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…

An interesting lack of language skills

Travelling in South America, my way below average Spanish is an interesting source of experience. Usually I am an extravert, liking to rely on conversation and personal contact to gather information or to create. These are important qualities to me, not in the least at work. Now, completely lacking sufficient language skills, I experience how this actually narrows the opportunity to be me. I get hesitative in making first contact and become much more introvert. Plus, I have to rely on others to get things done, without almost no control on my behalf whatsoever. Which, for some people, actually feels less comfortable at times (haha) … Just a few small examples on what lack of language skills can do.

What a valuable experience, as it helps me to feel what cultural or lingual differences can do to someone’s ability to be who he or she is. And again a lesson in the added value of experience, compared to of course already knowing all this in general. The wider the lingual of cultural gap, the bigger the impact on ones behaviour, thoughts and feelings. This is something to really take into account if someone is just working at the firm, or is new to a culture. The same goes for coaching in these processes. If a small lingual problem transforms me from comfortably extravert to almost hesitatively introvert, the impact of other sorts of changes are easily understood.

Golden handcuffs? Not in Argentina...

In Buenos Aires we met Taylor, a young African American who successfully works as a legal expert at a big law-firm in New York. He was on a well-spent three week holiday, something not many Americans get to do. As we explained to Taylor we are in our first weeks of a year of travelling, our conversation suddenly took an interesting turn. That’s when Taylor mentioned the golden handcuffs: living the fast and luxurious life in which everything seems possible, at first... Very attractive. And how easy it is to get used to having the money, and ofcourse the prestige that comes with the job. Until you realize how those golden handcuffs lock you to the rat race for many more years to come. Traditional retirement plans, restricted stock options, savings plans, health insurance and many other benefits (provided to you by the company) lock the cuffs even tighter. And, as they say, people often rather stick to the devil they know, than risk the devil they don’t know.

In that perspective Taylor was something different for sure, being very open to new ideas. An important asset, as it helps you to realize there’s no one but yourself holding the keys to the cuffs. Now this is something you don’t have to explain to the Argentines! Talking to Hans en Alina from Belgium and Argentina, who run a Posada in Mendoza district, it becomes clear to me how the Argentines keep the cuffs away. They have experienced a big crisis in the early 2000’s, which threw a lot of middle class people back to lower class. Only the few in power profited. Happily for the Argentines they have good public schools. This is how the children of people struck by crisis work themselves back up to middle class. But crisis has made the Argentines flexible, so Alina explained. This is where their thinking is almost opposite to that of an average successful American or Northern European business partner: never expect too much of the future and make sure you don’t depend heavily on the things you have today… Thanks to little future orientation and a vast quantity of time.

Personally I’d like to see quite a bit of this thinking in Europe, especially where it concerns our current economic crisis. Stop living in the future and thinking of more growth, and start making it work today! (or mañana…)

And how about coaching? Well, from here out is seems pretty obvious how it can be more difficult to coach your average successful European on how to enjoy a day’s life, in comparison to your average Argentine. And if it comes to dealing with pressure and responsibility, I would for sure take cultural differences into account. But, on the handcuffs, let me be careful not to judge before I’m sure I haven’t cuffed myself to having a year off…

Two weeks to go!

Less than two weeks before we set off. As of this moment I am no longer responsible for any coaching, training or consultancy work. How different that feels, and funny for sure. We are slowly digesting it, and look forward to experience every little next step.

And how about Coach Cultures? As I am informing clients and contacts about our travel plans and my thoughts on Coach Cultures, the ideas gradually gain space and start to sink in. Check the other pages on this website to get a feel. 

Before departure I have a few things to mention:

• Meeting with clients and discussing the topic of Coach Cultures over the last month or so, I noticed many blanks if it comes to integrating cultures at work. And - more importantly - I noticed a big interest and desire to do integrate and get the best out of our work and our team. That is a big inspiration!
• Our first destinations will be Argentina, Chile and around. We will visit Buenos Aires, Salta and Santiago de Chile for sure. If you have any suggestions for people to meet, I'd be happy to hear from you.
• I am sure our first month of travelling will be like a holiday. So this is where I am happy to inform you not to expect any blogging on my behalf in the upcoming six weeks!

For now, it is time to say some goodbyes, and to enjoy our last weeks over here in Utrecht. See you in Argentina!

My first blog entry

Here’s to my first blog entry! A true challenge, since putting things into words is usually a dialogue thing for me. It makes me wonder if I can get used to the individuality of blogging. What’s it like doing monologues all the time? Will I find words for thoughts, if not in the conversation mode I love so much? At the same time blogging feels exhibitionistic. Although the huge number of blogging enthusiasts on the Internet is reassuring. I hope it compares to a sauna - in which being naked feels normal - since everyone is. I’ll get back to you on the monologue versus dialogue part. But first I will tell you - as you’re so kind to read this - what all this is about.

Eager, maybe even excited, I’ve started working on coachcultures.org. The eagerness is content driven. As a personal coach I meet with people from various cultural backgrounds, trying to make the best of them selves in a Dutch working environment. My excitement - I’m sure - goes with the travel plans that enrol as we speak. Half September my girl and me will set off for a year, aiming to visit four continents. A plan which is not about leaving home, but about coming home actually. Enriched we hope. A whole year to take in the things our daily schedules tend not to allow. One of these things will be coachcultures.

Coaching is about being you. Most people recognize an amount of disconnect between their thoughts and feelings on the inside versus how they behave on the outside. We spend loads of time unconfusing our selves and others, since we’re busy not being our selves. Coaches aim to unpeel your layers of cultural influences, social conditioning and family expectations. If we feel free to be our selve, work becomes increasingly pleasant and effective. This is - very, very briefly - what coaching is about.

Working with clients from different cultural backgrounds, I noticed how coaching gets more complicated. I’ve experienced how cultural characteristics can easily be interpreted as personal. In addition these clients ofcourse have more trouble fitting in. Nevertheless they want to be true to themselves, for good reason. Think of all the personal things they have already given up by going abroad. As a coach I am very eager to help them to integrate in a business culture, without having to give up even more. At the same time I’m convinced these people are special. They can add great extra value to a company, as long as they feel free to show these 'valuables' to the company.

Within a coaching process I try to make use of our - both cultural and personal - differences. If we - as coach and coachee - can work out and integrate our differences, my coachee might be able to take things further. This is where things become both complicated and interesting, as I myself am subject to cultural influences as well. This causes all sorts of pitfalls in terms of misinterpretations and bias. If we learn to recognize these pitfalls - and shamelessly make use of them along the way - I am convinced the intercultural coaching process will become way more effective.  

More information on coachcultures - together with some of my thoughts - is available to you on this website. In my blog I like to take you along on my travels, working out ways to promote intercultural coaching. I intend to meet with various people in various cultures, trying to find most interesting questions and - hopefully - some answers. This is actually where you come in as well. As I mentioned I thrive on dialogue. Therefore I very much welcome you to respond to my blog, presenting me - and other readers - with your questions and answers. Feel free to address what is obvious - or less obvious - to you. Learning more about intercultural coaching can hardly be this individual thingy this one Dutch coach works on. Hopefully this blog helps us to touch on many interesting aspects. I am especially interested in the kind of knowledge I can’t learn from books. Although it's tempting to present interesting facts from even more interesting books, Socrates already stated knowledge from books is no real knowing. I’d like to learn from my experience, and yours. So let’s do so, and let’s blog about it!
 
I’ll leave you with my promise to be short and snappy in blogs to come. Since I got the nerves to quote Socrates, let me restrain myself from writing half a book straight away.