We’ve learned a lot this semester about cultural dimensions and in general how to interact and work with people from cultures all over the world.

One topic we haven’t touched on is conflict. Both current conflict and historical conflict can play a role in how a people act towards others. Although a culture may as a whole be summarized with certain characteristics, they may all be thrown out the window when it comes to another group they have a history with.

For example, we can discuss doing business in Africa and point to some strong economic growth and potential:

Looking at this data the prospects for doing business in Africa looks good. One could analyze the cultural dimensions for each country and come up with a game plan for how to manage a team in Africa and hopefully be successful.

However, sticking with Africa as our example, we can see that current conflicts are ongoing and a serious consideration:

 

Layering on some of the recent conflicts:

 

This is a region of the world that’s had a lot of conflict in it’s recent past. Although knowing that Angola has a power distance score of 83 is important (Hofstede), knowing that Angola recently gained independence from Portugal is also important. If you’re Portuguese, will the people of Angola have hostile feelings towards you? How about American, Cuban, or Russian citizens, as those three countries all took sides in the civil war that followed independence in 1975 (Gascoigne, 2001).

Every country in the world has a deep history and the people in that country may have prejudices that you’ll need to be aware of before traveling there. “In the real world, relations between most groups have a history; they are often influenced by complex socio-cultural factors that extend their influence over long periods of time” (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014, p. 182). So although a country may have a conventional attitude that will help you best guess how to interact with its citizens, knowing a little bit about the history and conflicts of a region will also be a valuable tool.

 

Bibliography

Gascoigne, B. (2001). HISTORY OF ANGOLA. Retrieved December 6th, 2015, from History World: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad33

Hofstede, G. (n.d.). What about Angola? Retrieved Dec 5th, 2015, from The Hofstede Center: http://geert-hofstede.com/angola.html

Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences. New York: Routledge.

Russia’s history is long and complex, and doing business there can be equally challenging.

An important aspect of doing business in Russia is a good understanding of your role and standing while doing business there. What your role is, and how it relates to the person or group you are talking to will dictate how you should interact with them.

Moscow, retrieved from http://travelrussiatours.com/old/moscow-russian-capital-and-tourist-attraction-center/

Russia has a power distance score of 93 (Hofstede, 2015), which is very high. In fact, at 93 it is more than 33 points higher than the global average of 59.31 and approximately one and half standard deviations higher (Pennsylvania State University, 2015). This high power distance culture has roots in the founding of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922 when Communist Party members took control. “This led to a situation in which a few people at the peak of the pyramid made almost every significant decision.” (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014)

This means that Russians accept a powerful elite that have status symbols. If the group you are meeting with work for you, or you are a high-ranking individual in the company, then they will accept a top-down direction without the need of a lot of explanation.

However, if you aren’t running the show your demeanor and conversations should be different. With a score of 36 on Hofstede’s masculinity scale, Russian culture is on the feminine side. As such, greeting and talking with peers or strangers should be done in a modest and unpretentious way. Remembering that non-elite live in a humble fashion it would be a poor decision to boast or show off. “Dominant behaviour might be accepted when it comes from the boss, but is not appreciated among peers.” (Hofstede, 2015)

Regardless of your status, there are meeting etiquettes that you can adhere to in order to ensure success. Russians expect some formality with greetings, and are not impressed with flashy presentations. Nothing replaces a strong knowledge of your area, and this will build up credibility more than visuals. If you are unsure of your relationship to the people you are meeting with, there are clues you can look for when meeting with them. “A good indication of how serious a meeting is taken is how punctual they are.” (Kwintessential, 2014)

Although the Russian culture can be challenging to break into from an outsider’s perspective, it’s not impossible to navigate. Knowing the customs and your relationship to those you are meeting with is a good first start to a winning partnership.

Bibliography

Hofstede, G. (2015). What about Russia? Retrieved December 5th, 2015, from The Hofstede Centre: http://geert-hofstede.com/russia.html

Kwintessential. (2014). Doing Business in Russia. Retrieved December 5th, 2015, from Kwintessential: http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/etiquette/doing-business-russia.html

Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences. New York: Routledge.

