6 opinion
Creating successful working relationships across cultures
Creating productive working relationships across culture requires trust and this can only be built with sensitivity and understanding over time. Joyce Jenkins reports.
principles, they are also functioning in cultures which are very different from each other. Two teams from different cultures will work
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with a particular set of rules, norms and expectations. People often assume that others act under same set of rules as they do. However, when this is not the case, expectations are not met and conflict and disaster can result. Two teams of international engineers worked on NASA’s $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter launched in 1998. For the navigational software, each team was using an incompatible measuring system – metric and imperial. Each team assumed its methods were correct and the leadership did not notice or check. As a result, the Orbiter approached Mars at a much lower altitude than expected, plunged into the planet’s thin atmosphere and incinerated within minutes.
Fortunately most international engineering projects do not end so disastrously! It is amazing though, how often apparently simple misunderstandings can lead to huge and costly delays.
Working within the
countries of the Asia- Pacific, even where there is a shared cultural heritage, such as between ethnic Chinese from say, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China, resulting in many shared values and beliefs,
lthough engineering counterparts from, say, India, Asia and Japan are familiar with the same scientific disciplines and
there can still be big differences in approaches to time and to rules for example. Cultures also vary in the degree to which
they apply these rules ‘universally’. To some, ‘a rule is a rule,’ no matter who or what is involved. For others, rules are applied more ‘particularly,’ depending on who is involved, what their relationship is with you and what the circumstances are. Most of the countries in the Asia-Pacific
“Working within the countries of the Asia-Pacific, even where there is a shared cultural heritage, such as
region are highly relationship driven. However, some, including Singapore and Japan, partly because of very strict enforcement of regulations, are also very rule orientated. This can sometimes result in tension, particularly if a Japanese team is dealing with cultures from Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand, where relationships, family and social obligations carry more weight at times, than the rules.
Challenges
between ethnic Chinese from say, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China, resulting in many shared values and beliefs, there can still be big differences in approaches to time and to rules for example.”
Joyce Jenkins, Consultant,
Farnham Castle international Briefing & Conference Centre
Different organisations employ different approaches to tackle this challenge. Some have very strong,
clear legislation regarding issues like nepotism, and ‘bribery’ with strict upper limits on values of gifts that can be given/ received. Others combine this
with an active attempt to build relationships so that managers and team members become part of the network, so that their employees’ sense of obligation to managers and colleagues is as
strong (or stronger) than to family and friends. That, of course, will take time and also often
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