Secret of Successful Multicultural Programs

Successful Multicultural Programs  Alicia Trelles-Duckett MSM, PMP, Doctoral Candidate

Programs requiring cross-cultural team cooperation are on the rise and here to stay. Whether the projects involve deals with countries abroad, or are domestic but contain negotiations with participants from BRIC countries, skillfully navigating other cultures will increase a manager’s global capital and their program’s success. The great American anthropologist Edward T. Hall was, at one point in his illustrious career, a cross-cultural program manager. As construction foreman and manager he had to build dams and roads, deploying white construction crews to complete work within Navajo and Hopi reservations in Arizona. The culture clashes his teams encountered while attempting to deploy construction projects in that period inspired his PhD at Columbia University, and make for fascinating reading in the books he authored in later years. Many of the difficulties Dr. Hall encountered as he tried to direct projects and negotiate consensus between white and Hopi cultures had to do, as in so many human endeavors, with communication. Not the type of communication dependent just on translation between languages, but encoding information as well as context. As he describes it in his book Beyond Cultures: In English a man says, “It rained last night”... whereas a Hopi cannot talk about the rain at all without signifying the nature of his relatedness to the event – firsthand experience, inference, or hearsay (Hall, 1976, p. 87) Through extensive field observation Edward Hall was able to arrive at incredibly useful cultural concepts which managers negotiating with multicultural teams can leverage today as they go through the myriad interactions required in cross-cultural or global deals. Let us have a closer look.

How High a Context?  Dr. Hall observed that communication in certain cultures, whether in spoken or written form, is a very direct and concise exercise. In these cultures there is great reliance on numbers, statistics, completeness, “bottom-line” information. These cultures would be nervous about conducting business on a handshake. Rather, they prefer documenting agreements in detail so as to avoid different interpretations later, depending on context. Even if the agreement is reached via a phone conversation, the points would be put in writing at the first opportunity. These are the “low context” cultures, so called because they emphasize the clearly spelled content of the message, and the surrounding context would have a low priority.

Cultures found to be low-context include German, Swiss, American, Canadian, British and Scandinavian, as well as the cultures these societies influenced. Leadership from these cultures will no doubt recognize these traits as their preferred way of doing business: writing detailed statements of work, sticking to the contract, assembling comprehensive project plans and reports. Those who do business with low-context individuals will recognize these behaviors as those stakeholders’ preferences. At the other extreme are the cultures in which the succinct, explicit message, whether spoken or written, does not communicate the entire picture. For completeness, the context must be considered, for it contains rich supplemental information. Dr. Hall classified these as “high-context” cultures. High-context individuals consider not just the message but also implied meaning, non-verbal cues, surrounding relationships, trust rather than numbers: the holistic picture. These are cultures where, once the relationship has been cultivated to a point of trust, it is indeed desirable to do business on a handshake. High-context cultures include Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Arabic, Brazilian, French, and Spanish. Those working on joint ventures or global programs with highcontext stakeholders may begin to understand instances where these partners did not stick to the terms of the contract; or they chose a company with a technically inferior product; or discussed items in random, circular patterns rather than linearly. These high-context stakeholders were considering additional information from the context.

So Who’s Right?  Inevitably, whether in courses for Indian, American, French or Finnish audiences, the question comes up: “So, who’s right?” When both high and low context cultures are present, which approach should govern the program? The answer of course is that both approaches are right because cultures are pre-programmed; hard wired into our brains by the collective learning that took place when we were very young. We cannot take culture off as if it were a pair of sunglasses; it will always dictate the behavior we are comfortable with. What we can do, which will augment our effectiveness in multicultural deals and our global capital, is to be aware and ready to adapt. When pressed for an answer, the recommendation then is: work initially within the system of the client in each particular program. Later, there can be course corrections as necessary. If working with a high-context stakeholder: •

Take the time to establish goodwill and a personal relation first. It is possible in the first meeting not to even get to discuss the deal or program at hand. Taking extra time for both parties to get better acquainted will eventually lead to trust.

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Agreement on contracts, milestones or project plans will be by general consensus. Be prepared to have larger decision-making teams from the high-context stakeholder, as different people will bring different perspectives and context from their functions or experiences.

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The pace of negotiations will be slower, more considered, containing circular reasoning at times.

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Look for situational, nonverbal or body language clues from the client. They will hold useful information about their real opinion on the discussions/ negotiations.

On the other hand, when working with a low context stakeholder: •

Capture verbal and written points concisely. Low-context individuals will appreciate an expected agenda, and getting right to the point.

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Expertise, performance, facts and figures as supporting evidence are important in discussions, whether the topic is contractual terms, finances or project plans.

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It is preferred to conduct negotiations which are crafted by smaller, streamlined decision-making teams of skilled experts.

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Agreement is considered done on approval or signature of a document, rather than words or a handshake.

These courses of action are the behaviors of a savvy manager who can get things done in global, cross-cultural situations. Another time we will tackle the perception of time in different cultures, and why sometimes businesspeople are driven to despair as they are kept waiting for hours in other cultures.