Tag Archives: global business effectiveness

Satisfacción de los Clientes Internacionales

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web2Un tercer video tomado del webinar “Desarrollando habilidades interculturales en  profesionales globales”, el 24 de Octubre 2013, en cual cuento la historia de una empresa Chilena que intenta importar parte de su producción de China. Por falta de no desarrollar las competencias interculturales requeridas, no son los primeros en llegar al mercado con el nuevo producto y conlleva la pérdida de mucho dinero y la reputación de la empresa en el mercado. Desafortunadamente es una situación muy común—una  que Cultural Detective te ayuda a evitar.

Por favor, cuéntanos tu historia…

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Historia 1

Historia 2

HUGE Response to Our Post on Names Across Cultures

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Name ChangesOur first blog post on Names Across Cultures hit powerfully and emotionally for so many of you! A few typical comments include:

“Names are part of a person’s identity. If people ‘get it’ across cultures we often feel they ‘get’ us, too.”

“We can’t know all languages or accents or tones, now could we? Having said this I would consider it wrong to be forced to change a name because someone can’t pronounce it—are you kidding? Why should the weakness or inability of one (the name changer) be even acceptable?!”

“My name is a point of pride for me. Even though nearly nothing about me screams ‘I’m a Korean immigrant,’ my name tells a very interesting story about who I am. I suppose my life would be marginally easier and I’ve probably gotten looked over for a handful of jobs because of the ‘foreignness’ of my name, but I like it. It’s unique and it’s me.”

“Changing people’s names was another turn of the screw in the arsenal of tricks that the colonial powers used to subjugate people under their dominion.”

We very much enjoyed reading the stories and comments posted here on the blog as well as in the social media. Thank you! We found them quite insightful, and believe you will, too. We heard from people who:
  1. Feel they are avoided at parties and gatherings because others find their names hard to pronounce. “People are embarrassed to mispronounce my name, so they sometimes avoid me altogether.” Talk about insidious discrimination!
  2. Have had others correct their pronunciation of their own name! “Such arrogance! How dare they! Do they even look at signatures on emails? They invariably correct me!” Sadly, this wasn’t just one person sharing this experience with us.
  3. Have been told their name is “wrong,” because it’s a man’s name not a lady’s, or because its origins are in a certain language and this is how it SHOULD be pronounced.
  4. Express the opposite opinion: “Many of us actually mispronounce our own name without knowing it. People who live in countries with a long history of immigrants and their intermarriage, will in due time pronounce a name according to what their ‘new’ language has taught them. Is this now wrong? Well, maybe to some degree yes, but since the new pronunciation is not something done out of maliciousness but rather due to having been told of it wrong.”
  5. Proclaim, “Those of us with unusual names need to stand our ground!”
    1. “I am waiting for the day I can go back to my roots and not cringe every time someone speaks to me!”
    2. “I prefer to have people change my name than butcher (by mispronouncing) my name!”
  6. Advise, “Forget my last name; use my first!” (or vice-versa) for ease in pronunciation.
  7. Are happy to have a different name for the varied contexts in which they live and work.
    1. “If someone calls me Karinka, or makes up another name that is easier for them, or pronounces my name incorrectly, I do not mind at all. I myself am certainly not in a position to pronounce everybody’s names properly, and I know how difficult it can be.”
    2. “It is all relative. When people ask me ‘What is your name?’ I say ‘Marianne.” The spelling stays the same but I pronounce it differently: Marianne (pronounced the German way), Mary Ann (the English way) or Ma Li An (pronounced the Chinese way). Personally I like to make people comfortable in my presence and have no preference how people pronounce my name.”
    3. “My name is Robert. I call myself Rob. In Egypt I’m Mr. Rob, in Finland I am Roope, in China I’m Lobert’t, and in Japan I’m Lobba. I answer to them all, and I’m comfortable with them all. But, then again, I am an intercultural trainer.”
    4. “I had a friend in China and was trying really hard to pronounce his name in Chinese, except he got mad at me. He wanted to be called by his self-assigned English name, and considered it rude that I was even trying to pronounce his name in Chinese.”
  8. Find the whole thing amusing, and leverage the pronunciation difficulties as a method to build relationship and understanding: “I really don’t mind you butchering my name. I understand: Höferle is hard to say if you are unfamiliar with the German language. Changing my last name’s spelling to the English keyboard-friendly Hoeferle also hasn’t helped. It made for funny moments, though. Something sounding awfully close to ‘hopefully’ or ‘hofferly’ has been the usual outcome in recent years. No matter how often I tell people to just forget about saying my last name and instead stick with Christian, they still try to get it right. Which is a really nice gesture, I think.” Bravo! Christian even, most kindly, sent us a link to his blog post on names and a link to learn more about pronouncing names with umlauts.
  9. Comment, “My last name has been spelled, Simons, Simmons, Simms, Symonds, Simonis, Simon, Simone—sometimes two or more versions in the same document. I find this more annoying than mispronunciation, which I am used to and expect, given that I am widely traveled and have lived in a number of countries, and realize that different language speakers use their own preferences for how the vowels sound. Misspelling can make authentication of documents difficult. Sometimes my family name is taken as a first name in documents and George(s) becomes my last name.”
  10. Share with us, “US immigration officers in the 19th and early 20th centuries were not beyond renaming immigrants on the spot, crossing out ‘Walentinowicz’ and writing in ‘Walters.’ 

