Managing Diversity (Electronic book text)

As businesses increasingly diversify out of their domestic markets and into a global arena, the importance of building effective relationships across cultural barriers becomes ever more apparent. Do the majority of managers, however, have the skills to develop these relationships with others whose attitudes and behaviour differ significantly from their own? As a result of training within their organizations' domestic H.Q., many managers, and even senior executives, lack sufficient awareness of differences between styles of doing business around the world, or that the same skills that bring success in our own culture may be perceived as rude and inappropriate by another. This is not helped by a common tendency to put negative labels on those whose behaviour differs from our own. For example, behaviour that one person regards as relaxed and easy-going may be judged by another to be lazy and indecisive. Problems can arise both internally, when the expectations of ex-pat. executives do not match those of local staff; and when dealing with other individuals and organizations outside the company where misunderstandings can undermine delicate negotiations and cause grave offence to potential business partners. For these reasons, the issue of training staff to be competent global managers is a serious one for businesses who regularly trade internationally or who are expanding into the multinational arena.