Cross-Culture

As the Dragon Leads...

I began my “romance” with China in the early 1990s. I was a member of the negotiating team my European employer put together for a joint venture with a Chinese enterprise located in Shanghai. Since then, I have trained hundreds of Chinese managers and hi-potential graduates from state-owned companies as well as multinationals in leadership.

What strikes me as rather unique in terms of Chinese talent is how competitive everyone is: individuals do all that they can to stand out from the “crowd”. Few shy away from stating openly their career aspirations. This contrasts interestingly with the common belief that socialistic societies are largely collective in most things people do.

With increasing opportunities in the country though, Chinese managers are displaying individualistic behaviour, pursuing their own careers and dreams with much fervour, almost as if to catch up on lost time.

Measuring such behaviour along the dichotomy of quantity versus quality, one can quite easily conclude that the former takes the front seat at this point.

It’s therefore not surprising when my clients operating in China come to me for team-development solutions. The notion of sustaining the organisation’s competitiveness through developing others is still quite foreign to most Chinese managers. Coaching the young, once a fundamental Confucian value, appears to have been relegated to a lower priority. Such a tendency puzzles the many Japanese companies located in China, for example. While the Japanese are conditioned from young as members of various groups and trained to accord due consideration to others depending on the situation, the Chinese, at least those living in the cities, have replaced collectivism with individualism. Material comfort has also overtaken the pursuit of spirituality.

This in part is due to the one-child policy the Chinese government adopted several decades ago. It has worked miracles in terms of controlling population. At the same time, it breeds generations of young people who are used to being served promptly whatever they want. Failure is therefore not an easy option for these dragon sons and daughters; they try their best to “win” at work. I suspect that admitting mistakes will be equally hard. From a learning perspective though, failures early in one’s career and the admission that one can do better is perceived by many in the West as beneficial. These “lessons” are supposed to stick with the person for a lifetime and the individual will grow faster than those who did not tumble and fall a little early in life.

Just a month ago, I was in Hong Kong, training a group of managers from Hong Kong and China. In a simulation where participants were divided into small groups responsible for manufacturing a specific part of the paper plane, someone approached a fellow participant a step ahead in the manufacturing process, wanting to learn more about his tasks, but he was quickly “shooed” away. In the end, the participants didn’t do so well as a team, manufacturing few planes that were sub-standard. The Chinese are fast learners, especially in the areas of languages and technology. However, the mentality of perfecting what one is doing and expecting others to fend for themselves is not uncommon in China. Those multinationals which take steps early to help Chinese managers learn how to work together for the ultimate satisfaction of their customers will have a competitive advantage in the market.

The strong inclination towards scholastic knowledge and formal education remains in today’s China; so does the long-term perspective about relationships, which is “high context” behaviour in Edward Hall’s terminology.

One might ask - if the Chinese are indeed high-context, how do we explain the job-hopping behaviour that we have seen in the market? Is this not an indication of short-term focus? One plausible explanation is that changing job is perceived as a step closer to a longer term career goal.

So...are we saying that cultural characteristics like “reactive” and “collective” are being replaced in modern China? Will we one day wake up to a genre of Chinese leaders who resemble more their American counterparts? Well, one thing for sure is that culture is not static, it evolves, though often at a glacial pace. Much depends on the country’s national leadership, economic policies and rate of growth, I suppose...

As the world awaits the making of an economic giant, the dragon sons and daughters march on!

by Maria Chow

Founder, Spark Asia Leadership Practice

www.sparkasia-leaders.com

US Optimism Remains—You Just Might Not Recognize It

As a born-and-bred American, I’m glad to relay that optimism remains high here—despite what you might have heard or how things might look.

For people who don’t know the US and Americans well, I should clarify what makes American optimism: 

US optimism is inherently contentious.  Americans routinely  embrace the role of “devil’s advocate” in a discussion, representing the opposing viewpoint as a way to stimulate thoughtfulness, test the hypothesis, or show interest in the issue.  We argue almost routinely, so much so that the actual act of arguing rarely carries the negative impact that observers might perceive.

And we carry this contentious optimism through most political discussions, election cycles and presidential selections.  Energetic argument is the grease that lubricates the machine: often messy, sometimes overly slick or seemingly inconsequential.  Regardless of political affiliation, we value our candidates for their abilities to stand up to the scrutiny, to defend themselves and their ideas as they pitch their versions of positive change and a better future.  Our optimism is contentious.

And our optimism is conciliatory.  Americans revel in political mythologies about friendships between political enemies (Lincoln’s “team of rivals,” the Ronald Reagan/Tip O’Neill friendship, the charitable synergy between President Clinton, Bob Dole and both Presidents Bush).  And, more recently, the trend in US politics seems to be shifting from ideological stalemates toward compromise and progress—if our politicians (on both sides) would only listen.

Similarly, the Occupy Wall Street movements will almost certainly generate ultimately positive, collaborative, and lingering change—not as a clear victory for either side but, again, as a result of the public argument.  Then the movement will wind down: raising some issues, and some ire, but ultimately framing itself mostly within animated debate and eventual resolution.

I’m going to go way out on a limb on this next point, because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with all the collateral events, split our country and much of the world.  American used those calamities to fuel two wars.  Many Americans supported those military efforts because they felt the US would do some good; others opposed those same efforts because they could see no long-term good.  Optimism, in its absence or abundance, is what split the issue for us.  Naiveté?  Possibly.  But optimism nonetheless. 

Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, most Americans recall that time as tragedy and triumph as we mourn the dead at the same time that we celebrate the ‘everyday’ heroes: the passengers on Flight 93 who acted to crash their own plane, the firemen, police, and passers-by who similarly chose to step in to help out, the office workers who slowed their own escape as they carried strangers down the smoke-filled stairs of one of the World Trade towers, and regular folk in Shanksville, Pennsylvania (where Flight 93 crashed) who tended to the crash site with the reverence it deserved but without any fanfare, celebrity or expectation of fame or fortune.  Our optimism comes from the heroism of average people.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I, and my fellow Americans, know that we face big problems that need serious attention.  We are not the oblivious or ignorant rubes that much of the rest of the world thinks we are.  But we do approach problems with hopefulness, because US optimism is entrepreneurial: we believe we can work our way out of our problems.

Look at this current economic crisis.  In the US we bickered and groaned; our legislators pontificated but accomplished little; the Obama Administration’s efforts very likely averted even deeper, darker crises, but Americans value the presence of progress (optimism) much more highly than the absence of regress (fatalism), so credit for those crises averted comes only grudgingly.   Europeans acted seemingly more decidedly: reconsidering currency alliances, enacting austerity measures, taking to the streets in protests that went farther out of control than anything the Occupy advocates have yet contrived.  But, uh, after all, the situation in Europe is currently no better than in the US.  European pragmatism and immediacy have differed not at all, in terms of impact, from American shoe-shuffling.

