Global Dexterity

How to Adapt Your Behavior Across Cultures without Losing Yourself in the Process

Andy Molinsky

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781422187272
• eBook ISBN: 9781422187289
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Skills
• Index: Business

" I wrote this book because I believe that there is a serious gap in what has been written and communicated about cross-cultural management and what people actually struggle with on the ground.”—From the Introduction What does it mean to be a global worker and a true "citizen of the world” today? It goes beyond merely acknowledging cultural differences. In reality, it means you are able to adapt your behavior to conform to new cultural contexts without losing your authentic self in the process. Not only is this difficult, it’s a frightening prospect for most people and something completely outside their comfort zone.But managing and communicating with people from other cultures is an essential skill today. Most of us collaborate with teams across borders and cultures on a regular basis, whether we spend our time in the office or out on the road. What’s needed now is a critical new skill, something author Andy Molinsky calls global dexterity.In this book Molinsky offers the tools needed to simultaneously adapt behavior to new cultural contexts while staying authentic and grounded in your own natural style. Based on more than a decade of research, teaching, and consulting with managers and executives around the world, this book reveals an approach to adapting while feeling comfortable—an essential skill that enables you to switch behaviors and overcome the emotional and psychological challenges of doing so.From identifying and overcoming challenges to integrating what you learn into your everyday environment, Molinsky provides a guidebook—and mentoring—to raise your confidence and your profile. Practical, engaging, and refreshing, Global Dexterity will help you reach across cultures—and succeed in today’s global business environment.

PART ONE

Why Global Dexterity Matters

In this first section of the book, you’ll learn what global dexterity is and why it matters. You will meet Eric Rivers, the American-born CEO of an Indian technology firm in Mumbai, who is thoughtful, knowledgeable, and highly motivated to work effectively in India, but who struggles when switching his behavior to an Indian cultural style. You will meet Feng Li, a Chinese-born management consultant for a major American-based professional services firm in Chicago, who knows that he needs to participate in brainstorming sessions with partners in order to succeed, but who has trouble speaking up, despite the fact that he is highly knowledgeable and has many useful points to contribute. You will meet many others like Eric and Yu who struggle not with learning about cultural differences, but with the ability to actually translate this knowledge into effective behavior—what I call global dexterity. The first chapter explains why global dexterity is so critical in today’s global economy, and in the second chapter, I explain why, despite its great importance, global dexterity can be such a challenging skill to master.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Global Dexterity

Eric Rivers was pacing back and forth in his office. He poured himself a cup of coffee but then immediately threw it out; the tea was much better in Mumbai. Eric asked his assistant to get him a cup of chai, then decided to take a walk around the neighborhood to clear his head. He passed by a brand-new school, a few businesses selling t-shirts and electronics, and a large open construction site where two elderly men were walking their cows the way Eric used to walk his dog back in Los Angeles. It had been three months since Eric had moved to Mumbai, and he was still getting used to it all.

Eric had been hired six months earlier to lead the division of a global consulting firm offering strategic advice to technology firms in the fast-growing Indian market. He saw amazing possibilities for what he could achieve; that was why he decided to forgo more conventional work opportunities in the United States.

Eric felt like he was doing everything right in his attempt to adapt to the Indian cultural environment. A seasoned leader with extensive management experience in the West, he was eager to bring his American management philosophy to this vibrant developing economy. His philosophy had two key elements. The first was empowerment, which Eric felt was a universal idea that transcended cultural boundaries. In the past, Eric had worked for many different bosses, and the ones he respected the most had worked hard to inspire their workers to succeed by giving them opportunities to develop skills, make decisions for themselves, and contribute to the firm. Eric also deeply believed in a flat hierarchy: in being highly collaborative and involving his employees in as much of the decision making process as possible.

