Cultural Keys to Success: Navigating International Business Relationships with Finesse

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's Working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, Doctor Elise Cortez.

1:04 Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program. Great to have you back. This show has been brought to you with passion and Pride since February of twenty fifteen. Already I'm your host, doctor Elis Cortes. If we've not met yet before, you don't know me. I'm an organizational psychologist and loco therapist, speaker and author. My team and I at Gusto Now help companies to enliven and fortify their operations at increase profitability by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meaning and purpose. Our mission is to help the companies we serve create a destination workplace where people flock to join, are intrinsically motivated to perform with their best, can grow into their fuller potential, and are committed to stay and dynamically deliver on the company's mission, which translates to higher profits. Of course, you can learn more about us and now we can work together at gustodashnow dot com and my personal site at Leiscortes dot com. Getting into today's program we have with us today, Doctor Andy Malinsky. He is a professor of organizational behavior and International Management at Brandy's International Business School.

2:00 His work helps people develop the insights and courage necessary to act outside their personal and cultural comfort zones. When doing important but challenging tasks in work and life. He is the co author of Forging Bonds in a Global Workforce build rapport, camaraderie, and optimal performance no matter the time zone, which we'll be talking about today. He joins us today from Boston, Doctor Molinsky, Welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here. Absolutely, let's celebrate this thing you brought into the world, this little, small, little piece of work that you you birthed. It's gorgeous. Congratulations. I know how what a feat that is. Thank you very much. It is a beautiful book. It's a little shiny, but it's a beautiful book. You can see the glare on there. It's been a it's been a long process. Anyone who's written a book knows that.

2:52 And we're really proud to have it out there and hopefully it hopefully it helps people. That's why we wrote it. All right, Well, I think already indeed, you know, there's so much that to learn about this big, beautiful world that we live in, and I think to start this conversation, it does make sense for each of us just to share a little bit about our own experiences. I mean, I have an idea where this book came from because of how you started. I know that you've lived in Spain and worked in France. I lived in Spain and Brazil. Those experiences were phenomenal in opening each of us. So let's just start there. Andy, How is it that you were living in Spain first? So I actually studied abroad in Spain in college, Okay, and it was my very first experience being outside my cultural comfort zone. The funny story, well, I don't know how funny, but the story is that I actually was studying Russian in college, but it turned out that I didn't have enough Russian to go to Russia to study.

3:48 That dates me. It was before the Wall came down. There were real strong constraints on being able to study broad and Russia. So I quickly pivoted. I started learning Spanish. I went to Spain and it was just it was just really or a remarkable experience for me. This is pre internet. These are in the days where you know, you didn't really know that much about another culture. You couldn't just sort of pop it up on your phone or Google image it or anything. And that discovery inspired me to ultimately go back to Europe and work in France after college, and that really just excited me about the idea and the challenges of building relationships and connecting across cultures. I then decided to study it. I did a PhD in organizational behavior in social psychology. I now teach it at business school and my Brandeis University in Boston, Massachusetts.

4:39 And let's say, of my MBA students, I want to say about maybe twenty twenty five percent or American, even though we're in Boston. So I live in a little world of a little global world in my MBA classes. So I've continued that interest, you know, up until today. That's so wonderful, Andy, And what I'll share too, And I want to put this forth through one of the major lenses that I read in your book, and that's this idea of curiosity celebrating curiosity. So I found myself living in Madrid, Spain in nineteen ninety one when I was twenty six. I was there because my boyfriend go transferred and he said you should come with. I'm like, this is amazing. So I'm from a very small town in northeastern Oregon. It was very homodeously white, so that experience of living in Spain was fantastic. The first thing that I got was everybody was kissing openly in the street.

5:33 I'm like, oh my gosh, this is what a loving place, right. So I always stoke and say that the Spaniards taught me about relationships. They really did. And then I got to go all over Western Europe and I'd learned so much about that. And then two years in rue de Gennio and Rio, what I learned is the importance of communication. You really can't communicate with somebody, at least at that time without touching them. That was a beautiful thing that the Brazilians taught me to communicate. So I've taken this all back with me. These are now part of me, Andy, this is who I am. I'm married to Costa Rican. That's how I got the named Cortez. Even though we're not married anymore, I'm keeping the name. It's mine, and I consider myself a Latina Cordida, So I consider myself someone who really, you know, embraces the Latino culture and languages.