Because our optimism is economic.  Some will say we’ve simply outsourced the darker elements of our economy (the sweat-shops and tenements, the pollution and oppression) just like we outsourced so many jobs.  The US is barely 2 generations from those polluted, sweat-shop, oppressive stages ourselves—and time moves much more quickly along those lines now.  But Americans believe, because we’ve lived this dream over generations, that economic power is the answer to all the world’s ills.

Ask the Chinese laborers currently clamouring for increased wages and standards of living.  Or ask the overwhelmingly female and third-world recipients of micro-loans (admittedly not an American idea) about how much more control they have over their lives now that they command the “home economics” in a whole different sense of the phrase.  Or ask the American workers in textiles, manufacturing, banking and a plethora of other industries, workers who have recently found work as jobs come back, now insourced, not even a decade after some of them left.   Our optimism is entrepreneurial.

Our optimism might seem hypocritical but isn’t.  Some see our founding credo, borne in the Declaration of Independence—that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”—as, at best, inaccurate and, at worst, delusional.  Abraham Lincoln, President during our Civil War—our country at its most contentious—wrote about “the better angels of our nature,” the same theme that Martin Luther King Jr. echoed in the next century in his famous “Dream” speech: that we must always strive to be better than we are.   Americans have always been among the most charitable people on Earth because our optimism is individualistic and aspirational, and sometimes those individual aspirations coalesce incredibly positively.

And our optimism is hopeful and time-tested.  Americans love to frame events as the ‘best/worst ___ since ___’ (the coldest winter since 1930, the largest job loss since 1979, the rainiest Wednesday since records began, the most precipitous financial collapse since the Great Depression), and we do this as a way of saying ‘things have been worse. . . so things will get better.’  Our optimism is historical and hopeful, and Americans continue to believe, in spite of the surveys to the contrary, that the future will turn out well.

But our optimism is sometimes blind and often short-sighted: our infrastructure needs work and our pre-college educational systems are teetering on the edge of ineffectiveness. We have many citizens who are out of work or otherwise severely struggling, we have a debt that seems insurmountable, and a growing/aging/diversifying population that requires attention, even care, that we hadn’t considered.

But we’ve been in all of these situations before: we’ve had harsher economic crises, larger threats, vaster disparities between wealthy and poor, faster influxes of immigrants, fewer resources, higher debts, more onerous taxes, fewer jobs, worse roads and schools and systems, and politicians who make the current crop look downright industrious.  And we overcame, because our optimism empowers innovation.

And we will overcome again.  We’ll fight first, because our optimism is contentious, but we’ll overcome because our optimism is among our greatest strengths, our greatest economic, entrepreneurial, time-tested, hopeful, individualistic, innovative, naïve, blind, aspirational, heroic, charitable, accusational, conciliatory, collegial and contentious strength. 

by Tim Flood, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Management [Global] and Corporate Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

It could never happen in Norway

But it did. Norway is still in shock after the events of Friday 22 July 2011 - a date that will forever be remembered as a turning point in Norwegian history.

At 3:30 in the afternoon, Norway, with its nearly 5 million inhabitants, experienced its first terrorist attack. A car bomb exploded in the street outside the main government buildings in the centre of Oslo. The bomb was so big and the blast so powerful that it could be heard far outside the city. It destroyed nearby buildings and smashed hundreds of windows throughout the capital.

News about the explosion contained further information about a possible shooting on Utøya. There was some confusion to begin with as to whether the two episodes were related and at first the shooting was thought to be fireworks.

As the day wore on, a shocked Norwegian public tried to make sense of what was happening. There had indeed been shooting on Utøya and many had been killed. Utøya (literally “the outside island”) is about two hours drive from Oslo and is well known as the venue for the Labour Party's yearly summer youth camp.

Three hours after the explosion, Oslo was empty of all but police cars, ambulances, commando trucks and fire engines. With typical Norwegian efficiency a central command was immediately established on the largest town square. The sound of sirens continued throughout the evening and night, and the media confirmed that a man had been arrested on Utøya and charged for both crimes.

A native Norwegian man in his thirties admitted responsibility for the home-made bomb and for the massacre on Utøya. A right-wing extremist with strong anti-Islamic views, he blames the Norwegian Labour Party for allowing the immigration of Muslims to Norway and turning Norway into the multicultural society it is today. The attacks were aimed at destroying the Labour Party and killing its new recruits on Utøya.

Numbers of dead and injured were expected to increase during the night as rescue teams continued to search the government buildings and the island. Thankfully these were adjusted down the next day, but they were horrific. 8 people had been killed in the government buildings and 69, the youngest 14 years old, had been shot and killed on Utøya.

Oslo was a silent, mourning city on Saturday. Television stations sent continuous updates showing pictures taken immediately after the bomb exploded. Nearly all the shops were shut and the task of assessing the damage had begun. The normally busy city centre was empty and most of central Oslo had been fenced off as there was speculation about further undetonated bombs.

Ever the pragmatists, the Norwegians discussed positive aspects. For example, the government “high-rise building” or “Høyblokken” built in 1958 could, after all, be salvaged. The bomb had done extensive damage but the foundations were sound. Also, the majority of those who would normally be working in these buildings were on holiday - July is the main holiday month. In addition, the car containing the bomb had been parked over the extensive underground passages which connect the government buildings and this helped to absorb some of the blast.

By Monday morning carpenters and renovation teams had replaced broken windows with weatherboards and removed all the broken glass from the streets. They had been working all weekend - an amazing feat.

The first flowers and candles were already being placed outside the Cathedral in Oslo and as the days went by they filled more and more of the area around the church. Groups stood silently looking at the sea of flowers, many crying openly. This happened in towns all around the country. Very different Norwegians from the rather private people they are known to be. This somewhat Catholic tradition for showing public sorrow started when King Olav V died in January 1991 when the snow outside the Royal Palace was covered by candles and flowers.

Strangely, Norwegian flags were missing from the floral tributes. Norwegians are proud of their flag and exhibit a friendly and good-natured nationalism. The sorrow shown after the massacre was personal and the sense of bereavement transcended nationality.

This could be seen in the rose procession. 200,000 people each carrying a rose filled the streets of Oslo to express their support for a society that condemned terrorism, whoever was responsible. Norway has always defended her open society. Locked doors with codes and entrance cards are relatively new here. However, Norwegians are sceptical in spite of promises from the Prime Minister that there will be more openness in the future.

There has been much soul-searching in the aftermath of the terror. As would be expected of a society concerned with details and punctuality, the rescue operation on Utøya has been studied minute for minute. Could the police have been more efficient? Could more lives have been saved? What if, what if?

An immigrant was stopped in the street by reporters and asked for his comments. His reply was “My first thought when I heard about the bomb was 'I hope it is not one of ours' ”.

This is a sentiment that has been expressed by many Norwegians. They are thankful that the perpetrator was a so-called native. Norway struggles to integrate its immigrants like so many other nations and had one of them been responsible, this wonderful country would have looked very different today.

