Wei-ji is the Chinese ideogram of the word crisis, it is composed by the words danger and opportunity. In no other language it is so well condensed the meaning of the term.
Managing cross-cultural barriers to overcome crisis successfully
Submitted by admin on Thu, 06/29/2017 - 10:48
A new collaboration between Luigi Norsa & Associati srl and Out of the Box Solution Consulting LLC
The current context, in which the term globalization is almost obsolete, means that today many companies have offices and operations based in different countries and continents where habits and education are very different, and often also their teams are made up by people from all over the world.
This multiculturalism can be an obstacle to business management where un-written rules that derive from different cultures can affect the achievement of results and relationships, both for companies with many different locations in the nation and for those companies wishing to build and develop new markets for their products.
In crisis situations, then, where events occur and lack of reliable information increases the level of stress people need to take and make decisions, these differences can add a further element of difficulty. Communication and behaviours must consider cultural factors that can affect public and stakeholder perceptions in different markets.
By combining Luigi Norsa's long experience in managing crises and issues with the experience of multicultural context management of Out of the Box Consulting Solutions, we have created training packages for companies and their managers aimed at enabling them to fully understand how to assist cultural differences not to affect the way companies work and how these can be transformed into strengths and added value.
“We studied how the decision-making process of Americans and Japanese are very different. In Japan there is a long period of assessment before making a choice that is then rapidly implemented, in America instead a choice is made very quickly and then adjusted later based on experience. - explains Austin Auger, Japanese-American, author of the seminar -The final result obtained may be the same, but the very different process can generate great frustration in the people of these two different country working together on a project.”
"Misunderstanding the unwritten cultural codes (behaviour) can lead to failure in the penetration of new markets, the occurrence of unexpected issue - adds Micol Norsa, Partner of Luigi Norsa & Associati - and in case of a crisis, a company decision can also be interpreted in a very different way both from consumers and public opinion in different markets "