6:23 So it's it's really colored me. Wow. Interesting story. Yeah, Well, you know, there's so many people like us with their own story about how they've been, you know, inspired to live and work globally. And you know, today very as I tell the graduates of our school, very few if any of them are going to work in a non global company. So, I mean, it's twenty twenty four where we're you know, recording this, it's it's many many of us are are going global. Yes, And to your point, you know, writing a whole book about being able to do this, well, I for me, I think it's hard and harder to come into a place where you haven't traveled outside of the United States.

7:04 Haven't you haven't come into contact with somebody whose second language or third language is English. You know, it's just everywhere. And so this idea of this increasingly global workplace it really and I think the pandemic also helped us really see just how small and interconnected the world really is as well. Absolutely. I mean you can sit on I'm sitting on a chair right now, but I could be in the other room in a couch and I can be connecting with people from all over the world. In fact, for the book, we interviewed I think over seventy five people, and many of those interviews were done you know from my couch, so you know, it's it's it really is. It's really remarkable, actually, I mean and for people who who are sort of digital natives, young young people younger than me, maybe it's not as remarkable. For someone of my age, it's pretty remarkable. Yes, you know, build these relationships just you know, a click.

7:57 Indeed, and even on this program, Andy, I've had the privilege of hosting people from all over the world that have joined me from vast time zones, you know, on the other side of the world, and we come together and we we and now what they don't really realize that was now they're stuck with me because I I love my guests, so they don't They're not getting away from me just yet. But but let's do this if we can. One of the things that I many things I appreciate about your book, and I love the stories in your book as well, I think it would be helpful for us to paint a picture of what it looks like when when things are disastrous, when really somebody really messes up the whole cultural connection, especially when it relates to business. Give us an exact an idea what what that can just look like?

8:42 Uh so, so many examples when someone messes it up. I mean, you you know, I think there there are a lot of we call them trip wires that people can fall into, you know, assuming that someone is characteristic of the culture that they come from, which is a big one, you know, of course, anyone coming from any country. There's there's you know, hundreds of thousands of people even hundreds of millions of people in the US from a given country. So it's kind of crazy to imagine that someone's going to be characteristic of your sort of stereotype of the country they come from. But that's what we often do, use these shortcuts for example. You know, of course, there are many examples of people making faux pause, you know, saying the wrong thing, and and those are doing the wrong thing, and those are the ones that really kind of dominate the you know, the stories that you hear in terms of you know, people saying or doing the wrong thing. I think though that I think that the reality, though is that if you can start to build a connection, even sort of the seeds of trust and the seeds of rapport and a connection, you know, saying and doing the wrong thing isn't isn't so bad. I mean, you've you've got some slack there. As long as you're starting to show that you're interested in the other person, that you care about them, about their culture, that you're you know that that that you're not perfect, but you're interested in learning, and you're curious, as we talked about before.

9:58 And I think that really buffers you a lot. So that's what I would say. Hmm, I completely agree with that, being leaning in and saying I want to learn about you. I'm not I don't I don't know. I'm very ignorant about your culture and what's important to you. I want to learn from you, Please help me. And I've I've just found that that really you can you can get through an awful lot if you situate yourself like that. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, and and you know, I think it's I think be be open to being curious, as we talked about before, and also be willing to be surprised. I remember, I remember I do tell a story in the book about I think it was a couple of summers ago. I was meeting a Singaporean CEO of a company in Boston. He happened to be traveling through Boston.

10:41 We were talking about doing some work together. He wanted to bring me on for for some of his assignments, and I it was it was the middle of the summer, and and and and I expected this guy. It was this career, this Singapore and Chinese CEO, and we were meeting in in in this in this restaurant. I was sort of expecting him to be dressed up, and so I dressed up as well. And by the way, I'm a very very casual person, always bordering on the edge of like slightly and appropriately too casual. But so I dressed up for me, which means, you know, like I think I had like a nice shirt and pants and so on, and maybe even a jacket. I don't know. I walk up, I see him there. I also thought he'd be pretty formal. That was sort of my expectation.