Flowers are still being laid outside the Cathedral and there are always roses on the fences around the government buildings. The heavy silence over Oslo has now lifted and voices and laughter can be heard again in the streets but it is going to take a very long time to get back to normal - whatever “normal” will mean in the future.

by Veronica Biong

The Glory that was Greece

The Greeks may currently owe us a lot; but our debt to the Greeks is immeasurable.

Small comfort to a country for which – according to Jeff Randall in a recent article in The Daily Telegraph – ‘there is no deus ex machina. The tragic dénouement will involve its default or withdrawal from the single currency, perhaps both.’

The deus ex machina, in classical drama, was the god who descended from the stage machinery, in order to intervene in human affairs and the phrase is generally used to mean a positive intervention, or rescue of the hero.

Randall’s whole article casts what is happening in Greece as a tragedy – which, of course, they invented, along with the foundations for Western philosophy, literature, mathematics, science, art, architecture etc. Greek intellectual achievements have been unparalleled in the history of the Western world, and they know it.

They also feel that we often fail to respect the source of our heritage enough. So the present humiliation must be all the more bitter for a justifiably proud people.

Starting with Minoan Crete, where there was evidence of settlement in 128,000 BC, real signs of civilization from 5,000 BC, and reaching a pinnacle with the city states of Sparta and Athens – which established the basis for Western civilization and liberal democracies – Greece really was the cradle of Europe.

No wonder that the Greek ideal inspired the Romantics – so much so that Lord Byron, the British poet, died (admittedly of a fever) fighting for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, into which it had been absorbed for hundreds of years. Independence was finally achieved in 1832 with the Treaty of Constantinople.

Some of the most famous lines written about Greece are in fact Byron’s:

‘The mountains look on Marathon/And Marathon looks on the sea/And musing there an hour alone/I dream’d that Greece might yet be free.’

Modern Greeks tend to see themselves as culturally-aware, eloquent, sophisticated Europeans, experienced in social and commercial matters, with strong intellectual powers, intuition and a sense of artistry.

Key values are reason, freedom, thrift (paradoxically in the current circumstances!), a love of the sea, theatre, rationalism, debate, close family ties, a talent for business (especially small entrepreneurism), democracy, and architecture.

They are a multi-active, dialogue-oriented culture, very tactile, putting lively human interaction above clock-time, and having been scientifically proven to have the strongest eye contact in Europe. Their style of communication tends to be verbose, theatrical and intense.

Yet their intellectual heritage has given them a strong rationalism to counter the emotion, rather like the French.

To deal with them effectively in business, you should really read up something on their illustrious history as the longer-term historical perspective is important for them and a source of great pride.

Other advice:

• Avoid discussion of Greece’s decline, historical and current
• Don’t mention the problems with Cyprus
• Avoid the topics of Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia
• Don’t praise the Turks too much
• Use some Greek
• Be prepared for long, roundabout discussion
• Let them get their emotions off their chest – they can use emotion as a weapon, so remain calm yet show compassion
• Be aware of differences in body language – a backward nod of the head means ‘no’. A tilt of the head to either side means ‘yes’
• Keep strong eye contact
• Identify the boss and address him or her directly. The boss can be extremely tough, in a paternalistic way, especially in more traditional businesses like shipping. Even nowadays, he may motivate his senior team by lining them up and slapping their faces to show them who is boss!
• Be flexible – they may well be flexible on agreements, so be prepared for them to propose modifications
• Be generous and friendly, but remain tough enough
• Even if they are in a weak position, preserve their dignity at all times
• Socialise (even till the late hours) and invest time in relationships
• Be aware they may try to charm you, so try to use your own charisma too
• Bow to their experience
• Understand that, in the end, they are pragmatic
• Above all, be aware of their shrewdness. It is probably their key defining characteristic. It is no coincidence that Odysseus, the best-known hero in Greek literature was primarily characterised for his cunning. It was he, after all, who came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse.

We began by referring to the current Greek tragedy, but does the word describe the current situation in the truest sense of the word? For instance, however sad it is, an accident is not a tragedy. A tragedy is a fall, usually ending in death, brought about by a fatal flaw in character of an otherwise great hero.

There is no doubt that Greece is a heroic nation, based on its intellectual achievements, but do those achievements contain a fatal flaw?

Probably the greatest philosophical contribution the Greeks made to the world was the idea that it is rational to strive for an ideal – whether that is at a personal or political level. The question then arises, as to what that ideal should be. At a political level, Plato’s Republic tries to build a picture of the ideal state, governed not as a democracy – maybe surprisingly – but by the ‘guardians’, who, to simplify it grossly, ‘know best.’

This idea of a Utopia has probably been the root cause of all the various ‘-isms’ that have eventually had to give way to more pragmatic forms of government.

Could it be that the European Union, with its bold single currency experiment, has pushed the ideal of an economically united Europe too far too soon?

If so, how ironic and how truly tragic, that Greece – the source of the idealism that made Europe great, and the concept of the EU possible – should be the first EU member state to bear the brunt of the harsh realities of real politik. The gods above Olympus must be shaking their heads at human hubris, or maybe giving a backward nod or two.

by Michael Gates

Letter from Aotearoa New Zealand

Kia Ora and warm greetings from the South Pacific.

Welcome to Aotearoa New Zealand. Let us introduce you to our country, the land of the long white cloud, the land of milk and honey and the quarter acre section, land of the Māori people, the anchor of the Polynesian triangle in the South Pacific and part of the Pacific rim’s ring of fire.

Ours is a modern and relatively isolated country; approximately 3 hours 15 mins flying time from Australia, 10 hours 40 mins from Singapore, 11 hours 36 mins from Hong Kong, 12 hours from Los Angeles and 28 hours from London.

New Zealand is a land of great natural beauty with a land area similar to the UK but with a population of almost 4.5 million people.  Our people, from all cultures, share a common pioneering spirit that brought our forebears to this young land with the desire to build a new way of life and a brighter future for their children. This process continues today with newcomers to our airports and shores.

We are uniquely placed in the world. Ours is a bi-cultural country based around the Treaty of Waitangi signed by the British Crown with the Māori, New Zealand’s tāngata whenua, the people of the land, or indigenous people, in 1840.  And we have a growing culturally diverse population from all parts of the globe.

Ours is a strongly egalitarian society that values independence, self-reliance, hard work, resourcefulness, a “can do” attitude and individualism.  We pride ourselves on ‘Kiwi’ ingenuity and an ability to ‘punch above our weight,’ especially in the sports arena.

This is derived from our distance from the rest of the world and relatively low population which has forced us to become more resourceful and multi-skilled. Our low population density, temperate climate, spectacular scenery and topography give us a relaxed outdoor lifestyle with easy access to beaches, rivers, mountains and the bush.

In small societies, you make your own fun. We have high participation rates in many sports and a wide range of outdoor recreation activities including hiking, mountaineering, skiing, boating, fishing, diving and kayaking, rowing, equestrian, golf, cricket, football, rugby, tennis and netball, to name a few.

Our egalitarianism is reflected in New Zealand’s relatively flat social structure and low power-distance relationship with our social, political and business leaders.  We have a reputation for being friendly and have an ability to form relationships with a wide cross-section of people when living and working in other countries.

