Managing GloballyManaging a diverse, global environment is critical

today—how you do it depends on where you are.By Dianne Nilsen, Brenda Kowske and Kshanika Anthony

T oday's global business environ-ment makes the joh of themanager more complex and

difficult. Few businesses are immunefrom globalization's influence as theyexpand into new markets, outsourceacross borders and encounter foreigncompetitors. Even if your company op-erates stateside, hiring domesticallyfrom a diverse array of nationalities iscommonplace.

Because business decisions havegone global, so have the duties of manymanagers, making their job rife withcultural adaptation issues.

Managers must respond to nuancesin communication styles and the expec-tations that employees have of theirleaders across cultures. Whether hyglobe-trotting, telephoning, e-mailingand videoconferencing across far-flnngtime zones, or by managing face-to-faceor one-on-one, the managers joh has toget done. A global environment putsgreater pressure on managers to recog-nize and adapt to cultural differences inways of doing business.

Managing employees with dissimi-lar backgrounds and cultures meansthe hnrden is on managers to produceresults while adapting to these differ-ences among those they manage. Per-sonnel Decisions International (PDI)conducted extensive research on cul-tural differences with the use of itsPROFILOR tool, a widely used multi-rater managerial performance feed-back instrument. The research drew ondata collected from bosses around theworld. Across nearly 250 companies-many of these members of the FoHune500—more than 3,600 bosses ranked24 managerial competencies by level ofimportance.

When comparing the competenciesthat are rated as most important formanagers to have across cultures, the da-ta suggest some striking similarities.Consistently, bosses worldwide rated theability to "drive for results" and "analyzeissues" as the most critically importantcompetencies in mid-level managers.Most bosses worldwide also consistentlyrated the following managerial compe-tencies as extremely important: "act with

August 2005 HRNasazliM 111

integrity," "sound judgment" and "man-age execution."

Think Globally and AdaptHowever, other managerial skills are notso universally valued. The findingssuggest that the old chestnut"think glohally, act locally"calls for a new para-digm; one that movesaway from the geo-graphic concept ofwhere you do busi-ness or merely hon-oring local customsand moves towardhow you do business ^and how you manage.Thus, in the quest to drivefor results, when it comes tomanaging glohally, managers must ad-just how they manage.

How a manager gets results, wins re-spect and leads employees varies tremen-dously among countries, cultures and

What's known as ̂micromanaging in the

United States is a more ,common, way of managing

in mainland China.individuals. Adjust-ments don't comeeasily. Inherent dif-ferences among peo-ple hased on their

heritage as well as thehistorical and social

lens of their culture makemanaging interesting.

Tensions between the cul-ture of an organization and the cultureof the local countr>' and its manage-ment style can certainly exist. One po-tential arena for culture clash inbusiness is when East meets West. Tkke

the scenario of Western managersworking in Japan. Interestingly, thePROFILOR data on bosses' ratings ofmanagerial competencies shows thatbosses in Japan rated the importance of"championing change" considerablyhigher than managers from other cul-tures.

This finding may be indicative of thehigh-context, collectivistic culture ofJapan, where communication tends tobe more subtle and indirect. In Japan,managers often use consensus-buildingtechniques to internalize change withinthe individual before anything is execut-

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eci or acted on. Surely, this cultural envi-ronment is ripe for conflict with the au-thoritative, do-it-now leadership style socommon to Western managers.

Culture ClashesIn the case of a Fortune 500 retailerthat manages with typical U.S. flair, up-per management became frustratedwhen its Japan operation delayed im-plementation of a new computerizedsystem. When the unit finally imple-mented the system, however, the effortwas overwhelmingly more effectivethan the average 65 percent success ratethe retailer achieved elsewhere. U.S.management learned that although theJapan operation was slow to "pull thetrigger," it was striving to internalizeownership of the project hefore execut-ing it. The result was a quick and well-executed change.

PDI's research indicates that thismanagement style is common in Japan:Bosses in Japan rated the importance of"establishing plans" and "providing direc-tion" among the top five managerial com-petencies. Although these competenciesare rated highly elsewhere as well, bossesin Japan gave them greater importancethan bosses in other countries did.

In another case, a Japanese unit of ahigh-tech multinational company nearlymissed getting a new product to markethy failing to alter its project manage-ment style. Project managers in Japanfound their e-mails went unanswered hyEuropean managers who didn't under-stand the product design changes theyneeded to make. Similarly, the managersin Japan cxjuldn't spur on colleagues atU.S. corporate headquarters to assist ingetting their needs addressed.

The lack of face-to-face communica-tion of the Japanese husiness unit left:managers with little ability to influenceand effectively communicate across cul-tures. The managers in Japan leamedthat even a slight adjustment to theircommunication style, perhaps meetingwith the European managers or the useof teleconferencing, would have aidedtheir progress.