Catholic Baptisms were conducted in Latin years ago, and it was required that a Saint’s name be given a child. There is no St. Nancy, so my cousin was named Venantia Fortunata (which I never let her forget).”
  11. “Dutch speakers use their digraph ij pronunciation which is the wrong pronunciation for my surname, as the languages are not even remotely related. Ironically, English language has roots in Anglo Frisian, yet native English speakers seem to have more difficulty with pronouncing my surname than just about any other heritage speaker. I can understand difficulties arising from having no equivalent sounds in other languages, but can not fathom where anyone gets the additional consonants…”
  12. And the humorous, “I once dated a guy who couldn’t pronounce my name properly, even though his former girlfriend of seven years was also called Kaisa. No need to say it didn’t last long…”

Readers very much enjoyed the quiz we put together, and shared with us another name to add to it: by what far more famous name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle known? (answer at the bottom *)

There was obviously a broad range of responses from one imaginable end of a continuum to another—just begging for someone to conduct research into naming and our responses to name changes, spelling and pronunciation across cultures.

How do the use, pronunciation and spelling of names affect international organizations? Readers expressed:
  1. A lot of resentment around computer systems not having non-“standard” letters, because it means that people’s names often show up with strange characters in them, rather than being spelled correctly (“Brünnemann” not “Brünnemann”). “I do wonder when big, supposedly ‘international’ organisations or institutes do not even have their software in a position to spell international names,” said one of our community members. We know first-hand. It seems every other week one of our web pages has spontaneously changed to show strange rather than correct characters in one of our author’s names!
  2. “Dear marketers and copywriters: Inserting umlauts into your American brand names, logos or slogans may help you create some awareness. But it will also let you look really ignorant of other languages and cultures.”
  3. “I do have a problem when, for example, I read in a Peruvian paper, ‘Principe Carlos,’ where both the word ‘Prince’ and ‘Charles’ were translated into Spanish. It would have been OK if it were only Principe Charles. Why did they not stop there? Why not call Michael Jackson ‘Miguel HijoDeJacobo’? I know the reason behind it, btw, nevertheless I find it amusing.”
  4. “It’s so unfortunate when people and institutions feel they need to change the spelling of my name. Went to vote today in the NYC primaries and somehow my name got automatically changed to Bo Y. Kang. I have never written my name like that and I’m super duper conscious of getting the whole Bo Young part right under the section that says First Name so that they realize that’s my first name. I always leave the Middle initial section completely blank. Other ways my name gets written even after I’ve spelled it correctly:
    1. The magical hyphen: Bo-Young Kang
    2. The other magical hyphen: Bo Young-Kang
    3. The switcharoo: Bo Kang Young (and all its variations Kang Bo Young, Young Bo Kang, Kang Young Bo, Young Kang Bo)
    4. The disappearing game: Bo Kang
    5. The other disappearing game: Bo Young (this one I don’t mind so much because it’s technically correct, just missing a part)
    6. The condenser: Boyoung Kang
    7. The other condenser: Bo Youngkang
    8. And those are just the ones that include all the right letters. You don’t even want to get me started on the Bow, Boo, Booh, Yung, Ying, Yong, Kan, Li, Rhee variations I get all the time. 
    9. My name isn’t that hard. It’s spelled exactly like it sounds.”
Strategies for dealing with difficult-to-pronounce names that our readers shared with us included:
  1. Rhymes and mnemonics you’ve made up to help people learn to pronounce your name: “

Over the decades I’ve created stories to help people pronounce my name—’Think of going to the MALL. After a long day of shopping, you need a cup UH TEA. 

