Michael Wu is the new EVP for Israel & Singapore Offshore R&D Division in a San Jose based software firm.

Avi is the Head of the Israel  R&D centre. Since Michael’s appointment, Avi has been in constant contact with Michael’s boss, with whom he studied at Stanford. Avi shows low responsiveness to Michael’s emails and when Michael gives marching orders, Avi argues.

Michael hired Naomi, a coach from Billings Oregon. Naomi flew to Israel 3 times, met with Avi and planned an intervention called “Mutual Adaptation in a Changing Environment” ;  Avi showed up for two meetings and then checked out.

Michael then hired a consultant who was brought up an educated in North America, but was also Israeli with a long military career. Michael had a one hour conversation, which was “ten times more expense than the hourly rate paid to Naomi” , yet proved very effective. One month later, Avi was fully aligned with and respected Michael; Mike said “we have come a long way”.

Here is an email Mike sent to the consultant,

Hi A—n,

It has been a month now since we spoke and you guided me how to deal with Avi.

I was very reticent about inviting him to fly in from Israel 17 hours on coach class  to San Jose for a half hour meeting with me. I was even more reticent about telling him that “if you mess with me one more time, you’re fucked; now my friend, let’s close this issue and move on-followed by lunch” during which I give him a major project! But it worked. We are well aligned. And as you mentioned with bluntness, he was neither offended nor intimidated. He no longer thought me to be weak.

Thank you so much.

Michael Wu

Tel Aviv based start up TVS purchased a US based competitor USC in the field of IT marketing services for bloggers. TVS is fast innovative, sloppy, undisciplined and years “ahead of the curve”. Their product line is super sophisticated, yet not fully stable.

USC was solid, stable, close to the customer and moderately innovative. Slowly they were losing market share, but highly profitable when TVS purchased them.

TVS initially fired most USC US-based developers and retained their sales force. The US based sales force was reticent about pushing “half cooked crappy products” into “our sophisticated customer base. “If we sell TVS products as they presently function, we will be sued.” Slowly but surely, TVS replaced the entire US based sales force with ex-pat Israelis, who were more willing to take risks. And take risks they did, losing two thirds of the US based clientele in a year!

In Taiwan and China based clients of USC however, TVS quadrupled their sales, without “ex-pating” one Israeli, The Taiwanese and Chinese offices complained that the Israelis were still a bit risk evasive, albeit less than their former American masters. One Taiwanese salesperson said, “as long as we can maintain customer relationships as we seriously commit to increase product performance, we can help the clients drive innovation with our cutting edge products.”

James Wight is the Head of R&D in a San Francisco based software company.

James has all his remote site managers in town for a three day planning session.

Igor heads the Ukrainian site, Jean-Jacques heads the French site, Haim heads the Israel site and Oya heads the Japanese site.

The US based senior VP of HR, Valery White, asked to address James’s global team. As Val spoke, James took a call to distance himself.

Valery made 5 points.

1. There is a need to use politically correct terminology: chairperson, not chairman; parenthood, not motherhood;  utility, not man-hole; sexual labourer, not ho-ho; not BC but BCC.
2. Managers should not smoke with workers in front of the offices on the sidewalks, to avoid giving a poor leadership example.
3. Terms like Mister, Sir or Boss are not aligned with the egalitarian culture of the company.
4. HR is your business partner. There is now a call center in Tirana Albania at your service.
5. Even within an office, all emails need to be in English only. In the dining hall when a corporate guest is present, only English should be spoken, “in the spirit of one company”.

After 20 minutes, Valery took a short “bio-break”. When she returned, no one but James remained. They were all still out on the sidewalk smoking and James was still on his call.

Mr. Lau from Hubei China and Mr McDougal (from Cincinnati) are about to sign a contract. The contract is for 200 million dollars over the next year, with Mr Lau purchasing equipment from the American McDougal.

Mr. Lau has one request. “I have a son and  I would like him to work in your company. Keep an eye on him;  he can go to US to learn English if you sponsor him”.

Mr. McDougal thinks: I cannot trust this guy. He is totally corrupt.

Mr. Lau thinks: I cannot trust this guy. I give him 200 million dollars business and he does not value our relationship.

The deal falls apart.

There are many tools that enable people to communicate/work together in a virtual environment. Personally I have used Skype, Whats App video, and many other high quality methods of video conferencing. And yes, these tools work, but how well do they work for everyone? How much depth is lost when we use gadgets to communicate?

It has been claimed that it is possible to get to know and trust ones’ colleagues very well, without any  face to face contact. Even the renouned psychiatrist Irvin Yalom now touts the virtue of psychotherapy via texting in his latest book Becoming Myself.

However for me, nothing but nothing replaces face to face contact.

There was an Israeli prime minister (Eshkol) who wisely warned against making “a tragedy into an ideology”. So whilst virtual communication is now the norm, it sure isn’t the “communication venue of choice” that brings out the best of me.

I have been told by people who have met me after years of virtual communication that they are surprised that I am a warm, compassionate person. Until we have met,  I often come across only as brash, bright and/or an aggravating contrarian. And yes, I do have a good sense of humour and write a satirical blog, but I am rather a “serious type” in conversation. And I had another surprise last year when a client with whom I had worked remotely told me that “I am surprised how much I like speaking with you face to face; sometimes I tried to avoid the calls we had scheduled .”

