Business with GlobeSmart: Your Ultimate Guide

In the modern business landscape, geographical boundaries no longer limit companies. With globalization on the rise, working in a multicultural environment has become the new norm. However, this cosmic shift in the business paradigm has brought forth numerous challenges and complexities that must be addressed to build successful multinational relationships.

Essential Factors for Multicultural Success

Creating meaningful and fruitful relationships across cultures requires more than just a good business partner and an investor-friendly environment. Other crucial aspects play significant roles, including:

A team of versatile professionals who are quick learners and can adapt to an ever-changing global business environment;
Well-developed people skills that make the foundation of any successful business collaboration.

Contrary to popular belief, business partnerships often falter not because of a lack of quality or understanding of the process but due to human factors —communication and interpersonal skills.

The Pitfall of Cultural Presumption

Business entities are usually well acquainted with their native business cultures. Unfortunately, this familiarization often leads to a dangerous presumption: if a particular approach works in their home culture, it should work universally. This erroneous mindset could potentially cause severe miscommunication, leading to the failure of business ventures.

Working GlobesMartly: Respecting and Reaping from Cultural Differences

Ernest Gundling, in his seminal work, “Working GlobeSmart”, shed light on this critical subject. He elaborated on 12 golden guidelines that can assist any manager in navigating the complex terrains of the global business environment.

The guidelines are divided into three skill areas:

Interpersonal Skills: Here, the focus is on improving one-on-one communication, active listening, and understanding different cultural cues to create effective business relationships;
Group Skills: This aspect focuses on nurturing the ability to work effectively in a multicultural team by encouraging inclusive decision-making and managing conflicts;
Organizational Skills: This revolves around understanding the hierarchical structure, power dynamics, and organizational behavior of different cultures.

By understanding and implementing these “rules”, managers can cultivate respect for different cultures and harness the potential of multicultural business relationships.

Global Business Etiquette: Nurturing Interpersonal Skills

In today’s globalized business world, the importance of honing interpersonal skills cannot be overstated. It forms the backbone of successful relationships across cultures. Yet, as Ernest Gundling points out in his book “Working GlobeSmart”, these skills need to be refined with cultural sensitivity and tolerance.

Building Trust and Credibility

For any professional relationship to flourish, establishing credibility is crucial. However, the approach varies across cultures. In Western societies, openness about accomplishments and success is common. But in regions such as Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, such overt self-praise could be seen as boastful. In these cultures, it is others who usually laud your achievements. Understanding these cultural nuances is essential to display your credibility appropriately.

Mastering the Art of Feedback

Feedback plays a pivotal role in personal growth and team development. Yet, how it is given and received can vary drastically between cultures. Western cultures often prefer immediate, verbal, and direct feedback. However, this expectation can make one miss subtler, non-verbal cues present in other cultures. Recognizing different forms of feedback—non-verbal, periodic, given in a different setting, or aimed at a group rather than an individual—is important in nurturing multicultural relationships.

Information Gathering in a Hierarchical Culture

In societies like India with a deep respect for age and authority, obtaining critical feedback from juniors who maintain respectful distance can be challenging. Gundling suggests alternative ways to gain information such as:

Employing a third party to pose questions;
Altering the setting to make it more conducive for open discussions;
Providing background and context to your queries;
Displaying genuine interest in the person’s viewpoint;
Citing precedents to make your point;
Politely but persistently asking probing questions;
Rephrasing your request to suit the cultural nuances;
Seeking clarification and confirmation to ensure understanding.

Evaluating People: The Local Standard Matters

Gundling stresses the need to consider local standards in evaluating people. He illustrates this with an example where he misjudged an Indian colleague due to cultural differences in appearance and conduct. Later, he recognized that the colleague’s different style didn’t diminish his value to the team. This highlights the importance of assessing people based on their cultural norms rather than your own.

Advancing Group Skills in Global Business

Even the most skilled individual cannot succeed in today’s business world without effective group skills. In Working Globesmart, Ernest Gundling provides insights on navigating the challenges of managing multicultural teams, training and development, performance management, sales, and negotiations.

