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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Cross-Cultural Management:
Adapting your Organizational Processes to a New Culture
by Andy Molinsky and Robin Moriarty


We all know that in a foreign culture, one of the most important skills to develop is the ability to translate, to learn to speak the new language — or at least master a few key phrases. You also need to learn to translate your behavior so you don’t end up making cultural faux pas. But one of the most critical (and also most underappreciated) aspect of translation, and the one that we both believe gets companies into the most trouble when operating globally, is the translation of corporate systems, processes, and procedures — in other words, the nuts and bolts of how corporations actually do business in today’s globalized world.

You’ve undoubtedly heard of individual people making mistakes with language or cultural rules and rituals when operating abroad, but you may not be as familiar with cultural gaffes at the organizational level, where companies fail, often mightily, to transfer the basics of their business practice into the new cultural logic of a foreign environment and end up suffering the consequences.

For example, in one case we’re familiar with, a Fortune 100 company implemented expat packages based on the number of people in the household, which meant a lower-ranking employee who was married with children would receive a larger housing allowance (and nicer home) than a higher-ranking employee who was not married or who did not have children. The logic was based on implicit assumptions about what is “fair” based on American culture for someone who is moving their family. But in hierarchical, high-power-distance markets like Asia — specifically Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand — this policy created unintended conflicts among leaders and sent confusing signals to the rest of the organization regarding who was more powerful and higher-ranking within the organization.

In another case, a U.S.-led multinational attempting to align organizational structure, roles, job descriptions, and compensation packages across global markets mistakenly assumed a “one person, one role” mindset. In large markets, it’s common for one person to occupy one job function, but in smaller markets, an individual may have two or even three roles at a time, based on market needs and the amount of work required. Implementing a common structure across all markets meant adding new people and costs in some of the smaller markets, like Costa Rica and Guatemala, and requiring one person to report into multiple people at headquarters. This meant they spent more of their time and focus providing updates to multiple bosses, rather than delivering results locally. By failing to understand the financial realities of smaller markets, as well as what the business in those markets required in terms of structure, and incorporating these dynamics from the beginning of the conversation about converting to a global structure, the actions taken were not useful and did not yield positive results for the organization.

Given the critical importance of these translation efforts — and the propensity for organizations to get it wrong — what can companies do to increase the odds of success?

Make your leaders aware of cultural differences.

You’d think that in today’s global economy everyone would be attuned to cultural differences — but as we’ve seen in the examples above, this is not necessarily the case when it comes to underlying processes, procedures, and systems. Just as the way for saying hello or good-bye, or exchanging business cards at a meeting differs by cultural context, so too can these critical underlying processes and procedures. Decision makers at the top of the organization must be aware of these core, underlying cultural differences as the most critical, initial step for building cultural competence and agility at the enterprise level.

Do a cultural inventory.

As a company, whenever you undertake any significant, new initiative in a foreign setting, whether it’s developing an HR system, investing in a new technology platform, or scaling up operations that involves hiring new workers, make sure you filter what you’re doing through the logic of the new cultural system. Have cultural translators, people in your organization familiar with both cultures, work to identify which systems, processes, and procedures can be universally applied, and which need “tweaking,” or even more complete reimagining. Some elements may be changeable and some will not be negotiable at all — for example laws around hiring and firing and working after hours, attitudes around conflict of interest in procurement, and accounting practices — but it’s critical to recognize and take this into account when doing your cultural inventory.

Use cultural translation as an opportunity to engage and motivate local workers.

When, as a company, you inevitably do need to make adjustments in your processes and procedures on a global stage, set frameworks and ground rules and let the locals work within those. By introducing flexibility and choice (within a range), you can simultaneously globalize your business and at the same time engage and motivate local partners. A good example of this comes from a Fortune 100 company based in the US we’re familiar with, which realized that their policy of recognizing — and singling out — individuals for outstanding achievement and recognition didn’t work well in collectivist, group-oriented societies, where it was far more comfortable to recognize an entire group. Without the flexibility to alter recognition policies, organizations can inadvertently demotivate employees and groups without ever understanding why.

