Managing Multicultural Teams

“Today, success depends on the ability to navigate the wild variations in the ways people from different societies think, lead and get things done. By sidestepping common stereotypes and learning to decode the behaviour of other cultures […] we can avoid giving (and taking!) offense and better capitalize on the strengths of increased diversity.” This from Erin Meyer of INSEAD in her article in the May 2014 edition of the Harvard Business Review: “Navigating the Cultural Minefield.” Besides highlighting various cultural “scales” which can assist the decoding of other cultures, she also highlights four rules for managing across cultural differences which can help capitalize on the strengths of diversity.

Here’s how to manage multicultural teams along with further considerations:

Managing Multicultural Teams

Focusing on leading as one of the cultural scales (from “egalitarian” to “hierarchical”) the author prescribes four “rules” for managing across culture in a multicultural team:

1.       Don’t underestimate the challenge

As management styles “stem from habits developed over a lifetime” they can be hard to change: both yours and that of your team! Starting with yourself, you may need to “unlearn” your own style when moving to a new culture and/or managing a new multicultural team.

2.       Apply multiple perspectives

If you are leading a team of various different cultures, “it isn’t enough to recognize how your culture perceives each of the others.” In addition, you need to understand how each different culture perceives each other culture in the team!

3.       Find the positive in other approaches

This is the very essence of managing multicultural teams. If all you have is a negative view of other cultures, managing a multicultural team is going to be very difficult! Accentuate the positive to capitalize on the differences in the team.

4.       Continually adjust your position

Practice makes perfect. If you consider management as a one-to-one relationship with each team-member, then consider which management style might be the most effective in each instance, and keep adapting even if that means going back to “square one”.

Et alors

Unfortunately and all too often, some managers expect everyone else to adapt to their style and make no effort to accommodate their team! This is can be found in more “ethnocentric” cultures (where the group considers their culture to be the primary point of reference). Similarly, this article is focused on expatriate managers – managers who are already adapting by moving overseas and then having the challenge of managing a multicultural team; however one of the issues for multicultural companies is when the manager (usually at head office) is “local” and has a multicultural team (of expatriates). Whilst the team might be busy adapting, it is often the case that the manager makes little or no effort to do the same. When that is the case, it very unlikely that the team will be able to collectively capitalize on their cultural diversity – steps 2 to 4 will be impossible to achieve without step 1 from the manager! This highlights the point that multicultural awareness and training should not only be for managers going on assignment overseas but also for any manager in a multinational group who might be welcoming multicultural staff into the team!

High Potential Status Transparency

Most leadership development programs are targeted to the organisation’s “stars”. These are people who have not only been recognised as having high potential but have also demonstrated high performance. The latter is, by its nature, transparent – the high performance is seen and is recognised not only by the management but by the organisation at large. The high potential status is something else entirely. Surveys suggest that in Europe only 40-50% of organisations openly communicate this “status”; whereas in the USA at least 80% of organisations are transparent with this labelling (ref. HBR inter alia).

So why the difference in approach and what are the pros and cons of being transparent about the “high potential” label? This led me back to one of the most definitive books on the subject “High Potentials: the competitive edge in your company” by Timmerman and Sabbe, 2007, Hudson. The book looks at the ever-increasing need for organisations to implement a “development” culture as opposed to the ready-now, performance-driven “succession planning” culture which is prevalent in a lot of organisations. In that context they give a complete overview of the pros and cons of openly communicating the “high potential” label.

Here’s a summary followed by further implications (“et alors”).

High Potential Status Transparency

The pros of openly communicating the High Potential status are as follows:

·         Shared responsibility – development becomes the responsibility of all involved: not just HR, but also management and the individual.

·         Transparency – not only a “moral” contract with the individual, but for the entire organisation, transparency can boost motivation in terms of visible opportunities.

·         Fairness – when not a secret, a formal and open policy regarding the unequivocal status requirements enhances the feeling of fairness and objectiveness.

·         Quality assurance – if transparent, the status evaluations and assessments have to be thorough enough to withstand scrutiny which thereby ensures quality.

·         Visibility – not only will the individual feel they have to prove their status, but the wider context of leadership development also becomes more visible to all.

The cons of openly communicating the High Potential status are as follows:

·         Assumed permanence – often the individual assumes that the status is permanent which can cause difficulty when the temporary status is removed.

·         No vacant growth positions – not achieving advancement due to hierarchical constraints can lead to resentment and cynicism by the individual and by the entire organisation.

·         Label abuse – externally the individual might be head hunted by other organisations; internally the individual might use the status as a “crown prince”.

·         Pressure – in one sense, the extra pressure placed on the individual by this status can be challenging; in another sense it can also be demotivating when the “spotlight” is removed.

·         Implicit negative status for others – if some are “high potentials” does that mean that the majority is “low potential”?  Beyond this one status, further clear communication is required.

Et alors?

Timmerman and Sabbe actually change the question from “should the status be communicated” to simply ask “how should the status be communicated”? In the context of moving to a “development” culture, transparency is almost a “given”. A lot of the cons referenced above only occur when transitioning from a “succession planning” culture and become redundant once a “development” culture is achieved.  The correct way to communicate the status is to formally publish the required criteria (which can have the added benefit of “awakening dormant talent”); then to have formal assessments to identify high potentials; so as to finally communicate that the achieved status is temporary, that there are certain expectations and that it is not guarantee of promotion. The end result is a jointly agreed development plan which is followed-up and in line with the organisation’s strategy.