Recently, as a family, we hosted visitors from a French cooking school with which we had helped to establish a sister-school relationship with a NZ cooking school. We invited the group around for our usual relaxed Friday night meal with other friends, i.e. Chinese takeaways, Fish and Chips and a bottle of wine or two.  It was a Kiwi family experience for them. Our French friend who was part of the group later shared with us how much they had enjoyed the evening as it was not usual for the CEO and his staff to socialise together like this in someone’s home, whereas in New Zealand it is reasonably common.

It is experiences like this that the ‘New Zealand 2011’ organisers are aiming to facilitate around the country as part of building business connections for visitors coming to New Zealand to enjoy the Rugby World Cup in September.

As a people, we believe New Zealanders are generally confident, tolerant, welcoming and friendly. These traits may also be contributing factors to the number of our countrymen and women in leadership and management positions in businesses and organisations around the globe.

We are a well-educated society with world-class expertise in a wide variety of fields including the sciences, agriculture and horticulture (our main export earners), the performing arts and creative industries - computer software builders, film-makers (Lord of the Rings), opera (Dame Kiri Te Kanawa), yachting (America’s Cup) and fashion design.

We are generally flexible and adaptable and like to get things done. We have a strong work ethic.

As a relatively new nation, our country has always been a mixing pot of people from different backgrounds, ethnicities and religions. Early settlers came from European countries and in particular, Great Britain, Ireland as well as Germany and Dalmatia then following World War II, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Poland, the former Yugoslavia and other European countries.

However our cultural make-up is changing. In recent years there has been increased migration from Asia, the Pacific region, parts of Africa, South Africa and the UK. This is partly a reflection of an increasingly mobile international workforce, assisted migration and humanitarian considerations. Intercultural marriage is common and is adding a new dimension to our evolving cultural identity.

This is evident in population statistics.  The official government 2011 census was cancelled as a consequence of the disastrous earthquake which hit Christchurch on 22 February 2011; however there is interesting data from the 2006 national census which show that the largest ethnic group is European, comprising some 67.6% of the population, Māori 14.6%, Asian 9.2% and Pacific 6.5%.  The five largest European groups were New Zealand European, English, Dutch, British and Australian. Within the Asian communities, the main groups are Chinese, Indian, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, Sri Lankan and Cambodian. As for Pacific communities, the main island groups are Samoan, Cook Islands Māori, Tongan, Niuean, Fijian, Tokelauan and Tuvaluan. Middle Eastern, Latin and American and African groups make up just under 1% of the population.

Cultural and ethnic identity for census purposes is self-identified. Most of us tend to identify ourselves as New Zealanders and by our cultural heritage.  For example as a New Zealand-born Niuean and a New Zealander with Irish-Scottish ancestry.

By 2021, current population projections suggest that Māori will comprise 17% of our population, Pacific 9%, 18% Asian and other cultures with the remainder made up of the many European cultures.

Part of the exciting challenge that we face as a country is how we tap into the richness and talent that our increasingly culturally diverse population offers and how we welcome newcomers to our shores. This is a relatively new and growing conversation in New Zealand. We have a unique opportunity as a country to incorporate managing cultural diversity as a conscious strategy and as an integral part of New Zealand society and New Zealand business management practices.

Ngā mihinui – Best wishes

by Holona and Trish Lui

The English – in a class of their own

Cecily:  When I see a spade, I call it a spade.

Gwendolen:  I am glad to say I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.

Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Earnest

It is fitting that one of the best-known examples of the English class system in action in literature should have been written by an Irishman.

For the English, ‘class’ is what Richard D. Lewis describes as a ‘cultural black hole’: an aspect of a culture so powerful that it sucks everything else in. The problem is that when you are in a black hole, it is hard to see clearly what is going on around you. An outsider may have a clearer perspective.

The current argument about social mobility that recently dominated the headlines in the UK goes to the heart of an inescapable part of understanding the English that is complex, and one of the biggest sources of both our angst and our humour.

When Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, declared that access to the most selective universities is too restricted to those from the most privileged backgrounds, and that internships at companies would in future have to be based on ‘what you know rather than who you know’, the reaction was fast and furious. One of the most cutting comments was from Charles Moore, former editor of The Daily Telegraph. He remarked that Clegg ought to have known that the phrase should have been ‘whom you know.’ Clegg’s Dutch mother may have given him a certain scepticism about class segregation, but woe betide anyone who tries to do something logical about it. It is beyond logic.

One fatal error is to assume that class is based on wealth. That may be the case in the USA, but in England the self-made man or woman can never really escape his or her roots. And in many cases may not want to. Though class may still be an irritant. The richest person I know – a multi-, multi-millionaire by his mid-thirties – told me that his working-class background means that there are still people who ‘cut him dead’ socially. And I will never forget my first seminar at Oxford University, when a class-mate (in more ways than one) from Lancashire was asked to read out his brilliant essay on the Victorian poets Tennyson and Browning. One of the girls suddenly walked out and never came back. Afterwards she told us she ‘had to go and vomit, as she couldn’t stand listening to that Northern, working-class accent.’

Accents, and the words you use, are the first indicator of class. Even the way the word ‘class’ is pronounced is an immediate give-away. A short ‘a’ rather than a long one, and you are immediately relegated to the lower rankings.  Use the word ‘toilet’ rather than ‘lavatory’ or ‘loo’, as Kate Middleton’s mother apparently did, and you could nearly cost your daughter the throne.

This language question is a source of great anxiety to politicians. Harold Wilson, former Labour Prime Minister, was famous for his strong Yorkshire accent and his cunning. However, as a student and later teacher of politics at Oxford, he assumed a clipped upper middle-class pronunciation. You can’t blame him. At that time, he would have had difficulty getting his students to trust his intellect otherwise. But on moving into politics, he reverted to his Yorkshire vowels. There is no way Labour’s traditional voters would have trusted his beliefs if he hadn’t. I am sure that David Cameron’s ‘posh’ voice, and appearance (a small chin is considered a sign of the upper classes in England) are at least partly to blame for the Conservative Party’s poor showing in the North of England, resulting in a Coalition Government.

A sort of reverse snobbery has emerged in the past 20 years or so, with some politicians – no names mentioned – deliberately making their naturally polished tones sound more like the man on the street, especially the streets of Essex: a county whose accent has become synonymous with the median voter.

Tony Blair also got into hot water for trying to play to all classes in other ways. He was ridiculed for two consecutive interviews where he was asked what his favourite food was.  In his Sedgefield constituency (a traditional mining community in the North East of England), he answered ‘fish and chips’ and in a trendy area of London ‘pasta and sun-dried tomatoes’.

Observing which foods people eat is a sure-fire indicator of class. Fish and chips, sausages (bangers) and mashed potatoes, frozen food, etc. for the working-class; foreign food – especially Italian – for the middle-class, and bangers and mash and English ‘nursery food’ for the upper-class.

Which brings me to my final point that the working-class and upper-class tend to have far more in common with each other, as D.H. Lawrence frequently observed, than either of them does with the middle class.

