Hana Tserenkhand Byambadash Business Development Consultant. AusMon Consulting Dr Christine Hogan Adjunct Professor, Curtin University. Consultant & Author

Culture matters in building sustainable

long-term business relationships

Culture matters

Outline

• Why does culture matter?

• What behaviours show respect?

• How can you be a cultural detective?

• What is effective cross-cultural communication?

Tolerance, intercultural dialogue & respect for diversity are more essential than ever in a world where peoples are becoming more & more closely interconnected Kofi Annan, Secretary General UN 1997-2006

Intercultural competencies

Developing “intercultural competence is a lifelong process...” Darla Deardorff (2009) The Sage handbook of intercultural competence, Sage Publications USA.

What are the MOST important intercultural

communication competencies?

Discuss in pairs

(2 minutes)

Cultural detective: Questioning approach

Cultural adviser/s

Question: How do you show RESPECT to your business contacts?

1. Mongolian 2. Australia

2 minutes groups of 2-4 people

Behaviours

Cultural values or

dimensions

Cultural detective: Map/describe your

cultural values/dimensions

1.High power distance:

Respect, position, age

Low power distance:

Casual, informal

Relationships 2. Task

4. Time: punctual Time: flexible

3. Indirect communication, high context

Direct communication, low context

Cultural values/dimensions

8. Religion/spiritual Secular

5. Individualistic I, I, I

Collectivist We, we, we,

Doing

6. Environment: People connected to environment

Environment: Uses

7. Being

Multicultural teams can be more creative than

monocultural teams (DiStefano & Maznevski 2000, Adler 1997)

100%

0%

How well do culturally diverse teams perform?

Research by Adler (1997) and DiStefano and Maznevski (2000) concluded that:

• culturally diverse teams tend to perform either better or worse than homogeneous teams

• more culturally diverse teams perform worse - unless they discuss their differences openly

1. Dysfunctional teams

2. Equaliser teams

3. Creator teams

DiStefano & Masnevski 2000

3 types of teams

MAP

Understand

the

similarities

&

differences

BRIDGE

Communicate

Take

differences

into

account

INTEGRATE

Work together

in new ways

CREATE new

ways of doing things

“MBI” model

for working

in multi-cultural teams

(DiStefano & Maznevski)

Mapping, Bridging & Integrating (MBI) research results

The key to being successful

as a multicultural team is

the quality of the

interaction & communication processes

rather than the team membership!

Practical resources

Singapore Facilitators’ Conference “Facilitating cultural transitions”

Asian Book launch 20 October 2013

Culture matters: Summary

• Why does culture matter?

• What behaviours show respect?

• How can you be a cultural detective?

• What is effective cross-cultural communication?

Intercultural communication workshops Please contact the facilitators:

Hana Tserenkhand Byambadash Consultant AusMon Consulting

Email: Hana77@bigpond.com or tseren55@hotmail.com

Dr Christine Hogan Consultant, Author, Adjunct Professor, Curtin University Email: Christine@hogans.id.au

©Christine Hogan If you use these slides for commercial purposes, as a courtesy, please acknowledge the author. Thank you .

These slides are taken from two books : Hogan, C. F. (2013), Facilitating cross cultural transitions & change, 4 Square Press. Stillwater, Minn., USA. Hogan C F. (2007) Facilitating multicultural groups. Kogan Page, London.

Both books are available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk or the author: Email: Christine@hogans.id.au Phone: + 61 (0) 8 9279 8778 Skype: mogcat Linked in: au.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Christine/Hogan Web site: www.hogans.id.au