I recently delivered a cultural team building training for an international mining company. I was well prepped in advance by Gwenda, the Australian HR Manager, when she said, “Our project team won’t talk to each other!

“In our Singapore office we have a global team mostly from Australia, the USA, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore. I am receiving complaints from all sides. The bottom line is the Australians and Americans feel the Asians don’t speak up, are not assertive, and lack in accountability. And the Asians feel the Westerners are rude, pushy, and do not care about their opinions.”

“It sounds like we are talking about day-to-day work problems and conflicts among team members that are preventing them from reaching their goals and getting the job done,” I responded.

“Exactly! We need to create a unified team so we can get our projects back on track. I need to get the Australians and Americans to dial-it-down, be more patient and listen better. And I need the Asians to have the confidence to speak up, take charge and even understand that it is okay to disagree with the Westerners,” said Gwenda.

Here are 5 tips to help you handle conflict more effectively in Asia:

1. Forming a good relationship with each team member is essential to conducting business in Asia. Your Asian counterparts must genuinely like and feel at ease with you which leads to better management of conflict and rarely letting conflict get out of control.

2. In severe situations, a third party can also relay messages and act as a mediator, to enable negotiations to take place without the injured parties having to look one another in the eye.

3. Using ”We” instead of ”I” is another tactic to encourage harmony, appealing to Asians dedication for the group rather than the individual. The use of ”We” suggests group responsibility rather than the personal disapproval of the manager concerned.

4. Conflicts are handled in privacy. Most Asians do not engage in public confrontation. Settling any disputes in privacy is much valued.

5. Keep your cool at all times. Managing your cool means you are able to control your emotions rather than your emotions controlling you. This is a necessary characteristic of a good manager.

The post Workplace Conflict In Asia: Business IS Personal appeared first on gtpworldsite.

Working successfully with China means understanding several important cultural concepts that govern all business deals and responding adeptly to the Chinese mindset.

There is no point in trying to impose Western or other Asian values and methods. To be successful in China, you must embrace Chinese business culture and learn how to manage within their unique systems.

Everything from meetings to negotiation to business entertaining has protocols which must be observed. Managing a Chinese team may also bring surprises to the Western executive since a Chinese team typically behaves and reacts differently to workplace situations than other cultures.

Here are some tips to improve your negotiation skills when doing business in China:

1. Spend time developing ‘guanxi’ – influential personal contacts and relationships involving mutual cooperation and support. Guanxi can make or break a deal in China.

2. Remember that saving face – ‘mianzi’ – is critical to the Chinese. Mianzi is the social perception of a person’s prestige. Causing someone to lose face will result in a loss of trust in the relationship and therefore the business deal.

3. Use a soft sell approach, but expect very hard bargaining from the Chinese.

4. Expect negotiations to be carried out in large groups, rarely one-on-one. Representatives of equal rank in each group will typically do the talking.

5. Respect the business hierarchy at all times. Decisions are made from the top, and you may find information-sharing is limited.

6. Expect negotiations to continue even after an agreement has been signed. Be as adaptable as you can be.

The post Negotiating In China: 6 Cultural Tips For Success appeared first on gtpworldsite.

The style of communication in the United States tends to be very explicit. Value is placed on being clear, direct, and ‘to the point’ regarding verbal and written communication. It is not necessary to always follow certain protocols. The ideas of an individual are valued, regardless of whether that individual has seniority in the group.

Because Americans are so time-conscious, their communication style may seem abrupt at first, getting down to business after minimal small talk, or visibly demonstrating impatience if you have gone on too long. Do not be intimidated by this, but do prepare for it.

People are judged on results and efforts are taken to avoid delays. The well-known phrase, ‘time is money’, sums up the American work ethic, and great efforts are taken to save time (and therefore money).

Here are some key cultural business tips to help you work effectively with the Americans:

1. Demonstrate a can-do, problem-solving attitude and a willingness to innovate and take calculated risks.
2. Be explicit and straightforward in your communication style, while avoiding direct criticism or open conflict.
3. Focus on being decisive and getting things done quickly. Take the approach that time is money, and a missed opportunity is wasteful.
4. Take individual accountability for results; while teamwork has increased in importance, the individual is still the primary focus.
5. Expect to encounter an informal business culture with a relatively flat organizational structure. Most people in an American workplace will be on first-name terms.
6. Make a good impression through a simple, but factual and persuasive, presentation. Selling is important, although delivering results is what ultimately matters.
7. Be punctual to meetings, stick to the agenda, and expect the outcome to be action items that can be implemented quickly.
8. Try to get to the main point in a discussion quickly; don’t feel you need to provide all the contextual background at once. Questions are likely once the main point has been identified.

