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Should an organisation build cultural fluency?

By Taylia

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By Taylia

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I really believe this statement is true if an organisation is to be able to work really effectively across the barriers of culture, language, geography and time. The problem is that people are not necessarily born with an innate understanding of how business works in areas of the globe they don’t know and maybe have never visited.

The process of changing global mindsets in any international organisation is a three step process:

  • Awareness building: You have to get people to intellectually buy-in to the fact that international cultural differences can have a very significant impact on the efficiencies of any global organisation – and therefore its profitability. Sounds like an easy step but it isn’t.
  • Knowledge development: unfortunately it isn’t enough to be aware that cultural differences exist – you then need to acquire the specific knowledge to interface effectively in lots of different markets. Awareness will get you to accept the need to be adaptive and not make assumptions but the adaptations needed when dealing in India or Brazil will be very different. This knowledge can be acquired over long periods of time and through making countless errors or the process can be speeded up through good quality training interventions.
  • Embedding insight into corporate processes: Once people have awareness and knowledge, they need to embed the lessons learned into the warp and the weft of the organisation. If you work in a global environment, every time you make a decision the impacts of that decision land differently in different places. How can you control the potential negatives of the impact of unforeseen cultural consequences and reactions? It’s not easy but it can be done.

In my experience – and I’ve worked with major organisations all over the world on these issues – this process is rarely approached with a consistent, whole organisation plan and progress towards better quality and more effective global co-operation is slow.

If you would like to discuss how Global Business Culture can help you develop greater levels of cultural awareness and fluency within your organisation, please contact me on keith@globalbusinessculture.com

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Cultural Fluency - Global Business Culture