In the end, what’s most critical to recognize is that global success is the sum total of local results around the globe. And to achieve these local results, it’s essential to be flexible, thoughtful, and creative, especially around adapting organizational systems and processes.

 Source: Harvard Business Review

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.·. Miguel Ángel MEDINA CASABELLA, MSM, MBA, MHSA .·.
Especialista Multicultural Global en Management Estratégico, Conducta Organizacional, Gestión del Cambio e Inversiones, graduado en Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley) y The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)
Consultor en Dirección General de Cultura y Educación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires
Miembro del Comité EEUU del Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales
Representante de The George Washington University para LatAm desde 1996
Ex Director Académico y Profesor de Gestión del Cambio del HSML Program para LatAm en GWU School of Medicine & Health Sciences (Washington DC)
CEO, MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm
EMail: mamc.latam@gmail.com
TE Oficina: ( 0054) 11 - 3532 - 0510
TE Móvil (Local): ( 011 ) 15 - 4420 - 5103
TE Móvil (Int´l): ( 0054) 911 - 4420 - 5103
Skype: medinacasabella


MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm ©
(mamc.latam@gmail.com; +5411.3532.0510)
es una Consultora Interdisciplinaria cuya Misión es proveer
soluciones integrales, eficientes y operativas en todas las áreas vinculadas a:

Estrategias Multiculturales y Transculturales, Organizacionales y Competitivas,
Management Estratégico,
Gestión del Cambio,
Marketing Estratégico,
Inversiones,
Gestión Educativa,
Capacitación

de Latino América (LatAm), para los Sectores:

a) Industria y Servicios,
b) Universidades y Centros de Capacitación,
c) ONGs y Gobiernos.
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Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Cross-Cultural Management:
The Attributes of an Effective Global Leader
by Sylvia Ann Hewlett


Since early 2015, when he began working with Sodexo’s executive committee as the global services firm’s chief transformation officer, Sunil Nayak has undergone his own leadership transformation. The new role required the former CEO of Sodexo India On-Site Services to work with a team of 15 executives from different nationalities and cultures, demanding a shift to a more inclusive leadership style. “In today’s world, success for any leader is about being a good influencer,” says Nayak, who has since been promoted to CEO of Sodexo’s Corporate Services Asia-Pacific. “If you impose your method, if you’re not sensitive or aware of the other person’s method, either you won’t come to a decision or you won’t get buy-in.”

Nayak is describing a set of competencies that employees must master if they are to become leaders on the global stage. As organizations grow and become more global, it’s crucial that they develop these skills in their local talent so that they can work effectively across cultures. Based on Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) research, we’ve identified four competencies that rising talent needs to master to become global leaders.

Project Credibility

According to a recent CTI study, global leaders must master a pivot to project credibility, demonstrating authority in a form familiar to senior executives in the West (the vertical pivot) while prioritizing emotional intelligence with stakeholders in local global markets (the horizontal pivot). CTI’s 11-market study (of Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, the U.S., and the UK) finds that 62% of senior leaders in the U.S. and the UK say that demonstrating authority projects credibility but only 47% of respondents in Asia think it does. Emotional intelligence (versus demonstrating authority) is more important in the growth-hub markets: 57% of respondents in Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, and Turkey say that demonstrating emotional intelligence wins the trust and respect of teams in local markets.

Leaders who pivot well horizontally, earning the trust and respect of their team, are 21% more likely to be satisfied with their career progression than team leaders who haven’t. That trend holds with leaders who pivot well vertically and have won the attention and support of senior leaders: They’re 15% more likely to be satisfied with their advancement.