Companies that have a “succession planning” culture might be more reluctant to communicate high potential status. According to McCall, a succession planning culture is all about “results” which can be best achieved by having the right people in “key functions”.  In order to be assigned a “key function” the candidate has to be “ready now” in terms of competences. The emphasis is therefore usually on expertise and in such an environment, open “high potential” status can cause more cons than pros. The alternative “development” culture is where “high potential” is not just a status but a whole management ethos. Being all about “learning”, the focus is on “development assignments” (to achieve results in the long- rather than short-term). Who can learn the most from a particular assignment is given that assignment in order to develop. The emphasis is usually on leadership and in such an environment, open “high potential” status can be more positive than negative.

Besides corporate culture the evaluation of employees’ potential is also quite often clouded by national cultural references. This presents a particular set of challenges for any multinational company that might have an ethnocentric culture (usually referencing the national culture of its senior managers and/or the location of the head office). Three different European evaluation philosophies and career paths that are quite different are the “Anglo-Dutch”, the “Latin” and the “Germanic” – see previous article for more information. “Outsiders” vis-à-vis any particular model therefore might not “fit in” the system – especially when a national cultural references are also combined with the common “succession planning” corporate culture! It therefore might not be a surprise that there are less European than American organisations that currently disclose “high potential” status…

Towards Ethnorelativism: A development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity

Where to start? A question I have been asking for the last two weeks since I began this “leadership project”, but one thing is clear to me: there has to be an intercultural aspect added to leadership training going forward. The problem – intercultural sensitivity (or lack thereof) is often an issue in multinational companies headquartered in a particular nation. The need – most new employees signing up to a multinational company also expect it to be multicultural. The competitors – many companies are actively trying to promote intercultural awareness and believe there is a competitive advantage to be achieved. The market – suppliers are flooding it with intercultural training offers. An intercultural aspect has to be added!

So to start, I sought out the work of Milton Bennet, “Towards Ethnorelativism: A developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity” from “Education for the Intercultural Experience”, R M Paige (ed.), Intercultural Press, 1993.

Here’s the summary followed by my culturally biased critique (“et alors?”)

Towards Ethnorelativism: A Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity

Ethnocentrism is, according to Bennet, “the assumption that one’s own culture is central to all reality”. To move “away” from this, he suggests three “Ethnocentric pitfalls” to overcome and then three “Ethnorelative approaches” to achieve, thus:

Pitfall 1: Ignore differences

• Probably ignorance due to isolation, it could also be denial.

Pitfall 2:  Recognise differences but evaluate them negatively

• Manifested by at first seeing others as inferior, then your (or another) culture as superior.

Pitfall 3: Recognise differences but minimize their importance

• In this pitfall people say “we are all the same” and focus on the similarities.

Approach 4: Recognise and accept differences

• Respect and appreciate all cultural differences, values, norms, assumptions, as well as the tangible aspects of the culture (not just the food)! 

Approach 5: Adaptation to differences

• Adaptation of behavior occurs but does not mean adoption (or assimilation). Empathy is used to try and see the world from the other culture’s relative viewpoint.

Approach 6: Integrate differences

• Instead of only temporarily adapting behavior, any situation at any time can be seen from any cultural viewpoint.

Et alors?

“Integrating differences” appears to be a nirvana-like state we can only hope for! I have rarely seen people at this level where according to Bennett “you are outside all cultural frames of reference by virtue of your ability to consciously raise any assumption to a meta-level” And that’s without losing your own sense of identity! Still there’s always that “expat void” where having lived overseas for a while you no longer feel fully connected to your home culture, nor completely connected to your host culture. Not quite the same though…

Anyhow, that’s probably not a level we will be seeing here just yet! Back in France, we need to learn to walk before we can learn to run this journey away from ethnocentricity… Having said that, perhaps France is not in pitfall number one: but then who is? Some isolated states in the mid-West USA… Perhaps Europeans are guilty of pitfall number two – seeing others (such as in the example above) as inferior and by definition, Europeans as superior? Generally speaking, that unfortunately seems to be the case. Take any European newspaper, any day of the week and there will be an article wherein it is noted that the Americans are inferior whereas the readers are smarter, better educated and always superior! Pitfall number two “seeing your culture as superior” does seem to be prevalent in this great nation. Who else has a city as wonderful as Paris, a language as rich and as beautiful as French, Cartesian logic, codified laws and who else has had a Napoleon? Surely everyone else is just catching up? Other cultures might achieve certain things, but no one has put it all together to anything which could possibly resemble France? Alas, that can sometimes be the start line here!

Pitfall number three appears to be common in the work environment: “Recognising differences but minimizing their importance” could be a tag-line for corporate diversity. This seems to be particularly notable amongst “grand-ecole” graduates who like to think that there is only one essential: intellect! Other aspects (including culture) are not important! Unfortunately, even at this inner-Cartesian core there are still cultural values, norms and assumptions which continue to have an impact on the way we behave. I once had a “grand-ecole” colleague insist that even if we are not all the same, we are all in the same company and should therefore behave according to the corporate culture. A good point, but unfortunately, the remark was hardly celebrating cultural diversity; instead, cultural differences were being minimized (and what if that corporate culture is ethnocentric to start with?)!

Approach number four, “recognize and accept differences” is something which can also be seen here in corporate France. (It is not just all pitfalls!) Many executives have been expatriated or otherwise exposed to an international environment. Differences are recognized and accepted, but not necessarily all the time: outside work and in general conversations – yes; when at work and talking business – no! Then it’s usually back to one of the pitfalls! Again, the corporate culture can quite often be inextricably linked with the local national culture and so it is difficult to move away from one of the ethnocentric pitfalls during work. Finally, approach number five, “adaptation to differences” is still a project. Yes, “you need to adapt” – that is what is often said, but what tends to be meant is that people arriving in a new culture (“expatriates”) need to adapt to that (“host”) culture. Unfortunately, if we are going to truly move away from ethnocentricity we all need to adapt. The expatriates and the host: both need to adapt to the differences of each other!