Quantification

Quantify the influence of culture on the success of your organization:

1. What is your target number?
2. Which key success factors contribute to that target number?
3. How much are those factors based on collaboration?
4. What is the influence of culture on that collaboration?

Step 1 – Target Number

First, define the target number as 100. Then enter that target number number into your spreadsheet as $ or €. You define what target number means. As an organization you have your goals. You have identified and quantified them. Choose one.

Step 2 – Key Success Factors

Second, list the five most important factors which determine success. These are the things which the organization must do well in order to achieve the target number. Assign a % to each success factor. The total may not exceed 100%.

Then multiply each % by the target number. This gives you a $ or € number for each individual success factor. In other words, you have quantified each success factor’s contribution to the target number.

Step 3 – Based on Collaboration

Third, estimate to what degree each of those success factors is based on colleagues in or from different countries collaborating effectively.

Assign a % to each success factor. The total may exceed 100% since you are estimating for each respective factor independent of each other. Some success factors may be more dependent on cross-border collaboration than others.

Then multiply each % by that success factor’s contribution to the target number, as quantified in Step 2. This gives you a $ or € number for collaboration of each individual success factor.

In other words, you have quantified cross-border collaboration’s contribution to your organization’s success factors.

Step 4 – Influence of Culture

Fourth, now estimate, as best you can, the influence of national culture on that collaboration. Proceed success factor for success factor.

Keep in mind that collaboration between colleagues in and from different countries requires not only the willingness and the ability to work together. Most importantly, it requires that the cultures understand each other.

Assign to each success factor a %. The total may exceed 100% since you are estimating factor for factor. Then multiply each % by the value arrived at in Step 3 – the degree to which each success factor is based on cross-border collaboration. You now have a $ or € value for the influence of culture on collaboration.


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Five Threes

Three Facts

There are three data points. Let’s call them facts. There are differences between cultures. The differences are in foundational areas. The differences influence collaboration within and between global teams.

Three Questions

Whenever we take a closer look at the influence of culture on cross-border collaboration, we always address the same three questions, and in this order:

Where do we differ in how we think, and how we work? Our logics, approaches, methods, beliefs, traditions, mindsets.

What influence to do these differences have on our work, on our collaboration, on the success of our collaboration?

How do we get the differences to for, and not against, our collaboration?

Three Conversations

The minute we decide to make a serious effort to understand the influence of cultural differences on our work we have decided to enter into three conversations:

With ourselves, in self-reflection: “How do I as an individual think, therefore work?” You with yourself.

With colleagues in our own culture, in co-self-reflection: “How do we as a culture think, therefore work?” You with same-culture.

With colleagues from the other culture: “How do we as a cross-border team want to collaborate?” You with other-culture.

Three Relationships

Whether you are in management or a subject-matter expert or an individual contributor in a global company, you most likely are engaging in three kinds of relationships, and on a constant basis.

With your colleagues. In the company. From different departments. Working together in order to get things done in the right way.

With the company’s customers. These are the people you are serving. By delivering a product, a service, in most cases both.

With the company’s suppliers. These are the people who are serving you and your colleagues. With products and services they provide.

Three Good Things

When you as colleagues better understand the influence of cultural differences on cross-border collaboration three good things happen:

You get the job done. On schedule. Within budget. Quality results. That’s good for the company, the team, and for you as individual colleagues.

You sleep better at night. Literally and figuratively. The stress of working in a cross-border context is reduced dramatically. That’s good for you as people.

You contribute to the relations between countries. If you get along at work you will have a favorable impression of each other’s country. That influences you as voters. That’s good for mankind.


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Don’t address

Many, perhaps most, global companies don’t address the influence of cultural differences on global teams. We see at least twelve reasons for why. And although these reasons are human, they’re not human enough. More human is to overcome these reservations.

Not Taught

We are not aware of cultural differences. First, we are neither educated nor trained to explore our national cultural logics. See the curricula of universities, graduate studies, and executive education.

Political Correctness

For reasons of political correctness, which has been a strong trend over the last twenty-five years. In the United States identity politics has become particularly strong in the last decade. There is seldom real discussion about how national cultures think.

And very little discussion about how the differences between the groups influence their work and life together. There is seldom direct, open, thoughtful, respectful discussion about this. And there is seldom real discussion within global companies.