As well as a preference for plain, English food, the working-class and upper-class tend to have similar interests in sports (rugby, horse-racing, sports involving dogs); cars (tend to be older, and they are not so fussy about keeping them clean) and in many other areas beyond the scope of this blog, but described well in social anthropologist Kate Fox’s book ‘Watching the English’.

Above all, both working and upper-classes seem to be easier in their own skins than the middle-classes, who tend to be pre-occupied with what others think about them. Though the middle-class is essential to progress and, as Aristotle recognised, the basis of a successful society:

‘The most perfect political community must be amongst those who are in the middle rank, and those states are best instituted wherein these are a larger and more respectable part, if possible, than both the other; or, if that cannot be, at least than either of them separate.’

If you are not English, you have the luxury of by-passing the class issue in your dealings with us. You are not part of a game which is even more complicated than cricket. Yet to understand us, it is still relevant and important to get beneath the surface of this English obsession with where people are from and whom they know, not just what they know. But please do it in secret, and never ever mention it!

I am his Highness’ dog at Kew; pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet and satirist

by Michael Gates

Egypt: Discontents of modernity, promise of antiquity

When Ibn Khaldun, the 14^th-century polymath and forefather of modern-day social sciences, arrived in Cairo after spending 50 years in Andalusia and Maghreb, he described the city as “metropolis of the world, garden of the universe, meeting place of nations, ant-hill of peoples, high place of Islam, seat of power” (Albert Hourani: A History of the Arab Peoples). He also remarked that he who has not seen Egypt could never understand the power of Islam.

Such was the centrality accorded to Egypt by the Arabo-Islamic world. Even today, many historians argue that the true glory of Cairo is to be found in its medieval Islamic architecture which came to being on the back of the prosperity produced by the Ummayad, Ayyubid and Mameluk dynasties. Some of the wealthiest families in Muslim countries that are as far removed from Egypt as Malaysia and Indonesia continue to send their scions to study at Cairo’s ancient Al-Azhar university and other schools. Al-Azhar’s Moorish-inspired campus has held classes since 970 CE and its religious education caters to all four madh’hab or mainstream schools of Sunni jurisprudence. During the current unrest, the large presence of international students in Egypt made headlines as the Malaysian government has gone ahead with a mass evacuation of its nationals from Egypt.

Given that social thought in the Islamic tradition exposes the inherent limitations of man-made as opposed to revealed knowledge, it is not without irony that since the middle of the 20^th century, Egypt has embarked on nearly every–ism described in political science textbooks. Once the old monarchical order was toppled, the country lurched to secularism and militarism followed by pan-Arabism and nationalism. In the past few decades, these have given way to a somewhat Asian-style developmental dictatorship that combines old political instincts with Western economics. To its credit, Egypt has in recent years gained more than a foothold in emerging business sectors such as infocommunications, data services, call centres and outsourcing. Drawn to its respectable tradition of engineering expertise and a young and often multilingual urban population, the likes of Intel have chosen Egypt as one of a handful of their global product definition centres. The government – until recently headed by a former infocomm minister – put its best foot forward, to the extent of making call centre skills an integral part of university curricula. And with its sizable domestic consumer market, the country has billed itself as a logical extension of the up-and-coming BRIC wave of world economic leaders.

These new trends never quite discouraged Western news reports from playing up the physical constraints of providing for a population of eighty-plus million predominantly concentrated in the Nile river delta. In the minds of many social commentators in developing countries, this was yet another example of the West’s “dogma of development”. At present, from either perspective there is no denying that no matter how successful, the outcomes of the recent economic expansion have created opportunities for dozens of thousands rather than millions. Case in point: Flagship companies like Telecom Egypt are headed by exceptionally astute management teams who earned their MBAs and PhDs at the best US and British universities, and know all there is to know about technology migrations and climbing the value chain. Many of their offices are teeming with Western management consultants and development experts. But below this top echelon, there is a reality of hundreds of thousands of employees, most of them breadwinners, who have been on the payroll for decades.  

Prior to the outburst of popular discontent in early 2011, Egypt had for years strived to reconcile its business-friendly, outward-looking face with a repressive government whose brutality has been well documented in global media: for instance, whereas in many other developing countries, blogosphere writings that are critical of the government might earn the author a surprise tax audit, some of Egypt’s bloggers have been dragged out of internet cafes in broad daylight by members of the security services and beaten to death in front of passersby. During my own visit, taking a photo from a downtown bridge has earned me a brisk trip to a nearby interrogation room. Afterwards, when I shared this encounter with other Europeans, they laughed it off as an attempt to collect a bribe; but standing alone in a windowless chamber and surrounded by half a dozen military men felt far from trivial.

Perhaps my friends were right: social hardship and rising prices have created a pervasive if stereotypical bakshish mentality among the crushing majority of local people. On a visit to the stunning Al-Azhar Mosque, a local imam will invite foreign visitors for a guided walkthrough, all the while reciting prayers and bestowing praises on spiritual leaders and martyrs whose fate was linked to these hallowed grounds. Afterwards, he will eagerly and insistently collect cash from each member of the visitors’ group, making it clear that in addition to the amount that goes to the mosque’s upkeep, there is money that is due to him. For a first-time visitor and for many Muslims from other countries, this is a startling sight that will nonetheless follow them everywhere, including Cairo’s holiest Islamic sites that are home to relics of the Prophet’s descendants.  

Similarly, whereas in other Arab societies, haggling is practised as a jovial art form and a facet of local culture, in Egypt it has an air of desperation. It doesn’t hurt to remind oneself that many of the young men loudly peddling their wares and pulling at your sleeve have eight, ten or more unmarried sisters and other dependants back in their village. Granted, true Egyptian hospitality still exists in abundance, but much too often it is to be found among business partners and even government officials as opposed to the creaking and heavy-handed tourism industry.

Faced with intransigent obstacles, for many Egyptians the uncomplicated and glamorous life as captured in local films from the 1950s becomes a past that is nostalgically re-imagined. The fin-de-siècle mansions of Heliopolis still stand as a witness to that era. By contrast, today’s cities are largely a chaotic jumble of shabby apartment blocks and roads where millions of cars wrestle for every inch of space on the carriageway. Over the years, this has given rise to a lifestyle where residents of Cairo eat breakfast they picked up in an “On the Run” cafe at a petrol station, sleep, study, call friends and conduct business inside their vehicles.  

Today’s Egyptian identity is built on such contradictions. During a long car journey through the city one day, I chatted with my local associate, a pious yet outgoing young woman who (unlike many of her more senior colleagues) wore a headscarf, dressed modestly yet very smartly, and spoke flawless English despite never having had the opportunity to travel abroad. Casually, she confessed to spending every last penny of her salary on weekend trips to Citystars, Cairo’s landmark shopping mall. As the car was passing rows upon rows of new housing blocks that spelled the same type of aspiration as her branded clothes and gadgets, I asked if she and her workmates were perhaps sharing one of these apartments while exploring life in the big city. “You see – I am not married,” she explained cheerfully. “And in Egypt, you live with your Mum and Dad till the day you get married.”