11:21 I walk up. He's wearing shorts, he's wearing sandals. He comes up to me and gives me a big bear hug. Not what I was expecting. But that's what I mean. That people aren't necessarily characteristic of the culture that you come from, so that they come from or your impression of that culture. So you know, be willing to be open, be willing to be surprised, treat people as they are as individuals. So one of the things I love doing on this program, Andy, is I like to be able to educate and inspire. So I want people to always be able to walk away from this program immediately putting to use what we talk about. So I want to now if we can't address the four critical errors that people tend to make when they're cultivating across cultural relationship, I think this really helps situate, you know, what to be aware of here, So let's talk about all four of those.

12:07 Sure, happy to do that. So let's see. The first error would be fixating a national culture sort of alluded to that alluded to that before, the idea that you might have this image of someone from the culture that they come from, and that's certainly not the case. That would be an example of before. Another one is what I would call stereotyping instead of prototyping. So I find this one really interesting because what a stereotype is we all know the word, But what a stereotype is is assuming someone is characteristic of the impression or the image that we have of the group that they belong to. And so that's obviously it's obviously a heuristic, a mental shortcut, and it really gets you into trouble and it's unfair actually obviously too. But prototyping, what prototyping is is saying, Okay, there is variability across cultures, and this variability within a culture, you're trying to predict if Swedes or Italians are going to be more emotionally expressive, and you're going to meet with someone from Sweden, you're going to meet with someone from Italy. A prototype would be the guess, a hypothesis, an incoming guess that the person from Italy will probably be a little bit more emotionally expressive. You don't know by the way that person might not be at all, but it's sort of an incoming hypothesis, a guess, a prototype you might have with the culture, but you are very willing to be proved wrong. And so that's that's the stance that I think would be a correction to that error. Third error, assuming that other people are like you, I think that's that's a big error. I think a

13:38 lot of people are pretty lazy in there in their sense making. And we do what psychologists call projection. We project onto other people what we think, feel, assume, and I think that that's another error that people often make when trying to build relationships across cultures. And then the fourth error is what is what I call reducing relationship complexity to peach and coconuts. And the reason that I talk about this is because there is a common, well known in the cross cultural world idea that certain cultures are peach cultures and certain cultures are coconut cultures. And you can imagine the metaphor. A peach has soft flesh and then a hard interior, right a pit, whereas a coconuts the reverse. The coconut has the hard exterior and a soft er interior. And so people say, oh, well, Americans are peaches because they're very easy to get to know, that's the soft peach sort of exterior. But then at some point you just hit a wall and it's really all just superficial chitchack in small talk, and it's really hard to get through that pit. Whereas Germans, on the other hand, might be coconuts. It might be hard to make small talk, hard to build that initial rapport. It takes time to actually move from the informal version I'm sorry, from the formality of calling someone in or many Z versus the informal DO, and along with that the notion that it's appropriate and okay to call them do, that

15:10 you've achieved that level of informality in a relationship in the US that might happen in two seconds. In Germany, it might take two months. The reason that I think that this is a mistake is just what I talked to, just what I alluded to before. I think it's a mistake because I think that there is so much variability within a culture. People are influenced by their organizational cultures, by their regional cultures, by their life stories, by their life experiences, and by their personalities, and so it's really a mistake to assume any of these sort of conventions, even if they are is memorable as a peach in a coconut. I do agree with you that we do tend to be lazy, and I'm a big fan of not the golden rule, but the platinum rule. Right, the golden rules do under those as you would like to have them do to you. Who cares? The platinum erulea is really about you on those as they would like that to be done for them or with them, So your focus is on the other person, not yourself, So I really really applaud what you've said. There Andy much more to cover.

16:14 Let's grab our first break. I'm your host, Doctor Release Cortez. Weve run the air with doctor Andy Malinsky's professor of organizational behavior and International Management at Brandeis International Business School. His work helps people develop the insights and courage necessary to act outside their personal and cultural comfort zones. We're doing important to put challenging tasks and work in life. We've been talking a bit about the importance of global relationships. After the break, we're going to get into more of his methodology to master the logic of relationship building, using what he calls the six p's. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

17:00 Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees Working on Purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Alise A Lise at Elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

17:53 Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. As ITU am dedicated to helping create a world where people can realize the potential at work and they actually enjoyed those relationships and their contribution to the work. I keep researching and writing my own books. So the last one came out in March of twenty twenty three. It's called The Great Revitalization. How activating meeting and purpose can radically and liven your business. And I wrote it to help leaders understand the lay of today's workforce land what do they want to be connected to? You stay and give their best and then I offer you twenty two best practices to create a culture that will actually surface that for them. You can find it on my website at least core test dot com or Amazon if you are just joining Joining me now. My guest is doctor Andy Malinsky. He's the author of forging bonds in a global workforce, build rapport, camaraderie, and optimal performance no matter the time zone. Such a great title. By the way, Andy, such is an important thing.

