25 June 2008
Understand cultural differences for clearer communication
"Noticing makes a difference, noticing is important," says SHRM speaker.
At the Society for Human Resource Management Annual Conference in Chicago this week, the following question was posed:
True or false? “Most Germans are somewhat indifferent if a colleague arrives late for an appointment.” Unsurprisingly, the statement’s false. But how about another: “When a Japanese person says, ‘Yes, yes,’ most often he is confirming his agreement.” Again, false.
These were the types of cultural hurdles Heather Keller of Successfully Communicating (see Figure 1, below) explored in her session Examining cultural differences: Intercultural skills for global leaders.
Figure 1. Keller takes suggestions from delegates at SHRM
Do you suffer from polychronic syndrome?
When discussing the differences in monochronic/polychronic cultures (see sidebox, below), Keller mentioned that many job advertisements for roles in traditionally polychronic cultures even say "Must be able to uni-task" (as opposed to multi-task). To UK and North American working cultures this could seem a ludicrous request of a
potential employee.
Asking the audience to work in groups to generate definitions of "culture", the suggestions included the following. Culture is:
- "Shared by almost all members of some social group."
- "Something that shapes behavior."
- "A set of assumptions you live by concerning values, norms and beliefs."
- "The way we do things here."
- "Shared beliefs, behaviors, attitudes and values."
More importantly, the point was made that these beliefs and attitudes that form a company culture do not change over time.
Cultural values rankings
Using an extract from a video exercise, Keller highlighted one issue that could have arisen for some companies who, for example, outsource their call centers to India. In Indian cultures, employees will often agree to being able to complete a task when asked, without actually being able to deliver on the request to the suggested schedule. Is this issue widely known to North American and UK companies?
Culture is: The way we do things here.
One other point of interest, when posed the question "Do you control your destiny or does fate control your destiny?" many citizens from Arab countries, along with Portugal and India, tend to accept life as it is and wouldn't necessarily blame business failures on any internal problem.
The opposite is the case for those in Austria, Brazil and Thailand, however. This latter group are more likely to attribute business failures to an internal loss of control, rather than claim fate was playing its part.
Time to get serious
"When you get serious about performance you have to get serious about recognition," said Bob Nelson, (pictured, below left) president of Nelson Motivation and forthcoming keynote speaker at Melcrum's SCM Summit in Chicago in September.
He reasons this is because "organizational, cultural and financial benefits are realized through positive employee recognition and effectively engaging your entire workforce."
Quoting recent research from World at Work, Nelson stated "Right now, 42% of organizations have peer-based recognition programs."
However, "81% do no training on recognition skills with managers," he continued.
Notice your employees' efforts
To emphasize how important recognition is to boosting employee engagement, Nelson mentioned examples including fast-food chain, KFC, where employees who could play musical instruments were asked to bring them in to serenade employees who'd put in special effort.
Another organization he cited had organized a pillow fight for employees as a reward for their good work. "Noticing makes a difference, noticing is important," he said.
Bank of America's skyrocketing engagement results
During the same presentation, Kevin Cronin, senior vice president, recognition and reward executive at Bank of America explained how the company conducted extensive surveys to ask what motivates its employees. Acting on feedback from the survey results, the "Bank of America Spirit Card" was launched.
In 2007, 821,099 online employee-recognition cards were received around Bank of America.
The card can be awarded by any employee, at any time, online or in hard copy, to show peer-to-peer recognition fo a job well done. In 2007, 821,099 online cards were received around the company.
Bank of America's recognition efforts have helped cut employee turnover by half, over a 5-year period, and employee satisfaction has risen from 58% to 85% during that time, according to Nelson.
Try a mood-rating system
In the Understanding your company’s culture: Tools to make HR practices strategic session, Sheila L. Margolis (pictured, right), president of the Workplace Culture Institute explained how some describe a company’s “culture” definition as an “internal brand”.
Highlighting existing companies who’ve done an impressive job of creating unique, inspiring workplaces, Margolis mentioned how one restaurant at the Inn at Little Washington operates using a “mood-rating” system, whereby each table of customers is given a rating on a scale of 1-10 for mood.
If the table's collective mood is judged by the employees to be too low, they get special attention to help boost their score. Noone is “allowed” to leave the restaurant without a high score of 9 or 10. Could you apply this level of service within your organization, or to show effective your communication understanding has been across the company, or to show effective your communication understanding has been across the company?
Thinking like Spielberg
At animation studio Pixar, Margolis reports that all employees, as part of its training process, complete filmmaking training. “This is to encourage all employees to think like a filmmaker,” she says.
Margolis also mentioned the progressive recruitment practices at US supermarket, Whole Foods Market. Because of the emphasis placed on teamwork at the organization, job candidates are required as part of the assessment process to spend time having work experience working with the group they could potentially join as an employee.
Instead of managers and HR deciding on whether to employ the candidate, the decision is given to the team itself.
At the end of the probation period, instead of managers and HR deciding on whether to employ the candidate, the decision is given to the team itself. The idea being that the team members have been able to gauge how well the new person would work and fit within the team and company culture.
Aligning HR with communication
The Hub spoke with Margolis after her presentation and asked her how HR could work with internal and external communicators to align its processes with company goals and culture.
“First, HR can lead the process for defining the organization’s core culture – its vital purpose, distinctive philosophy and strategic priorities. Then, HR can encourage leaders throughout the organization to talk about the core culture principles so a consistent message is shared,” Margolis said.
“Meetings, written messages and the intranet should reflect the core culture principles. And leaders and managers should reinforce the values by living them each day.”
Aligning with external messages
"Marketing and PR should also reflect images to the public that are aligned with the core culture," Margolis said. "The image that's communicated externally should be aligned with the customer experience."
She continued, "Communication promotes knowledge and understanding in an organization which can enhance employee satisfaction – a basis for employee engagement. Sharing the message of what distinctively defines the organization and what will enable it to thrive is essential for a unified perspective."
Sharing the message of what distinctively defines the organization and what will enable it to thrive is essential for a unified perspective.
Characteristics of good leaders
Earlier on in the day, Ed Robinson, president of Robinson Performance Group, said “People’s capacity to achieve is determined by the leader’s willingness and ability to empower,” during his presentation Empowered Leadership: 4 Giant Steps to Developing Leadership in your organization.
As well as wooing the crowd with a collection of energetic group exercises (see Figure 2, below) Robinson defined the 4 key characteristics of good leaders as:
- Visualization.
- Communicators.
- Empowerment
- Role model/commitment.
Figure 2. Ed Robinson's session sends the crowd into giggles
Have your say
Are you responsible for HR communications, or does your job involve mainly corporate communications? How do you align your messages with different functions and HR policies? Have you experienced or overcome difficulties in getting all teams to agree on one approach?
Do you agree with the cultural stereotypes highlighted above? What tips can you suggest for communicating across multi-cultural teams?
And how about Nelson's mention of the lack of training on recognition skills with managers – is this training likely to be a high priority at your organization?
Discuss these issues with other comms practitioners by joining the Internal Comms Hub members' group on the Communicators' Network.
Other recommendations:
Podcast interview: Angela Sinickas discusses peer-to-peer learning
Global networking site for communicators announced
50 Best Companies to Work for in America revealed
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