How to Work in Someone Else's Country

Ruth Stark

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780295804323
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

Working abroad offers adventure, friendship with people of other cultures, intimate familiarity with exciting places, and opportunities to make real differences in communities. It also presents countless challenges, ranging from packing and staying safe and healthy to balancing project objectives with on-the-ground realities, working with local officials, and forging respectful and productive relationships. These challenges and many more are tackled in How to Work in Someone Else's Country. Drawing on thirty years of experience as an international consultant in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, Ruth Stark provides guidance for anybody preparing to work in a foreign country. This easy-to-read guide is enlivened by real-life examples drawn from the author's journals and stories shared by colleagues. Slim enough to fit in a carry-on, this book is sure to come in handy wherever your work takes you.

1

RELATIONSHIP IS EVERYTHING . . . AND EVERYONE IS RELATED

Your first and most important job as an international worker is to build good working relationships. Quite simply, when you work in a foreign country, the quality of the relationships you establish will determine whether your assignment is a success or a failure. Nothing else in this book will matter if you don't get the relationships right. So this first chapter focuses on the basics of establishing and maintaining productive working relationships in an international environment.

Put first things first, and what comes first are relationships.

Assuming that you have the right technical skills for your assignment, everything else comes down to relationships. Even if you find you are not as skilled as you should be in certain areas, good relationships can help you get through.

Relationships are particularly important in non-Western countries where work tends to be more personalized. In these countries you may find that people are more interested in your personal qualities than they are in your academic and professional credentials. In some countries people don't want to do business with you until you have established a personal relationship with them, until they know you and can trust you.

So your first priority will be to get to know people and let them get to know you. Show interest in the people you work with and make the effort to develop friendly relationships with everyone you come in contact with.

The key word here is everyone. In a foreign environment, the international worker will stick out like a sore thumb. Although you may not be aware of it, people will watch what you do and listen to what you say, often with keen interest. The “word” will quickly get around about you, and you want that word to be good. So be careful to treat everyone you meet with consideration and respect. If you are rude to the porter, you can be sure that he will tell the driver when he comes to pick you up, and if your driver is a friend of the minister of foreign affairs (as one of mine was—more on that later), you may land yourself in deep trouble.

Treat everyone as if they were related to the head of state—it could turn out to be true.

Treating everyone with respect is the right thing to do. It is also the wise thing to do, particularly in small, resource-poor countries, where everyone seems to know one another and where the people you will work with may be related.

There are several reasons why it can seem that “everyone is related,” and the number one reason is that they often are. Those who are fortunate enough to have jobs, particularly in developing countries, will sometimes use their connections to help their relatives find employment as well. It would not be at all unusual to learn that the cleaner in your office is the cousin of a major political leader. But, of course, no one will tell you this. One international worker told me that it took him two years to discover that the secretary he had hired was the daughter of the prime minister. So beware. Your words to the cleaner may one day echo in halls of parliament.

Don't gossip with local colleagues about other local colleagues. You could find yourself bad-mouthing somebody's favorite uncle.

I once worked with an official who was the butt of jokes due to his many humorous blunders. I laughed along with everyone else as local officials recounted his gaffes, only to find several years later that this official was a close relative of a respected colleague and friend. I can only hope that my friend wasn't present when we were joking at his relative's expense.

In countries where only a small segment of the population has had the benefit of a good education, you may find that many government officials and business leaders are members of a relatively small network of privileged extended families. Generally these families have been advantaged historically by reason of their sociocultural status, personal wealth, or political power. They, like elites everywhere, often have close personal, financial, and political ties and travel in the same social circles. So it should not come as a surprise if you learn that your colleague in the Department of Agriculture is the son of the chief of police and the husband of the daughter of the minister of finance.

You are treading on dangerous territory if you complain about one official to another.

Don't get involved in local politics.

Your local colleagues may confide in you and seek your support in local disputes. While it may seem like a compliment to be made privy to the “back story,” it is unwise to invite such confidences. As an outsider, you may not know the “real” story and can put your work at risk if you align yourself too closely with one stakeholder or group of stakeholders at the expense of the others. These alliances may shift and can backfire on you. Build good professional working relationships with all of your colleagues and avoid getting embroiled in local politics.

Remember: How you make people feel is sometimes more important than what you know.

There are many competent professionals who fail at international consulting, simply because they make people feel bad. The way they behave makes people feel small and inadequate and somehow inferior. If you make people feel this way, they are not going to spend much time with you, if they can avoid it. I have seen people literally run from foreign workers, as described in the following excerpt from my journal.

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JOURNAL NOTE

The new consultant, Sylvia, has been here with us for three weeks now, and I am very worried that this consultancy is not going to work out.

Sylvia is very confident and digs right into the job at hand. She is all business. She works fast, talks fast, and doesn't hesitate to ask probing questions. Poor James (her local counterpart) looks stressed out and nervous—when he is here, that is. But lately he hasn't been around much. The other day I saw him practically run out of the office. I'm sure that he is trying to avoid this new consultant.

For Sylvia, doing a good job means getting good data and producing good reports. Yes, we need the reports, but the purpose of the reports is to guide our action. I'm concerned that there won't be any action if our local colleagues don't want to work with her.

