How to develop smart solutions in diverse cultures?

As we grow older, there are things that are in fashions and then they are no longer hip. I can remember that the business community talked about project management. There were other similar developments people in the business world might remember. Remember The Tipping Point, and the stealing of cheese, the list of dysfunctions, death by meetings, temptations, and other misguided business habits.

We have heard how important empowerment is to a good organizational culture and the happiness of the workforce. Then came a long list of variations about the ins and outs of leadership. This is actually where I started and what is still my main passion - maybe besides coaching others help themselves to become successful. More recently terms like ‘performance management’ and ‘employee engagement’ have gained in popularity.

I believe this highlights a problem that has slowly crept up on us with the advent of some technological solutions and a steady drumbeat in the media. What has happened is the isolation of individuals through the use of electronic tools. We use smart phones, blueberries, laptop computers, and e-mail to communicate. We transfer presentations around the world and deliver them with video-conferencing. The opportunity to observe body language, tone of voice, hand signals, or the twinkle in the eye, have disappeared more and more.

You might think this is only an issue in the business world, but it really isn’t. We used to be fascinated to watch groups of individuals who never did anything together form teams and achieve interesting solutions to problems. Sometimes creativity was the main aim, sometimes it was simply necessary to solve a problem or get out of a bad situation. These days we are inundated by displays of so called “Reality-events” in which an initial group is reduced down to a single winner. Each person eliminated in the process is publicly declared a looser. Just look at popular shows like “Dance Wars”, “America Inventor”, “The next America Band”, “Survivor”, and many more.

In business seminars we are taught how to develop a better decision process. This perceived better process actually suggests asking all meeting participants to provide solutions to a problem that they deem to be acceptable. The most used phrase is: “If we do this, we know we could live with it”. Based on this prerequisite, the alternatives are reduced to two, then everybody votes and the winning solution gets implements. Sounds a lot like. Sounds a lot like American Idol, doesn’t it.

For those among you who actually look for solutions as leaders and managers, what you really need to determine is your cultural preference. As I am always saying, awareness is at least 50% of the solution. Knowing which approach you culturally prefer allows you to be aware, but also to deviate from what you would otherwise do habitually. You basically have 8 choices to define where you fall and also where the group of individuals you are working with and/or working for:

1. Universalism = What is good ands right can be defines, put in a  process or procedures and always applies

2. Particularism =  Instead of having one right way or one right  process, you pay more attention to  relationships, friendships  and don’t follow a certain code for each problem or issue.

3. Individualism = is when you mainly look at yourself as a person

4. Communitarianism = is when you mainly look at yourself as  part of a group or community

5. Neutral = the believe that most interactions should be  objective, detached, and all about achieving specific objectives

6. Emotional = Mixing emotions with intellectual decision  processes is allowed, even preferred to see the whole breath of  the person and the aspects of a decision

7. Specific = you are focusing at the task at hand, have all the data  and arguments ready and can present them convincingly

8. Diffuse = you know what the subject is about but also develop  relationships to the players involved, show care, and want to  see beyond the cold, hard facts

Based on the knowledge of your preferences of your inner culture you can drive a solution to a problem or the aim to find a new, innovative approach. If you tend to be universal, individualistic, neutral, and specific, you can detect any attempt to form more relationships and look into the options at hand. None of the combinations is right or wrong, good or bad.

Be aware that a combination of number 1,3,5, and 7 tend to find solutions quickly while the numbers 2,4,6, and 8 tend to take more time to reach agreement. Since neither one is correct or wrong, you want to decide if you can afford to start over or if you depend more on good cooperation and faster results based on increased motivation  after a decision has been reached. The first combination will move you forward with the risk of failing, the second forms cooperation, motivated groups and less chance for failure, but it takes longer to actually find a solution everybody can agree on.

I hope the increased awareness of these processes and cultural preferences will allow you to make better management and leadership decisions and thereby develop engagement with your workforce and success along the way the path towards success.

Axel Meierhoefer, President AMC LLC