Читать книгу HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Across Cultures (with featured article "Cultural Intelligence" by P. Christopher Earley and Elaine Mosakowski) - Harvard Business Review - Страница 19

The individual reevaluates her newly developed skills and how effective they have been in the new setting, perhaps after collecting 360-degree feedback from colleagues individually or eavesdropping on a casual focus group that was formed to discuss her progress. She may decide to undergo further training in specific areas.

Confidence Training

HELMUT WAS A MANAGER at a Berlin-based high-tech company who participated in our cultural-intelligence training program at London Business School. Three months earlier, he had been assigned to a large manufacturing facility in southern Germany to supervise the completion of a new plant and guide the local staff through the launch. Helmut came from northern Germany and had never worked in southern Germany; his direct reports had been raised in southern Germany and had worked for the local business unit for an average of seven years.

Helmut was good at developing new learning strategies, and he wasn’t bad at adapting his behavior to his surroundings. But he had low confidence in his ability to cope with his new colleagues. To him, southern Germans were essentially foreigners; he found them “loud, brash, and cliquish.”

To capitalize on his resourcefulness and build his confidence, we placed Helmut in heterogeneous groups of people, whom we encouraged to engage in freewheeling discussions. We also encouraged him to express his emotions more openly, in the manner of his southern compatriots, and to make more direct eye contact in the course of role-playing exercises.

Helmut’s resourcefulness might have impelled him to take on more ambitious tasks than he could quite handle. It was important he get his footing first, so that some subsequent reversal would not paralyze him. To enhance his motivational CQ, we asked him to list ten activities he thought would be part of his daily or weekly routine when he returned to Munich.

By the time Helmut returned to London for his second training session, he had proved to himself he could manage simple encounters like getting a coffee, shopping, and having a drink with colleagues. So we suggested he might be ready for more challenging tasks, such as providing face-to-face personnel appraisals. Even though Helmut was skilled at analyzing people’s behavior, he doubted he was equal to this next set of hurdles. We encouraged him to view his analytic skills as giving him an important advantage. For example, Helmut had noticed that Bavarians were extroverted only with people familiar to them. With strangers they could be as formal as any Prussian. Realizing this allowed him to respond flexibly to either situation instead of being put off balance.

By the time he was asked to lead a quality-improvement team, he had concluded that his leadership style must unfold in two stages—commanding at the outset, then more personal and inclusive. On his third visit to London, Helmut reported good relations with the quality improvement team, and the members corroborated his assessment.

In the sidebar “Confidence Training,” we describe how we applied these six steps to the case of Helmut, one of five German managers we helped at their employer’s behest as they coped with new assignments within and outside of Germany.

Why can some people act appropriately and effectively in new cultures or among people with unfamiliar backgrounds while others flounder? Our anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests that the answer doesn’t lie in tacit knowledge or in emotional or social intelligence. But a person with high CQ, whether cultivated or innate, can understand and master such situations, persevere, and do the right thing when needed.

Originally published in October 2004. Reprint R0410J