Be Inclusive

As Nayak discovered, driving value by unleashing ideas, spurring collaboration, and solving problems across distance and difference requires shifting management methods from command-and-control to behaving inclusively. The way to do this is by asking questions and listening carefully, giving actionable feedback, facilitating constructive arguments, taking advice and implementing feedback, maintaining regular contact with team members, and sharing credit for team success. Global team members with inclusive leaders are four times as likely as global team members with noninclusive leaders to say their teams embrace the input of members whose background or experience differs from their own.

Additionally, inclusive leaders are more likely to encourage risk taking and disruptive thinking: Their team members are three times as likely to say they’re not afraid to fail and four-and-a-half times as likely to report that nobody on their team is afraid to challenge the status quo. This has critical implications for companies whose growth in new markets is predicated on breakthrough products and services, as a growing body of research (including our own) suggests that leaders who don’t merely tolerate failure but avidly celebrate it unlock game-changing innovation.

Communicate Effectively (Even Virtually)

Global leaders need to know how to communicate — not just with their teams but with global headquarters as well. “Communication skills need to be refined to a higher level of sophistication,” observes Paul Abbot, EVP for American Express’s Global Commercial Payments business. “If you don’t set the tone right from the top, nothing will ever happen.”

Across all markets, leaders need to speak well, deliver a compelling message, and command a room. What differs from market to market, though, is how leaders demonstrate those skills. In many markets, men are expected to deliver a compelling message by stating their conclusions directly, while women are expected to guide listeners to their conclusion. In Hong Kong, China, India, and Singapore, men are expected to command a room in a forceful manner, but in Japan, Brazil, and Russia, women are expected to command a room by facilitating others’ dialogue.

Win Sponsorship

Navigating global complexities can be nearly impossible for rising leaders without the support and guidance of a sponsor, a senior-level advocate who will support their protégé’s authority and empower them to make decisions. They also make protégés visible to leaders regionally and at headquarters.

To attract sponsorship at the highest levels, emerging leaders need to be sponsors themselves. Seeding high-potential talent, selecting top performers for development and stretch assignments, and securing a future for them at the company beyond their own borders signals to those at headquarters that you are thinking and acting like a global leader. Indeed, no one is better positioned to sponsor emerging talent than someone who has succeeded in vaulting those same barriers.

These four competencies are the basis for global leadership. As multinational corporations expand into different markets, they must take steps to ensure their rising local talent learns these skills. Formal training programs can teach high-potential leaders the competencies they need to think globally and manage cross-culturally. For example, American Express created its Accelerated Leadership Development program, in 2011. Over the course of the six-month program, 25 participants from American Express offices around the world tackle real-time business challenges to hone their strategic skill set, practice cross-functional collaboration, and learn what it takes to be a transformational leader in today’s ever-changing environment.

Sodexo created its Global Agility program, which includes a series of initiatives and training modules that are designed to promote cross-cultural competence and connect business units and leaders in its 32,700 sites worldwide. These sessions help leaders identify the cultures in which they would function best and understand how to shift their approach to connect meaningfully with others when operating in less-familiar environments. Other modules focus on leading virtual global teams, building trust across cultures, and giving feedback and providing recognition — all critical skills for building high-performing global teams.

As organizations increasingly recognize that diversity is the key to innovation and market growth, it’s more important than ever to develop local talent and nurture the skills to enable them to succeed on the global stage.

Source: Harvard Business Review

Haciendo click en cada uno de los links siguientes, Contenidos de nuestros 
TALLERES DE CAPACITACIÓN IN COMPANY, "A MEDIDA" 
de las necesidades de su Organización:



Consultas al mail: mamc.latam@gmail.com
ó al TE: +5411.3532.0510


.·. Miguel Ángel MEDINA CASABELLA, MSM, MBA, MHSA .·.
Especialista Multicultural Global en Management Estratégico, Conducta Organizacional, Gestión del Cambio e Inversiones, graduado en Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley) y The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)
Consultor en Dirección General de Cultura y Educación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires
Miembro del Comité EEUU del Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales
Representante de The George Washington University para LatAm desde 1996
Ex Director Académico y Profesor de Gestión del Cambio del HSML Program para LatAm en GWU School of Medicine & Health Sciences (Washington DC)
CEO, MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm
EMail: mamc.latam@gmail.com
TE Oficina: ( 0054) 11 - 3532 - 0510
TE Móvil (Local): ( 011 ) 15 - 4420 - 5103
TE Móvil (Int´l): ( 0054) 911 - 4420 - 5103
Skype: medinacasabella


MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm ©
(mamc.latam@gmail.com; +5411.3532.0510)
es una Consultora Interdisciplinaria cuya Misión es proveer
soluciones integrales, eficientes y operativas en todas las áreas vinculadas a:

Estrategias Multiculturales y Transculturales, Organizacionales y Competitivas,
Management Estratégico,
Gestión del Cambio,
Marketing Estratégico,
Inversiones,
Gestión Educativa,
Capacitación

de Latino América (LatAm), para los Sectores:

a) Industria y Servicios,
b) Universidades y Centros de Capacitación,
c) ONGs y Gobiernos.
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Thursday, May 11, 2017

CEOs rank Culture as #1 priority for Success
by Michelle M. Smith, CPIM, CRP


Culture is front and center for leaders who want to increase performance and strategic alignment.

“Culture is the X-factor,” said Noah Rabinowitz, senior partner and global head of Hay Group’s Leadership Development Practice. “It’s the invisible glue that holds an organization together and ultimately makes the difference between whether an organization is able to succeed in the market or not.”

These are the findings of an extensive global study by the Hay Group division of Korn Ferry, which found that ‘driving culture change’ ranks among the top three global leadership development priorities, and suggests that leaders need to make culture change a more significant aspect of their development programs and overall leadership agenda.

Culture is the Lifeblood of an Organization

Culture reflects the values, beliefs, and behaviors that determine how employees perform and interact with each other every day.

Leadership development can play a vital role in helping to accelerate, reinforce and sustain culture, and culture is definitely born in the executive suite – when leaders change their behaviors, others do too. It’s leaders who need to define the culture, communicate it to all organizational levels, and act and behave in ways that reflect and reinforce their desired outcomes.

Arvinder Dhesi, a Hay Group senior client partner, stated “we believe that talent, leadership and culture are intrinsically linked, and they are crucial to strategic execution. It’s a mistake for leaders to believe that culture is somehow separate from themselves or a separate project. Everything that leaders do contributes to the culture. There’s no culture-neutral behavior.”

To assist leaders in culture-building, the study offers these helpful data points:

  • Organizational alignment and collaboration was considered the primary driver to improve culture
  • Communications was the most used strategy to improve culture, followed by leadership development and embedding culture change in management objectives.

Creating a Cultural Foundation

Korn Ferry’s Four Pillars of Leadership Development provide a further framework to instill behaviors and values foundational to support an existing or desired new culture.

  1. Context is critical: Development work must be connected to the organization’s current issues and strategies. Development needs are very different if an organization is working through a merger versus changing a corporate strategy or transitioning to a new CEO.
  2. Develop the whole person: To maximize leadership potential, organizations must match individual strengths and motivations to organizational needs, and development must align the employees’s values, beliefs, and personality to the new culture.
  3. Treat leadership development as a journey: The plan should have a story line and an arc that consists of a variety of development experiences strung together in a compelling way, making employees feel they’re on a journey with a beginning, middle and end.
  4. Service promotes purpose: To tap into deeper levels of motivation, employees must feel they’re contributing to something meaningful. This starts with the leader articulating a mission that defines the value it creates for the customers it serves. In turn, the organization’s mission is perpetuated by purpose-driven leaders who demonstrate authentic leadership with their teams. By linking elements of culture change with an organization’s mission and connecting that to an individual leader’s purpose, companies can develop stronger advocates for change.
Source: O. C. TANNER