One year ago, someone blithely said, ‘Oh, your name rhymes with ‘Quality.’ 

Now when I meet someone, I introduce myself cheerfully: ‘Hi, my name is Malati. It rhymes with ‘Quality.’ This immediately releases the tension. 

’Rhymes with Quality’ is on my email signature, business cards, nearly anywhere my name appears!”
  2. “An interesting way to learn about a new acquaintance can be to ask the meaning and origin of the person’s name. Every nation has a trend of calling up by some peculiar name which helps a lot for better communication and understanding.”
  3. “Years back while in Nigeria the head of the Media Department there was Igbo. One time I listened carefully and repeated his family name again and again and could never get it right—though it did sound the same to my year (and herein lies an importance to note) I could not do so. Time passed, making myself more familiar to the language so I tried again, and once more I could not achieve it. More time passed with the same negative results. He would smile at me every time I pronounced his last name, knowing I had it wrong but was at least genuinely trying. He was also nice enough to let me know I was the one who came closest to it and that no one before or after me ever tried so hard. Just so you know, the Igbo language is one of the few languages that actually has sounds going in (like inhaling) when speaking.”
  4. “I actually take great pains myself to repeat until I have someone’s name correct if it is ‘foreign’ to me … surely this is a minimum sign of respect!!!”
  5. “Your link to audioname.com is a terrific resource, and I recommend all in this community adopt its use. If your name is not hard to pronounce, you can use your 30-second audio-byte to talk about the origins of your name. It will encourage others to use this and help make our world more pronounceable and accommodating.”

The common theme, however, is BE CAREFUL WITH NAMES. Ask! Show respect. Discuss and don’t assume. And definitely avoid changing someone’s name without their permission; it’s a rare person who loves a nickname or name change that has been “assigned” or “imposed.”

I have one more video clip to share with you, from my interview with Dr. Emmanuel Ngomsi. In this short clip, he tells us how names are traditionally given in his home, Cameroon.

A common characteristic of many cultures around the world is the importance placed on naming a child. Factors that may be considered might include gender, birth order, astrological factors, family tradition, naming the child after a parent or beloved relative, date of birth, or characteristics valued in the birth culture or family and with which those naming the child want to imbue the newborn, among a wide variety of others. In some traditions family members do not share a family name. Do the parents choose a child’s name? Do the grandparents? Is there some ceremony in which the child chooses his/her own name? Does the state dictate selection from an official list of acceptable names, as has been the case in Iceland?

Here’s the video:

* Answer: Mata Hari

Please do share with us your further reactions, experiences, stories and advice. It is obviously a topic that merits some study as well as some training.

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See Part 1 of this interview.

My Global Life Link-Up

La Supervisión de una Fuerza de Trabajo Multicultural

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web2Un segundo video tomado del webinar “Desarrollando habilidades interculturales en  profesionales globales”, el 24 de Octubre 2013, en el cual cuento una historia de la gerencia de un equipo de trabajo intercultural. Es la historia de un mecánico Holandés que trabaja como jefe de equipo en un buque de perforación petrolera frente a las costas de Argentina. La falta de competencias interculturales requeridas conlleva la pérdida de tres empleados, mucho dinero, y la reputación de la empresa en el mercado. Desafortunadamente es una situación muy común—una que Cultural Detective te ayuda a evitar.

Por favor, cuéntanos tu historia…

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Historia 1

Historia 3

5 Top (Free & Easy) Virtual Collaboration Tools that You May Not (Yet) Be Using

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“When organizations elect to create virtual teams, they focus on the potential advantages, such as the diversity of the team, or the potential for ’round the clock’ productivity with employees working in multiple time zones. However, companies must also be aware of the challenges that accompany virtual teams. For these groups to be successful, managers cannot use the old rules of leadership. New ways of working require different skills.”

—Karen McHenry

The success of virtual teams requires new rules of leadership and new skills, as Karen suggests, but also new tools. The tools we use to collaborate can make or break our effectiveness. How do we establish trust when we rarely if ever see one another? How do we build a new relationship with someone we’ve never met? Can technology help in this regard? Of course it can. It can also get in the way, causing more problems than it solves (how many times has a phone call or video conference cut in-and-out, or the sound during a webinar not worked properly?).

