Two Chaps - Many Cultures
Global Business Excellence Through Cultural and Emotional Intelligence (ICE-Q)
Welcome to ๐๐ฌ๐ค ๐พ๐๐๐ฅ๐จ โ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ฎ ๐พ๐ช๐ก๐ฉ๐ช๐ง๐๐จ. We help you navigate the business of culture and the culture of business. Christian Hรถferle and Brett Parry ponder many topics related to culture through a combination of short bursts and deep dives.
We feature guests from the world of business and personal development, speaking about their experiences developing a combination of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) and Emotional Intelligence (EQ), as well as it's vital importance to successful global organizations.
It's not only about culture. There are also tips and strategies for creating abundance in your professional and personal life.
Level up your ICE-Q by hitting the SUBSCRIBE button. Add your questions and comments related to culture, business, and personal growth.
Two Chaps - Many Cultures
Why Do We Work? Unearthing How Organizations Can Tap Into The Motivations Of Their Employees
Why do we go to work? Well, most likely, we do so in order to make a living and provide for ourselves and others. And yet, understanding the reasons of why we work transcends mere economic necessity; it delves into the areas of culture, societal norms, and individual aspirations. Culture shapes our perspectives and attitudes towards labor; it also defines the relationship between employees and the organizations they serve.
Cultures around the world charge work with various meanings, whether it's viewed as a means of sustenance, a path to self-fulfillment, or a communal obligation. Whether driven by a collective ethos emphasizing communal harmony or by an individualistic pursuit of personal fulfillment, cultural values intricately interlace with work attitudes, influencing everything from work-life balance preferences to the extent of loyalty towards employers.
๐๐ฌ๐ค ๐พ๐๐๐ฅ๐จ โ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ฎ ๐พ๐ช๐ก๐ฉ๐ช๐ง๐๐จ is the worldโs #1 show on the business of culture and the culture of business. Christian Hรถferle and Brett Parry ponder culture in short bursts and deep dives, featuring your questions and comments related to culture, business, and personal growth.
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more great content: https://www.youtube.com/@TwoChapsManyCultures
Visit https://theculturemastery.com/ for more information about the skills for working in a global context.
The music on this episode is provided courtesy of Sepalot.
โDuum Diipโ - Artist: Sepalot - Label: Eskapaden - Copyright control
Two chaps, many cultures, and you might notice this is not an illusion. We are actually in the same place. Look we are overlapping. This is not AI.
Speaker 2:This is actually in the same location.
Speaker 1:And I came all the way down here to talk about this topic. Believe it or not, we are going to talk about why do we work, what is behind our motivations for turning up every day, leaving our house, going out and killing something, bringing it home and feeding it to our family, and what role do organizations play in offering the things that make us happy in terms of our work? That's what we're going to talk about. Stick around, what we call when we get together it's like wrapped up, it's like a Chipotle.
Speaker 3:Welcome to 2Chaps Many Cultures. In an increasingly globally connected world, it is vital to possess the essential skills of cultural intelligence. Listen along as we present the topics, tips and strategies you can use to develop the power of cultural understanding in your personal and professional life. Here are your hosts Christian Huffala and Brett Parry.
Speaker 2:Welcome back everybody. Two chaps, many cultures, two chaps in the same place doesn't happen often. Today we do because we like it the way. That's why we work. That's the name of this episode. Make sure that you ring the bell. You subscribe. Wherever that dingy thing is on your screen. Click that or click down here. Subscribe to this channel and always get an update on the latest episodes and know where to navigate to on YouTube to find the old episodes that are sold just as good as this one. Some might even be better than the one we're doing right now. They might be, maybe not. Maybe this is the best one we've ever done.
Speaker 2:Why do we work? Why do we go there? Because we get a paycheck, because the company puts money into our bank account so we don't have to go out and kill something to feed to our family. Sometimes he's still stuck in that hunter-gatherer mode. I don't know what's going on. Some of us actually go to an office or to other places of work where we do something with our hands. Do we do that because we want the money or do we do that because we feel fulfilled when we do this, that we serve a purpose, that it gives our lives a meaning or an additional meaning to why we're here. What drives us, what drives you?
Speaker 1:Well, I was going to ask you because I was thinking about just as you were talking about that when you were a young boy back in Germany. What did you see? What did you see in your parents? How did you feel they got motivated to go out to work?
Speaker 2:every day, to go out to work every day. Well, in fact, my dad did go out to kill animals. My dad was a butcher. My parents did not choose their path, they were. They had a limited scope of what they were allowed to do because family pressures, post-world war II economic, societal pressures, which a little bit predetermined what they were going to do in their professional lives.
