10.24.08
Posted in Expat Issues, HR, Strategies at 4:18 am by Administrator
Recently, a former student of mine wrote from his first overseas position with an international company. He told me that though he appreciated my class, he felt that there was one area that I didn’t address — how tough it was to be the expatriate. He was excited by the position but felt lonely and isolated. Here’s how I answered him:
“I agree that taking the overseas assignments will help your advancement, particularly in a global company. The assignments will also broaden your perspective and give you a lot of valuable skills.
“You’re right I didn’t talk about the difficulties of the expat. I tried to figure out how to convey the complex emotional issues involved for people without the direct experience. I will give you the insights that I got at the State Department in my first training course.
“Everyone goes through a series of ups and downs when moving to a new country — it’s called culture shock. The first months are great — everything is new and in some ways magical. You see life through a different set of lenses. Then the culture shock part sets in — usually somewhere in the three to five month span after arriving in the new location. You start being aware of all of the cultural cues that you are either missing or don’t understand. Ordinary tasks, like figuring out where to find a doctor or a barber get on your nerves. Traffic and local driving customs seem mad to you. Somewhere about six to eight months you achieve the long-run equilibrium. If you’re in a location that suits you, your mood will be positive. If you are in a place that is not suited to you, your mood will be less than your “normal” state. I had culture shock to some degree in all six of my overseas postings — so take it as normal. Life can feel very isolated and lonely at the beginning. The key is to go out and make the new friends — and get everything you can out of your posting.
“By the way, there is also reverse culture shock. When you come back to the US, you see it with different lenses. A lot of the customs we have seem odd — even barbaric. Our solution to health care seems inhumane for those suffering economic losses from major illnesses. I remember the time that I took a German trade delegation to San Francisco in 2000 while I was still Consul General in Hamburg. We came off the freeway from the airport onto Sixth Street, right into the Tenderloin with homeless and drug dealers wandering the streets. They were shocked and I was embarrassed as an American. Most who live here in San Francisco just drive right by ignoring the human plight.
“A word of advice as a returning expat: The Expat comes back to headquarters with ambivalence having seen different solutions work just as well in other parts of the world and citicism of practices here in the US. This is sometimes taken by headquarters as less than enthusiastic support for the mission of the company. Some corporations deal with this by keeping their expats overseas; others banish the former expat to marginal parts of the company; the wise companies learn how to integrate these people into their hierarchy. So when you come back to the US, ask your other expats how the company rewards them. That will be a major career decision point for you.
“The Foreign Service Officer who ran that first training course gave me some advice, that I made my objectiveeveryplace I was stationed: “Make each post a better place for your having been there. Strive to leave each post a better person physically, morally and spiritually.”
I’d be interested in any of your experiences in overseas living. Please post your comments.
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02.04.08
Posted in HR at 5:42 am by Administrator
My observation over time that the most frequent mistake that international companies make is sending the bright young sales or operations manager to head up an international operation. You’re taking someone who had succeeded in one business culture and assuming that s/he can similarly run an operation under very different cultural ways of doing business. The worst mistake is picking someone who has succeeded in only the domestic operation.
The downside risks of having the wrong executives in international positions are considerable. Some estimates are that it costs over $300k to post an executive overseas. Even if you are managing an international operation from the domestic offices, the wrong kind of executive may result in having a manager who misses the cultural cues, doesn’t understand the international legal structures, doesn’t understand the risks of international business and the dificulty of manging employees from another culture. So what are some characteristics of successful international executives?
- They are curious about other people and are accepting of differences. Having someone who expects others to adapt to his/her ways of doing business will inevitably lead to problems. This kind of inflexibility is mistaken for the positive trait of drive. A goal-driven executive will recognize when tactics need to be altered and that executive will get that information by reasearch and personal interaction.
- They listen well to what is or is not being said. To interpret what is being said, the successful international executive has experience in the other culture or has asked experts about how to interpret what is going on.
- The successful international executive can think strategically, several moves ahead, like a good chess player. S/he develops options and contigency plans that reflect the business culture and legal systems.
- Speaking another foreign language is a plus. To speak another language fluently is to understand how language influences thought patterns. One senior executive of an accounting firm remarked to me that it took two to three years for an executive to reach fluency; to learn differing accounting and business practices took only months. Hence he hired only language qualified executives, even if he had to go beyond the firm.
- The international executive has to be trusted that s/he is representing the company interests, not those of the international employees or customers. In the diplomatic world, the problem is called “localitis” — when a diplomat is representing the views of the country s/he is posted to and not the other way around. The same goes for international executives. One solution is to rotate the executives around a fairly constant basis.
- If an executive is being sent overseasand has a family, the family has to have the same characteristics of curiosity and willingness to accept people of different cultures. Several times I saw talented executives cut their international postings short because the family couldn’t adapt to the strains of international living. In most cases, the executive goes to a structured office that resembles the ones back home — the family has to adapt to the daily challenges of the new culture.
I’ll be adding comments over the next few weeks on other topics associated with international recruiting.
Please join in with your comments…
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12.10.07
Posted in Cross Cultural, HR at 2:54 am by Administrator
At the German American Business Association of California (www.gaba-network.org) event this week (see previous post), the topic came up about what kept executives awake on the two continents. Gary Cole of Antares Partners pointed out a concern that I had heard about previously — the number one concern of US executives doing business with Europe is the relatively rigid system of laws around hiring and firing. The American executives hear horror stories about how it is impossible to reduce staff and fire underperforming employees. They hear stories about workers councils and panic that management would lost control to the workers.
My experience from working with US companies for nine years in Europe is that smart executives learn not only how to live with regulations but how to use them to their advantage. I haven’t come across one US company that ceased European operations because of the HR environment. To be sure, companies have shut down high-cost operations of which compensation was a major factor. Some of the most profitable operations in Europe are in high-regulation countries like France or Germany. A senior executive at Caterpillar (I spent a year on exchange from the State Department to Caterpillar’s finance company) remarked to me that his best overseas operation was in France. I asked him about the common perceptions of the employment laws and he replied that once you accept the framework, he found that the employees at the French subsidiary were hardworking and creative.
The takeaway from this discussion is that the key is accepting the system and finding good local employees who can carry your business forward. You have to understand the cross-cultural dimension and identify how you can motivate the employees in the other culture.
I invite you to post and tell about your experiences.
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