The PROFILOR research showedthat the "foster open communication"competency was rated nearly equally inimportance in both the United States and

August 200SHRNagazlM 113

Japan, indicating it's not either culturethat values communication more, buteach has different communication stylesthat must be considered when conduct-ing business cross-culturally.

In Latin America, previous researchsuggests that cultural behavior is com-monly steeped in being specifically di-rected what to do. Here, the high "powerdistance" seen at some enterprises canstem from a hierarchical reportingstructure and autocratic leadershipstyle.

In Latin cultures, inquiries into per-sonal lives are often expected beforebusiness is transacted. Typically, it's as-sumed that business relationships willbe built over time, based on trust. No-tably, PDI's research showed that bossesin Mexico rated "act with integrity" asthe most important managerial compe-tency, followed by "drive for results" and"sound judgment."

Similar to Latin cultures, what'sknown as micromanaging in the UnitedStates is a more common way of man-

aging in mainland China. Generallyspeaking, direct reports expect to re-ceive specific directions and detailed ex-planations from their managers, notbroad goals. Previous research on cul-ture has demonstrated that China's cul-ture could be considered more riskaverse due to the social ramifications offailure. Failing can mean losing face infront of your employees, clients, leader-ship or society—a fate that many Chi-nese consider shameful.

Likewise, managers in China, as

bosses, are seen as highly respected pil-lars of authority to which employees tra-ditionally assign parental-like attributes.It's not uncommon for workers in Chinato seek personal advice from their super-viser, and white-collar workers migbtexpect to be coached hy their boss. Boss-es in China rated the importance of "fos-tering teamwork" higher than bosses inmost other countries—as a top five man-agerial competency.

In the Middle East, it's commonlyheld that business has a strong social

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component; Personal and face-to-facecommunications are highly valued. Sim-ilar to Asian cultures, less emphasis isgiven to winning immediate results inthis consensus-driven and noncon-frontational culture. Networks take onheightened importance to take care ofbusiness in the Middle East. Western-style managers may find it difiicult tocome in and bulldoze their way to get re-sults. Rather, managers must engageelders, who may not necessarily be thehighest-level executives of the organiza-tion, but nonetheless wield informal in-fluence and power.

Avoiding Cultural PitfallsManagers are only human. Cultural bi-ases can easily compel a manager tojump to the WTong conclusion or make abad decision. These global scenariossuggest that relegating managers to ex-patriate assignments in countries theyknow little about can court failure. Eventhe highest-performing managers caneasily stumble over their own prejudg-ments involving a person's appearance,attitude or behavior.

Consider the case of a Europeanmanager who met with high-level gov-ernment officials in a Middle Easterncountry. Prior to the meeting, he no-ticed a woman who was completelycovered and assumed she was a secre-tary. To him, the dress implied she wassubservient, perhaps a low-level staffer.The manager was surprised to discovershe was one of the officials he wasmeeting. The female official had beeneducated in the West but chose to cov-er up when she returned to her nativecountry.

The culture of an organization can al-so override national or geographic cultur-al norms, impeding husiness progress. Isthe conflict or business problem arisingfrom organizational or cultural influ-ences? As the examples from Japan illus-trate, sometimes it's a little of hoth.Witbin any country, managers may en-counter subcultural differences from oneregion to jinother and certainly amongorganizations. For example, a U.S. man-ager with a long career in a decentralizedcompany with an informal style of com-municating and managing might clashwith employees when transferring to a hi-

m HRHagazliie August 2005

erarchicaJ enterprise in-fijsed with a more for-mal management style.

In the midst of day-to-day business, gettingperspective on these or-ganizational-cultural is-sues is difficult at best.Managers are busy doing theirjobs, not dealing with these broader,systemic issues of the organization.These difficult situations aren't typicallyreported to headquarters, and firms mayprovide little to no training in globalmanagement.

GlobalizationIncreases ComplexityThe job of the manager will only getmore difficult in the context of manag-ing globally. Currently, China is a greatexample of these challenges. As Chinaemerges as a power in the global marketand as multinationals raise their expec-tations for revenue growth in the re-

gion, managers andexpatriates in Chinaalike are struggling,spread thinly asthey take on broader

spans of responsibili-ty and supervision.The fast-growth envi-

ronment makes it more diffi-cult for managers to give employees

the support and direction they crave.Moreover, as workers in China increas-ingly migrate between different regions inthe country, where subcultural environ-ments vary widely, managers must dealwith a melting pot of employee expecta-tions.

How managers go ahout their own"drive for results," the leading manageri-al competency, varies tremendouslyacross cultures. Nevertheless, managingwithin a different culture is really onlyan extension of what managers do everyday, and that's working with differences.When managers fail to adapt and re-

spond to these differences, projects mayfail and employees clash.

As these scenarios of cultural differ-ences illustrate, it behooves managers todelve outside their comfort zones, get toknow the people they're working withand challenge their prejudgments. Man-agers who are cross-culturally sensitivewbile recognizing individual differencesstand to do well in their own perform-ance while raising the bar of the entireenterprise. DB

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