Speaker 2:My father confessed in me that that was not his dream job and yet he did it with dignity, he did it with devotion, he did it with expertise and with an entrepreneurial drive to not only succeed economically and feed the family and provide for the family. He did it also because he recognized the honor in the profession of producing food for other people. My parents, my family, was in the grocery business, if you want to give it a bigger umbrella term, and that is an honorable profession because it comes with an obligation to not only do the right thing, also to continue to improve the process, make sure that what people receive as our product is good for them, it's healthy and it is up to health standards. So that was the reason why, aside from the financial gain of the enterprise, what was it for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't, you know really. You know I usually watch my parents work hard. They were hard workers, certainly, any time there was a possibility to go out and do something for a quid, as we say in Australia, they went out and did it. They worked hard, they saved money and I guess I never. That this is slightly different because my parents were were people who did jobs, one side, the academic and aside, and the other side in more of the, the hands-on mining industry. So these were, so that wasn't an entrepreneurial kind of background.
Speaker 1:So it was interesting when you said that about the bigger picture, um, I guess I've never discussed that with my parents about the bigger picture, but you saw that there was a, there was an honor. I love that. An honor in terms of the bigger picture, yes, I, I buy something, I sell it. I buy it for something, I sell it for something else and I make a profit and that makes my family satisfied. But also, I guess, guess, in the community you are a feeder of the community. So this is where we kind of thought about this episode, to think about what responsibility do organizations have in identifying? Just as Christian and I had saw two different things growing up? How do they identify the individual needs of the people? And perhaps is there a general cultural influence of that too, depending on where you grew up and what your formation was?
Speaker 2:And I saw that with. I mean, my parents had a small business. Right, I saw it in how the people that worked for my family came to work what drove them Because that worked for my family came to work what drove them Because for me, as a teenager, growing up working in a butcher shop was not a dream job either. Right, it was not necessarily the occupation that a young boy would be automatically drawn to. I liked the product. I think my family produced a really decent, solid product that I still enjoy today.
Speaker 2:There's this joke about you don't want to eat the sausage once you see it being made. I saw it being made day in, day out and I know what goes in it and if it's done right, it's good and I still enjoy that. Sorry to those of you who have different dietary ideals I am one of those who still eat meat and I noticed how it showed up in the people that came to work for my family, and these were usually laborer type people from around the town, from the outlying villages. Some of them drove half an hour 45 minutes to work, which in a german context is quite a long commute to go to work, and I think, looking back at this. They shared this ideal of being a feeder of the community, doing an honorable work and making sure that you do it right, because when you feed people, it's an act of service. Yes, you make money doing it if you're doing it right.
Speaker 2:This idea of of providing for others as a not gift, but as a service to the community, I think that permeated through the team, and many of the people that worked with my parents stayed for years and years and years. There was longevity to it. So, and this is, I think, the reason why we got to think about this topic, how does culture affect how people view the organization that they work for or work with? Is it simply an exchange time, power, intelligence, know-how or labor hours exchanged for money? Is it that transactional piece that drives us to work or that wants us to go to work, or is there something more than that? Is there a purpose, is there a meaning? Is there cultural values that infuse that professional interaction, professional relationship, and I think that's the key.
Speaker 2:Well, does culture influence that. What do you think?
Speaker 1:Anecdotally, I would say it does.
Speaker 1:There are certain cultures that I work with where people come and their attitude towards their obligation to get up and go to work is not purely driven by money.
Speaker 1:It is they are doing something, whether it be their calling in their profession, their function, but also the messaging that their company puts out there, and this could happen even before they go to work for the company. It could be their parents working for the company, it could be in the larger spectrum of the culture and the environment of the country they're in, and they see a, see a, they see what that brand represents. And especially, I guess this would usually happen with older companies that have had generations of this messaging, where they've seen this, this bigger picture. So, then, that the people might show up with this innate desire to attach themselves to a script, a scription, uh, practice description, to that ideal, not particularly to the company, and they may not be that worried about the financial benefits of the, the job, even though they still want to get paid for it in exchange for their knowledge both brett and I have had the privilege of working with people from outside of our own culture.
Speaker 2:That's why we're here. So in my anecdotal evidence, having worked for German small business, my parents enterprise, so to say have also worked for corporate Germany as an employee. So I know both of these sides, the employer side and the employee side. I also know what it's like to work in a US organization. So I've been an employee in the United States and now I'm a business owner, entrepreneur, in the United States as well. So I'm now an employer or somebody who contracts other people for work projects. So I've seen those four quadrants in the two countries. And yet we also get to work with people from other parts of the world that may have different or very often do have different experiences. And yet we also get to work with people from other parts of the world that may have different or very often do have different experiences.
Speaker 2:And I think there are two polar opposites that I would describe as trends that I've seen is you're either very much engaged as an employee with your company and also in reverse, the company has a strong relationship to their team members, to their associates, or that relationship is rather transactional.
Speaker 2:It's really the exchange for time and money and very often, if it's the more transactional side, I have seen that team members, that associates, don't necessarily stay an extraordinary long amount with a single company.
Speaker 2:They chase a better opportunity or they are being hired or attracted by other organizations who see them as valuable for their teams, see them as valuable for their teams. So here in the United States I would argue that the tenure that a traditional employee has with a company is fairly short compared to, let's say, japan or Korea or to Central Europe. That would include not only Germany, my native country. You see that as well in Switzerland, in Austria, I think, in Poland, czech Republic or Czechia. The traditional values, cultural values, often lead to a relationship between employer and employee that is built on mutual trust, a strong relationship and a shared purpose. And in more transactional relationship, cultures where this relationship between, let's say let's use Marxist terms capital and labor are not in that symbiotic relationship. Not in that symbiotic relationship it's easier to come and leave because you don't feel necessarily that connection to the mission or the purpose of the organization. That's been my experience.
