transformation as a process; however what most good managers with strong leadership potential are looking for is a guide as to how they themselves can improve to become more effective. 

Along those lines, there is an article in this month’s Harvard Business Review which asked the question “What does it take for an ineffective manager to become a highly effective leader?” P. Fuda and R. Badham in “Fire, Snowball, Mask, Movie: How Leaders Spark and Sustain Change”, 2011, www.hbr.org (reprint R1111L) suggest that the key is to “identify the common threads in the experience of others who have achieved success”. Having extended their research to 10,000 managers they define success as “radical improvement in 360-degree feedback on their personal effectiveness, along with significant gains for their units or organisations in terms of performance, customer approval, and employee engagement.”

Here is a summary of what they propose followed by my culturally biased critique (“et alors”).

From Ineffective Management to Effective Leadership

The authors state that to become more effective as a leader, there are four key themes to consider.

Ambition (“Fire”)

Whilst people can be driven by fear, “aspiration is a far more important motivator”. The “fire” is ambition and the question should be “what do you want to gain personally” and what “legacy do you want to create for your organisation”?

Accountability (“Snowball”)

Managers may find that they are taking all the decisions. At once and at the same time, the manager needs to delegate more accountability and be accountable to the team. A key question to ask is “how open and accountable are you prepared to be”?

Authenticity (“Mask”)

At work, what imperfections are you concealing and what personae are you adopting to be “successful”? Once the manager has realised that further success requires change then the next question is “how could you bring more of your authentic self to work”?

Self-Reflection (“Movie”)

Many managers can point at others and say “that” is bad management, but how many have taken a step back to review their own methods? The key question to ask is: are you constantly “reviewing and editing” your own methods?

Et alors?

The focus of the above themes are personal, but can these reflections work in all cultures? Having reviewed the above in the context of Rossinski’s “Cultural Orientations Framework” (from “Coaching Across Cultures”, 2003, Nicholas Brealey Publishing) I propose the following:

Regarding ambition, some cultures are individual whereas others are collective. For those with an individualist preference, it is easy to emphasise personal ambitions and then relate or rationalise those ambitions to the goals and objectives of the organisation. In more collective cultures it is unlikely that any one “individual” is going to become a more effective leader by sharing their personal ambitions… Some cultures readily welcome “change” and normally in leadership theory “ambition” is synonymous with achieving change; but this would have to be treated carefully in a culture which values stability.

Accountability touches on two aspects of culture: one relating to the individual and the other to the organisation. Some cultures preference a strong internal locus of control – the individual has the power and is accordingly responsible. Other cultures are more focused on harmony or humility which might not lend themselves to the concept of accountability. On an organisational level, some cultures are role based and others task based. The former usually have strong hierarchies which makes delegation and empowerment a challenge, again putting accountability into question.

Authenticity is currently very popular in management theory. In terms of definitions of identity and purpose, some cultures favour “being” rather than “doing”. “Being” is living in the moment, focusing on relationships and growing; “doing” is more focused on accomplishments and achievements. The former is potentially an easier culture in which to be authentic. Similarly, some cultures are very formal where members of a group are expected to adhere to a strict protocol which, unlike in informal cultures, would leave little room for “authentic” behaviour.

Self-reflection is always a good starting point for self-improvement but how are you going to share those self-reflections in order to improve as a leader? Many organisations are by their very nature competitive rather than collaborative. In the former, self-reflections might best be kept to yourself. Likewise some cultures are protective whereas others are sharing. In a sharing culture closer relationships can be achieved by opening up; in protective cultures mental boundaries are established – personal feelings are not shared so whilst self-reflection might not be a problem, to grow as a leader and share those self-reflections might be a tough challenge!