Nurturing Global Teams

Working with a multicultural team is like working with a kaleidoscope of perspectives and ideas. Creating a shared context is crucial to harmonize these different viewpoints. This shared context includes:

Mutually agreed-upon decision-making processes;
Common problem-solving methodologies;
Clearly defined roles and responsibilities;
A unifying team vision.

Training and Development Across Cultures

Educational norms vary across the globe. A training method successful in one culture may not resonate in another. To avoid missteps, it’s essential to consider:

The importance of a trainer’s credentials in the trainee’s culture;
The expected formality levels during the training sessions;
Adherence to the training agenda;
The potential of cultural differences leading to discussions or debates;
The preferred group size for training sessions;
The trainees’ inclination towards testing.

In Western cultures, employee development often involves allowing employees to independently complete assigned tasks. However, cultures vary. Gundling suggests managers lead by example, encourage employees to seek help when needed, and be approachable for both personal and business matters.

Performance Management Across Borders

Cultural sensitivity is also required in performance management. Managers must ensure employees understand that evaluations are based purely on performance. Implementing a transparent system with clear metrics and providing frequent, informal feedback promotes an open culture and reduces misunderstandings.

Sales and Selling in Different Cultures

Selling can be challenging, especially when navigating a foreign culture. Some factors to consider for successful sales across cultures include:

Initial Contacts: In many cultures, trust is often established through introductions by respected mutual acquaintances rather than cold outreach;
Communication: Understand how your potential clients communicate and be prepared to respond to their preferred style;
After-sales Relationships: The completion of a sale often signals the start of a relationship steeped in mutual obligations;
Customer Concerns: Culturally-sensitive communication is essential when addressing customer concerns, as different cultures may express dissatisfaction in varied ways;
Persuasion: Relying only on verbal persuasion may not work in all cultures. Non-verbal cues, context, and intermediaries often play significant roles.

Negotiating Globally

In markets where price negotiation is customary, businesspeople from cultures with fixed prices may struggle. Negotiation is often seen as an art form in these regions. Gundling advises maintaining a clear understanding of your bottom line and ensuring that any concession made is reciprocated with an equal or greater value.

Cultivating Organizational Skills for Global Success

While interpersonal and group skills are important, success in the global business arena also demands adept organizational skills. These take into account the broader corporate culture and strategy. Ernest Gundling, in his book “Working GlobeSmart”, dives deeper into the intricacies of strategic planning, knowledge transfer, innovation, and change management in an international context.

Strategy Development for Different Cultures

Adapting a strategy that works in one environment to another can be complex. If your new market values relationship-building, Gundling suggests intertwining a well-thought-out relationship strategy with your business plan. This approach can help gain access to key customers, gather valuable market intelligence, secure intellectual property, and win government support.

Knowledge Transfer Across Borders

Trust and cooperation are paramount when it comes to transferring knowledge. To encourage receptivity, Gundling recommends creating a demand for the information. It’s also important to ensure information is shared in all directions – up, down, and across the organization.

For successful knowledge transfer, there should be a strong system for data collection, evaluation, and rewards. This system can help reinforce accountability through personal relationships.

And finally, Gundling suggests cultivating local leaders who can champion the new practices and not let cultural differences be a shield for underperformance.

Fostering Innovation Across Cultures

Aligning individual behaviors, teamwork, management practices, organizational systems, and the overall culture of your company can create an environment conducive to innovation. Gundling emphasizes providing incentives for employees to experiment with potentially profitable ideas.

Change Management in a Global Setting

Managing change becomes more complex when differences between a company’s headquarters and its foreign offices come into play. Gundling describes a trap he calls the “Foreign Capital Company Syndrome,” a vicious cycle involving unsuccessful discussion, imposed change, resistance, and poor results.

To avoid this, he recommends a “Virtuous Cycle,” where effective communication, accurate capabilities assessment, local input, and joint development foster a positive, mutually beneficial relationship.

Conclusion

In this era of globalization, thriving in the international business landscape requires more than just business expertise. Professionals must embrace and navigate cultural differences while focusing on building robust interpersonal, group, and organizational skills. By incorporating the guidelines from Ernest Gundling’s “Working GlobeSmart”, businesses can cultivate successful multicultural relationships, fostering a truly global organizational culture that’s both inclusive and effective. This, in essence, is the cornerstone of sustainable global business success.