SIEMENS

What are the typical difficulties that arise during encounters between people from different cultures?

Moosmüller: Imagine the following situation: A German engineer e-mails a Chinese customer about the latter’s forthcoming visit to Germany. In the first e-mail, the Chinese businessman asks how to get from Munich to the trade fair in Frankfurt; in a second e-mail, he inquires how often the trains run from Munich to Frankfurt; in a third, from which platform the trains depart; and so on. The German engineer is at first mildly irritated, then annoyed, and finally he writes a rather curt e-mail — whereupon he hears nothing from the Chinese customer for quite a long time. That’s because he failed to understand the real reason for all the questions.

The Chinese customer wants to be met at the airport?

Moosmüller: Exactly. The Chinese businessman is saying: Meet me at the airport, invite me out for dinner, let’s talk about new projects, and then you can take me, if not to Frankfurt, then at least to the main train station in Munich. When we look at this situation, we can see immediately what’s going on, but something like that is easy to miss in the rush of everyday business. And that’s often the problem in intercultural communication. We get tangled up in a moment of incomprehension because we don’t have the time and the distance to reflect on what’s happening. That’s why it’s crucial to a step back for a second and take the time to think about the situation. If the German engineer had discussed the e-mails with a colleague, the two of them would certainly have worked out what the Chinese businessman was getting at.

Is a moment of reflection or a discussion with colleagues enough to ensure successful intercultural communication?

Moosmüller: As a rule, it helps enormously. But it’s important to remember that intercultural competence is not the same thing as a familiarity with the foreign country in question. Obviously it’s an advantage to know the language and the customs of the country, but anyone who has to deal with people from a lot of different countries can’t be familiar with all the details of each individual culture. So it’s not merely a question of knowing the right way to hand over a business card in China, for example. What’s really important is the ability to reflect on misunderstandings, ask questions, and adopt a different perspective. That’s what intercultural competence is all about. It’s about learning how to deal with differences and diversity.

Let’s imagine a situation. Three scientists are working on a joint project, one in Munich, one in the U.S., and one in Japan — where you lectured and did research for a number of years. How would they all get along together?

Moosmüller: There’s a very concrete example of exactly that situation. In the mid-1990s Siemens, IBM, and Toshiba set up a joint project with a total of 150 employees to develop DRAM chips. Things got off to a great start. But after half a year a number of problems had developed. One difficulty was that the various teams found the daily presentations of research results boring and even counterproductive. Why? The Americans, for example, presented their work in a short and snappy interactive manner, which the Japanese felt lacked credibility, since they wanted to have background information. The Germans, on the other hand, described the problem for which they were looking for a solution, which tended to irritate the Americans with their solutions-oriented approach. And finally, the Japanese had a lot of discussions between themselves before they presented their results, which the Americans and the Germans interpreted as a lack of independence or even as an attempt to conceal information. In other words, cooperation between the teams increasingly ran into difficulties.

How did they manage to solve these problems?

Moosmüller: We gave the employees training in intercultural skills, where they were asked to explain how they perceived the behavior of the other teams. By articulating their reactions, they were able to develop an understanding of the fact that people from other countries behave in different ways — and that you have to be prepared for this and deal with it. That’s very important. People are not the same the world over. The way people go about doing things, how they arrange their daily affairs, what kinds of learning habits they fall back on — all those things are completely different from culture to culture. You have to be prepared for that.

In the light of increasing globalization, what kind of challenges are companies and their employees going to be facing in the future?

Moosmüller: Joint research projects are already doing a lot for the field of intercultural communication. At many companies employees at certain levels are expected to possess and exercise good intercultural skills. Diversity is the key. Today everyone needs to be globally minded. However, a lot more people claim to meet this requirement than is actually the case. The result is that people get less support in this area than they actually need. Furthermore, there is now increasing pressure to stay positive about things. Yet in intercultural communication especially, it’s vital to be able to talk about difficulties as well. If there is no opportunity to deal with problems in an honest way, you end up creating permanent problems. Anyone working in an intercultural environment is going to get frustrated at times, is going to categorize and stereotype — that’s unavoidable.

How can companies go about dealing with this situation?

Moosmüller: Supervisors have to be prepared to take employees seriously, along with the problems that inevitably crop up in international projects. Measures that are helpful include the use of process monitors and the introduction of regular meetings during which concrete problems can be discussed. That uses up time, but it is definitely worth the effort. Supervisors should allow time for employees to do this — and they should also properly communicate this fact.