Conventional Approach

Management
Management books are filled with guidance on cultural practices and teamwork. For the most part, the guidance reflects the standard Western notion of teamwork and coordination. Team members need to be interactive and need to monitor and help each other. Workers need to identify with the team and its success. The leader has to create a climate of openness, encouraging everyone to challenge ideas and collaborate in arriving at new ideas. Conflicts should be confronted so the team can move forward. Finally, the leader should set rules so everyone knows what to expect.

Unfortunately, this advice runs counter to the ways that teams function in nonwestern nations. Our research has demonstrated that teamwork can be very different from our Western models. In many other countries, workers expect to interact directly with their supervisors on their tasks. They don’t expect to interact with their co-workers. They are offended by and suspicious of the practice of mutual monitoring and support. They don’t want their co-workers ‘spying’ on them. Some foreign nationals are troubled by the open airing of conflicts and critiques of ideas that Westerners associate with a creative environment. Other cultures expect the good leader to work out conflicts behind the scenes. For them, the purpose of meetings is to find out what the leader has in mind, not to engage in rude give-and-take.

Human Factors
Human factors and engineering psychology books are also filled with guidance and standards for technology. For the most part, the guidance reflects Western ergonomics, perception, and cognition. We now know that many of these standards are not universal but vary over national groups. Technology will function optimally around the world only when we learn to accommodate design to international variability or develop instructional material to bridge the gap.

Behavior
Conventional ‘how to succeed in country X’ training materials usually present appropriate behaviors and customs: come on time, don’t ask about family, eat only with your right hand, and so on. In our work in international aviation and in multinational peacekeeping, behavior and customs are important, but they are not enough to understand and anticipate strategies and decisions.

Even if you follow customs, you can have trouble unless you understand how people from different national backgrounds differ in their thinking. When you use hypothetical arguments, they may wonder why you are engaging in fantasy rather than tapping precedents. When you explain how a course of action will benefit them, they wonder why you aren’t considering broader impacts. When you diagnose problems by showing who messed up, they wonder why you aren’t taking the situation into account.