18:46 Titlers are so important. Okay, so this is fantastic, this is gold. You're six p's Andy, our goal. Let's talk about those. The first one especially is very intriguing to me and really understanding that that being power. So if you could just kind of talk us through these six piece why they're important and really how someone might actually use them to evaluate or to navigate a relationship. Yeah, So I'll just say quickly that the six piece came from our research for the book when we were talking with many, many people from different cultures, different professions, different industries about their experiences successful and unsuccessful at building relationships. These factors kept coming up time and time again in terms of distinguishing some of the cultural challenges in relationship building.

19:32 So I thought that was interesting. So yeah, so the six piece our place, power, purpose, privacy, presence, and pacing. Pacing, and so the idea here is that when we grow up and are socialized into a particular culture, we have a certain schema or a script for how relationships happen. It's just seems so obvious to us. But the thing is is that people who are born and raised in different cultures with different scripts and schemas for relationships can have very different understandings. And when you and these can be a source of miscommunication, misperception and all. And and when you have these miscommunications and misperceptions, it can sort of like increase, I'm sorry, decrease the odds of a successful relationship launching or even rapport launching, you know, So that that's that's the idea. They're really they're important to understand, pay attention to. So should we go through a few of them?

20:32 Yeah, yeah, please, it's definitely. I'm definitely very interested in the power and power one fit to start. I think that's just so critical to really understand. Sure, absolutely so. Power, I mean, power is a universal factor all the all the different frameworks about cultural differences emphasize power and that power that that sort of in the context of relationships, powers about who can have a relationship with whom so so for example, uh, in let's say Israel, Sweden, Denmark, I'm thinking about non hierarchical cultures globally speaking, it's not unusual to build a relationship with the superior in these countries. You also probably had very informal relationships with your teachers at school, perhaps even calling them by their first names. Whereas you know, all this stuff of course starts early. It starts also with how your parents praise you, and what the roles of parents are, and then the roles of teachers are, and how you interact with teachers. That's all about power, and then when you get to the workplace it influences as well, So building a relationship with the superior in Israel, Sweden, Denmark, maybe even the US too. In some ways it's not unusual.

21:45 Of course, organizational culture matters too, But let's just talk about national culture in other cultures however, like East Asian cultures in particular, broadly speaking, but we can zero in on somewhere like Korea, for instance. In Korean corporate culture, it's highly unus usual for a junior worker to approach a senior colleague and try to get to know them on a personal level, very very very unusual Japan as well. You have to look for potential signals, and those signals if you're not from that culture and don't have an intimate knowledge of the culture. You probably overlook or misread the signals in the first place about when someone's opening the door for you, and it might take very very very long time given that power dynamic. So so so that's at the workplace, and so that those are important to know, right you could you could, very inadvertently, uh uh make a cultural faux pas uh in your efforts to try to build a relationship as an expad or a foreign worker, even on a short time abroad, and that could, you know, decrease the odds of building trust and creating rapport and ultimately a relationship. So that that's that that's power.

22:50 Mm hmm. Maybe just talk about one more maybe privacy. Sure, yeah, privacy, privacy, uh you know, for instance, privacy would be uh. I'm trying to think of a good example here in Brazil, for instance, a lot of the interviewees that we talked with in Brazil said that there's almost no topic that they wouldn't discuss with their workmates. I remember when Brazilian like, what's the big deal, We're all just people, right, Whereas I remember a Taiwanese manager we interviewed, and of course we interviewed people from all around the world. The Taiwanese manager gave the absolute opposite perspective. He said, you know, he was talking about the American style getting to know you questions. He'd say, you know, they say these things, these things like tell me about yourself or ask questions about my background and my family, and I'm thinking to myself, slow down, I just met you.

23:42 Let's talk about something less personal first, so that I mean, those would be some some illustrations and again, uh you could you could really create a make someone feel awkward and uncomfortable, uh, not understanding these cultural nor and and it might be you know, it might sort of make it difficult for the relationship to succeed, at least initially. So so that's why that's why some of these are important. Yeah, And what I want to also emphasize what you do beautifully in the book as well, is that you know, when we have these kinds of interactions and now we are, we are expecting the person that we're conversing with from across the world to either behave the same way we do communicate or want the same kind of connection that we do. And when they don't, we then either oftentimes decide we don't like them or we don't trust them.

