Some academic encouragement

In Latin America, my Spanish has obviously been a block in terms of serious intercultural communication. I must admit that - on this continent - my intentions for coachcultures.org are not met to the full. To the half, maybe ;-) Nevertheless, while traveling, I am sensing cultures. It’s in the games children play. It’s in things the people just do, think or feel, even though nobody tells them to. It’s in what some people just seem to know, and I don’t.

In the meanwhile, I find lot’s more time to read. While reading an article by David Matsumoto, I got seriously encouraged to keep writing this blog. Matsumoto, a psychology professor at the University of San Francisco, is an expert in cross-cultural psychology. He explains how cross-cultural psychology used to be an exotic branch of psychology. Now, due to globalization, it gradually becomes mainstream. As coaching is partly applied psychology, I try to pick up what I can from his psychological research and experience.

Let me explain a little bit about cross-cultural psychology by giving an example. Everybody smiles. Smiling is very common for greeting, for acknowledgment, or just for showing acceptance. But a smile can also be used to mask emotions. Cross-cultural research shows how cultures differ in the use of smiles. The Japanese for example, emphasize on group harmony and conformity. These values are threatened by negative emotions. Therefore smiling is very important amongst the Japanese. But, as a result of seldom showing negative emotions, the Japanese have a tendency to not recognize expressions such as anger, disgust or fear. In contrast, the United States is very keen on individuality, which encourages both the expression and perception of negative emotions. Cross-cultural psychology is not about good taste or decent people-skills. It’s about facts. And for a fact, if Japanese and Americans are living or working together, emotions can very easily be misinterpreted. It is an example of extremes, but it helps to understand how subtle cultural differences can gave serious impact.

But - as I mentioned - I felt encouraged. Why? David Matsumoto has some advice for those who want to break in the field of cross-cultural psychology. His first advice is to get exposed to as much variety of human behaveour as possible. Well, I feel as if I have done a pretty good job already over the last 37 years (still going strong). Matsumoto’s second advice is to travel, in order to experience and feel different cultures. Yep, we can tick that one of! His third advice is to put it all together meaningfully, to learn and teach us something I/you/we don’t already know. To me that is exactly what coachcultures.org is about. Yes, it will be great to be able to double or triple intercultural communication on our next destinations. But for now I am happy just to keep all my senses open!

Starbucks, BurgerKing and MacDonalds

Travelling in Latin America we don’t see as much of them as expected. Not a problem in our book, but still somewhat surprising, as in some other countries there seems to be one of them just around every corner. Which left us with the question ‘why not in Latin America?’ For various reasons I suppose. To begin with, a lot of Latin American countries are still seriously anti-US. As a lady in La Rioja (Argentina) explained, this has for years been the single most important reason not to teach English at schools. These sentiments must have kept the American food-giants out for a while. But secondly, much more practicable, the local burgers and lomo-steaks are almost impossible to beat. They are huge, tasty and everywhere, plus they are way cheaper than MacDonalds or BurgerKings. The same goes for coffee, as most Latin American countries have their own strong coffee culture. (Which doesn’t mean the coffee is actually good ;-)

But, in the end, I guess it’s a cultural clash. I read an interesting article by Thomas Friedman on ‘the Lexus and the Olive tree’. He describes the conflict between Lexus, dedicated to modernizing, privatizing and globalization, and the olive tree, dedicated to unique traditions, stories, places and families. As globalization pushes further, the question of business and culture (Lexus versus Olive tree) is more and more out there. For if Western companies want to operate in culturally different countries, how do they maintain their management practice and still achieve success far from home? Friedman’s answer is integration, worked out in examples of Starbucks in Korea and IKEA in the US.

Starbucks’ core values include teamwork, equal participation and diversity. When looking to expand in South Korea, Starbucks realized that the Koreans value power distance (see cultural differences). They had to decide if they were willing to be more hierarchical. They decided not to go all black-and-white, and tried to integrate differences. At Starbucks everyone refers to each other as partners, calling each other by first name. This proved to be very discomforting for South Korean employees. As a solution, managers gave every employee an English name, so that they could call each other by their English names. As the English name was used as a substitute for a title plus last name, this did feel comfortable. This way Starbucks’ value of equality was retained. Another point of cultural conflict was Starbucks’ value of teamwork. Every employee does whatever needs to be done. As Korean men traditionally do not do housework-type tasks, such as cleaning toilets and washing dishes, this was a problem. To overcome this (and to get the dishes and the restrooms done) Starbucks adopted a role-modeling approach. This is often very effective in high power distance cultures. Starbucks had the international director do all this. They even hung a picture of him cleaning the toilet!

Only briefly the example of IKEA, who says they value equality even more than your average US company. As they don’t use job titles or clear job descriptions, a cultural conflict raised. The best qualified people in the US simply wanted more status and clearer career perspectives. IKEA changed their recruitment strategy, by emphasizing their values and by providing realistic job previews. Those who did not identify quickly selected themselves out of the company. What IKEA actually did, was to benefit from the large variability in individual values within the US. They were able to select their own suitable employee-subgroup.