Haciendo click en cada uno de los links siguientes, Contenidos de nuestros 
TALLERES DE CAPACITACIÓN IN COMPANY, "A MEDIDA" 
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Consultas al mail: mamc.latam@gmail.com
ó al TE: +5411.3532.0510


.·. Miguel Ángel MEDINA CASABELLA, MSM, MBA, MHSA .·.
Especialista Multicultural Global en Management Estratégico, Conducta Organizacional, Gestión del Cambio e Inversiones, graduado en Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley) y The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)
Consultor en Dirección General de Cultura y Educación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires
Miembro del Comité EEUU del Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales
Representante de The George Washington University para LatAm desde 1996
Ex Director Académico y Profesor de Gestión del Cambio del HSML Program para LatAm en GWU School of Medicine & Health Sciences (Washington DC)
CEO, MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm
EMail: mamc.latam@gmail.com
TE Oficina: ( 0054) 11 - 3532 - 0510
TE Móvil (Local): ( 011 ) 15 - 4420 - 5103
TE Móvil (Int´l): ( 0054) 911 - 4420 - 5103
Skype: medinacasabella


MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm ©
(mamc.latam@gmail.com; +5411.3532.0510)
es una Consultora Interdisciplinaria cuya Misión es proveer
soluciones integrales, eficientes y operativas en todas las áreas vinculadas a:

Estrategias Multiculturales y Transculturales, Organizacionales y Competitivas,
Management Estratégico,
Gestión del Cambio,
Marketing Estratégico,
Inversiones,
Gestión Educativa,
Capacitación

de Latino América (LatAm), para los Sectores:

a) Industria y Servicios,
b) Universidades y Centros de Capacitación,
c) ONGs y Gobiernos.
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Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Three traits of Successful "Superbosses", and One to Avoid


Sydney Finkelstein researched successful, high-profile managers to understand how they helped their businesses flourish. Here’s what he learned.

Ever since publishing Why Smart Executives Fail in 2003, he has been asked the same question again and again by eager up-and-coming managers: “‘How do I avoid being in your sequel?’”

So Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, and faculty director for both the Tuck Center for Leadership and the Tuck Executive Program, decided to find an answer to that question. He researched various successful, high-profile managers and looked for clues as to how they helped their businesses flourish. “Over time, I came to realize that … the only way to survive as an organization, to thrive in the long term, is to generate and regenerate talent on a continuous basis,” Finkelstein says. “In one industry after another, I found a whole bunch of people who turned out to be tremendously good at spotting [and nurturing] great talent. I call them ‘superbosses.’”

In the resulting Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, published by Portfolio/Penguin in February, Finkelstein shows how a number of famous executives — from television producer Lorne Michaels to chef Alice Waters to football coach Bill Walsh to fashion icon Ralph Lauren — were acutely aware of the benefits of supporting their people and put a lot of thought into how they hire, motivate, inspire, and coach them. In short, these leaders would “help other people accomplish more than they ever thought possible,” Finkelstein says.

The good news is that everything in the superboss playbook can be taught, Finkelstein adds. “All it requires is a really open mind and a willingness to start thinking differently about how you manage people,” he says. It also entails a healthy dose of patience. “It’s not that somebody who wants to adopt what the Lorne Michaels and Ralph Laurens of the world have done is going to be able to do it overnight. But [those superbosses] didn’t do it overnight, either. It took years to get to where they are. You can start small, pick one, two, or three specific techniques or ideas, and learn how to apply them to your own particular business or context. Then go from there and keep growing.”

Here, Finkelstein shares, in his own words, three techniques of successful superbosses — and one behavior to avoid.

  • Be open to finding your next employee anywhere.

Superbosses go about looking for talent in unique, creative ways. Most organizations follow standard hiring processes: you’ve got the job description, you collect a bunch of resumes, and you do some interviewing. You end up hiring the person who checks the most boxes.

