Building relationships despite cultural differences

At OpenText, we have had a bit of personnel turn-over in our APJ team (since we were acquired from HP), so due to my extensive time I spent in business development in Asia, I have once again been asked to manage a myriad of issues and partners in Asia. I have spent more than 10 years going to Asia 3 or 4 times a year and for about 6-7 years I spent about 50% of my time on the other side of the world in Japan, China, and SouthEast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and other places). I loved my experiences there even though the travel was brutal and I was perpetually jet lagged for months at a time.

 I loved the food and the places I got to see but my favorite part was the people and the cultural nuances. My goal when I was traveling outside of the US was not to come across as a crass, culturally ignorant American. I witnessed huge cultural blunders from my colleagues (American, British and Aussy mainly) and I frequently had to apologize. Of course, I did make mistakes but I also read as much as I could about cultural approaches. One of my favorite books was “When Cultures Collide” by Richard Lewis. This link has a summary of some of the cool things from the book.

 Reading was not enough, I wanted to understand more. So, in my dealings with people from other cultures, I frequently apologized a head of time for being direct (explaining that direct was the American Way), and then asked about cultural traditions and nuances. I am not, nor will ever be an expert but my acquaintances opened up to me and taught me some basics about where to sit, when to talk, how to order food, how to eat, how to give and accept gifts, how to show respect (and not) and dozens of other subtle rules and communication styles. Culture and local traditions became my favorite dinner time conversation topics.

When I began my Asian forays, the culture I had the most difficulty working with was with the Japanese. Working in Japan and with my Japanese business partners was very difficult. The subtle and indirect communication styles left me completely baffled where I stood after the completion of meetings. As many of you have heard, yes does not mean yes (necessarily). After a couple years, I did finally establish a good rapport and understanding (at least some of the time) with my partners and customers. One fond memory I have is spending some time over some sake (perhaps more than some) requesting that one of my business partners be a bit more American when there were issues or problems that required urgent attention. I wanted them to know they had permission to be direct and that direct loud complaining was effective for us. I actually got an ear full at our next meeting and had to smile.

 In my travels, I developed deep friendships and respectful fruitful business relationships. I don’t think it was because I was culturally skillful, it was because I recognized and appreciated the differences and made the effort to understand and build relationships. It takes time to build these types of relationships but once built, there is trust and where there is trust there is friendship and cooperation. The world is an interesting place with lots of fascinating good people. Getting the opportunity to travel and get to know different people from all over the world has been the greatest joy and privileges of my professional career.