Eric put his philosophy into action as soon as he arrived in Mumbai. First, instead of taking an office with a door in the corner of the building as he noticed other managers in the building had done, he took a cubicle right in the “trenches” with his fellow employees. That way he would not be seen as an arm’s-length, unapproachable leader, but as someone who was willing to get his hands dirty and figure things out with the team. Eric also decided to engage his employees in the process of making key strategic decisions. One of Eric’s best managers in Los Angeles would always involve her employees in the strategic decision-making process. Rather than pretending that she had all the solutions, she would include employees as she herself was trying to work through challenging strategic issues. Her view was that employees who were often closest to the “action” also had very important ideas to contribute to the discussion. Also, by involving them in the process, she could help mentor employees in the process of how to make a decision, which she believed was a valuable skill to teach anyone. Thus, whenever his Indian employees came to Eric with a problem, Eric patterned his approach after his mentor’s. He would not pretend that he had all the answers; instead, he would invite them into the decision-making process.

Eric was eager to put these powerful management techniques into action. He was passionate about engaging with his Indian workers, getting them thinking for themselves, and, most importantly, letting them know that they were part of the team.

The only problem was that his vision didn’t work. In fact, it failed miserably. Unlike his former employees in the United States, who relished the chance to make their own decisions and who saw Eric as more of a colleague than a boss, Eric’s Indian workers interpreted this freedom as a lack of competence and confidence on Eric’s part as a manager. After all, why would a leader sit with his employees and keep asking their opinions about important leadership matters? He must lack the ability to do it himself. Rather than being energized and engaged by Eric’s empowerment initiatives, his workers were becoming increasingly demotivated. When Eric approached them for ideas, their interpretation was that it was because he did not know what he was doing. Rather than gaining his employees’ respect, Eric was starting to lose it.

He overheard conversations in the mailroom and cafeteria about how the previous boss “knew what he was doing” much more than Eric did. Eric’s colleagues in other departments told him that the rumor was that he lacked confidence and decisiveness. He even heard through the grapevine that two of his star employees had already started to look around for other jobs.

After discussing the matter with some of his closest colleagues and friends both in India and the United States, Eric came to the conclusion that to be successful in India, he would have to adapt his behavior to the more hierarchical Indian leadership style. He would have to take that corner office, begin to make more unilateral decisions, and also start communicating with his employees in a more authoritative tone.

But he really didn’t want to do that. He firmly believed that what he was doing was correct in terms of managing and leading people. And so he resented the fact that he would have to change to a less effective management style—from his perspective—in order to please his workers. It just didn’t make any sense to him. Additionally, Eric dreaded the idea of having to act so far outside his personal comfort zone to manage in this new context. He had always hated working for authoritarian leaders in the United States, and the last thing that he wanted to do was to become one of these types of leaders himself. It felt disingenuous and unnatural. Finally, even if he were able to somehow convince himself to do it, Eric also had to admit that he was at a loss for how to actually be effective with this new kind of cultural style. Shedding this style felt like dropping his identity, and he didn’t want to do that.

The combination of thoughts and feelings was overwhelming. All he wanted to do was to be effective, yet everything he was doing seemed to be backfiring. Eric had never failed on a management assignment, but he feared this might be the first time. That too made him anxious. As he sipped his cup of tea, Eric wondered if he had made a terrible career decision in moving to India.

A New Way of Understanding Cultural Adaptation

If you have ever lived or worked in a foreign culture, you have likely confronted situations very similar to Eric’s in which the natural, comfortable “default” behavior from your native culture turns out to be ineffective for a situation you find yourself in within a new cultural environment.

In each of these situations, you don’t just struggle with understanding cultural differences. Rather, you struggle with the far more challenging task of actually changing your culturally ingrained behavior. I call this ability global dexterity—the capacity to adapt your behavior, when necessary, in a foreign cultural environment to accommodate new and different expectations that vary from those of your native cultural setting. For Eric Rivers, it’s acting with a leadership style that fits his Indian setting and that differs from his own in the United States. Or for you, it’s learning to adapt your behavior to function effectively in a particular situation in a foreign culture with expectations for behavior that are very different for how people would typically act in that same situation in your native culture.