Speaker 1:If you think about, even in transactional cultures, there may be a way to message this. If you feel that people are just turning up for a paycheck, if you feel that they're not really getting and communicating to them what the big picture of your organization is trying to do, then you could change the messaging to understand. Perhaps you could tap into some of that humanity that they feel in terms of what they're doing for you as they show up and with you as they show up. And think about that as you motivate, as you hire certainly as you hire right Hire at the very start, but as you bring people on and even as you build teams. Of course we work a lot with people that are trying to build effective teams and culture adds another layer to that. So oftentimes we're asking people what makes you turn up here today? What is that? And it could be different for many people in one particular team.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it is the compensation structure, sometimes it is the package of benefits that the company provides. That is the deciding factor. Do I go to work for this place or the other place? And sometimes it's the. The emotion that you feel at work is it just the mission, or is it also the work environment?
Speaker 1:in many ways, sometimes there, there is a cultural thing in that, because these, the culture that they come from, is this is where the company was founded. So they feel not only a and I steer away from the word patriotic, it's, uh, it's more of a pride in identity, uh, being from that country that that company represents an ideal also from the country that they're from. And and then, as a person who identifies as being brought up or attached to that country, or by birth or marriage or whatever it is, then they feel that there's an added bonus to putting that, you know, that badge on their, on their shirt, and we said employer branding earlier, right, um, I.
Speaker 2:I deal a lot with companies that expand globally and when they enter a new market, their brand as an employer is sometimes non-existent. Right, nobody knows them in this foreign market. This might be the first time they have an operation there. In their native country they're well known as employer. People know about them, they know the mission, the vision. They may even know the culture of the organization. In the new place they're a nobody in the beginning.
Speaker 2:How do you create that awareness that you are a place of work where people really want to show up and choose you over some other employer? And we live in, especially in the so-called western world. We live in a time where, um, automation is is increasing. Where we have to, companies in certain industries have to automate more and more of their processes because we don't have enough people to replace employees that are aging out of the company. The generational disparity is obvious in some of those markets when baby boomers or even now, generation Xers are exiting a company and there's not an equal amount of millennials or Generation Z or Zed talent growing up to replace them. So it is the talent who gets to choose more than previous generations were able to choose in employment. So you as an employer have to do the very best to attract the very best right. And how do you do that right? That's part of a culture as well.
Speaker 1:Some of this conversation came out of an observation about benefits for families and what are offered for mothers and fathers in terms of looking after their children when they first arrived to the world. Of course, you know and that is another benefit it's a small part of what could be offered in a larger package when you think about the well-being of the families, well-being of the people that come to turn up for you every day.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, let's make that concrete. I'm not going to name the company, but here where we are in the United States, I'm not going to name the company, but here where we are in the United States, paternity leave is not a part of the labor regulations in the United States. A company does not have to provide paternity leave and job security for young families who are growing in many other parts of the world, especially in G7 and G20 economies. That's a standard, that's a given for many. So we saw a news piece recently of a European headquartered company that decided to extend these paternity leave models to any country that they're working in. So it will be a standard program. No matter where in the world the employees are, they will get the same form of paternity leave. That includes the United States.
Speaker 2:Well, what do you think? Is that going to make that employer a lot more attractive for young talent all of a sudden? Who know, if I go to work there and happen to get pregnant or want to get pregnant, I still have a job and I will have time to look after my newborn. Is that going to be a deciding factor for top talent? I would venture a guess and say it is right.
Speaker 1:Definitely so. Think about that. If you're a business owner, a leader or even somebody that gets to go and work for a company that you feel might be, you just might want to consider why do you get up every day, why do you go there, what are the conversations that are taking place between you and the employer, and think about how that affects your attitude to what you do, and maybe think about the conversations you share with loved ones and friends about what you do. This is a great consideration and something to be well thought out. So another episode, better thought out than we just did. Better thought out than what we just did. This is great.
Speaker 1:We could sit here all day, but I've got a plane to catch, I've got to go home, but I've enjoyed the hospitality. The hospitality, the coffee makes good coffee and good sausage, by the way, too, I do like sausage myself and uh, the, uh, the grill and all of those kind of things that come along with a great visit, when you get together with friends, especially great friends like Christian here and but also there is a good chance to to commune with other people, and that's what we've done this past weekend. Maybe another episode. We'll talk about what we did this weekend with a great group of people, but that was my motivation for coming here. Thanks for doing it. He didn't pay me anyway, so it had to be something.
Speaker 2:And my reason for being here was like this is part of what I do, right. This is why we work. Yet another episode. Two Ch, many cultures, these two noggins, in the same frame. Can you believe it? It did happen. All right, ring the bell, subscribe. Make sure you check us for the next episode coming up in due time. See you next time. Bye.