CHAPTER 1
Introduction

The global perspective

The increasing speed of communications is enabling organizations to extend their influence across the globe. Electronic communication allows us to send messages across time zones, so that the sender can despatch a message at the end of the day to be opened in another part of the world at the beginning of the next day. Such ease of communication brings peoples from different cultures closer together.

In many fields, certainly in business and academia, English has become the common tongue. Businesspeople and academics are motivated to learn English as a second or third language in the same way that they have been motivated to develop computer skills. This combination of skills has dramatically increased the ability of people from different corners of the globe to share information.

Organizations, which already considered themselves as having an international outlook, are now able to easily and frequently keep in touch with their counterparts on different continents. They are able not only to exchange information but they can also trade ideas and knowledge electronically. Taken together, these developments mean that most managers are exposed to the thinking and approaches of managers from different cultures on an increasingly frequent basis.

These technological developments are being reinforced by the greater volume and lower costs of air travel. This is exposing individuals to an increasing diversity of cultures and encouraging travel to far-flung, as well as nearby, destinations.

Vast trading blocs such as the European Community (EC), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and others have been created and trade barriers are reducing, increasingly leading companies to align language and vision and develop a common corporate culture that overlays any stereotypical perceptions of nationalities.

At the same time the different cultures are becoming more similar. Whether it is CNN, McDonald's or Coca-Cola, Sony, Mercedes or Phillips, foreigners find themselves confronted by increasing numbers of offerings they recognize from back home, wherever they are. This is not to say that significant differences do not exist. Indeed, for a trainer to assume that just because the Vodafone logo appears on their mobile phone when they get off the aeroplane and the bar serves Carlsberg that there is little difference between how people operate and respond is a cardinal error.

Cultural challenges for international managers

Organizations of all types need to manage this extension of their global reach. Even in organizations that have operated worldwide for half a century there is a need to equip them to manage larger regions, encompassing more diverse cultures. In many other organizations managers are having to learn how to operate across different cultures and even local managers are finding it necessary to learn how to contribute to multi-national teams. Managers in this environment have new and more effective tools for communication and soon find they are working in a world where there is a common language and common technologies but a great diversity of cultures. The challenge presents itself as soon as communication begins. Even within Europe there will be a difference in perception about establishing a meeting at say, 11.00 am, and this is not because of time zones. As a generalization, people of Northern European origin will understand 11.00 am to be within five minutes of that time and people of Latin origin will have a more elastic concept of 11.00 am.

In large multi-national companies young managers will often find themselves working in virtual teams with colleagues from all over the world, sometimes without ever meeting face to face. They will be expected to agree objectives, develop a project plan, implement agreed actions and review results with colleagues who are from societies with different values, religions, beliefs and priorities. They will have different understandings of the role of a leader, how to measure success and other critical factors that they may never discuss, but which will drive their behaviour in ways which will often surprise and sometimes frustrate their distant colleagues.

Learning events in the early twenty-first century

One opportunity to deepen individual managers' understanding of the cultures of their colleagues, peers and opposite numbers from different regions is to share a learning environment. The need to appreciate cultural differences and the relative speed and lack of expense of modern travel is increasing the frequency with which learning events are arranged that are attended by managers from a number of different countries and sometimes different continents. These events can take place within multi-national organizations or they can be arranged by specialist providers for managers with similar learning requirements, from diverse organizations.

In this book we are concerned about learning events for managers. These events often have objectives that are aimed at increasing knowledge, developing new skills and modifying personal behaviours. If they are very ambitious they may also aim to change attitudes as well. Trainers have long recognized that increasing the knowledge of participants is a reasonably attainable goal, although there are of course more and less effective ways in which it can be done. Developing skills requires practice and is more challenging in the learning environment. Changing personal behaviours of participants on any sort of permanent basis is extremely challenging, and changing attitudes is something trainers will only believe can be achieved as a result of a learning event in their most optimistic moments. This is our mature perception when we are thinking of a group of participants from a single culture. It is many times more challenging when we are considering a group of participants from many and varied cultural backgrounds brought together in a group for the purpose of learning and development.

The main purpose of this book

The reasons for it being so much more challenging to train participants from varied cultural backgrounds will be explored throughout the book. The main purpose of the book is to extend our understanding of what the challenges are and how the trainer can attempt to meet them so that not only is it possible for effective learning to take place within multicultural groups of participants, but also that it is possible for learning to be enriched and enhanced by the fact the participants can share the widely different perceptions that are intrinsic to varied cultural backgrounds. This focus is aimed at increasing the value from training by making it one hundred per cent relevant to global enterprises, many of which are operating in increasingly competitive markets with profit margins that are under pressure. The book recognizes that expatriate managers are a very expensive commodity and that they need to maximize the understanding of the cultures in which they will operate so that they can make an immediate impact on taking up assignments that expose them to cultures with which they are not familiar, never having lived in those cultures.

How the book is structured

To achieve its purpose, the first part of this book considers the context within which the training takes place. It is structured to give an insight into the cultural and learning differences the trainer is likely to meet with groups of participants from different regions of the world and the additional economic considerations that need to be incorporated.

The second part of this book looks in depth at the design and development of training processes to maximize the learning. For this part to be as easy as possible to digest and use in designing, developing and delivering training, it will follow a structure, which has been developed from the 'Systematic Training' model based on Douglas Seymour's work (see Further Reading). This was developed by the Industrial Training Boards almost 40 years ago. This model follows the acronym of SUCCESS and it describes principles that are important in developing any training intervention, particular aspects of which become critical when considering the training of multi-cultural groups.

Most importantly this will lead on, in the third part of this book, to detailed consideration of the most effective styles, techniques and behaviours that can be adopted by the trainer when facilitating the learning of participants from different cultures.

Before immersing ourselves in the world of learning it will be helpful, in Chapter 2, to focus on a well-researched model of cultural diversity.

Summary

Towards the end of each chapter readers will be able to identify the most important implication for them from the material they have just covered. From this introductory chapter, the Reading plan shown below performs this task. Subsequent chapters will have similar frameworks to help readers get as much practical value as possible from the materials.

To get the most from this book, readers should explicitly consider these following issues and formalize their responses.

Reading plan