Last week I introduced the four dimensions of the Evolving Multi-Dimensional Talentforce and talked about the first dimension: multi-generational differences. This week I’d like to talk about the second dimension: multi-cultural differences. There are significant cultural aspects that influence how people interpret and respond to events, define and act in the workplace, and in general determine how we do business. These cultural aspects include such things as differing styles of communication, multiple ways of making decisions, and various approaches to engagement, commitment, diversity, ethics, and so on.

Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning “to cultivate,”) is defined in Wikipedia as:

[1] patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance; systems of symbols and meanings that lack fixed boundaries, that are constantly in flux, and that interact and compete with one another.

[2] Different definitions reflect different theoretical bases for understanding and evaluating human activity; manifested in music, literature, lifestyle, painting, sculpture, theater, film, etc.

Geert Hofstede defines culture as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one group or category of people from another. This stresses that culture is (1) a collective, not an individual attribute, (2) not directly visible but manifested in behaviors, and (3) common to some, but not all people”.

Analogies used to understand cultural differences have brought such images as “peeling an onion” — carefully removing layer after layer until getting to the core — or “the iceberg” — because many cultural aspects are below the surface and hence not readily seen. The first and most obvious layer of culture that we can see above the surface involves language, food, buildings, monuments, dress, fashions, art, etc. These artifacts are symbols with meanings from a much deeper level. The next layer of culture entails the norms and values that the culture holds, the mutual sense of “right/wrong”, “good/bad” that individuals share. Some of these are written and formally codified in the laws and social controls of a culture, while others are informal, learned early in childhood, and passed down through the generations. Finally, at the deepest, innermost level of culture, invisible and unconscious to human perception, are those aspects of basic human nature that control how we interpret and respond to various situations. For example, our sense of time and space, our focus on family and relationships, our view of status and hierarchy. These sometimes subtle aspects of culture are more difficult to understand and appreciate, making them ripe for misunderstanding.

• Extent to which individuals are independent versus interdependent
• Expression of individualistic intentions versus more collectivist, group behaviors
• Belief in a more egalitarian versus hierarchical status
• Degree of aggressiveness versus accommodation to others
• More direct versus indirect styles of communicating
• Feelings of neutral versus more affective relationships
• Specific and closed relationships versus multiple and diffuse relationships
• Orientation toward tasks and getting things done versus building relationships and rapport
• Appreciation of universalism versus particularism
• Degree of risk tolerance versus more conservative approaches
• Short-term versus long-term planning horizons
• Mono-chronic versus poly-chronic sense of time
• Differences in sense of personal space (called proxemics)
• Tolerance for and acceptance of versus resistance to change
• Receptivity versus resistance to diversity
• Acceptance versus resistance to new ideas

If this seems like a lot to absorb, it is! Understanding and working effectively with cultural differences is one of the greatest challenges we have. So much is invisible, not obvious, and very different from our own way of thinking and acting that we find it hard to fathom, believe, and work with.

In their fascinating book, Developing Global Executives, McCall and Hollenbeck (2002) contend that working globally is difficult because it combines complexity from two different dimensions: business complexity with cultural complexity. As business complexity increases, managerial abilities must also increase. Naturally, it requires much greater leadership skills to manage a large number of diverse functions, products, suppliers, business units, locations, etc. Likewise, as cultural complexity increases, facility in dealing across cultures must also increase. The greater the difference between geographies, languages, customs, values, habits, etc., the greater the skills the individual must possess to effectively work across cultures. Combining these two dimensions – an increase in business complexity with an increase in cultural complexity – creates an intensely complex global environment, requiring more highly developed global management abilities.

Hence, we see the importance of HR’s role in developing global executives. We have tended to focus our managerial development activities around more concrete skills such as business acumen, professional speaking skills, financial management, etc. In the increasingly global world we live in, we must spend as much if not more development effort on understanding cultural differences and learning how to work with them. In subsequent posts, we will explore this important multi-cultural dimension of the modern talentforce and how HR can help improve the productivity and effectiveness of cross-cultural work.