24:32 So now we're now we're getting into the you know, into the very opposite of what you're trying to put forth in your book. Here, You're you're we're looking for productive and meaningful relationships here. So this is why this stuff is just so important. Absolutely. We in fact, we have a little diagram in the book where we talk about very simply like they they act. The other person acts in a confusing or unexpected way. Maybe they don't show as much positive emotion as you're used to, or they're asking questions that are that are too private, or whatever it might be. And then you and immediately make that negative impression of their behavior, and I mean immediate, like instinctual, unconscious reflexive interpretations like I don't like them, they're weird or something like that, right right, And then you feel negative emotions. This is uncomfortable and anxious, and then you start to drift away, you develop a negative attitude. And all this happened so quickly.

25:22 If you if anyone's read Danny Conneman's book Rest in Peace, he died a couple of months ago. Uh, thinking fast, thinking slow, These are the thinking fast. These are the unconscious ways that we process things right, and it happens very fast, and that's why this stuff's important to know. So good, so good, and I love this. This is just right up my alley. So very glad to have met you and be sharing you with my listeners and viewers. So you have a section here, I think it's actually a whole chapter on starting a conversation with someone that you don't know, and you know, you offer some different things, using even such things as small talk, which I personally don't like, but some people other cultures do like that, and focusing on things like what you have in common, and asking open end questions of course, showing interest, all these kinds of things that we can start to employ to reach across the aisle. If you will, I think it would be really interesting, because I loved reading this in your book, if you could share a little bit about, like you did in the book, some examples of how different cultures approach and engage just in small talk, for example, that was fascinating to me to really discover. I know you talked about from the Russian view, China, Korea, Namibia, and Nicaragua.

26:30 Yeah, yeah, so so so you know, I can tell you right away that making small talk with strangers in China is incredibly Unusual's that's one example, Okay, you know that that we wouldn't have known necessary. I mean I certainly know it because I have I have a lot of Chinese NBA students and as a project in one of my classes, they have to pick something that's unfamiliar and uncomfortable for them, but they know that's important in the US, and that's one that people often do. So that that's that. It's a good example. So where small talk happens is another one. Like I don't think I have it in this particular chapter, but in general, in Japan, for instance, you're not typically going to make small talk, certainly not with a superior at work. It just doesn't happen.

27:14 It's just sort of like all professional I mean, of course organizational culture matters too, I need to say that, but in general, but then if you go to a karaoke bar out for dinner and have some drinks afterwards in that space, in that place, those norms are relaxed, and you might very well make small talk with someone. But then what's really interesting is it doesn't necessarily carry back over to work the next day, as it might in the United States, where you share a crazy evening and you're making small talk and you did karaoke or whatever you're doing, and then the next day at work you might imagine sort of a softer, more friendly connection that you might even have with a superior and so on. In the US, that's not the case in Japan. Usually, typically it will just sort of like that that relationship building is sort of like sectioned off into that into that particular place and space. Uh. Lots of different examples.

28:03 Russia is another example where it's it's power matters a lot, so you're typically making small talk with people of your level or lower. That's another example. There's so many different examples. Uh, you know. Uh, Nicaragua, for instance, is sort of like Brazil in the sense that it's very small talks, very very common, casual, unstructured. It can become very personal, very quickly fluid, you know what I mean. So so so it's you know, very different from Germany, where small talk is fairly unusual. It's it's not that all it's not that all Germans don't like small talk, but but the the cultural tendency I would say is to avoid small talk, avoid chit chat. And what's interesting the cultural logic there would be that typically small talk is seen as inefficient. Uh, it's seen as you know, uh, unimportant, not serious and so on, because of course, after all, we're here to talk business, you know what I mean. So so people can have different perspectives on it. But yeah, there's lot lots more in the book, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

29:11 One of the other things that I was very intrigued by Andy was just this notion of how you share. How Finns finished people tend to be very, very comfortable with silence, and they don't need to fill the room with just random just talking. They're very comfortable with silence. And I think that's really fascinating and I could hang with that crowd. Yeah, it is. It is interesting. And again, the reason to me that that's so interesting is that sort of unconscious sense making that we would make. Again, like let's say a Finn were very wasn't making any you know, we said something, they said something, and then there's this long period to an American perspective, from an American perspective of silence, the key question is is how do we interpret that and you might very well interpret it that this this this person isn't interested in me, or this person is awkward and I don't like them, or whatever it might be. But from a finished perspective, it could be absolutely normal.