People are People

Many think and say that people are people. It is the most common fallback position. Folks then hope that good intentions will prevail, will enable collaboration to go smoothly. It is true, people are people. At a fundamental level we all need air, water, food, shelter, safety, healthcare, family, friends, love. 

But from there on we are all human beings imbedded in a national culture. And cultures are different, in how they think and work in key areas is different. Frankly, it can’t be any other way. Rejecting this is the equivalent of sticking our heads in the sand. The effect of “people are people” is that we don’t discuss cultural differences.

Too busy

We are so focused on the substance of our work that we don’t consider differences in approaches. We’re simply too busy to reflect, gain distance, to get abstract. We’re all under pressure, have to deliver results, have to move fast. We have become too transactional. We believe that we have too little time to step back and to reflect on the situation.

Corporate vs. Country

There is false competition between the respective corporate cultures﹣between how we do things as a company. Corporate culture does exist. Apple is surely different than Goldman Sachs. And adidas is surely different than Volkswagen. 

However, there is an intellectual misunderstanding. Country culture runs far deeper than corporate culture. Dow Chemical (American) has more in common with General Motors (American) than it does with BASF (German). As does Volkswagen (German) have more in common with BASF (German) than it does with General Motors (American).

Most companies ignore the influence of country culture. They place their hopes in standardized (harmonized) ways of doing things within the company. They believe that how they work across the company, let’s use the term processes, will make country cultural differences irrelevant.

Fear

Fear﹣the deepest, oldest and most powerful driver of human behavior. It can be frightening to reflect on who we are as individuals, as a people. It can be frightening to go deep, to explore how we think and act. It can be embarrassing to admit that we have seldom considered country culture differences and their influence on our work, on cross-border collaboration.

Machine Age thinking

Complicating all of this is Machine Age thinking. We live in the age of the machine. Science, engineering, so-called scientific management,. Man created the machine. And those machines have worked wonders for mankind. 

But we have a tendancy to see ourselves as parts of a machine, or worse, as machines ourselves. We organize ourselves and our work as if we were one big machine. Our very thinking as become machine-like. If something is measurable, then it is relevant. If it is not measurable, then it is not relevant.

Difficult to Articulate

Often we sense cultural differences, but we have difficulty articulating them. We are not trained to, not accustomed to, do not have the language, for articulating what we experience at a deeper level. We don’t engage with each other in discussion about the differences in how we as different country cultures think and work.

Our initial attempts to articulate often lead to negative results. We feel embarrassed. For using simplistic explanations. In many cases the discussions lead to confrontation. Our lack of articulation makes us feel awkward and uncomfortable. We realize how highly sensitive the subject matter is.

Us against Them

If collaboration is the result of a merger of two companies, or of a merger of organizations within a company, or simply the formation of a new multinational team, we might have an atmosphere of competition, of us-versus-them. There is the very human inclination to think in terms of tribes. 

Having a common enemy is an effective way to paper over conflicts within one’s own culture. We begin thinking in terms of those Germans and those Americans. The us-versus-them dynamic becomes intensified when management on both sides purposely manipulates the fears of their people.

Vulnernability

Then there is the danger of vulnerability. Even if both sides are open, honest, and willing to work together, addressing cultural differences (how the work is done) necessarily means being open to the possibility that the approach of the other culture is better, more effective, faster, less expensive.

And that possibility has real consequences, for real people, in real jobs, with real bills to pay. Opening up to each other can be felt, and therefore understood, to be a threat to job security, prestige, budgets, opportunities to advance. We suddenly become vulnerable. 

“Their approach”

And even if “their approach” has no negative consequences for us, we sense quickly that doing things their way has its disadvantages. We become the junior-partner in the working relationship because their way is native to them yet foreign to us. Their way means very concrete things like processes, methods, tools, the very substance of our work. Change is seldom comfortable.

Tension

All of the factors above are very good reasons to simply avoid the discussion, to not engage in a structured and informed discussion about cultural differences and their impact on how we want to work in global teams. The risks can be seen as too great. The situation becomes unpredictable. It becomes tense. We fear losing control.


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Don’t support

Many, perhaps most, companies operating globally don’t address the impact of cultural differences on cross-border collaboration. But even if they did, they would have difficulty finding competent support. Let’s take a look at the options:

Consulting Firms

What about strategy consultants? We know the names of the major players. McKinsey, Boston Consulting, Bain, Roland Berger and many others, including very fine boutique firms.