In this blog post I share with you my selection of Five Top Free Virtual Collaboration Tools available today, and my guess is you’re not using most of them. Trying them out may greatly increase your virtual team effectiveness. First, let me give you a bit of context, to aid  in your use of the tools.

(Click page numbers below to read more.)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Una Historia de Abrir Mercados Nuevos

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web2Tomado del webinar “Desarrollando habilidades interculturales en  profesionales globales”, el 24 de Octubre, 2013, en cuyo video cuento la historia de unos clientes míos, tratando de abrir nuevos mercados sin haber desarrollado las competencias interculturales requeridas. Es una situación muy común, que conlleva la pérdida de millones de dólares y la reputación en el mercado. Es una experiencia que Cultural Detective te ayuda a evitar.

Por favor, cuéntanos tu historia…

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Historia 2

Historia 3

Use of a typical Indian metaphor by Devdatt Pattnaik to speak of culture: Kolam

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tumblr_lk8iuxl2vK1qa2x4yo1_500This guest post is written by , cross cultural consultant and trainer. Remember, don’t think “chaos;” think “pattern!”

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Often times in my intercultural trainings to Indian audiences, I have sensed a discomfort in my participants with using models (the iceberg of culture, for example) and imagery that are often more easily understood by Westerners. Perhaps, I am more sensitive to this discomfort because I felt the same when I learned not only one but two foreign languages (English and French), with their intrinsic imagery that was so far removed from my local reality.

You can imagine my joy when I stumbled upon Devdutt Pattnaik’s use of a typical Indian custom of drawing kolams (rangoli in North India) to explain the Indian world view. Used to adorn the floor at the entrance of even the most humble abode in India, it is basically a pattern that is drawn, using lines to connect a grid of dots. There is nothing rigid about how the dots need to be connected—each person chooses to connect the dots as s/he desires, and each pattern is a legitimate one, just as is each culture.

Below you can watch his thought provoking presentation on India. I particularly love his closing lines. Enjoy! What are your favorite local metaphors and imagery that resonate with the local contexts you work in?

Open Letter to Home Office Senior Management & Their Agents

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130124120043-overseas-job-assignment-614xaThis is a guest blog post by Reyno Magat (full bio at bottom of the post), leadership and talent development consultant, coach and mentor, about a topic of crucial importance in the global mobility arena: management of headquarters’ expectations. I find it far too infrequently talked about, particularly in light of the huge impact it has on both expatriate and subsidiary (and in turn, overall organizational) success. I have previously written on this subject. I trust this open letter, intended as an exercise in empathy and walking in an expat’s shoes, and not as an indictment (unless the shoe fits), will help raise awareness and effect some change. Put those Cultural Detective subscriptions to good use, please! We need organizations that enable sustainable success, in all locations in which we operate.

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“Much of expats’ energy, motivation and performance are affected by having to contend with home office senior leaders and their agents, who can be clueless and typically, frankly disinterested in the local realities, other than financial targets being met. These leaders and their collaborators often place unremitting pressure on expats to continue to conform to a home office-centric mindset, group-think, and timelines, with complete disregard of the challenges actually faced locally. All of these factors are at play as the expats are expected to perform and deliver results whilst mindful of risks to their personal reputation and consequent relationships with these leaders—affecting pay, bonuses, career progression AND family.”
—Reyno Magat

Dear former colleagues,

Before you ask, I’m happy to say my family and I are settled back home, having secured a really incredible new job at one of your competitors. As an added incentive, they have given me the promotion I had missed out on [for the second time, even though it had been verbally promised to me when you offered me the foreign assignment], and they’ve generously made up the cumulative pay awards and bonuses which you have steadfastly refused to give me, all on top of their superlative relocation package. Although I guess it was rather flattering that you had me flown back home for a series of discussions [business class flights and fine dining at your expense no less!] after I sent you my resignation letter, I have to say all of your efforts were too late, frankly, far too late.

Oh, just in case you’re genuinely interested to know, my dear wife is now able to have the medical attention she wasn’t entitled to whilst we were abroad, because your medical benefits package did not apply to her. You considered her a local national there, even though she has lived abroad for most of her life. You would have enjoyed meeting her when you visited, but of course you always had such tight schedules, having to fit in client meetings and their entertainment at the grand sporting and social events there [I always assured the local team that the timing was purely coincidental]. Memories of having to cajole the team to drop whatever they were doing [with unpaid overtime, as Group Finance would not have approved it] so that your visits, however frankly disrupting, went smoothly, are all in the distant past.