Could this clinging to tradition amidst change provide clues to a way out of the current crisis? Predictably, foreign pundits have been talking with disquiet about the rise of so-called Islamist politics as a result of the government’s loss of legitimacy. But contemplating Egypt’s social and economic issues, drawing on the local Islamic tradition may be the only viable way forward, particularly if the emphasis is on social justice and creative local solutions to local problems. There is indeed a rich tradition to draw on: according to historians, a hundred years ago up to an estimated 70% of all commercial land in Egypt was managed through awqaf (plural form of waqf) – charitable and philanthropic endowments. It might not be too far-fetched to trace the roots of the present-day malaise to the secular, military-sponsored shift away from this traditional economic order, coupled with blind faith in physical development – the treadmill of building ever more (housing, roads, schools) yet inevitably falling short. Meanwhile, sheer numbers dictate that a huge role for central government be retained, regardless of its ideological shade: a typical Egyptian civil servant supports a stay-at-home spouse and five or six children. In aggregate, this means that any new government will find itself directly and indirectly feeding half of the country’s total population.

Those that witnessed the ongoing wave of unrest in Cairo have also drawn parallels with the 1989 fall of “real socialism” across central and eastern Europe, a chain of events I had the privilege to participate in back then as a first-year student with a Prague university. With the benefit of hindsight, I can only hope that Egypt will escape the many traps that befall societies in transition and chart its own, meaningful path to post-authoritarian rule. A re-reading of Ibn Khaldun might just be the first step on this arduous journey.

by Martin Králik

Cultural musings from a visit to North Korea

Before going to North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK) I tried to prepare myself for what I knew would be the biggest culture shock imaginable because it is a country like no other. Would it be a mixture of the culture to be found in South Korea blended with the Soviet Union under Stalin and China under Mao? The simple answer, of course, is “none of the above”, and yet, every so often during a one-week visit, I would be reminded of all three of these comparators.

I had been invited to Pyongyang to teach the United Nations country team there how to become more effective negotiators. Half of my students were expats from a dozen different countries, working for UNICEF, WHO, FAO and a number of other agencies. The other half worked for the same UN agencies, but were North Korean nationals – an elite group who spoke English, were trusted by the regime and who had three jobs: their official UN job, taking on the role of “minder” for UN expats and visitors, and being the eyes and ears of the government within the UN offices.

The thinking of my UN hosts was that it would be good for representatives of the most difficult government with which the international community has to negotiate to be exposed to a negotiation philosophy that emphasizes the gains to be made by putting one’s self in the other person’s shoes and recognizing the interests of both sides in a negotiation. I wasn’t optimistic that we would make much progress!

Arriving at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport, the first oddity was the customs declaration, which, inter alia, asked if I was carrying any “killing devices” or “exciters”. My laptop was inspected carefully, but my small camera attracted no attention. However, all mobile phones are confiscated and placed in a small pouch, with a receipt being issued for collection on departure. The execution in March 2010 of a North Korean man for using a smuggled mobile phone to call a defector friend in South Korea, is a measure of the sensitivity of communications in North Korea.

The airport has a fairly large and impressive terminal building, but the lack of activity there, with several decrepit Tupolev and Antonev Air Koryo jets sitting ready to provide the airline’s only two daily flights from Pyongyang (to Beijing and Vladivostok) hints of the moribund state of the economy. I was fortunate in that Air China had resumed service from Beijing a week before I travelled, so I was able to avoid the Air Koryo experience.

As my UN car had not shown up to meet me, I looked for a taxi rank, but was stopped from exiting the terminal unaccompanied, and fellow passengers told me that taxis simply didn’t exist. Fortunately, a New Zealand investment banker who lived in Pyongyang (yes, really! At least he will be in on the ground floor if and when investment opportunities open up) was able to call the UN offices where they had thought I was arriving the next day.

When my car finally arrived, I met my 30-something female “minder”, who worked for the UN and who escorted me everywhere and was a participant in the programme I taught. Each time she delivered me to the Hotel Koryo, she made a call from the front desk to tell her controllers where I was, and although she had two children at home, she had a room at my hotel throughout my stay.

Everywhere in Pyongyang there are massive statues and portraits of the founder of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung, and equally impressive murals of revolutionary figures or of him. Even the office of UNICEF has a large oil painting of a kindly Kim Il-sung, surrounded by children, one of whom is wearing his hat. Surprisingly, his son, the current leader, Kim Jong-il, is featured much less prominently, reflecting the concept of Kim Il-sung being the “eternal president, the supreme leader, and the sun of all people” according to the Juche philosophy that he established. It is Kim Il-sung, rather than Kim Jong-il, whose portrait is on the little enamel badges that everyone wears on their lapels.

The personality cult surrounding North Korea’s only two leaders is reminiscent of the adulation of Lenin (and to some extent, Stalin) in the Soviet Union, and Mao in China. But the family dynasty element is different. In some ways the idea of a family being in charge (leaving aside traditional hereditary monarchies) is similar to the chaebol in South Korea – conglomerates of companies owned, controlled and managed by the same family. Ironically, these family industrial empires, closely tied to the political elites of South Korea, have been engines of growth, in contrast to the economic decline of North Korea under its “family leadership”.

Any observations on North Korean culture have to be seen in the context of the omnipresent Juche ideology.  Juche demands absolute loyalty to the Workers Party of Korea and to (currently) Kim Jong-il. It places the ordinary people as the masters of the country’s development, eschews any relationships with the great powers, and emphasises independent thought and self-reliance in both economic and defence terms.

The reality, of course, is that North Korea has never been self-sufficient. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was reliant on aid from Moscow. It has lurched from economic crisis to economic crisis with masses of its people suffering starvation. China has provided tremendous quantities of aid for more than a decade and other countries are providing assistance under the six-party talks framework. North Korea is the second largest recipient of food aid in the world.  All the English language literature in my hotel excoriated American “warmongers”, yet on the day that I arrived in Pyongyang, a team from the United States embarked on talks with the government to provide American food aid.

While it has replaced Marxism-Leninism in North Korea, Juche acknowledges the influence of traditional communist doctrine, although over the past two decades, the military rather than the proletariat or working class, is the main revolutionary force. To the traditional hammer and sickle, symbolizing the factory worker and the farmer, Juche’s icons also include a writing brush for the “Samuwon” class of writers, professors, engineers, and bureaucrats – a departure from the emphasis in other communist nations.

Revolutionary posters all follow the same formula: a farmer, a factory worker, an office worker or engineer, usually carrying a T-square, and a soldier. One is always a woman.

The Juche philosophy controls everyone’s activities and leaves no room for the thought that any ideas emanating from Western or Asian management concepts would have any value. It is uncompromising, and visitors to North Korea are left in no doubt that their hosts are setting the terms of any discussion.

This was a depressing thought as I set out to teach cooperative, interests-based negotiation to 11 North Koreans and 11 foreign UN officials at a hot-springs resort two hours away from Pyongyang.