They come into the companies, analyze the situation and recommend change: the direction of company, the structure of the organization, products, services, business models, and internal processes.

What about the accounting firms, the so-called Big Four: EY, PwC, KPMG, Deloitte? They have been breaking into the strategy consulting field over the last years. And there are many boutique accounting firms doing the same.

Then there are the M&A advisors, financial institutions, the M&A attorneys, the entire M&A ecosystem. These folks typically serve small- to mid-sized companies.

Do any of these groups help global companies to address culture?

M&A advisors do not, but might soon, because their clients are beginning to request it. The strategy and accounting firms do offer assistance with post-merger integration, but they don’t address culture.

Strategy consultants provide advice about M&A. They guide their clients through the process. At the end of the M&A process strategy consultants are very familiar with the companies, both the acquiring and the acquired companies. Because they did the analysis. They should know where integration must succeed.

Why do strategy consultant not help with culture? I think there are several reasons.

The first is that addressing culture is not in their hard-wiring. So-called soft factors are not in their DNA. These people are numbers oriented. Their thinking is: if you can’t quantify something, then it is not relevant. They come from the disciplines of finance, accounting, the natural sciences, and business.

Their mindset cannot explain how Americans and Germans, for example, lead and want to be led. They cannot define what an effective process looks like in Germany or in the United States.

The second reason is scalability. Their business model resists addressing national culture. If they did take culture into account their methods and techniques would have to be modified based on the country where they are applied. That would make their business model not universal, no longer fully scalable.

The third reason is implementation. If strategy consultants were to offer assistance with post-merger integration, and thereby address the impact of cultural differences on cross-border collaboration, they would have to transition from interacting with executive management to interacting with employees on the working levels, where collaboration actually takes place, where collaboration succeeds or fails.

And that means hands-on support. It means sharing responsibility for the implementation of their own recommendations. Involvement in implementation means getting their hands dirty. It means they can’t run away from what they sold to the client.

Perhaps some of these firms do help their global clients with culture. There is a simple way to verify this. And not by reading what they claim on their websites. Instead, simply ask them.

If their response is yes, then ask them a few simple questions: Which countries do you address? Can you show us some of your content about those business cultures?

Please explain your research methodology which led to that content. Can you provide examples of key differences between, for example, the Germany and the United States?

How exactly do you deliver your expertise? Can you send us bios of the people who will be doing the delivery? Would you, please, supply us with references in the Germany-US space? And finally, what would a program look like?

Business Schools

We all know the big-name strategy firms. And we all know the big-name business schools: Harvard, Stanford, UPenn Wharton, and many other top-tier schools. And in Europe there are the elite universities: HEC Paris, London Business School, St. Gallen, Insead, IESE, Mannheim.

None of them address the influence of culture on cross-border organisations. Neither in their executive education programs, nor in their consulting services. And rarely do the MBA programs touch the subject of culture. Why? Like the strategy consultants there are reasons:

The first is lack of expertise. Professors lack country culture expertise. Let’s think about it, how does one develop that expertise? Not with the help of theory. There is only one way.

You have to have lived in the culture about which you claim to have expertise. You have to have experienced differences in many situations, and over a longer period of time. You then need to have stepped back and analyzed those experiences. Finally, the expert has to have put those results to work in the real world.

This is a very long and arduous path. There are no shortcuts. You have to go deep and broad. And over a long period of time.

The second reason is their business model. If global companies have difficulties addressing national culture, how much more will the business schools struggle with it?

How can academics address cultures if real-world practitioners don’t address culture? And then there is the practical question about what cultures to build expertise? Which countries should be chosen? 

The third reason is it would raise rather uncomfortable questions. Addressing cultural differences would have serious consequences for business school curricula. If the academic world were to address culture it would mean major changes to their business model. Their course content would no longer be universal. What is true for the U.S. would not necessarily be true for Germany and vice versa.

Change Management

What about change management experts? Most have studied business or psychology or the humanities. Many have lived and worked abroad. They have experienced cultural differences.

Their skill set is valuable. They grasp quickly the change needed within the companies of their clients. They are familiar with how companies operate. They are good at structuring the conversation.

However, they have a major weakness. They, too, lack country-culture expertise. This is not a criticism. It is a simple fact that they don’t focus on culture. Instead it is on the change process.

