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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
Myths and Realities: What are the things to consider related to host country nationals
Expecting a "red carpet" welcome when relocating abroad? Think again. Join us on "Two Chaps Many Cultures" as we dismantle the common myths that expats face and highlight the importance of cultural intelligence in ensuring seamless integration. We'll share our personal experiences and insights into how organizations can either support or obstruct this process, depending on their cultural training strategies. Learn about the different leadership styles and how to manage expectations to minimize friction and foster a harmonious work environment. Together, we'll explore how mutual cultural learning is key to successful transitions and effective teamwork.
In this episode, we also challenge the misconception that all team members in a host location share the same cultural behavior. Dive into the rich tapestry of global workplace dynamics with us as we stress the importance of cultural training for both expats and home country nationals. Whether you're an expat, an HR professional, or involved in global mobility, this episode offers invaluable insights into managing expectations and responsibilities for host country nationals
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
Hello globally mobile professionals, hey HR people, hey global mobility people, all of you who are dealing with professionals who go around the world. You know us because we talk about the expat world quite a bit. So as you go abroad, what do you expect? The red carpet treatment. Think again. That might not happen. Maybe it does, but don't count on it, because just because you're special and going abroad doesn't mean that the people you're going to work with on the ground at the location you're going to will be just waiting for you to arrive. There might be some myths you have been told that we're ready to poke a hole into. Let's do that.
Speaker 2: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 3:Welcome back everybody to Two Chaps. Many Cultures, the only show, the number one show on the globe for I don't know where. Too much culture is barely enough. And that's us, and we're rolling out the red carpet for you, but that may not always be the case. Mate, how are you today?
Speaker 1:Bloody fantastic Red carpets. They're only red because so many people who walked it before you have been slain on the shores of expat. Conquest Doesn't work like that, people, and we've seen this in our work for many, many times and in many different scenarios with the clients that we work with. There is this expectation I'm going abroad. It will be fantastic. My company is supporting our move. There's all this logistical help. Hey, we're getting culturally prepared, because Brett and Christian talked to us about the changes in behavior we are about to experience. When we get there, fantastic Good on you, as Brett might say, and much success to you in your new location. That's what we're here now. There's one factor you may have not considered as much as you probably should, and which would that be? Brett?
Speaker 3:well, of course, if you're, the basic thing was that, as Christian, we might provide you, others might provide you with cultural training, cultural awareness, but, of course, the assumption that you're just coming to a new country and that another part is that you might assume that your host country nationals are going to open up the red carpet. As we said, they're not going to slay you hopefully, no, that's not the case at all. They're certainly going to be welcoming and they're going to be enjoying your company. But there are certain myths that we think that might apply here, and that might be that they're just waiting for you. Nothing has been done before you turn up.
Speaker 3:It might be that they are expected to give you support, drop everything they do and and just be at your beck and call, at least for the first few months, so that they can support you. You may also just assume that they've also got enough cultural knowledge and understanding already about you as a person, and that's what we're talking about, I guess the opportunity to not only learn yourself but understand what learning what already about you as a person, and that's what we're talking about, I guess. Uh, the opportunity to not only learn yourself but understand what learning, what cultural learning has been done for the host people that you're about to start engaging with, and they deserve they are deserving of just as much support as anybody else too yeah, and I've worked with corporations that fall on both ends of this spectrum as we talk about this.
Speaker 1:I've worked for organizations where only the expat population received cultural preparation for their workplace adjustment workplace adjustment and I think it showed in the results of the teams that this mobility, talent mobility created in that organization.
