Many cultures show huge outward respect and give face to authority, making it very challenging  to gather data about what the boss is doing wrong in their opinion.

Here are some techniques for gathering  information in such circumstances.

1) Give two conflicting opinions and ask if you are right/wrong. Do this several times.

“Mr Timor has a good understanding of the product.(wait)”

“Mr Timor could understand the product better. (wait)

2) Diagnose the past via the future. The future has not happened yet, so face is not an issue.

“Next quarter, Mr Timor is going to be away for 2 months; it will be hard to sell to X because he has such important relationship with the customer”. (wait)

“Next quarter, Mr Timor is going to be away for 2 months; this may help us sell to X because someone who the customer prefers (Mr K) will handle the account ”. (wait)

3) Use people who have left the company.

• 1) Give me names of people who left the company.
• 2) Which of them is like you?
• 3) What did he think of Mr Timor?

4)  Use a positive future event to gather data.

“Mr Timor’s boss may want to promote him”.

• He should get an even bigger Sales role. Right?
• He should move him into back office so he can give his knowledge to Finance, right?

In many industries, a key component of strategy is speed.
When speed is strategy, quality and cost are secondary considerations; getting to the market fast takes priority. This is illustrated humorous in Gloria Ramsbottom’s Immature Product Division; their next release is sold and installed before it is developed!
When speed is strategy, communication needs to be open, transparent and expedient between people of different nationalities. There is limited time for face saving if needed, scarce time to build relationships between people with very different values.
What type of organizations can move quickly? Well, it appear that “size” counts (start-ups), the tolerance for risk counts (risk aversive cultures move slowly), and homogeneity of the culture assists greatly because there are less communication obstacles.
Yet, often large very diverse and heterogeneous global organizations need to move quickly.
In such cases, the challenge for the global OD practitioner is enormous, since speed as a major component of strategy is enabled by of the behaviours promulgated by western OD: risk taking in a safe environment, decision making on-the-fly as per situational need, trade-off between process and teamwork, surfacing bad news without loss of face, empowerment of the individual to take initiatives.
In further posts, we will examine how a global OD practitioner can deal with a diverse and large work force, when speed is strategy, without becoming a cultural imperialist.

When Mike took over the Israeli, Indian and Thai development teams, he had a kickoff meeting at the Baiyoke Sky Hotel in Pathumwan.

Manager Mike from LA gave a talk about the product road map which lasted for 90 minutes. He used baseball terminology only 3 times! Then he asked: any questions, guys?

6 Israelis bombarded him with 14 questions which challenged each and every assumption upon which he has based his presentation. Mike said, “This is not the place to argue”. He then texted Allon to meet him in the lobby for lunch.

No one from the Thai group asked anything, albeit the very high level of the Bangkok algorithm team. Mike said, “Come on guys, you must have SOMETHING to ask; don’t just sit there and smile.”! Then there was a crushing silence.

2 Indians asked questions. HK asked how many developers can he now recruit and PT asked what the company was going to do to brand itself in the Delhi labour market. Mike was livid: “Hey guys, this is not a bargaining session”.

Mike had heard pushback from the Israelis, passiveness from the Thais, and “it’s all about us” from the Indians.

Allon explained to Mike:

· When Israelis argue, they show commitment. When you refused to argue with them they see you as too expedient.

· Thais are often silent when others are dominant, and thus having Thais and Israelis in the same meetings demands a different type of meeting structure. You failed to do what you needed most to do: protect them from being overwhelmed. And “any questions” does not work in Thailand because many Thais read and write English well but know that the accent is “punishing”.

· The Indians were making you aware that their job market and your requests are not yet aligned-but they were bargaining with you instead of challenging you.

Allon reminded Mike that he has asked to prepare for the meeting and Mike had said, “I do not need adult supervision”.

Mike said: “I struck out”.

Meetings in very diverse global organizations are often very poorly executed. Often they do more harm than good. The configuration of the meeting needs to be aligned culturally.

For example: After Mike’s lecture, each country sits in a small group and prepares two questions for Mike in English. These questions are filtered by Mike and Allon. Two tells the Israelis-2 not 200; 2 tells the Thais, 2 not 0. And the filtering allows re-framing the questions from the Indian team, i.e, 2 questions and not one bargaining session.

Takahashi invited me for supper after the lecture on “Interfaces between R&D and Customer Service: A Cultural Perspective”.

He and I had dined several times before; the ice between us was thawed.

