I confess at the outset of this post that I’ve never much been into the ‘cultural differences’ stuff – empathic communication and its breakdowns are my first love. And to tell you the truth, until last week I simply hadn’t been that interested in the topic.

The facts are that I like people from all over the place, I like traveling and I find different cultures, ways, foods, places etc. all fascinating. Full stop. I had of course failed to grasp how someone’s place of birth and the culture of their upbringing might impact on their interactions with other people other than because of differences in their accent, incomplete vocabulary and a quite natural suspicion of British food. A conversation last week has unearthed, for me, a more intriguing subtlety in this cultural difference malarkey.

I imagine that it is generally assumed (well, it was by me) that when a person, for whom English is not the mother tongue, sets out to express an opinion in conversation, any faltering on their part might be explained by a hole in their grammar or vocabulary and/or a misplaced unease about making themselves look daft by using the wrong phrase. According to the one person with whom I have had my only proper conversation about all this (not a large sample I grant you – bear with me) what invariably holds him back from expressing himself more transparently can more accurately be described as a strong dissatisfaction with the inadequacy of the second language and not any lack of his grasp of it.

So, it is not embarrassment that ‘le mot juste’ is, at that moment, beyond his reach but a deep-seated conviction that people from the culture in which he is the visitor would not get to grips with the essence of what he was trying to express, no matter what words he chose. He finds himself thinking: If I can’t get them to connect or empathize with this sentiment then I would prefer to leave the whole thing out. This barrier to expression therefore is not about a hole in idiomatic sharing as much as wider gap in cultural reference points such as what is funny, familiar or foul. The problem is only compounded when a person speaking their second language is skillful to the point that their colleagues believe that none of these problems exist. In such instances, it is possible that untimely failures to speak up might be misinterpreted as examples of ‘not joining in’ and therefore as signs of aloofness.

The conversation last week also shed light on something closer to home. I gave up speaking Italian to our first daughter, Vianne, after more than a year of persevering. I found that I was simply unable to express the subtleties of my feelings for her during the day-to-day ups and downs in a way that did justice to what was going on in my head – and heart. Although I had done my three Rs in Italian, and had been fluent in both English and Italian from first words, I was starting to feel cut off from Vianne. I should not have been surprised. I had, after all, only really been exposed to parent-child language in English and had thus acquired the subtleties of my own parenting vocabulary in that language rather than in Italian.

It seems that linguistic proficiency is only one superficial cultural bridge. The invisibility of other barriers should make us more wary about jumping to negative conclusions about the social faults that we find in acquaintances from other cultures. However, a question remains: In future, will I be quick enough to notice my lack of cultural empathy before they do?

PS. Thanks again to Robert for his excellent cartoon strip. www.robertthompsoncartoons.com

Many great companies start out as family concerns – yours might be one of them.

Mars, now Masterfoods, is a huge and successful example which grew out of a home-based sweet making buiness founded, in a small kitchen in Tacoma, Washington by Frank and Ethel Mars back in 1911. And S.C. Johnson, inventors of the Ziploc bag, Pledge, Glade and Windex were founded in 1886 by Samuel Johnson who invented a new floor polish to go on the parquet flooring he was installing in those days. I’ve had the pleasure of working with a number of Marsians over the years (I don’t know what the SCJ people call themselves – answers on a postcard) and they did stand out from the rest of my clients. More than any other group they seemed to be fiercely proud of their heritage and of the company’s products. No matter where the person worked they seemed to have a very detailed knowledge not only of  production methods but also of production values; to be let loose on the line as a young manager at Mars was to be trusted with the crown jewels – it certainly was not seen as lowly work.

And there are numerous other distinguishing features I could list which defined them as ‘different’ such as their unusual way of opening ‘product’ (Marsian for ‘sweets’) which was to peel the wrapper along the seem so as to reveal the production details (line number, date and time of manufacture, sell-by-date etc. etc.) Aside from all of this, the people from Mars seemed to act as a cohesive group, I hesitate to say for fear of sounding corny, as a ‘family’ group; there seemed to be an extra layer of fabric keeping everyone together.

But is it feasible to reproduce the kind of bonding fabric found in a company like Mars or cabury or in a well-functioning family, within an ordinary company manufacturing ball-bearings or tomato sandwiches? Or would it be found that the product was too mundane, the company too new, the people too ordinary? I suspect that those elements are really nothing to do with it. And I also suggest that there are proportionally just as many badly functioning families as there are badly functioning companies so that just trying to be more like a family probably won’t make a bad company, better. However, I do believe that there are some things that a well-functioning family can pass on to the leaders and members of a mediocre company; this view is in some way borne out by the words of a leading psychologist who was once asked at interview whether being a psychologist had made him a better father. He replied: “No, but being a father has certainly made me a better psychologist.”