The resort was reached via an empty eight-lane highway that extended for the first ten miles or so from the capital.  I was told that this also served as a runway and a military access road. Communities through which we passed were clearly very poor, but the rice paddies appeared to be well maintained in this, comparatively visible, part of the country.  The resort itself was surprisingly comfortable and the people running it were considerably friendlier than their counterparts at the hotel in Pyongyang.

Knowing that the North Korean nationals among my students were reporting back to the authorities, I felt a bit self-conscious as I started teaching. Rather like a Western politician whose offhand remarks come home to roost in the pages of the tabloid press, I envisioned myself being grilled by steely faced interrogators, seeking an explanation for the code word, BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, a key element of negotiation strategy) or for clarification of the punch line of a joke I had made. Indeed, the sessions got off to a tense start, with the two groups, whom I had deliberately mixed together in the seating arrangements, regarding each other with suspicion. Early on there was a worrisome moment when I realized that a simulation I had written and for which I was about to hand out roles, referred to something having taken place in Seoul, the very mention of which is taboo. I was quickly able to revise the scenario with the substitution of Bangkok.

To my surprise, I soon found that the North Korean nationals started to catch my eye and smile, asking questions, and enjoying playing roles of people very different from themselves. They cheerfully engaged in negotiations ranging from selling a line of pickles to a Canadian supermarket chain, to being the top civil servant in a finance ministry or his counterpart in the education ministry of a small country, haggling over the latter’s annual budget allocation. After a bit, everyone was laughing a lot, and the inflexibility and hardness that was evident from my minder and most of the others melted away.

There were, of course, constant reminders of where we were. The television offered a steady diet of Kim Jong-il “directing and inspiring” workers at a factory/mine/farm, interspersed with military parades and droning propaganda and martial music. A variation of the latter woke me up each morning both in Pyongyang and at the resort, as recorded music of massed choirs extolled the achievements of Kim Jong-il, the Workers Party of Korea and Juche.

At the end of the two-day workshop, all the North Koreans clamoured to be included in photographs taken with me. It had turned out very differently than I had expected and at the inter-agency meeting (comprising all the UN agencies and foreign ambassadors), which I attended before I left, the expat UN officials reported that this was the first time they had ever experienced such congeniality with their North Korean “colleagues”.

I had no illusions that my teaching had worked some alchemy, but I felt I had learned a bit from living at close quarters with these intelligent and, ultimately, friendly North Koreans. I detected an element of “face” which plays such a big part in Chinese, Japanese and South Korean (where it is called kibun) cultures. At first they didn’t want to make a fool of themselves in front of their expat colleagues or even amongst themselves, but they soon found that much of what I was teaching was making everyone realize the mistakes we all make in decision-making and negotiation, so everyone felt they were in the same boat.

Even though I was with them for a very short time, I also detected elements of guanxi, which underpins successful business relations in China. Guanxi is about mutual dependence in relationships, and reciprocity, key elements of a pragmatic approach to negotiation. In the role-plays we conducted, everyone realized that they depended on others and relationships are very important. This sense of having built a relationship came across very noticeably with my minder, who had been very cold and authoritarian when she met me at the airport the first evening, but who opened up and talked about her hopes and aspirations for her children in a very natural way towards the end of my visit, while remaining firmly focused on the infallibility of Kim Il-sung and professing her love of the very strange country in which she lived.

As someone who teaches cooperative, give and take, and comparative advantage negotiations, was I able to draw any lessons from the implacable hard-nosed approach that the North Korean government displays in international arena?

There was one very compelling lesson from the negotiations between the US food aid delegation and the North Koreans that were underway when I arrived. The Americans had come woefully ill-prepared and insisted on starting the negotiations right away while they were still under the influence of jetlag. They did not, for instance, know which provinces were closed to NGOs, which would be used to distribute the aid, surely an essential piece of homework. In contrast, the North Koreans knew everything about the issues in play and the constraints to which the American team was subject. They were also very happy to let the Americans keep negotiating until 2:00 AM when they were exhausted and no longer on top of their arguments. Thorough preparation and then easing slowly into the negotiations are wise approaches for anyone to embrace.

When I took off on my Air China Boeing 737 (symbolizing, perhaps, the pragmatic Chinese approach of engagement with the West), and flew back to Beijing, which, in contrast seemed such a bustling, open and tolerant place, I reflected on the sad lot of the North Korean people, starving, imprisoned, and cut off from most of the world. I felt depressed when I recalled that a couple of senior UN officials had told me that they had no idea who was in charge in North Korea – certainly not Kim Jong-il, they said. As I write, there is evidently a power struggle between the dynasty represented by Kim Jong-il’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un, and other forces in this secretive state. 

Who knows how long it will take for things to change in North Korea and whether change can come about peaceably. In China, the excesses of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution created an environment where big changes, brought about by Deng Xiaoping through, in part, opening up to the rest of the world, were the only way forward. Maybe the sheer desperation of a failed state will lead to change. Maybe the little green shoots of potential engagement like the Najin-Sonbong free trade zone, the six-party and the reunification talks, and the inclusion of North Korean nationals in my UN negotiation workshop, should give me hope that change is possible.

by Tim Cullen

The Chilean Miners – Culture & Team-work

Chilean President, Sebastián Piñera, recently made a European ‘victory tour’ following the successful rescue of the now world-famous 33 miners. The tour had been previously planned, and some more cynical commentators speculated that one driver to speed the operation to extract the miners from their predicament was that it should be accomplished before this visit. Yet it would be churlish to carp at an opportunism – arising from a heroic rescue bid - that was aimed at lifting Chile’s international profile and attracting foreign investment in new industry.

Chile’s economy had been suffering from decades of dictatorship, but those who know the country well understand that it has a long-term reputation for stability, relative to most other Latin American countries. Geography and history have probably played a part:

• Chile has been handicapped by difficult terrain – uninhabitable mountains, deserts, and rain-soaked forests. And, true to form for land-hungry nations, Chileans have maximised their options by exploiting a variety of land resources and exporting them vigorously to Asia, North America and Europe. The ‘Andes barrier’ has effectively diminished Chile’s interaction with her own continent. The country has been described as a South American ‘Tiger’, or ‘like Taiwan but with better wine’. It seems likely that the constraints of their geography have forced them into ingenuity and a degree of stability, as a means of survival.

• A key historical factor in stability and order may be a strong Germanic influence. The 1845 Law of Selective Immigration was aimed at encouraging the immigration of people who would be able to help colonise the Southern region of Chile – from good social backgrounds and with a high level of culture and skills. The move was helped by the failed liberal German revolution of 1848, resulting in a wave of German immigration – and not just from Germany, but also Austrians, Swiss Germans and others. There is little doubt that German values have affected the Chilean national character through continuing immigration well into the 20^th century, and influenced Chilean economic, political and cultural development. Carlos Anwandter, leader of the first colonists, pledged that they would be ‘honest and laborious’ – a firm Lutheran statement if ever there was one!