Takahashi had spent 2 years in the States as a young boy, so his English sounded good yet I knew he was traditional.

After an hour, Takahashi had not said a word about my lecture and I was concerned. Naturally, I wanted to ask “how was it” but I knew Takahashi was a face saver and he will give me negative feedback in a year from now, if not in two years. Israelis are in a hurry; not Japanese.

So, here is what I did.

1) “Takahasi-san, the subject today was very complex and I am not sure my lecture was clear enough.” Then I waited.

2) “Takahasi-san, my power point slides appeared a bit crowded. I am always worried how much detail to provide in Japan.” Then I waited.

3) Takahashi –san, I need to give this lecture in Taipei in a week, what can I change?

Takahasi looked at me and asked me, “How good is their English, Shevat-san?” I knew I was in close to the issue, and I answered, “Like Japan”.

Takahashi then said: “Your lecture was excellent Shevat-san because although you are from OD, you understand technical domain. You also understand Japan. You also have lots of global experience. I suggest you “talk slower so people can understand you. Thank you”

What  can be learnt from this?

1) Some clients save your face-be aware. And too much face means-look for what’s wrong.

2) Make deprecating statements and wait for a response.

3) Look for hints, body language, eye contact and the unsaid.

Hank is a client of mine from Holland. I know him from McGill University. We met in a Chinese history class in the sixties. He tracked me down because he knows I do global OD.

Hank leads a global Sales Forces in China for a Dutch company. Two of his key and most talented, well connected subordinates (A from Sales of Next Generation Products and B from Account Management) do not cooperate. No information is shared. No leads are shared. Both A and B bad mouth one another to the clients. Sales have plummeted.

Hank summed up what he w\anted. “Dez guys behavior vill kill us. Fix it qvickly”

So, I was asked to improve the way the subordinate work together. The subordinates (Mr. A and Mr. B) speak some English. My Chinese is poor (I would say horrendous). Yet we manage to communicate, at times using a translator.

I have spent about 50 hours each with A and B to build a personal credit line. We have had lots of informal time together. They know about my kids and grand-kids . I know about their family. We are not friends. Yet they trust me. I have helped them with issues they have with Hank (I have arranged business class tickets for their wives for non-business related travel and helped them hire people that Hank did not want to hire.)

Hank has told me that “we have no more time for process; these two bums must cooperate now”.

Here is the conversation I had with A and B. It reflects a different way of doing OD. Some may claim it is not OD. It is- but not Western OD.

1) I (Allon) have a problem.

2) Hank hired me to improve the way we work.

3) There are rumors that there is no information sharing.

4) There are badmouthing rumors. Maybe some clients are playing games.

5) I need help because I am failing.

6) Can you help me?

Within a week, Hank sent me a bottle of wine. A and B were working well together.

Some folks may ask: why did Hank not do the work himself? I suggest that if you asking this question, start brushing up on the intricacies of developing a global mindset

The traditional OD consultant facilitates open dialogue between organizational factions to reach cooperation, achieve transparency, and ensure that mutual dependencies are acknowledged and fulfilled.

The Global OD consultant lessens dysfunctional friction between different organizational factions by translating intent to all sides, using discrete or open communication channels as appropriate.
To ensure that mutual dependencies are acknowledged and fulfilled, the Global OD consultant emphasizes appropriate staffing, appropriate structure, and establishment of personal relationships, which try to transcend huge cultural gaps.