Today is Saturday, and both Sylvia and I were working in the office. James phoned me from another part of the building. He said he had a draft for me to review, but couldn't bring it to me because one of the doors was locked. I sent the driver to unlock the door and to let him in. The driver came back with the speech—alone. He told me that James didn't want to come into our office. Now I know for sure that he is making himself scarce because he doesn't want to work with Sylvia. This infuriates me. James is the one who has to do this work after she is gone. She thinks she is doing a good job. I don't know how I will convince her otherwise.

Pacific Islands, 1999

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This story did not have a happy ending. I never did succeed in convincing Sylvia (not her real name, of course) that her relationship with James was a problem that was impacting on her effectiveness as a consultant. She just didn't get it. The fact that she made James feel bad didn't seem to be that important to her, and she never understood why I was making such a fuss. Needless to say, this assignment was her last one with me.

Establish a good reputation on your very first assignment.

First impressions count. In international consulting, the reputation you establish on your first assignment may stick with you for years. The best way to get a good reputation from the start is to establish good working relationships with everyone you encounter.

International workers who maintain supportive relationships with their counterparts and clients are in great demand. Many times I have been approached by clients requesting that I recruit a particular person that they had worked with previously. Once a good relationship is established, people will want to continue to work with you. We humans tend to be more comfortable with the devil we know.

Don't let bad relationships fester.

If a relationship does seem to be turning sour, make the effort to repair the damage. Even if the individual has a minor role in the big scheme of things, try to mend fences. Bad relationships don't go away by themselves and can come back to haunt you. Don't let small hurts fester into deep wounds.

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JOURNAL NOTE

I almost didn't come to this meeting—I'm so bogged down with the Country X proposal. But I am so glad to be here. I've already run into three key decision makers working in Country X, and I know them all. One is a professional I worked with in Country X over twenty years ago. She's now an official of the organization that I hope will fund my project. Another is a guy I worked with three years ago in my last country. It turns out that he is the one who will be reviewing the project proposals. The other one is a foreign colleague—a national of Country X, who I worked with years ago. He is now a high-level official.

Ethiopia, 2005

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It's a small world. Don't burn your bridges.

Maintain good relationships with other professionals working overseas. I have been amazed at how fast a person's reputation travels from company to company and from country to country. Professionals who work overseas tend to circulate from one country to another and from one organization to another. Don't make enemies. The person you find annoying could turn out to be the person interviewing you for your next job.

Don't burn your bridges—ever.

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VOICES FROM THE FIELD

In Macedonia, at the height of the Kosovo crisis, a priest from Catholic Relief Services came out and immediately set up Friday happy hours. It seems trivial, but these events drew the entire office, without fail, every Friday at 5:00 p.m., and became a tremendous source of stress relief during nonstop eighty-hour workweeks. We got to know people from different departments who we didn't otherwise even have time to say hi to during the week.

Dave, Media Representative

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VOICES FROM THE FIELD

At a cocktail party I overheard a consultant talking about how poorly our organization had budgeted for her assignment. As I listened, I felt the blood rush to my head. Little did he know that, three years earlier, I had been involved in transferring funds from other country budgets just to support this project.

Theresa, International Health Professional

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2

THE FIRST STEP: FIGURING OUT WHAT YOUR JOB IS

Okay, you've got your first international assignment, now how do you start? What are the things you need to do before you pack your bags? The short answer is that you need to find out where you are going and what your job will be. This is not always quite as simple as it seems.

Find out where you are going.

The easy part is to learn about the country you will be working in. It doesn't take long to surf the Internet, do a bit of reading, and chat with those who have lived and worked in the country, particularly to chat with its citizens.

So a good way to start your assignment is to learn about the country's history, culture, geography, and politics. Do men shake hands with women? What is appropriate office attire? Do women wear slacks or skirts above the knees? Who are the current leaders and how did they come to power? Were they elected? Or is there a monarchy? Your knowledge about the country will help you to understand the contexts in which you will be working and will help you avoid making comments that are perceived as ignorant or insensitive. This information will help you understand why things happen the way that they do.

The information you gather will help you even before your departure. For example, you will have a better idea of what you should pack and take with you if you have knowledge of the climate, the living conditions, the cultural norms, and the availability of consumer items in the country in which you will be working.

People will appreciate your efforts to learn about their country, and the knowledge you have gained will make your travel much more interesting.

Find out what your job is.

Now, this may seem straightforward. After all, you probably have a job description and/or a contract. But finding out exactly what your job will be may not be as easy as it seems. The job description (or “terms of reference,” as it may be called) often gives only a partial picture of what will be expected on your assignment. That is why your first job is to figure out what your job is.

There are many reasons why you may need more information than what is written in your job description. These include:

THE JOB DESCRIPTION MAY BE OUT OF DATE.

The recruitment process for international assignments is often lengthy. A lot can happen between the time when one of the stakeholders decides that a worker is needed and the time when the worker begins an assignment.

THE JOB DESCRIPTION MAY BE VAGUE.

It may be that the person who wrote the job description (perhaps someone sitting in the head office) was not clear about what would actually be required on the job. It may be that no one is clear about the description.

THE JOB DESCRIPTION MAY BE TOO AMBITIOUS.

THE JOB DESCRIPTION MAY BE BUREAUCRATIC AND GENERIC.

It may be that the job description is one that is used for similar assignments in different countries. This type of job description gives you a general idea of what the job is about but does n...