In the February issue of Chief Learning Officer, there is a great article titled “Your Brain on Culture“.  Neal Goodman points out that “culture provides us with the guide to survival, we naturally feel protected by our own and threatened by other cultures.”  This “Us versus Them” attitude is a natural result of different cultures clashing.  But let’s face it, global intelligence is critical to surviving in today’s workplace.  Certainly a great place to start is knowing time variances and local holidays so that you are not trying to book a meeting or conference call at a disrespectful time.  Recently, I received a request for a conference call at 11 p.m. my time!  Of course I wanted to demonstrate flexibility but the person in Asia should have consulted a world clock so that they knew what they were requesting from me.

Goodman recommends knowing business customs and practices, too.  He relates an example of PUMA trying to sell a shoe with UAE’s flag colors on one of their shoes.  PUMA did not realize that culturally the foot is looked at negatively so putting the flag colors on a shoe must have seemed incredibly disrespectful!  On the flip side, Hilton Hotels created a program to make Chinese guests feel welcome by greeting them in Mandarin (by Mandarin-speaking staff), offering Chinese tv stations and Chinese breakfast items.  How smart and forward thinking!

It is naive to believe that what companies do domestically can easily be replicated globally.  Instead, Goodman suggests some ideas to help your company build cultural intelligence such as:

• Offer a course on cultural intelligence to your entire workforce
• Develop global leaders through training and immersion
• Build global teams
• Create a database on cultural intelligence.

Finally, Goodman suggests that  “a heightened awareness of cultural differences will allow employees to build bridges of understanding that promote trust, efficiency and effectiveness and increase an organization’s competitive advantage in the global arena.”

Check out the complete article at Chief Learning Officer.  I always read articles with great insight and tips from this publication!

So tell me:

What examples have you seen where companies have been thoughtful about being more culturally aware and responsive? 

What missteps have you seen?