Case study: Same language, different meanings

In North America, the tendency is to think that everybody wants to do business the way North Americans do. But this is not so. People in other countries often have very different business practices because of their underlying cultural values and attitudes.

Management in a global environment is increasingly affected by these cultural differences. In every country an unwritten set of rules has evolved which dictate how employees relate to one another, how they view time, how they communicate with one another, and how much risk they can tolerate when making business decisions.

Understanding these cultural differences can be crucial to the success of any manager who goes an international assignment.

Several months ago, I was contacted by a large organization, which had a problem. One of their employees, a woman named Anna, was back from Tokyo for the Christmas holidays. Anna had been with the firm for many years and was chosen for this specific assignment because the firm had every confidence she could effectively oversee the reorganization of the subsidiary. Anna herself was eager to take charge. She had had great success in the Toronto office and was looking forward to doing well in Japan. However, things were not going as planned.

Although she had been working hard in Tokyo for more than three months, she was becoming more and more confused. She had discovered what she considered serious management problems. Even though most department heads spoke English, they were suffering a definite communication gap. Deadlines were ignored and schedules were not followed. Everything seemed to take forever to be completed. Moreover, her requests for information were met with vague promises, “Yes, we’ll do our best,” but no hard data was forthcoming. She tried to find out what was causing the problems by talking to many of the employees on a one-to-one basis, but no one was willing to talk.

Everybody insisted things were fine. Anna felt frustrated with the job and was not looking forward to returning to Japan.

She knew she needed help and the company agreed. So a cross-cultural orientation program was designed to provide Anna with some basic assistance with cross-cultural communication, and coping with culture shock as well as information that explained Japan in the past and at present. However, the main thrust of the program, based on her needs assessment, concentrated on understanding the predominate attitudes and values held by the Japanese. It is these attitudes and values that ultimately determine how people behave in the workplace.

We must never forget two important facts. The first is that societies are constantly changing, which means behaviour changes as well. And the second, people must accommodate individuals who do not necessarily follow the dominant behaviour patterns. With these constraints in mind, we can return to Anna’s dilemma.

Anna was obviously finding it difficult relating to people in the Japanese workplace. She did not understand that Japan is a group-focused society. Employees who are group, rather than self-focused (as in Canada), think of themselves as part of a tightly integrated team. Identity is based on their work and loyalty to the group is first and foremost. They would be extremely uncomfortable saying anything negative about anyone’s performance.

In fact, in the eyes of Japanese workers, their main concern is how their performance impacts the group. While this is important in North America, we tend to stress an individual’s performance over that of the larger group. One-on-one interviews and discussions are not the norm in Japan. In fact, Japanese workers are often uncomfortable in these situations and hesitate to speak up. Moreover, to protect the group, they will seldom say anything negative about the workplace.

This situation is further complicated by the fact that Japan has, what is called, a “high power differential.” That is, the well-defined hierarchy in a Japanese organization reflects the existential inequality between high and low-level employees. Subordinates expect to be told what to do; they do not expect to have input concerning company policies nor do they expect their superiors to be accessible.

Another important issue that Anna did not understand was the employees’ difficulty meeting deadlines. Japanese workers often find decision-making extremely stressful, especially if it relates to an unfamiliar situation. They fear failure and, as a result, may try to avoid uncertainty by collecting mountains of data to support their decision. This takes time on their part, and patience on the part of the Canadian manager.

Also, Japan is what is termed a masculine society. Men and women have very separate roles. In the Japanese workplace, women are still only employed in very low status positions. Having a woman as their manager would not only have made the male employees extremely uncomfortable, but would have eroded her credibility as a decision-maker. Her department heads would also find it extremely difficult interacting with her as an equal.

Anna was also encountering major challenges regarding cross-cultural communication. Although most of the managers spoke English, there were major misunderstandings because of differences in communication style. For example, Japanese people rarely say no. Instead, they will answer in the affirmative, even though they know they can’t meet the request. To say no outright would mean losing face, both for them and for the person who has made the request. Instead, they will say something like, “Yes, we will do our best.”

Anna was in the unenviable position of trying to manage effectively in a Japanese workplace while at the same time meeting the expectations set by the Canadian head office. Once she understood the cross-cultural differences, she said she was rather looking forward to going back to Japan. The cross-cultural training gave her the awareness of the challenges she faced, and the tools and strategies to help her be more effective.

While Anna’s case involved some obvious cultural differences, similar cross-cultural challenges exist no matter where the global manager is sent, be it Germany, Chile, or the United States. Statistics have shown that preparing the individual in advance means fewer early returns from international assignments, higher job performance, greater productivity and faster personal and professional adjustment.

Zelda Fedder is president, Zelda Fedder Communications International, a Toronto-based company specializing in cross-cultural training. She can be reached at (416) 733-4600, or by e-mail at [email protected].

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