Working Together:

Six Fundamental Patterns of Cultural Difference¹

1. Different communication styles

2. Different attitudes towards conflict

3. Different approaches to completing tasks

4. Different decision-making styles

5. Different attitudes towards disclosure

6. Different approaches to knowing

Cross-Cultural Communication: Hopes and Fears²

Hopes:

• the possibility of dialogue

• learning something new

• developing friendships

• understanding different points of view

Fears:

• being judged

• miscommunication

• patronizing or hurting others intentionally

Leveraging Diversity: a Managerial Approach

Unleashing the Power of Integrated Opposites

• developing innovative services and products for diverse customer groups by sharing of diverse experiences and cultural insights of workers

• creative problem solving by looking at “the same landscape with different eyes” and cross-pollination of ideas

• achieving synergy by leveraging the power of critical opposites

The GE Leadership Effectiveness Survey (LES)

• Demonstrates broad business knowledge / perspective with cross-functional / multicultural awareness.

• Fully utilizes diversity of team members (cultural, race, gender) to achieve business success.

• Demonstrates global awareness / sensitivity and is comfortable building diverse / global teams...

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New Product Development (NPD)

Shift To New Approaches: 7 Reasons

• Designers research into total human experience, not merely customer experience. Today, many companies create such new jobs as cognitive psychologists, social anthropologists, cross-cultural specialists who adapt products of global brands to markets with different values and mentality, as well as ethnographers... More

Most Common Causes of Joint Venture Failure

According to a recent survey, only 44% of CEOs of JVs characterized their venture as “very successful”.²

The most common causes of failure cited by CEOs are:

• Cultural differences (49%) … More

Guidelines for Multicultural Collaboration¹

• Learn from generalizations about other cultures, but don’t use those generalizations to stereotype. Use them rather to understand better and appreciate other multifaceted human beings.

• Practice, practice, practice.

• Don’t assume that yours is the only right way to communicate. Keep questioning your assumptions about the “right way” to communicate. Communicate trust and build rapport by talking in your client’s preferred mode.

• Search for ways to make the communication work, rather than searching for who should receive the blame for the breakdown

• Listen actively and empathetically. Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.

• Honor others’ opinions about what is going on.

• Suspend judgment, and try to look at the situation as an outsider.

• Honest acknowledgment of the mistreatment that has taken place on the basis of cultural difference is vital for effective communication. Use this as an opportunity to develop trust.

• Awareness of current power imbalances is necessary for understanding each other and working together.

• Remember that cultural norms may not apply to the behavior of any particular individual. We are all more complicated than any cultural norm could suggest.

for more information visit :

http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/cross-cultural_differences.html