Speaker 1:And I've worked for other organizations where not only did the company provide training for the expats who went on assignment, it also prepared the receiving locals in the host location for the arrival of their new colleagues from abroad. And that preparation can take on various forms and we can argue about which might be the best form for doing that. I think the most important factor is that the organization, that the company, took some time to think about this and realize that it's not only the expats and their household members that will go through changes. It's also the receiving team who will have to incorporate a new team member and it's just a different game than hiring somebody locally to augment the team. No, there's somebody coming from abroad who comes with a set of expectations, and maybe the host country nationals also have a set of expectations in that expat. That may or may not pan out right. It's very often a mismatch of expectations in the first couple of weeks and months that lead to friction, both for expats and the teams that they enter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we think about styles. Just for example, if you're coming as a leader, as somebody who's going to be influential in a team, then you want to understand what they expect as or from a leader. Because you may come from an environment where you're more hierarchical and used to that top-down decision-making and having people kind of directly report to you without any lateral move at all, and you might then be coming into an environment where it's very flat and you're expected to engage with all kinds of people at different levels of the organization and some people might just bypass you at certain stages. So, being comfortable with that and understanding that, if you bring your style without knowledge, without understanding what your style is, they're going to be very lost pretty quick and you cause friction, you cause unease. You also, if it's a risk-averse culture, you also might absolutely be implying or applying more risk than they're comfortable with.
Speaker 1:And I mean obviously, if you're listening to this and you are an expat yourself and I mean obviously if you're listening to this and you are an expat yourself, most likely you're not the type of team member that I'm about to describe now. But maybe you've experienced these characters who think that because they are on an expat assignment, that means that they are very good at something that very few other people can do the same way. So they have a sense of self-importance as they go abroad and that shines through their behavior as they enter their new team. That is exactly what the host country nationals are. Well, how do I say this politely? Not waiting for right. They've been doing stuff before you came right. They were hired for a reason. They were not just sitting idly waiting for you to arrive to show them how it's really done, and I think it's a fallacy that, or it's.
Speaker 1:It's also a trap. It's a convenient misconception trap that, as an expat, you enter a location thinking, well, my team members on the ground in my host location, they're all from that same culture, so they're all kind of like the same. They're all all the Italians are, all the Americans are like and I'm going to be working with everybody that's very similar in their behavior and the truth couldn't be much different than that. Right, because you will work with people who may be repats.
Speaker 1:Your home country nationals may have been on an expat assignment ten years ago to your country perhaps, and now they're back in their home country location and they're probably going to be your best ally. If you only took time to realize there might be people who speak multiple languages at your host location, they might be your best interpreters, your best team members to relay information out to the greater team. You may have people who have never dealt with a foreign national and will need to be worked with in a different manner, and it's up to you to recognize that. And it's up to you, to the employer, to the multinational organization, to provide not only the expat with the preparation of behavioral change, but the entire global team. And we've seen the best results in our work with companies who apply this information that we share with our clients on multiple ends of the team, not just the ones that they're sending abroad.
Speaker 3:So what can we do about this? Well, obviously, the cultural training that we might provide you before you leave certainly is one aspect of it. But then understand, as you're entering, you may actually have to be that promoter of cultural training or cultural understanding for your host country nationals, because you can then become a transmitter, a translator of cultural awareness and encouraging that, if it's not provided automatically by the company or the local location you're in, you could be the one to start that. Do come with humility to your host country and already, with the expectation that I am here to learn as much as I am here to teach, and we can both, as a team, as a global group, work together to understand what cultural differences and dynamics are at work in the team, right at work in the team.
Speaker 1:Right. I in fact had the pleasure of working with a client actually with a couple of clients in my career of doing so. That made it a priority to provide the cultural intelligence education for the headquarter team that never left headquarters. So these team members never became expats, they never received expats. They never received expats. They were the headquarter workers or team members and they did have Zoom, microsoft Teams, email, phone call, interaction with the multiple locations around the world and they, to benefit a whole, benefited a whole lot from learning about different work styles, not only their expat colleagues.
Speaker 1:And the reason why we're talking about this is because we came across an article published in Harvard Business Review not too long ago, written by a researcher from New Zealand whose name I might probably mispronounce, so forgive me for doing that.