In the Western world, the assumption is that “organizational systems probably work”.
Once one has a structure, roles and responsibilities, competent people, good team work on well-defined interfaces, governance, processes ensuring work flow and management which inspires and leads- off we go to do business. (The currency is also probably stable, judges are not on the take (perhaps even empowers)
In many parts of the world however, there are several ways to get an organization to work. The importance of the formal visible manifestations of what makes an organization work varies vastly.
In small countries like Singapore and Israel, everyone knows everyone, and so “relationships” get things done better than formal systems do. For example, if I know my bank manager, he will open the branch for me even if I come late.
In countries where folks do not respect authority (Australia, Israel), recourse to “the org chart” may backfire.
In massive China where formal systems work very partially, things get done in organizations via relationships almost exclusively. People seek “safely” in folks with whom they have a friendly relationship and lots of trust. The Chinese sometimes use the term “lo pan yao”, i.e. people/friends who they know from their home town. An understanding of the lo pan yao relationships map is critical to understanding how things get done in organizations in the Middle Kingdom.
I remember I was with a client in Bangkok and a cop stopped her for jumping a yellow light. She gave the cop a hundred baht (3 USD). She explained to me that the government cannot afford to pay cops well and this informal system “adjusts” the imbalance without strikes and inflating the budget. (She called it “so called corruption”)
It is safe to say that many Westerners do business and then develop relationships, although there are many exceptions.
Many people in the East first develop relationships, and then do business. There are exceptions to this, but not too many. Often, favors are exchanged. Purchasing favors can occurs as well. (Of course this happens in the West as well, but it is much more subtle, and the West has double standards for the rich and poor.)
For global OD the above has ramifications.
To understand what is going on in many organizations and subsidiaries in the world, one must master the map of relationships, who knows whom, and have a deep understanding of what enables things to get done.
Having a team building session, a strategic offsite, changing roles, responsibilities, and issuing a revised mission statement has no impact if another system is at play.
Interventions in the Western world need to address the formal and informal structure. Interventions in other parts of the world need to address whatever system is being used, and it may well not be the formal system. A massive amount of work needs to be develop OD interventions for this context.
When doing global interventions, it is very important to have a very clear diagnosis, plan what can be done openly, and plan what needs to be done discretely.

A new purchasing process is being rolled out by Helmut from company HQ.

Helmut from Germany believes that if everyone will follow the process with discipline and rigor, the new purchasing process will work;  folks in all departments will learn to trust one another, due to the high level of responsiveness that the change in purchasing process will achieve. He is encountering resistance in Israel and China.

Moshe from Israel says that once he trusts the agenda of those in corporate implementing the new purchasing process, he and the team may  follow the process. Until then, they will work around the process to ensure plenty of escalations- to shake apart the rigid process. They will make Helmut crumble under the number of exceptions, generated by the Israeli proclivity of doing things at the last minute.

Bai from Shanghai does not plan to use the purchasing process. The level of transparency will enable people in corporate to “stick their nose into my territory”. He does not plan to allow the system to be implemented. Bai will, however, express his commitment to “roll out the system, adapting it to the reality of the Chinese market over an eight year period.

These are not minor differences and Helmut feels he is failing- and thus Helmut has requested an OD intervention.

The consultant’s choice of a path of intervention is complex. I would imagine that a Western traditional OD intervention would have the ideological preference of making this into a “group grope, by examining the resistance to the change by putting all the folks in the room to create alignment and build commitment to make it work. This may not be effective, and this is an understatement.

.A global OD consultant would probably work with HQ and ensure alignment of policy, structure, culture, and staffing. If the new purchasing process is to be deployed in China, the staffing for the initial few years should be a German-Chinese expat with vast China experience. Moshe  needs to be replaced by another manager with more global experience who has learned that one cannot argue with everything. Since Helmut is working with Chinese and Israelis, the tools of implementation need to be aligned.Helmut needs to ensure that he is equipped with sufficient sanctions, and not a bag full of processes and the assumption that folks do what they are told.

Perhaps the Global OD consultant will try and change the purchasing process itself, if it creates more damage than good.

Because global OD assumes that group discussions, team work and better communication do not solve everything, Global OD often focuses on the decisions/policies themselves, appropriate  staffing, and different roll out strategies for different geographies.

This will be a controversial posting.

Improving communication is a cornerstone of Western OD. Interventions target improving communications; OD believes that good communication can compensate for structural flaws, and process without good communication can’t make things happen.

OD also thrives for more authentic communication.

All the above is true in certain contexts.

However in many cultures, talking and communicating makes problems get worse.

Amaya from Osaka taught me that once she gets angry at a colleague and expresses the anger, the relationship will break down.

Miyazaki from Tokyo  taught me what he says when he is silent.

Kalpana from Bangalore taught me that inferring things with a superior is better than saying them. I learnt that communicating “openly” means people will not hear you.

Daw from Bangkok taught me what klenjai is: klenjaiing is “always make the other person feel comfortable, at all costs”, klenjai is the ultimate way of communicating, avoiding unpleasantness AT ALL COST.

What does this mean when Moshe, and Pierre and Hans and Daw and Kalpana and Amaya and Miyazaki work together?

Does it mean that OD shoves western values down everyone’s throat?

What it should mean is that an OD consultant working in a global environment needs to understand when it is preferable to mediate and serve as a go between, instead of forcing people to talk. It means that group dynamics and having people “talk things out” is severely culturally biased and certainly not the default choice in a global environment,

And it means that the OD consultant must be able to get things to work, by augmenting or avoiding communication, without our present western biases.