30:13 So yeah, it's just it's delightful. I mean, I just, I just I'm a social scientist like you, and and so I find all this stuff completely fascinating and riveting that we're this wonderful mix of stew across the whole world, and together we can prize the globe, and yet we know we act and behave and prefer such different things. And I think it's delightful. I fell I knew you would well now speaking of that. You know, here I am. This is that's this is me expressing who I am. You have a whole chapter which I thought was fascinating on how and when to let our personalities shine through when we're meeting people of different cultures, and you give us some different tips about you know, when to do that when that's appropriate. So maybe we can just cover a couple of those things. That was fascinating, by the way.

31:04 Yeah, and that's always that's always an interesting question about do I suppress who I am? To be appropriate or do I or do I just be myself? And you get very different views on that from very different people. My view always has been that it's important to have your cake and eat it too, to do both that and that's well. I actually wrote a whole book about that in twenty thirteen. My book Global Dexterity is about the challenges and opportunities to step outside your cultural comfort zone, to adapt and adjust your behavior, but not lose yourself in the process. So there, what I find is there are ways. There's no perfect way to make small talk, there's no perfect way to make conversation. There are sort of cultural norms, let's say, but you can often find a place within the norms of a new culture and still simntaneously be yourself or enough of yourself to feel comfortable.

32:04 And that's what I think is really important to remember that you can have your cake and need it too. You can find ways to be yourself and be effective and appropriate in a new culture. It's sort of like, to be honest, I often think about it. I like to cook, and I often think about it as like being a fusion chef. It's like you're bringing together different ingredients you can't just slap them together. It's probably not going to taste good, but it's a process of experimentation and tasting and refining, and that's the same thing you'll do with your behavior as well. Beautiful Andy, let's grab our last break. I'm your host, Doctor Release Cortez. We're on the air with doctor Andy Malinsky, Professor of Organizational behavior in International Management at Brandeis International Business School. IS work helps people develop the insights encourage necessary to act outside their personal and cultural comfort zones when doing important but challenging tasking work in life. We've been talking a bit about some of the pearls from his book about how to really develop cross culture relationships.

33:00 After the rec we're going to get into the critical piece of developing trust in those relationships. Stay what's we write back? Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization. Please visit her at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease A Lisee at a lascortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose.

34:12 Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor release Cortes. As I mentioned in the last break, my latest book coming out, the Great Revitalization. What I did for you is I built a three page assessment that you can download from my website gustodeshnow dot com that will be able to tell you the extent to which your current culture actually meets the discerning needs of today's workforce. If you are just now joining us. My guest is doctor Andy Malinski. He's the author of Forging Bonds in a Global Workforce, Build rapport, camaraderie, and optimal performance no matter the time zone. So this next bit here about trust, I thought was just really delicious and really important. And trust is such an important part of relationships, especially if we're wanting to do business and anything in a long term way. So I like how you offer this idea, Andy that you say that meta messages are really important to send in your communication when dealing with people of different cultures than your own. And I want to talk about each one of those four because they're just so important, I think.

35:10 But the first one is you say, you know that this notion of conveying that I respect your culture even if it's not my own so important. Yeah, I respect your culture even if it's not my own. And there are many different I mean, you can say that, but what's really important is to actually show that. Yes, instead of saying it, is showing it. For example, it could be little things, such little things like here's an example, someone who when going abroad for a meeting always goes the day before or two asks for some suggestions ahead of time of what to see in the city, seize them, does them, goes to restaurants whatever that the host is recommended.

35:57 And then what an amazing amount of sort of like meaningful small talk fodder. You've got right, and you've showed it. You've showed that you're interested, you know, and you you might you know, it's not that you're probably going to be genuinely and authentically interested in every single part of that, every single aspect that you visited. And you probably won't like all the restaurants or even all the food, but there'll be some things that you are authentically interested in, that you were excited about, maybe that you're even curious about, you know, like I saw all these posters, I saw all these science for cricket matches. You know, I love sports. I've never seen a cricket match. I mean, can you explain that to me? You know, like, whatever it might be because you're showing interest, but it has to be genuine, it has to be you know, authentic. And what's nice is that there's so many it's like a it's like a I guess I keep thinking of these food metaphors.