Speaker 1:I think her name is Znajina Michailova and she is a professor at Auckland Business School in New Zealand, and in her article, in which she busts those common myths about expats and their home country national colleagues, she points out that for 50 studies done about work styles abroad, expat life, cultural adjustment in the global workplace for every 50 studies around the expat world, only one study is available for how home country nationals are adjusting in a global work world. There's a, let's say, a blind spot in research about this and she's, I think, on the the cutting edge of shedding light or putting a spotlight into that blind spot. And so are we, because that study basically sings our song, both Brett and I. We've seen this happen so many times in global organizations, that if the company is too myopic and focuses only on the expat services and the expat comfort and success rate and neglects the part that is the receiving part, in whatever host country location, that is a missed opportunity and a stumbling block that you put there by design, by ignoring these myths.
Speaker 3:That's an astounding statistic really. It really is. It's not a blind spot, it's a tripwire. It's like how do you expect people to receive an expat? And I mean it's unfair to both sides. It really is because you're just not giving or setting an equal balance of power. There's power involved here, especially different leadership styles, power distance and power dynamics, and you're setting a completely unbalanced expectation. So I think it's. You know there should be more studies about that but the great why do we need to wait for studies? We're certainly empowered as professionals in our organizations to take the initiative and tell people about the importance, whether it be in the talent development part of your business, whether it be in the global mobility part of your business, just organically in the operation of the team that you're working in. Surely it's got to be a better job done of that.
Speaker 1:And I think it's a natural progression from the image of the global worker. Right, the expat 30, 40 years ago was the superstar in any multinational corporation. It was the overachiever. It was the overachiever. Now, in the 2020s, being on an expat assignment has become a regular career building block. You're nothing special anymore just because you're going abroad. In fact, employees in competitive labor markets are looking for exactly those jobs that will allow them to go on an international assignment. So the expat is not, per se, the special superstar any longer.
Speaker 1:Right, and as we progress, or as our global work world has evolved to this, as there are so many moving pieces, moving parts, moving goods and services, it's only natural to recognize that the host country location is no longer the developing market.
Speaker 1:And I think this is where that blind spot originally came from, because we sent expats into developing markets Very often. Now what used to be developing markets are the exact markets that keep the home country headquarter afloat, because maybe the domestic market isn't doing all that well and the what used to be the quote unquote developing market is now very much developed and is carrying more than its own weight and, as such, home country nationals are very well established, very well educated, trained and in a highly competitive market themselves. Thanks for that study, thank you for bringing that to our attention and prompting us to do a whole episode around this. And if you work in a global multinational organization, let that be your warning call. It's not just the ones you send away, it's the whole global team that you want to have culture, savvy, culture, ready to form efficient and effective multinational, multicultural, global teams.
Speaker 3:Yep, it's a whole hill of beans, as they say, and we certainly look forward to hearing your comments. If you're in a team and you've been in that position where you've turned up and had certain expectations of the local nationals and some of those expectations have been challenged, we'd love to hear your experience there to share it with the community that we're building here. This is Two Chaps, many Cultures, and we are the number one show on the planet when it comes to this stuff, the show where too much culture is barely enough. Don't forget, hit the subscribe button. I mean, it doesn't preclude you from commenting, but we'd appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And listen to the podcast version right? Did we mention the podcast? We have a podcast of this, so you don't have to look at us. You can torture only your ears, not your eyes.
Speaker 3:and torture only your ears, not your eyes, absolutely Podcasts on all of the best platforms, wherever best podcasts can be found. And yeah, so you know we're just in the summer months here. I know we'd like to do this evergreen wherever you're listening to us. We're in the summer months. Here I happen to be, you might notice, in an undisclosed location. Let this be a little bit of a hint it may or may not be a place where you buy baguettes.
Speaker 1:Where's the fromage? I only believe you've just fromaged.
Speaker 3:You're giving it away. We should have a competition, actually, Maybe. Where in the hell is Christian and Brett today?
Speaker 1:Well, let's play that game All right. You enjoy, wherever you are, undisclosed locations and make sure you train your people right. Global mobility, people, all right. Any global organization. Give your employees what they need to succeed and with this, two chaps, many cultures. We're out for now. See you next week.
Speaker 3:See you guys. Bye.