The Stats - Turnover & its staggering costs:
•Employees with the highest level of commitment perform 20% better and are 87% less likely to want to leave the organization (Corporate Leadership Council, 2004).
•Companies that communicate most effectively are 50% more likely to report turnover levels below the industry average compared with only 33% for the least effective communicators (Watson Wyatt, 2003).
•18% of the variation in sickness and absence rates across the company was due to variations in communication practices (Brown, Duncan & MacDonald, 2003)
Cross-cultural management
Knowledge of cultural differences is important but not enough; you also need to develop global dexterity for translating that knowledge into effective behavior. Provided is an approach to adapting while feeling comfortable, considered to be an essential skill that enables you to switch behaviors and overcome the emotional and psychological challenges of doing so.
· Molinsky, Andy (2013). Global dexterity: How to adapt your behavior across cultures without losing yourself in the process. Harvard Business Review Press.
It may seem obvious that culture affects language and custom, but it also affects how people experience the world at basic levels. People literally see different elements of a picture or scene, and though they both may see the same picture, they filter it differently. People from Western cultures are conditioned to focus on central objects more than on their surroundings; while Eastern cultures stress interdependence and thus their focus is less on context than surroundings.
· Goldberg, C. (2008 March 4). East and West: Seeing the world through different lenses. New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/health/04iht-6sncult.1.10695876.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Teerikangas & Hawk argue that we’ve been too focused on looking at cross-cultural perspectives from a Western World perspective that is mechanistic. Though all of the Western world has been greatly influenced by the Greeks, perhaps there is another way, a better way to explore culture, and that through the recognizing of its complexity through systems thinking.
· Teerikangas, Satu & Hawk, David (2002). Approaching Cultural Diversity Through the Lenses of Systems Thinking and Complexity Theory. The 46th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences at Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, August 2-6, 2002. Retrieved from: http://www.systemicbusiness.org/pubs/2002_ISSS_46th_Teerikangas_Hawk_Cultural_Diversity.pdf
It is important to not just use language to get your point across but to truly connect. Our environment and organizations also influence the words we use. Vesin’s article supports and furthers this idea, and explains why and how speaking in another language is more powerful beyond the seemingly immediate.
· Vesin, Sheerin (2016 September 30). Work in a second language to enhance decision making. CLO Media. Retrieved from: http://www.clomedia.com/2016/09/30/work-second-language-enhance-decision-making/?utm_source=MyEmma&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=CLO%20Today
Contact Dr. Andrea, to learn how to increase the following into your organization:
Take a moment in reflection…
Most often it’s not that our team is unskilled, uneducated or lacks knowledge, it’s typically that we cannot get along! Yet, icebreaking or team building exercises haven’t seemed to work. Employees must learn how brain and body chemicals work for and against them, as well as when to trust those internal chemical and electrical impulses, and when and how to override them. Imagine if you could be freed up of the energy you expend intervening in relationship squabbles?