Speaking of clients, I’m relieved I no longer have to ask them, plead even, to provide yet more information to comply with your constant demands [which by the way seemed to invariably arrive late on Friday afternoons]. Thankfully, I’ve built very good relationships with them, although it never stopped them naturally making barely polite comments about what they call ‘imperialist/colonialist’ mentality and behaviours that must prevail at your home office. As I have often pointed out to you, many of your clients and, indeed, your employees there are well educated [including graduates from some of the best universities/business schools in the world], cosmopolitan and culturally sophisticated, some of whom coming from families, dynasties even, dating back to a time before our own nation became one. Unlike in our own culture, where people seemingly seek every opportunity to boast about their personal achievements, status and wealth, they are far too well brought up and well mannered to ever behave with such brashness, immodesty and self-publicity.

The local nationals there certainly never appreciated your inability and unwillingness to recognise that they come from an independent, sovereign nation which is only one, albeit in their eyes the most economically vibrant, of several that make up a region of different  histories, politics, economics and cultures. Yes, as I had pointed out so many times until I was blue in the face, indeed that country belongs to a geographical region, but their nation has a distinct market, business practices and customs, and political sensitivities [which may be different to ours, but not to be equated or conveniently labelled as being ‘corrupt’, ‘illegal’ or ‘laissez faire’]. I always felt very uncomfortable and worried about having to translate your memos, circulars and announcements into a language that all can understand, and have them not be seen as offensive. Inevitably, I was often accused by yourselves of having gone ‘native’ and not being mindful of Group initiatives or indeed being a dutiful corporate citizen. Frankly, frequently I didn’t understand them either, and our lives were made tougher, especially when the timelines were so compressed that they required all of us to stop everything else to comply. And, when I queried some of the content, somehow I was invariably referred to the corporate intranet. Because of time zone differences, it was often difficult to find anyone at your offices in any case who was available to help. Actually, even when I did visit your home office as part of my bi-annual leave, I found there were so many new faces, and that some of the people I had known well before I departed seemed to have moved on.

I believe you really ought to stop believing your own advertisement; that of being a truly global company, as in reality you are principally a domestic company that happens to have international offices. The market there as well as the clients, competitors and your very own employees think the same. Certainly, the employees witness on a daily basis the battles between yourselves and the local management team, with yours truly often being ‘piggy in the middle’! I know for sure that none of you ever appreciated my many sincere  efforts to mediate, and to offer what I believed to be workable solutions, as such actions had most certainly cost me my promotion and any chances of pay awards and bonuses during the time I was there. How I wish I was wiser when you asked me to take on the assignment and uproot my family, for what you then described as a ‘fast track’ for my career. I should have suspected earlier on, indeed even before I left the home office, that you were really ever only interested in sending a ‘body’ over there when HR suggested, as my own and my family’s only preparation, to go to the CIA website to read the country report of where we were going, as well as to go to the Amazon website to search for books about that country. Apart from a lengthy briefing on the company’s tax equalisation policy, that was the sum total of help my family and I were ever given.

I had actually used my own initiative before departing, by contacting Manuel Jones who you know had been an expat himself in several countries [mostly in other regions], and had been assigned previously to that country. After arrival though, I soon discovered that despite his many years of working and living abroad, his perceptions were inaccurate, dated, narrowly focused, and on many occasions, frankly racist. In fact, it made me wonder whether he actually met or formed any meaningful relationships with the local nationals, as he painted a significantly different picture of the people and the country. I suppose it was some years ago when he had all that foreign experience, and norms and business practices and realities have moved on rapidly since his time.

Looking ahead, and positively, senior management [and HR!] in my new company have warmly welcomed my offer to assist them in selecting people for foreign assignments, and to coach and mentor current and future expats. As HR is presently reviewing their foreign assignment policies and procedures, they have asked me to be one of their advisors, and I shall be collaborating with them too to identify new methods and sources of direct help aimed at all foreign assignees and their families. These will include setting up a panel of coaches and mentors specifically available to assist them [despite her own ill-treatment from you, my wife is certainly willing to assist too]. The Group CEO has already started introducing me as the Executive Committee’s newly appointed ‘BS detector’, who is expected to carry out reality checks on important home office directives before they are issued.