The post Working With Americans: 8 Tips For Successful Communication appeared first on gtpworldsite.

During an executive coaching session, David, a VP at a British multinational pharmaceutical company with regional headquarters based in Singapore told me about his experiences.

David said, “My boss who visited Singapore on business but never lived there said to me, ‘Don’t worry about managing cultural business differences when you relocate to Singapore. The workplace is very Western.’ Asia -light. Asia-easy. Asia-for-beginners. These are the things you hear from everyone, including Singaporeans during your first few weeks of your new posting,”

“That’s true if it’s about managing your daily living requirements in Singapore. But what about managing your business effectively in Singapore? Do you feel those descriptions also apply?”I asked.

“I had a few surprises after settling into my new role in Singapore. After a couple weeks of meeting all my new subordinates I was surprised that a good 40% of the employees at our Singapore regional office are not Singaporeans. Not only was I managing Singaporeans, but also executives from China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. And suddenly managing cultural differences at work in Singapore is not so simple, light and easy. I also discovered that Singaporeans behave much more Asian than Western. It turns out to be the most complex and multicultural team I’ve managed so far in my work history,” David replied.

Here are key tips to help you manage more effectively when working with Singaporeans:

1. The cultural differences and motivations between the different ethnic groups in Singapore and also other foreign workers needs to be clearly understood in order to manage teams effectively. Almost 40% of the workforce in Singapore is not Singaporean.

2. Excellent team work – rather than ‘standing-out’ from the team is an important part of being a good colleague in Singapore. If you are a manager, your team must like and trust you personally for successful business to be done. Liking you personally is more important to your colleagues than the company or country you represent.
3. When negotiating, a surface politeness is necessary with Singaporeans but understand that Singaporeans are very bottom line focused. Being ‘polite and nice’ on the surface does not affect the determination of Singaporean business people to reach their objectives and decisions. They are keen negotiators especially in the government sector.

4. Singaporeans have a strong sense of competition sometimes called ‘Kiasu’, literally meaning ‘afraid to lose’… a desire to be first. Asian business culture generally requires a win-lose outcome. Expect to have to make concessions. When your relationship is fully established, a win-win approach is more likely.

5. Singaporeans are usually more prompt and responsive than when dealing with some other Asian countries. However, it’s easy to be prompt when the answer is always ‘yes’, and the main business language is English. When the answer is ‘no’, the response is not necessarily speedy, clear or simple in Singapore.

6. Mediocre employee productivity can at times be common in Singapore and a challenging workplace issue. Manage your expectations regarding efficiency. It’s not that people don’t move quickly or work hard, it’s just that the pace is not always consistent.

The post Managing In Singapore: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? appeared first on gtpworldsite.

When doing business across cultures, you may believe you are communicating clearly, but you are probably headed for big trouble. Most executives claim they try to adjust their English language in a foreign business situation. The facts show that there are still problems. After one recent global management meeting, we asked a senior Thai executive how much he got from the discussion. He said, ‘Not more than 50 percent’.”

How our message is interpreted and understood also depends greatly on the cultural context in which it is received and the method we use to convey our communication, be it email, face-to-face or teleconference (or the like).

Cultures vary greatly in their communication methods. Generally speaking, they are either high-context or low-context communicators. In a more high-context culture like Singapore – and most of Asia – the message is typically indirect and it is your job to figure out what they are trying to tell you.

A large part of the meaning of an Asian’s communication can be coded in their non-verbal cues, eye contact, silence, etc, and they leave it up to you to read-between-the-lines.

In many Western cultures, where direct communication is valued and rewarded, ‘you say what you mean and mean what you say’. But this often comes across as confrontational, blunt and even crude to many Asians.

Here are 10 tips to help you communicate more effectively across cultures in the workplace:

• Avoid using slang.
• Ask questions when you do not understand. Clarify.
• Use short sentences. (KISS – Keep It Short and Simple)
• Provide periodic summaries of the discussion so far.
• Use signposting to make it clear when you are changing topics.
• Do not rush – allow time for absorption and reflection.
• Pay attention to what is said rather than to accent or style.
• Take the time to check whether you are actually understood.
• Ask open-ended questions that allow a shared context to be developed.
• Give consideration to what is not said.

By following these tips you can avoid the key communication challenges that impede you and your multicultural team from reaching your goals.

The post Say Whaaat?: Communicating Effectively Across Cultures appeared first on gtpworldsite.

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