Getting the measure of culture: from values to business performance (page 1 of 3)

Some authors and practitioners have responded by seeking to add 'culture' as yet another factor like quality to be taken in to account when planning, marketing and doing business and managing. We have argued consistently that culture is not simply another variable to be 'bolted on', but that it provides the whole contextual environment defining much of the essence of the relationship between an organization and the environment in which it operates. If we agree that culture is a system of shared meaning, then we begin to understand why every organization is a cultural construct.

Many of the conceptual frameworks for explicating culture are based around describing how different cultures give different meanings to relationships with other people, the meaning they give to their interaction with the environment and to time and by other similar cultural dimensions. Trainers and consultants have been keen to ply their own respective models across the practitioner and academic press, conferences and workshops ~ and are still doing so. We often hear that the world of business and management does not need to further the proof that people are different. Many authors, trainers and consultants are still stuck in this anthropological time warp.

Much attention has been given to the recognition and respect for cultural differences. However, if we stop at only these first two stages, we run the risk of supporting only stereotypical views on cultures. In our extensive cross-cultural database, we have found enough variation in any one country to know it is very risky to speak of a national, corporate or even functional culture in terms of simple stereotypes. Our response was to progress from basic cross-cultural awareness training and consulting to developing global minds and beyond.

We claim that our work is unique in that our focus has been to extend research on culture to giving much more attention to the reconciliation of differences after the identification of these differences. We have accumulated a significant body of evidence that wealth through effective business is created by reconciling values. This is true for alliances (including mergers and acquisitions) and in recruitment and for marketing across cultures ~ indeed throughout the complete management spectrum. It is also true in leadership as well as for nations speaking peace unto nations.

Once you are aware of and respect cultural differences the way is open for this next step which is based on this concept of reconciliation. The new question was therefore to ask what we can do with the differences to make business more effective once we cross cultural or diversity boundaries.

Our solution that we have been using since the late '90's was based on this reconciliation of cultural differences. This helped to identify and define behaviors and actions that vary across the world and across companies but which all integrate differences to a higher level ~ much more significantly than compromise solutions. The approach informs managers how to guide the people side of reconciling any kind of values. It has a logic that integrates differences. It is a series of behaviors that enables effective interaction with those of contrasting value systems. It reveals a propensity to share understanding of other's position in the expectation of reciprocity. We found from our research that successful leaders have this propensity to reconcile dilemmas to a higher level and that it is this underlying construct that defines cross-cultural competence.

Why do leaders face such dilemmas and why are they important? All organizations need stability and growth, long term and short term decisions, tradition and innovation, planning and laissez-faire, order and freedom.