My experience with your company has made me justifiably sceptical, naturally, about what my new company will actually ‘deliver’ vs. intent, but I shall nevertheless be optimistic. I owe it to other expats and their families.

Sincerely,

Disillusioned but unbowed

*Reyno Magat is a London-based leadership and talent development consultant, coach and mentor. Over 35 years of working in the learning and development field has not diminished his  relish and enthusiasm for working with leaders at various levels to equip them with the self-awareness, skills and motivation to perform at their best and to develop to their full potential. Having worked with some 30 nationalities in about 15 countries from 5 sectors, he brings to bear his own personal international background, extensive insights into business and organisational realities, creative spark, and a healthy dose of pragmatism, whether he is facilitating a leadership workshop or on an executive coaching assignment. With the added direct experience of having been a corporate buyer of external leadership and cross-cultural development services, he is keenly aware of the imperative to seamlessly integrate learning interventions with the values, culture, priorities and realities within, client organisations. By being challenging and provoking honest reflection, his primary focus typically is on consistent, culturally-appropriate behaviours, and commercially-anchored, sustainable decisions that will produce the desired results for the client.

Building Leadership Resilience with Cultural Detective

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Cultural Detective® will be featured in a workshop at the 15th Annual International Leadership Association Conference in Montreal, Canada, Oct 30 – Nov 2, 2013.  Dr. Karen Lokkesmoe, Leadership Across Meridians, and Tatyana Fertelmeyster, Connecting Differences Consulting, co-author of the Cultural Detective® Russia, will lead a workshop demonstrating how CD can be used to build global leadership competencies.

Session Description:
Building Leadership Resilience with Cultural Detective
Saturday, Nov 2  10:15 -11:15   Room: Gatineau
At the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal

There are many facets of global leadership, and any number of skills that are required of today’s leaders, but one of the core skill sets is intercultural competency (Moodian, 2010; Lokkesmoe, 2009; Mendenhall, 2008). It has become clear that good intentions, awareness-raising, and exposure to other cultures are not sufficient, in and of themselves, to build global leadership and intercultural capacity (Mendenhall et al., 2008; Vande Berg & Paige, 2009). The focus must be on intentional capacity building. Cultural Detective® is an innovative and engaging methodology that allows for building concrete skills and developing sustainable ability to understand, engage, and lead others in intercultural situations more effectively.

This interactive workshop demonstrates how to use the Cultural Detective framework to build and develop intercultural leadership skills. Participants can expect to learn how to use specific elements of the Cultural Detective (culture-specific Value Lens, Worksheet, and Cultural Detective Online) as practical tools in situational analysis and decision making. Using Cultural Detective as part of your global leadership development strategy will help you increase performance, productivity and profits through loyalty, teamwork, and return on investment. It is a tool you and your employees can use immediately to achieve the bottom-line results that intercultural competence can bring to your organization.

Come put on your detective hat and learn how you can use this fun and engaging tool to enhance your (and your organization’s) global leadership competence! While our world may be shifting rapidly, developing skills to identify cultural similarities and differences, accurately interpreting real life situations from multiple perspectives, and designing creative, interculturally sound solutions help foster the resilience we need to be effective leaders today. We hope to have you join us.

 

Developmental Intercultural Competence Using Cultural Detective Online

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CDO
Are you doing your best to develop cross-cultural effectiveness in your organization, and want better results? Quicker results? Longer lasting results? Or, maybe even just results—heightened productivity and satisfaction? Our clients have achieved amazing increases in cross-cultural effectiveness—their people improving two stages on the DMIS (the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity) in a few months, and customer satisfaction increasing 30%—using Cultural Detective developmentally. How did they do that?…

Index for This Post (jump ahead if you’d like)
The DMIS
The DMIS and Cultural Detective
How Customers Successfully Build Intercultural Competence
Additional Resources

Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity ©Dr. Milton J. Bennett, 1986 & 1993.

Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity ©Dr. Milton J. Bennett, 1986 & 1993.

The DMIS
Let me start by telling you about the DMIS. First published by Dr. Milton Bennett in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations in 1986, and more fully developed in Education for the Intercultural Experience in 1993, the DMIS has proven to be a key milestone in the intercultural field. It provides a roadmap for those of us who aim to develop intercultural competence.