So, no surprise that a Chilean official, talking just prior to the President’s visit, signposted the main theme by saying “The President will speak of the Chilean way of doing things which means that it is a country where everything really works. Everyone related to Chile thinks that the rescue of the miners shows that we can do things properly and we hope that business and investment will recognise that.”

Chile, with its mixture of Latin and Germanic influences, may have a good formula for benefiting from a mix of approaches. This diversity of viewpoints can give a broader spectrum to human activity, and better performance:

For a summary of what we mean by linear-, multi- and reactive in the first diagram, see below:

But what about the miners themselves?  How did they behave as a team?  There has been plenty of discussion in the press about the behaviour, and what we can learn – from those initial dark days of chaos and fighting that they have sworn not to talk about in detail, down to the emergence of Luis Urzua as the leader, and the assignment of roles  - presenter, doctor, priest, poet, etc. And management writers, like this one, are already having a field day relating the behaviour to team theory, such as Meredith Belbin’s discovery of nine team roles necessary for success.

From a cultural point of view, one of the reasons German companies have tended to be so successful is their ability to give extremely clear roles and responsibilities to different people, units and departments. And, in fact, the Chilean army was highly influenced by the Prussian army. Military service of 12-24 months is obligatory for all Chilean males over 18. Might it be too fanciful to think that the organisation and discipline which ensured survival relates back to Germanic military tradition?

On a wider level, the team was not just the miners below the surface, but the wider team of the international community, involving players from the USA, Japan, South Africa, China, Canada, Australia, etc.

How did this international collaboration come together so smoothly and effectively?

Many culturally-diverse teams fail.  Research published by Joseph J. Distefano and Martha L. Maznevski has shown that while homogeneous teams cover a wide bell-curve of performance, from not so good to very good, the worst-performing teams are diverse. But so are the best...

The difference is leadership. Although the team below the surface was, apart from one Bolivian, exclusively Chilean, there was certainly a diversity of personality types, and it was Luis Urzua’s adaptive leadership that helped them turn the corner. And whether or not it was the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera’s leadership that pulled the international collaboration together, there must have been some clear leadership going on somewhere to get the diverse effort to work.

A very wise British diplomat, Alyson Bailes – who has a first class degree from Margaret Thatcher’s old Oxford college, Somerville, speaks more than a handful of the world’s more difficult languages, and has decades of experience running international teams – once wrote 5 very simple rules for building winning multicultural teams. These are:

1. Understand very clearly who you are
2. State objectives and roles very clearly
3. Define them in ways which mean something to everyone
4. Use diversity as an asset
5. Have fun

As business becomes ever more global, such rules are increasingly important to bear in mind.

by Michael Gates

Country Focus: Hungary

At the end of the 9th century, the Hungarians went through the Carpathian mountain passes to settle the Central Danube basin. There they established an empire that lasted 1,000 years, ruling what is now Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, Transylvania, Western Ukraine and parts of Serbia and Austria. During this period they were devastated by the Mongols in the 13th century and endured 150 years of Ottoman rule in the 16th and 17th centuries.

In a national sense, Hungary is somewhat claustrophobic. It is a severely truncated state, compared with lands it once ruled. These territories, taken away after military defeats, are still inhabited by Hungarians: two million Hungarians live in Romania alone, while another million inhabit Slovakia and Serbia.

Here are some guidelines for effective interaction with Hungarians:

1. Be prepared for a Latin approach to space and time

Hungarians, like Latins, sit and stand close to each other. There is plenty of physical contact and handshaking is a must. Buses and trains tend to be packed, and extended families living under one roof are common. Although they are punctual in arriving for appointments they often lose all sense of time once animated conversation starts. Like Latins, they operate on people-time rather than clock-time. Eye contact is strong.

2. Be gallant and courteous

Ladies tend to be idealized in an old-fashioned manner, though this not does necessarily preclude them being prominent in business. Hand-kissing is common and men walk to the left of women (to protect them with their sword.) Women precede men into theatres, cinemas and private homes, but follow them into potentially rougher places such as bars and cafes. A Hungarian male once said ‘We like to think of ourselves as romantic horsemen, sweeping ladies out of danger onto the back of our steeds….

3. Join them in their coffee-houses for a gossip

The Hungarian is a bon vivant, preferring wine to beer and frequenting traditional coffee-houses where timeless conversation and bittersweet Turkish coffee remind you of the Ottoman occupation. Conversation is lively and they love to exchange confidences and gossip over rich food and cakes. Enter into this spirit and eat, drink and socialize with them regularly.

4. Understand their complex communication patterns and listening habits

Charming, charismatic, easy-going and good at small talk, they will start off with some humour and make excellent raconteurs. But Anglo-Saxons and Nordics may soon begin to lose their way as rationality gives way to emotion and logic for rhetoric. Conversation, as fluent as the Danube, may contain rocks under the surface. Hyperbole, flamboyance and flattery can quickly switch to criticism, complaints and pessimism. Everyone may talk at once, so choose your entry point carefully. As listeners they can switch on and off. Make your points brief, challenging, lively, and with charisma and humour.

5. Be ready for thorough analysis

Like Germanic cultures, Hungarians will tend to go into far deeper analysis than the British, Americans and Nordics may be used to. And like their long-distant cousins, the Finns, they may paint a negative picture of situations, though alternate this with optimistic forecasts of deals to be done. They may elaborate on problems without suggesting solutions. Listen to them, but try to avoid adding your own complaints.

6. Accommodate to their strong sense of pride

A proud people, especially when with representatives of more powerful nations, Hungarians have an initial preoccupation with honour. Praise some of the contributions great Hungarians such as Liszt, Bartok, Soros and Rubik – amongst dozens more – have made to the worlds of music, art, theatre and film.

7. Be careful not to offend their sensitive nature

Like the Spaniards, Hungarians can be sensitive and touchy. You have to be more careful than with most cultures not to upset them. Read up on the magnificent history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and dwell in conversation on the beauty of Budapest - one of Europe’s most stunning capital cities.

8. Show your individuality

Hungarians are rather cynical, for ancient historical reasons, about leaders. The Soviet rule did nothing to change this attitude. But you will gain respect if you can show your individuality and expertise in a particular field, especially if it is intellectual, scientific or artistic. Intelligence, energy, shrewdness and a quick wit are admired. But remain generous-spirited and friendly.

9. Respect high achievement and competitiveness

They are eager to demonstrate that they can recover from the communist era faster than anyone else, and that they have been progressive (such as in having been early candidates for the EU.) They have an obsession to achieve and to show the fruits of their success in the form of status symbols like plush offices, cars and good clothes. It will do you no harm to do the same, if you can.

10. Choose the countries you talk about carefully

It will not help your case to overly praise Romania or Slovakia, or to talk about ethnic minorities unless you are well informed. The same goes for the communist period in general. You are on very safe ground asking about their difficult language and their linguistic and racial ties to the Finns, whom they admire. Always refer to Hungary as being part of Central Europe, not Eastern.

by Richard D. Lewis