So while global configuration mandates constant virtual communication, I’m not done travelling yet, despite the delays, security checks, loss of baggage and horrendous scheduled  hours of take off and landing.

The Israeli disdain for planning is legendary. It has been suggested that Israelis know how to extract themselves from situations which they could have avoided via basic foresight. Many Israelis would agree, but planning takes a back seat to doing and fixing it later. Lack of planning is not exactly only a ‘lack”; it is a disdain.

The goal of this post is to suggest root causes as to the cultural preference to do without planning. Following is some standard Israeli logic about planning.

1. When speed is strategy, planning is seen as a luxury. And in Israel, speed indeed is strategy.
2. The culture is of risk taking, and punitive measures following failure are relatively rare. So planning is not perceived as a necessity.
3. Planning is something that “they” should do; then we can outsmart them.
4. The environment is not predictable; we can only adapt to changes of the world around us, so planning can encourage rigidity.
5. One needs to do a little bit of planning all the time, The best time to plan is after doing. At that point, some thought can be given to planning. Then, continue doing. Subsequently,  all planning decisions made in planning can be reopened, since all decisions are reversible.
6. If we plan too much we may become too predicable and transparent, we can be fooled.
7. Relying on systematic planning is far less reliable that relying on human ingenuity.
8. Lack of planning can be compensated for by tightly knit team work of high performers and constant and intense communication.

I have worked with countless America, German, Dutch and Canadian managers who have tried to get the Israelis whom they manage to plan more. It is a hard uphill run.

Lee  is the Tel Aviv based manager of Paul (USA), Lars (Denmark) and Shaul (Tel Aviv).

Lee has asked all of her three direct reports to submit a report within 2 weeks detailing all known risks in the next two quarters. These risks are to be discussed at a critical meeting with investors in one month.

Lee is very anxious; on one hand the risks must be transparent, because any big surprise will mean her ass is on the line. On the other hand, too much risk may mean the end of funding. As a result of the pressure she is under, Lee has not been sleeping well, so she decides to call all three almost on a daily basis to see how their risk analysis report is coming along.

Shaul has no problem with Lee’s frequent follow up. It is a sign that she cares. As a result of Lee’s intensive follow up. Shaul and Lee have had some interesting chats which have shed light on risks that are more red herrings than real risks.

Lars resents daily follow up. He feels that Lee may not trust him; Lee’s style projects the constant hounding he feels from his anxiety driven pushy boss. Lars is working very hard on his document and plans to get it to her before schedule, especially if she leaves him alone.

Paul wishes that his former boss James had not been replaced by Lee when James quit. James trusted people, or replaced them. But Paul has worked with Israeli managers before. He knows that they love to dig into the details. He also knows that Lee trusts him. He also recognizes that Lee is stressed out. So when Lee calls Paul to follow up, Paul asks Lee how high her blood pressure is, and then asks her if she wants to fly over to San Francisco ‘and do my work instead of me’. Lee lays off nagging for a while, but wishes that Paul was “not so American”.

Frequent follow up can generate a feeling of mistrust on the part of the employee. But also frequent follow up can indicate caring and generate informal dialogue. Often frequent follow up is a sign that the manager is under a feel of stress.

I am sure that some people are asking themselves, ‘how can frequent follow up indicate caring?’ It goes like this. The boss give you a task, you have many tasks. You may think, does the boss really want this done? Is she/he serious about this?  The boss nags. Now my priorities are clear. I need to do it. And I will use the frequent nagging to my benefit to discuss the issues with her. That will prevent rework of my report.

Got it? 🙂 If not, keep reading my blog. Merci!

Peace keepers have been coming to the Middle East for decades, trying to bridge differences between nations which are assumed not to know one another well enough to cut a deal. The truth is that a deal hasn’t been cut  is because people know one another far too well!

Consultants often make a similar error; the goal of this post is to spell out how best to consult with people who know one another too well.

Let’s take an example. Rob and Tyler have been working together for 16 years, and will work together until they retire.

• Rob believes that Tyler under-promises in order to minimize risk taking. Rob “does not believe a word” that Tyler says.
• Tyler believes that Rob will do anything to “look good” at Tyler’s expense. Tyler feels that Rob would “sell his own mother” to get promoted.

Rob and Tyler have lunch together every day. They discuss sports and their shared hobby, running. Rob and Tyler joke with another quite a bit and appear to be jovial in one another’s presence. The formal meetings between them produce fuzzy decisions which are undone the moment they leave the room.

Recently Tyler and Rob have just had shared a major failure. Due to miscommunication and excessive ambiguity, a very faulty product was delivered to a key customer resulting in the loss of the client. The CEO has asked an OD consultant to work together with Rob and Tyler “to improve things without rocking the boat”.

Clearly, Rob and Tyler have learnt a pattern to cope with one another that it is almost impossible to change without rocking the boat and exposing the shit that lies beneath the surface.

I would suggest 3 DOs and 3 DON’Ts in such situations.

Do

• Focus on very, very specific issues, not on “trust” or “communication”
• Use a written problem statement issued by a shared senior manager
• Act as a “go-between” (not face to face)  focusing on building agreement and zeroing in  on disagreement.

Don’t

• Don’t try to break most of  their entire coping patterns; focus on changing very small things.
• Don’t focus on what happened, rather focus on what should happen in the future.
• Don’t drag things out; rather work quickly before they learn to adapt themselves to you.