The bottom line to me seems the necessity to be culturally aware if you want to be successful. Back to Latin America. Anti-American sentiments seem to soften. English is now taught at schools and internet and MTV have reached the younger generations. But some cultural conflicts remain. In terms of power distance and roles of male employees, it compares somewhat to Korea. Another cultural conflict that arises is the past/present orientation in Latin American countries. As a consequence, the mean management style is quite conservative. Western companies are generally future oriented, which means management includes planning, doing and controlling. And then of course Latin America embraces mañana mañana and value time way different than we do. If Western companies want to be successful over here, they have to deal with punctuality issues. You’d at least have to invest in job interviews and work out different palets of fringe benefits.

Yes, we spent hours and hours in Latin American restaurants. Not to mention how courses sometimes miraculously changed order, or all got served at once. But in the end, competing with local lomo-steaks may well be too much for the Western Burgergiants. We’ll (eat &) drink to that!

A bunny in a bunny suit

‘pretending to be myself again
acting as if I was who I am
wearing the clothes that I always wear
and doing the usual thing to my hair

pretending to be myself again
imitating the person I've always been
legally changing my name to my name
and making believe I'm exactly the same

a bunny in a bunny suit
tiger in a tiger mask
who in the world do you think that I am
I suppose it depends on who you ask’

I happen to hear this song (by Richy Vesecky) for the first time at a tango performance in Utrecht. How suitable. It could be about subgroups, like for example certain types of travelers. The ones that try so hard to make sure they look like one ;-) But to me - today - it’s about personal growth. About whether you allow yourself to grow within the network of your family, friends and colleagues. Others - unconsciously - tend to know you for who you were, not for who you are. Unless you put some serious and constant effort into it. Which can be very scary at times, as it might cause relationships to break, or jobs to suddenly become very hollow. For many times, it seems a lot easier to just wear the suit, for now…

I feel this is one of the bigger themes in our western individualized society. Most of us grew up with the concept of personal growth and welfare. But as we grow older, we find this can easily come into conflict with our need to be part of a family or a close circle of friends. It’s up to us to find ways to balance these scales. For sure, this is a challenge we sometimes wished we could do without.

Actually, some other cultures do, like Bolivia for example. Over here, tight knit social networks are way more important than ours. The family is the axis of the social life and structure. Especially in rural areas, many generations still often live together in one house. The extended family or ‘familia’ serves as a strong support and network system. And also in Argentina, family is the centre of life. Family honor and tradition are very important in both countries.

I always thought it was difficult to stick your neck out back home in the Netherlands. But just imagine how hard it is over here? For even if you are educated and skilled, you are not respected for loosening social knots. It takes strong character and loads of willpower to do so. Like our local tour guide Nancy. She went to University to study languages. By doing so she’s able to make a decent living. Nevertheless, she’s almost completely out of touch with family and close friends.

So it seems to me that many Bolivians are most likely to be who they have always been. I guess the choice between the bunny and the bunny suit is simply a luxury choice our western culture allows us to have.

Trust the process

Three simple words, though quite a challenge. These words often come to my mind, not in the least because these words are almost mantra-like in various management books and trainings. Trust the process, jump in, give time, positive change will come.

Again, while travelling, words get a different meaning. Since there’s quite a lot of change going on. As events are a lot harder to control, we have no choice but to put trust in the process. Which means that, at the end of the day we will find a bed, we will be better informed, and we will find some food (nutritious or not…). And, for sure, things will not work out as bad as we sometimes imagine. And, to be honest, trusting the process is a whole lot easier while travelling, as we have a unique opportunity to re-start our process every single day.

Not in every day’s life though. That’s when trusting the process becomes notably harder. That’s when people start to long for more control. For obvious reasons, as most of the times there is a lot more at stake. And when it comes to stakes, fears are often reflected in all sorts of change whatsoever.

Psychologically, travellers seem to be in their own subgroup. They choose to enjoy the change, loosen the stakes, and set most of their worries and fears aside. Or so it seems. More or less the same goes for people who choose to work abroad: they are headstrong and certainly show some guts. Or so it seems. Most of the travellers we meet are pretty good story-tellers. They share their finest hours, and don’t seem worried at all. But in time (after thorough examination and interrogation ;-) it becomes clear to me how ‘trust the process’ can easily become a hollow mantra to hide behind. Because obviously joining the subgroup of travellers doesn’t make you get rid of your own fears and stakes.

Travelling together, we have noticed how important it is to us to be aware of these worries. Forget about the mantra. Once worries are expressed and understood, it’s suddenly a whole lot easier to put actual trust in the process. Yes, I know the song quotes that ‘worrying is as effective as solving an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum’. But sharing worries helps us to understand ourselves, which makes it a lot easier to take on new adventures. Suddenly the mantra is not so hollow anymore…