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 7

Can it really be that some managers are socially intelligent in their own settings but ineffective in culturally novel ones? The experience of Peter, a sales manager at a California medical devices group acquired by Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals, is not unusual. At the devices company, the atmosphere had been mercenary and competitive; the best-performing employees could make as much in performance bonuses as in salary. Senior managers hounded unproductive salespeople to perform better.

At Lilly’s Indianapolis headquarters, to which Peter was transferred, the sales staff received bonuses that accounted for only a small percentage of total compensation. Furthermore, criticism was restrained and confrontation kept to a minimum. To motivate people, Lilly management encouraged them. Peter commented, “Back in L.A., I knew how to handle myself and how to manage my sales team. I’d push them and confront them if they weren’t performing, and they’d respond. If you look at my evaluations, you’ll see that I was very successful and people respected me. Here in Indianapolis, they don’t like my style, and they seem to avoid the challenges that I put to them. I just can’t seem to get things done as well here as I did in California.”

Peter’s problem was threefold. First, he didn’t comprehend how much the landscape had changed. Second, he was unable to make his behavior consistent with that of everyone around him. And third, when he recognized that the arrangement wasn’t working, he became disheartened.

Peter’s three difficulties correspond to the three components of cultural intelligence: the cognitive; the physical; and the emotional/motivational. Cultural intelligence resides in the body and the heart, as well as the head. Although most managers are not equally strong in all three areas, each faculty is seriously hampered without the other two.