Global dexterity is a critical skill for anyone from any culture attempting to function successfully in today’s global environment. Business scholars and other writers have recently focused considerable attention on the importance of cultural knowledge, but being effective in a myriad of foreign cultural situations that you find yourself in when working or living abroad requires more than mere knowledge. It requires the capacity to act on what you know: the ability to mold and shape your behavior in foreign cultural settings so that you can be simultaneously effective and appropriate in that setting without losing who you are in the process.

Lack of Global Dexterity Can Limit Effectiveness

Global dexterity can be a challenging skill to acquire. You can feel anxious and embarrassed about your inability to master the new cultural rules; you can feel inauthentic when performing these new behaviors, especially if the new rules conflict with aspects of your ingrained values and beliefs. You can also feel frustrated and angry about having to adapt in the first place, wondering why the other side can’t simply adapt to you. These feelings can interfere with your ability to successfully adapt your behavior—and, as a result, your professional reputation and effectiveness can suffer.

Here’s an example. A few years ago I was speaking with an American manager at a company that had been recently purchased by a larger German firm. That manager was quite annoyed with his new German boss, whom he perceived as cold and uncaring. When I pressed him about why he had this impression, this manager said that the biggest problem was small talk. When they had first met, his German boss showed absolutely no interest in him as a person. He did not ask him any questions about his family—which was hard to do, given all the personal photos the manager had arranged on his desk and walls—and he also didn’t comment on his interest in sports, which also was obvious from the many posters and photos on the wall. The boss simply came into his office, introduced himself, shook his hand quickly and coldly, and that was it. And this pattern continued into the future—no small talk, no effort to get to know him as a person.

I was curious about this story, so I followed up by interviewing several of the manager’s German-born colleagues and asked for their perspective. It turned out that they knew about the importance of small talk in the United States, but felt uncomfortable doing it. In Germany, small talk is far less common than in the United States, and from a German perspective, it can feel superficial, irrelevant, and inefficient to engage in such random banter with a person you barely know. The problem, of course, was that in avoiding small talk, the executive inadvertently made a bad impression on his new employee and compromised his reputation within the firm.

The lack of global dexterity can also hurt your effectiveness at work. Take the case of Feng Li, a Chinese-born management consultant for a major American-based professional services firm in Chicago. I initially learned about Feng’s case from Robert, one of the managing directors of the consultancy. Several years ago, Robert had hand-selected Feng to work for him in the managing director’s office. Feng had impeccable oral and written English, outstanding technical skills, and was also very creative. He was on the fast track to senior consultant and then director, and eventually partner, except for one major issue: Feng could not get himself to participate actively in meetings. The problem had nothing to do with a lack of ideas. Feng was one of the brightest consultants at the firm, and he had excellent ideas and insights. According to Robert, in terms of pure mental “firepower,” Feng was at the top of the firm. The problem was that Feng was simply unwilling to contribute his ideas in a public forum.

Instead of raising his hand or his voice, Feng would remain silent in meetings. Nothing. Not a word. This was especially unusual given the culture of this particular firm, where, according to Robert, people typically had to bite their tongues not to speak and be noticed. Senior mentors would coach Feng, explaining that to get ahead, he would have to come at least halfway into the culture of the firm. They would encourage him to participate and contribute because they knew he had the chops. But Feng simply could not do it.

Robert himself tried to work with Feng to overcome these differences. He helped create a special role for Feng in these meetings, which would be an explicit role of authority—it would be Feng’s job to own and drive the agenda within the meeting, and everyone would know that. Feng seemed to react positively to the idea, and Robert was encouraged. He was excited for Feng and also proud of himself for developing what really was a very clever idea. But it didn’t work. Feng came to the meeting in this explicit facilitator role but remained silent, as he always did. Robert was tremendously frustrated. He wanted Feng to succeed, and the firm had spent a great deal of time and money trying to help him get ahead. But for some reason, he simply could not adapt to the culture. In the end, Feng ended up leaving the firm because of a “bad fit.”

What You Wil...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part One: Why Global Dexterity Matters
• Part Two: How to Develop Your Own Global Dexterity
• Part Three: Fine-Tuning Your Global Dexterity
• Notes
• About the Author