Pennsylvania State University. (2015). Lesson 09: Central America and Mexic. Retrieved December 5, 2015, from OLEAD410: Leadership in a Global Context: https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa15/olead410/001/content/09_lesson/03_page.html

I wish that I had taken a leadership or cultural class before I traveled to Japan for work. Looking back I can see many leadership topics we’ve been discussing in action while in Japan. At the time I chalked it all up to being in a foreign country without much thought into the how or why the Japanese did certain things. Looking back now it’s fun to try and piece together what I saw with what we’ve learned about other cultures.

I work for a retailer and for the trip we did visits to both stores and to a distribution center. A common area that we look at on these visits is how geographies deal with “loss” of product. This is to say that “loss” is our polite way of saying, “when things get stolen.” This is when I really fell in love with Japan. We asked the store manager how they deal with theft and he didn’t know how to answer. One of his peers switched to Japanese to re-phrase the question for him, even though he spoke English very well. When they came back to English they said, “Sorry, we didn’t understand the question. We don’t have theft.” To say we were shocked is an understatement. In the United States we have to work loss into our budgets it’s such a large problem. In the distribution center we asked the same question and were met with the same type of answer. There was no security around high value products unlike other countries we had visited. Product was arranged in a way that was the most efficient to get it out of the building, without security or theft being much of a consideration.

Certainly Japan has some theft and crime. But what our coworkers were conveying to us is that they have a very low crime rate, and it’s so low that they don’t really think about crime like we do in the United States. A society with a moderate collectivism (Hofstede), high masculinity, a tendency to conform (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014, p. 437) leads to a society with really low crime rates.

The other part of Japan that I really enjoyed was the routine and unwritten rules that everyone followed. People queued in an orderly line while waiting for the trains. They stayed to the left on escalators so those in a hurry could pass. Trains and buses arrived exactly when they were supposed to with no delays that we saw the week we were there. At the time I only thought about how Japan’s reputation for automation and efficiency was well deserved. Now I know that as an island nation, with limited resources and a history of natural disasters, Japan has a very high uncertainty avoidance score. This is believed to be because Japan is accustomed to preparing for volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes and more (Hofstede). Because the Japanese felt the need to prepare for natural disasters they also became very good at planning for the uncertain, and the day-to-day tasks as well.

Knowing what I know now about cultural dimensions, island culture, and Japan in specific I would love the opportunity to go back to Japan sometime in the near future.

Bibliography
Hofstede, G. (n.d.). What about Japan? Retrieved Nov 5th, 2015, from The Hofstede Center: http://geert-hofstede.com/japan.html

Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences. New York: Routledge.

If you ever visit a country and there’s a Wikipedia page about events that happened while you were in that country, then you know things were interesting! Brazil in 2013 was like this for me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Brazil

I went to Brazil twice in 2013 for work. Ahead of time we were already alerted to high crime rates and had to take precautions when traveling to Sao Paulo. Some of our executives a few years earlier had been rounded up in their hotel room, tied up, and robbed of their belongings. Since that time we always travel with off-duty police officers, and a driver so we never are alone other than in our hotel rooms. Even a day trip to the beach is with a very sweaty police officer that is trying to watch over us while fully dressed and trying to hide the guns he has on him at all times. We stick out.

So we traveled to Brazil knowing ahead of time that Brazil has some issues, but all counties do in one way or another so it wasn’t too unusual. We were there helping our Brazil team prepare for the World Cup and we were looking forward to it.

My second trip to Brazil started out much like the first. The hospitality of the Brazilians was better than I had experienced in any other country I had visited up to that time. We had the normal language barriers, and far fewer Brazilians speak fluent English out and about town than in other countries. Most of my coworkers spoke English fairly well because it is a requirement of the job (we are headquartered in the United States), but you could still tell who the newer employees were because their English was not at a level comparable to the longer tenured employees who got daily practice with English.