If they were to address culture, they would have no other choice but to do it via their change methods. They would get colleagues on the client side to talk about cultural differences, with the hope that these same colleagues would come up with their own intercultural insights.

In other words, change management people are at their core discussion moderators. Now that is helpful. And it is better than not addressing cultural differences at all. But frankly, you as the client, you and your colleagues, can run discussions yourself. There is no need for consultants. Save yourself the time and the money.

Organizational Development

Can organizational development people help? Organizational development is a generic term which includes change management. Like their colleagues in change, the OD approach depends on methodology. It is also their hope that people – the client – will talk about culture in order to understand each other.

Unfortunately, like their colleagues in change, OD-experts simply don’t have the required country-culture expertise. Neither in the differences between countries nor in understanding the impact of those differences on cross-border collaboration.

Intercultural Trainers

What about intercultural trainers? They are typically educated as psychologists, anthropologists or sociologists. They may have lived and worked abroad, experienced cultural differences, and know how to run workshops. That’s all fine.

They, however, have a significant deficit. It is their content. Typically it is rather shallow. Often their content is flat out wrong. In some cases it is both, shallow and wrong.

Intercultural trainers remain on the theoretical level. Frankly, it is not enough to describe Germany as a so-called low-context communication culture and the U.S. as a high-context communication culture.

Under certain circumstances intercultural trainers can be helpful as an introduction, but they are of no help with specific problems. Companies should become very nervous when interculturalists begin talking about cultural dimensions such as power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. feminity.

If cultures were so simple that it was enough to describe a few dimensions then there would most likely be an app on every smartphone which magically allows Germans and Americans to understand each other and to collaborate. That app does not exists. Nor will it ever exist.

Language Instructors

What about language instructors? It is interesting that of all of the groups thusfar mentioned only the language instructors can be of assistance. Because they build the bridge via words. It is words, and the thought behind them, which enable insight.

Think of the German word Qualität, and the American word quality. When Germans and Americans collaborate they do so in the English language. Both use the word quality. But do they have same understanding? American quality and German Qualität?

But language instructors also have a deficit. They can’t go beyond words. Word history is a great tool of analysis. It can give valuable insight. And it is fascinating.

But try explain to Americans the German understanding of Qualität. You can go far back into its history, but doing so does not address the challenges which American and German engineers face when collaborating, when designing a gas turbine or a braking system or a complex medical instrument.

Language does not explain what a German mechanical engineer means when he says the quality of a given technical solution is not good enough. Nor does it explain what an American marketing expert means when she says that U.S. customers want value more than engineering.

These are rather obvious reasons why language instructors cannot help global companies to address the impact of cultural differences on cross-border collaboration. They are educators and not businesspeople. They seldom understand companies. And seldom do they understand the international environment in which the companies are operating.


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Hard vs. Soft

Everyone likes hard factors more than soft factors. Hard factors can be observed, defined, quantified. Soft factors, in contrast, are difficult to observe, define, quantify. Everyone likes hard. That’s understandable.

But what about national culture? How Germans define quality. How Americans persuade. How Germans set up their work processes. How Americans manage business relationships. Have you ever tried to integrate those complex differences in thought and action?

That’s hard stuff. National culture, who we are, where we come from, how we think and how we work. It is our self-understanding, our self-definition. It is deeply-rooted, almost impossible change. 

National culture is hard, in the deeper, truer sense sense of the word. It is complex, not quantifiable, difficult to describe, more difficult to manage, and very difficult to integrate. Culture is hard, not soft. In fact, culture might be the hardest of the hard factors in the global economy.


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Quadrants

This is an exercise. The purpose is to identify those colleagues and teams whose cross-border collaboration is critical to the success of the organization.

Take out a piece of printer paper. Unlined. Fold it in half. Then fold it in half again. Now unfold it. Turn it to the landscape position. You have quadrants.

Number

Your organization has identified and quantified its most important goals. Choose one of them. It’s a number. Enter it into the top left quadrant.

Factors

In the bottom left quandrant list the five most important factors which determine success. These are the things which the organization must do well in order to hit that number.

Collaboration

In the top right quadrant list those factors once again. Then, on a separate piece of paper, and for each success factor, map out who is collaborating with whom: colleagues, teams, in which countries.

Actions

Leave this fourth quadrant empty. It represents those actions which need to be taken in order to ensure smooth cross-border collaboration among those colleagues and teams.


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