Superbosses will do that too, but they’re also always on the lookout for talent. In fact, they will create a job for someone without an initial job description, which in the world of HR is one of those no-nos, but they’ll do it if they see a tremendous talent. Ralph Lauren, for example, [hired] a woman that he and his family met at a burger restaurant in New York. They started talking and he was struck by how she was dressed and how she carried herself. He ended up saying, “Come by the office; I want to offer you a job.” Just like that. The woman worked for Lauren for five years as a creative muse, without a formal job title. Superbosses don’t get hamstrung by [conventional] HR methods.

  • Champion the brand — and the people.

Everybody wants to be a winner, and superbosses absolutely instill that sense of confidence. They truly inspire people. They really make people believe that they can accomplish anything. They create this sense of, “I have a really great track record, and the fact that I picked you — or that I kept you, if I inherited you on my team — is because I think you’re special. I think you can accomplish unbelievable things.” Ralph Lauren used to say, “The whole world looks at us. They follow us. We set the standards.” He really believed it, and he conveyed that message, and that generated energy and excitement among his people.

  • Take talent under your wing.

Superbosses have resurrected the apprenticeship approach, and that means that they’re going to roll up their sleeves and work with their people. They’re always teaching, and they’re customizing what they’re doing, in the sense that they spend the time to understand how everyone in the team is a little different and can be motivated in a different way. They’re really hands-on in how they interact with people.

  • Don’t take your people for granted.

Bad bosses — smart executives who fail — have a tendency to look at their teams as people who they can use for their own benefit. They can just work them hard, claim all the credit, not worry about developing them or helping them get better, and just wash them out, burn them up, and go get some new ones. That game can only go on for so long before you start to gain a reputation in the company or in the industry, and it becomes tougher to hire that great talent. Because of your attitude, you end up making some really big mistakes.

Superbosses are not at all like that. It’s not that they can’t be demanding, because they are, but they really understand that to win, you need the world’s best teams. That’s their pathway [to success], and so they do everything they can to help other people get better. And one more thing: a lot of superbosses truly value this idea of legacy, of leaving something behind when you’re gone and of really making a difference. It’s a pretty powerful idea.

Source: Columbia Business School

Haciendo click en cada uno de los links siguientes, Contenidos de nuestros 
TALLERES DE CAPACITACIÓN IN COMPANY, "A MEDIDA" 
de las necesidades de su Organización:



Consultas al mail: mamc.latam@gmail.com
ó al TE: +5411.3532.0510


.·. Miguel Ángel MEDINA CASABELLA, MSM, MBA, MHSA .·.
Especialista Multicultural Global en Management Estratégico, Conducta Organizacional, Gestión del Cambio e Inversiones, graduado en Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley) y The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania)
Consultor en Dirección General de Cultura y Educación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires
Miembro del Comité EEUU del Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales
Representante de The George Washington University para LatAm desde 1996
Ex Director Académico y Profesor de Gestión del Cambio del HSML Program para LatAm en GWU School of Medicine & Health Sciences (Washington DC)
CEO, MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm
EMail: mamc.latam@gmail.com
TE Oficina: ( 0054) 11 - 3532 - 0510
TE Móvil (Local): ( 011 ) 15 - 4420 - 5103
TE Móvil (Int´l): ( 0054) 911 - 4420 - 5103
Skype: medinacasabella


MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS GROUP LatAm ©
(mamc.latam@gmail.com; +5411.3532.0510)
es una Consultora Interdisciplinaria cuya Misión es proveer
soluciones integrales, eficientes y operativas en todas las áreas vinculadas a:

Estrategias Multiculturales y Transculturales, Organizacionales y Competitivas,
Management Estratégico,
Gestión del Cambio,
Marketing Estratégico,
Inversiones,
Gestión Educativa,
Capacitación

de Latino América (LatAm), para los Sectores:

a) Industria y Servicios,
b) Universidades y Centros de Capacitación,
c) ONGs y Gobiernos.
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