On our third day in the country we could tell something was wrong. Our coworkers all seemed very distracted and talking about traffic conditions. We started to get no-shows to our meetings because people couldn’t make it into work. Because our hotel was next to the office we didn’t need to deal with anything outside of work and didn’t know about protests that had started all over the country. Originally protesting a fare increase for public transportation, the protests increased in size and scope to include protests against the leadership in Brazil and rampant corruption. Many were upset that billions were being spent on the World Cup and Olympic construction projects, but millions still lived in poverty and had limited access to good healthcare.

Because we knew the team in Brazil pretty well they opened up a lot about leadership in Brazil. It can be very corrupt. Even recently Brazil is making news for corruption so things haven’t changed (NOLEN, 2015). They have a real leadership vacuum and the country is paying the price for it. As our reading this week indicated, voting is compulsory for people aged 18 and 70 (Penn State University, 2015). To many this sounds great, as it forces an active voting population and everyone has “skin in the game” so to speak. To my surprise, our hosts pointed to this law as one of the problems in Brazil. Many people uneducated to any issues or whom they should vote for are voting for less than noble reasons. Many votes are purchased via Unions or other corrupt means.

Our trip ended with us heading to the airport early to avoid a protest planned for the freeway heading to the airport. We got there and checked in just fine. However, the airport closed and locked down with us inside of it as the protestors descended on the airport. Outside we would see police surrounding the airport firing tear gas as the crowds trying to disperse them. All flights in and out of the airport were canceled and we had a very long night in the airport, finally flying out the next day. It was quite memorable!

Despite the high crime and political unrest I’m still a big fan of Brazil. The people, culture, and food are amazing and make up for any other shortcomings. I think Brazil is a really good example of how a good group led by bad people can have huge negative implications and why global leadership is so important to all.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

NOLEN, S. (2015, Oct 12). Multiplying corruption charges opens way for impeachment for Brazil’s president. Retrieved Oct 18, 2015, from The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/multiplying-corruption-charges-opens-way-for-impeachment-for-brazils-president/article26775119/

 

Penn State University. (2015). Lesson 08: South America: Focus on Brazil. Retrieved Oct 18, 2015, from Leadership in a Global Context: https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa15/olead410/001/content/08_lesson/03_page.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello Class!

My name is Ryan Kinkade, and I am located in Beaverton, Oregon. Technically I’m in Boston while writing this, but my home is in Oregon. I travel for work pretty frequently (I’ll be in Florida next week) although I think that will settle down soon which I’m very much looking forward to.

Professionally I’m a Product Manager at Nike’s World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. I’ve been at Nike for almost 8 years. My “Product” at Nike is digital communications. In short, if you receive an email from Nike that’s my team. It’s a pretty fun job and I get to meet a lot of interesting people through it. My wife also works at Nike, and a couple of our children are working their way through the Nike daycare as well. We’re all in with Nike you could say. We have three children total and a German Shepherd dog as well.

I have a lot of long-term goals. The first is to graduate from college. I guess with only two semesters left this long-term goal is shifting into short term. At work I’d like to become an industry expert, and not just the expert on my team. I’d also like to travel the world and learn about other cultures along the way.

Currently I manage a small team of about ten people located in Beaverton and offshore in India. My team is currently merging with another team though, and my team will grow to about 25 people in the next couple of weeks. I’m excited and nervous for the new members of my team.

Before this assignment I didn’t have a favorite leadership quote. I had to look them up. But after a quick Google search I found one that resonates with me:

“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” Steve Jobs (Mohan, 2014)

I like this quote because I try to get my team excited about the work we do. I always think the easiest way to motivate them is to get them excited about what they are doing. I can’t “make” them work hard or be innovative. But if they love being on the team and the work we do it comes easier for them.

I’m looking forward to this semester and learning a lot along the way.

Thanks Ryan

Bibliography Mohan, M. (2014, 02 01). Over 61 Inspirational Steve Jobs Quotes You Should Know. Retrieved 08 27, 2015, from Minterest: http://www.minterest.org/best-inspirational-quotes-by-steve-jobs/