A developmental model is a conceptual framework that helps us better understand a progressive process, as well as providing guides for continued development. Examples of a developmental model with which most parents are familiar are those charts that track the major milestones of an infant’s growth. Such models help us anticipate when our baby will smile, sit up, crawl, or distinguish right from wrong, and they can help us ready our children for their next big challenge. There are abilities our baby generally must develop (e.g., roll over) before being ready to accomplish tasks at a higher stage of development (e.g., crawl). At each stage, the baby needs to be appropriately encouraged, while also feeling safe enough to take the risk to try something new.

Similarly, the DMIS is a conceptual model of six stages of the development of intercultural sensitivity, from ethnocentrism to ethno-relativism. The IDI, or Intercultural Development Inventory, is a psychometric instrument that assesses one’s stage of development. Its origins are based in the DMIS, though it uses a slightly modified version of the model today, called the IDC (Intercultural Development Continuum). The DMIS and the IDI enable us to track where we are in the development of our intercultural sensitivity, and ready ourselves for enhanced sensitivity or effectiveness.

The DMIS and Cultural Detective
The beauty our clients have found in the Cultural Detective Method is that it challenges and supports, stretches and comforts, learners at each stage of their development of intercultural sensitivity. While the DMIS and IDI indicate where one is on the developmental continuum, Cultural Detective assists in the learning and development of the skills needed to succeed in cross-cultural interactions.

The process works organically. The designer must make the case for diversity and inclusion in developmentally appropriate ways, and debrief learning in ways that comfort and challenge the learners. However, the Cultural Detective (CD) Method itself need not vary, no matter the developmental stage. Learners, depending on their abilities, will naturally use the CD Method differently at different levels of development.

Let me give a couple of examples.
  • Learners in ethnocentric stages of development will easily and fairly quickly solve a Cultural Detective mystery—they will be eager to complete the Worksheet, solve the problem, give the participants in the critical incident advice on what they should have done differently. Facilitators will observe, however, that learners at earlier development stages will suggest Cultural Bridges that are naïve or unrealistic, though of course possible. They might suggest, for example, that “the Japanese person just needs to speak up more assertively,” or “the Mexican manager needs to be more considerate of others and trust that his and his company’s welfare will be looked after.” Both of these recommendations are within the realm of possibility, both are achievable by Japanese and Mexicans of certain personality types or personal discipline, but such Bridges are not realistic for the majority of people from those cultures. Learners in ethnocentric stages feel good that they are able to solve the problem, which encourages them to try another and, with practice, learn what really works and what doesn’t when teaming across cultures.
  • When completing that same Cultural Detective Worksheet, learners in ethno-relative stages of development will enjoy pairing Values, Beliefs and Cultural Sense with the Words and Actions they motivate. They will invest effort into discerning the commonalties, as well as the differences, between the participants in the critical incident. They will develop ways to build on shared interests, while also leveraging diverse opinions and abilities, so that all players more fully contribute and the organization or community benefits. They will, without prompting, compare themselves, their values and beliefs, to the players in the incident—constantly learning, discovering, and refining their self-understanding. They will, in an organic way, explore and cultivate their cultural (or multicultural) identities, their understanding of and empathy for others, and their abilities to collaborate across cultures.

Thus, in a very natural way, learners at all stages of development receive the support as well as the challenge they need to continue their developmental journey towards intercultural sensitivity. There is very little stress on the facilitator to adapt the CD Method for the learner’s level of development, freeing the facilitator to focus effort on answering questions and dealing with resistance in ways that are both appropriately challenging and supportive to the learner.

And such a flexible process can be a blessing when we work with groups from mixed developmental levels. I often compare the Cultural Detective Method to the Montessori approach, because learners at all developmental levels can gain from helping one another.

So, How Do Customers Do It? How Do They Successfully Build Competence?

1. Research shows the development of intercultural competence requires ongoing, structured learning. That is precisely what a subscription to Cultural Detective Online (CDO) provides. So, first, get a subscription. If you want to build competence in your team or organization, if you are an experienced interculturalist, or if you are new to the Diversity and Inclusion space, a CDO subscription is a small investment with huge potential. The subscription agreement allows you to project CDO contents onto a screen for group viewing in any work you personally deliver, as long as you explain to your learners that Cultural Detective Online is a tool that anyone can subscribe to. Our goal is to get these materials used!