So what is the definition of a psychologically healthy family? The literature on the subject suggests that it is one where the roles shift and swap according to what circumstances demand. Sometimes the father leads, sometimes the mother makes the first move. Sometimes the children are told what to do and other times the parents pay attention and act upon the children’s ideas and wishes. Sometimes the parents come up with the solutions, at other times the children spot the problem and the solution before the parents have even got out of bed. As the children grow in years so the relationships are allowed to move on; the children are encouraged to assume greater responsibility for their actions and the parents relinquish much of the control of the organisation and leadership of the unit in acknowledgment that the troops are now more than capable of organising and handling life’s events. By this point the parents have assumed a new role as mentors, advisers-in-the-wings whilst the children have gone on to create their own ‘companies’ with their own particular feel and collection of values and traditions. This all assumes, of course, that the parents have got their psychological act together in the first place, that is to say, that they, to some degree, understand themselves, their own insecurities and needs (especially in terms of needing to be needed) and that they have the courage and judgment to enable them to be flexible as well as consistent at enough of the right moments.

P.S Thanks to you Robert for the great cartoon you did for us. Click here to buy this very cartoon from him!

You can now listen to the teleseminar we held earlier this week. My guest was Martin Down, a Deep Democracy Black Belt. You might hear some new and very simple answers to some old and very tricky leadership and interpersonal problems… Listen now

I saw this National Lottery booth the other day on Charing Cross station and it made me smile because it reassured me that even when the external incentive to ‘do the right thing’ is almost completely absent (no bins), people will in general still try to make good decisions.

Not a bin in sight but resourceful commuters had stuffed their wrappers in the booth’s microscopic receptacle rather than throwing them on the floor. Now I know that I have no way of knowing how much did end up on the floor but…

Bin there, done it

There’s something in there for you if you are planning to run some sort of management development or leadership growth event. Something about trusting people and not only staying out of their way but making it a key leadership job to keep obstacles out of the  way of one’s team. No mean feat in this climate I image.

How many times have you gone to an event, undergone some management development or some sort of self-improvement only to return to normal life to find that every bugger seems to want to want to get in your way. The Board who won’t think creatively, your team who hate change, your colleagues who just don’t want the jip – especially not now.

The leadership and team-building question of the moment: Whose way am I getting in today?

Does it really exist?

Waiting for the hot water to come through in my hotel room. First a trickle, then a sputter, then nothing, then lots of gurgling, a breathy hiss, another trickle then final silence. Replace water for action and the hissing for talking and you have what mosty happens when companies employ consultants to help them to ‘team build‘ in the name of ‘doing management development’. Management development is a sticky business to begin with since most organisations don’t seem to want managers at all – especially now. They want thrusting, brave, articulate, sensitive, tough, creative, steady, ‘business-aware’ gods who can save the day. If that sounds batty, try getting a whole collection of these unicorns together in the same room (you’ll find them in any branch of Woolworths between the packets of Hen’s Teeth and the Fairy Wings).

The reality (according to me): team-building is to improving corporate performance what trying-for-a-baby is for family expansion. Have you ever ‘tried for a baby’? It’s horrible and the very act of trying kills much of the will to undertake the act that results in the conception of said baby. Why not just do the right things, naturally and the baby will come (IVF cases aside – apologies if you are one of those, of course).

So… If you want to build a team out of a group of individuals be very clear about what you are hoping for. It may be, for example, that if you just want people to talk to each other more, or relate to one another more warmly that you can do that for yourself and spend the money that you had earmarked for some sort of rope and barrel swinging exercise in the Dales to buying your team lunch somewhere once a month.

Bottom line: (does anyone else still say that?). Be clear about what you want to achieve in building your team, explain it to yourself in behaviours, think ‘common sense’ whe it comes to making the new behaviours happen and then get them to tell you how to do it. Hey presto – that’s team-building!

If your dreams still remain unfulfilled after many attempts then you may just need someone to come in. At least then you will know what you are asking for.

But the PEC’s rules for team-building consultant shopping are thus:

1. Be specific about what you want (“I want people to stop arguing about everything in meetings”)
2. Be precise about what you want instead (“I want challenge without the nasty stuff’)
3. Be conservative (“I want everyone to like one another” – is not realistic)
4. Be sure that you know who wants what (not everyone will want what you want just because you are the the boss). Check for REAL buy-in as you go along.

Good luck