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We’ve been asked by many of our customers for periodic, no-nonsense emails with just-in-time information for managers and knowledge workers on how organizations work. This is our 5th edition and we hope you enjoy it.

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What We're Reading

Culture and Organizations: Software of the Mind by Geert Hofstede and Gert Jan Hofstede. McGraw-Hill, 2005

There is an increasing need for what is termed cultural competency or the ability to understand how culture affects thinking and behavior. Because of virtual teams and the cultural diversity of most workplaces, it’s important to understand how these differences affect the workplace. This book is a good place to start.

Geert Hofstede is a now retired professor who ‘wrote the book’ on this subject (Culture’s Consequences, Sage, 1980) over 25 years ago. You’ve probably heard some of the terms from this subject such as Power Distance, Time Orientation, and Masculinity-Femininity. This book explains all of these concepts and provides helpful tables illustrating how the differences play out at work, in society and in the State (as in government). They also show charts of where different countries appear within these dimensions. The notion of culture is that it is national; meaning a nation is measured as if it has one culture. We know that within any nation there are differences but it’s useful to understand how these overriding national trends affect individuals and the workplace.

Cultural Competency

One category of cultural difference is identity. The continuum of identity is from Individualistic to Collectivistic. Do you believe you generally act for your own self-interests or the interests shared by a group you identify with? The U.S. is a highly individualistic nation which means people tend to believe their self interests are more important than the group’s interests. English is the only language that capitalizes the “I” which illustrates how language and culture also tend to be related.

Many Asian countries fall on the opposite side of this continuum or the Collectivistic. Collectivistic societies place their group identity (i.e., family, tribe, employer) over their own individual identity. If you were to criticize an individual from a collectivistic society, the group he or she belongs to views this as a criticism of the entire group. Decisions in collectivistic societies are made mainly by consensus. A collectivistic society places a high value on creating harmony so conflict is avoided. Contrast that to the individualistic societies where individuals will make their own decisions regardless of the group and where arguing for your own point of view is seen as a way to share knowledge. You can see where these deeply held and sometimes implicit beliefs can cause confusion at work. For example, a team member from a Collectivistic nation would not share his own idea because it would be seen as bragging. Because direct conflict is avoided if you don’t agree with someone, you stay quiet.

The benefit of cultural competency is to understand how these values affect the workplace and how to make ‘room’ for all as opposed to expecting conformity to the majority cultural values. For example, meetings in a collectivistic nation are rituals. They are designed to reinforce the group’s identity. An individualistic nation can accommodate this by allowing time in the meeting for socializing or connecting. However, many individualistic nations value the task over relationships and think spending time socializing is a waste of time. An individualistic group can become more accepting of this ritual if they understand why it is important to the collectivistic members of the team.

Cultural competency is a necessary skill for all knowledge workers and leaders. You can ‘start small’ to gaining this competency by reading this book and by becoming aware of your own cultural values. We offer a TeleClass on making 3 cultural competencies explicit (Identity, Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance). The next public class is April 13th. This is also a good one to schedule for your team as a private class to start the conversation about cultural differences within your team.

We'll soon offer a new class to help you learn how to work with the culture of India, now a large base for off-shored work.

New TeleClasses

Enroll Now

In March we offer a new TeleClass about generational differences. There are now 4 generations represented in the workplace, and each has their own characteristics and defining experience and values.

Communication Across the Ages: Generations at Work is scheduled for March 20th, 11 am EDT.

Thanks for your interest and support.

Sue Annis Hammond
email: news@thinbook.com
phone: 888.316.9544
web: http://www.thinbook.com