2. USE the system, regularly. Cultural Detective Online isn’t an entertainment system; it isn’t passive; it won’t give you intercultural competence through osmosis or by using magic dust. (That’ll be version 2! Just kidding.) Log onto the system once a week, and spend 20-30 minutes debriefing a critical incident, and using Values Lenses to supplement what you see. Respond to the prompts asking you what you’ve learned. Review your notes.

3. After a few weeks using your subscription, once you feel comfortable and competent with the Cultural Detective Worksheet, upload your own incident. Choose something from your real life: perhaps an interaction with a family member, friend, or colleague that puzzled you. Once you write the brief story, link the participants in your incident (yourself and others) to the Values Lenses in the Cultural Detective Online system. Think about why you behaved the way you did, and reflect on the influence that national, gender, generational, and spiritual values had on your behavior. Think about these same influences on the other people in your incident.

4. Then, you can discuss the incident with the real people involved in the situation. Having worked through a CD Worksheet, you will be able to move beyond judgment in your discussion. You will have already thought through the possible positive intentions of the other person, so your dialogue will proceed constructively. You both can learn, and collectively develop strategies to collaborate, or cohabitate, more enjoyably.

5. If you are a team lead or an organizational facilitator, gather your learners together regularly (monthly, quarterly), to discuss what skills they are acquiring using the CD Online system, questions they have, and the challenges they’re experiencing in developing intercultural competence.

6. Remember, Cultural Detective need not stand alone; supplement the tool with your favorite activities: simulations, exercises, videos, role-plays, etc. The core Cultural Detective Method dovetails smoothly with just about any other intercultural tool or technique, because it is a process.

7. If you want to track your progress, be sure to use the IDI to get baseline measurements of participants in your group. I’d then recommend participants take the IDI again, after three months of structured learning using CDO. You will be amazed by the results!

8. Cultural Detective Online is a tool. It doesn’t replace skilled facilitation; it supplements and extends it. You may already use the MBTI, the IDI, dimensions models, etc., in the training or coaching you do. Add CD Online to your repertoire and you will be delighted at how it transforms what you are able to achieve with your learners.

9. Be sure to share your Cultural Effective success story with us, and get your organization some positive kudos!

Additional Resources
A few years ago, two very experienced and well-regarded intercultural facilitators, Heather Robinson and Laura Bathurst, wrote an article explaining what I’m talking about.

I am also happy to share with you one of the handouts I prepared for a session at a recent IDI Conference (be sure to scroll down to view all three pages). This handout is a table showing the needs for challenge and support at each stage of development, and explicates the ways in which the Cultural Detective Method meets those needs. You are most welcome to download and print this handout. Note that in the handout you will find the five stages of development that are currently used by the IDI (slightly different than those of the DMIS, above).

Please let us know how you have used Cultural Detective in your teaching and training to facilitate your learners’ intercultural development. I would also like to invite any researchers or graduate students who are interested in conducting research on this important topic to contact us.

New Study on How the Language We Speak Affects Us

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“The structure of languages affects our judgments and decisions about the future, and this might have dramatic long-term consequences.”

On October 1st I read an interesting article in Scientific American, entitled, “How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health.” Dr. Keith Chen, of Yale Business School, had conducted a study analyzing individual-level data — economic decisions, retirement assets, smoking and exercising habits, and general health in older age — from 76 developed and developing countries. He also analyzed national savings rates, country GDP and GDP growth rates. Premised on the fact that some languages have explicit future markers while others have more ambiguous markers between present and future, Dr. Chen correlated the economic and health data with language structure, with striking results. “Speaking a language that has obligatory future markers, such as English, makes people 30 percent less likely to save money for the future,” according to Scientific American.

I shared the article on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and today I came across a terrific little video that summarizes the study’s findings. Good visuals nearly always help me make sense of information; it’s why I made this video, summarizing a different cross-cultural study, earlier this year. I bet you’ll find the movie below helpful as well:

The original study is entitled, “The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets,” written by M. Keith Chen, Yale University, School of Management and Cowles Foundation, April, 2013
Published in the American Economic Review 2013, 103(2): 690-731
Editor’s choice, Science Magazine, Vol 339(4)
Permanent address: http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.2.690http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/keith.chen/papers/LanguageWorkingPaper.pdf

Remember, Cultural Detective is a leading-edge process not only for understanding values and behavioral differences across cultures, but for navigating them successfully.