36:50 It's like a big buffet, and you're not going to like everything, but there's gonna be some things you like. Find the things you like, hone in on those, and that shows your your your true interest. And I think that's a great way that in and of itself doesn't build trust, but it shows the seeds you. Know well, and let's just contrast what that looks like when it's not present, you know, when somebody goes to a different country and they just refuse to eat any of the local food. I don't like it. It's not what I eat at home, and it just boy, that just slams the brakes on any kind of connection and such. So, yeah, the showing the interest and the respect is so so important. And then along that line, their second one is I'm willing to meet you halfway.

37:31 Yeah, So I mean, I don't know if this was an example that related to that exact point in the book, but I have there's a great story that's very along the lines of that. It's an American born HR manager who goes up to Canada and he is starting to manage a very large French speaking workforce in Montreal and Quebec and he has to give a big speech to a lot of the new employees and he does it in French. Now, I should tell you he didn't major in French. He's not good at language. Yes, it was really I didn't hear the speech, but I think it was pretty butchered French. But he really tried. And he also, by the way, tried to learn. He could skate already, but he didn't play hockey, and so he woke up with him at six in the morning to play hockey and he ended up actually breaking a rib. But that's a side point. But he's kind of he's kind of given it a go. He's you know, now, I don't think he's probably gonnac commodate in every single way. They're probably gonna be some ways that he wants to that that, you know, sort of his ways of doing things that he wants to introduce and incorporate. But it is you do have to show you do have to show some some respect. You know that that that I value you.

38:47 I value the relationship. You know what I mean, I value. Yeah, And I think to your point, Andy, and reach across the aisle. I'm trying French. I'm not great at maybe maybe I'm not great at foreign languages, but I learned these things about your language and your culture and I'm putting them forth to you. And I've seen that over and over again. People so appreciate that I learned Italian when I was there for the first month thyk in twenty thirteen. And what was delightful was they didn't respond back to me in English. They responded back to me in Italian. I'm like, Oh, this must be good. I must be at least able to convey my what I'm trying to say. So yeah, meeting them halfway so so important. And then number three is I'm someone you can relate to.

39:29 Yeah, And I mean that comes from that comes from your your ability to try to find connections and find similarities. So much of cross cultural Anyone listening to this who knows anything about sort of culture and global business, they've probably heard about cultural differences. I mean that's I think that the field is my field. This field is obsessed with differences, right. The problem is is that you don't build relationships by focusing on differences. That's not how you do it in your own culture. You build relationships by discovering similarities, commonalities, That's how you build your relationships. I remember one time I was doing an executive ED program executive education program. I was teaching in it, and it was with a Korean company and a large Korean company, and I remember going at lunchtime to have lunch with some of the folks that I was that I was teaching.

40:22 There was only one table that was open, and there was a Korean guy who was asleep on the table. His head was on the table. I was like the only seat open in the entire like cafe, a cafeterian. So I joined him and he sees me. He knows who I am. I was a professor, and he's like he gets up and he says, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm just so tired. And so I could have stopped it there, you know, and said, okay, I accept your apology or something like that, but I didn't do that. I actually asked him. I was curious. I said, oh, so you know what, you know. I must have asked him why he was tired. Not in a sort of blaming way, but it's sort of in a curious way. Turns out, like long story short, he has he has two he had two very young children. Uh, and he was getting no sleep at home, and then he flew all the way from Korea to this to this, you know session, and so he was exhausted, and he said, you know, I'm tired here, but I'm so happy because this is the only place I've been able to get sleep for months. And I said to him, what was funny at the time was that I too had two very young children. And I completely identified what he was talking about, and we built this connection through small talk in a sense, through finding a similarity. I didn't have much in common with this guy at all, I don't think, but we absolutely had this in common and it was sort of it started to sow the seeds of a potential connection. That's what I mean. I think when you're trying to build trust across cultures, you want to be respectful, you want to be relatable, and you also want to be reliable. And then that that has to do with you know, work and you know, following through and all that.

41:53 But respectful, relatable, and reliable. Yeah, uh, on the point of I'm someone you can relate to. Just one thing I like to share is I don't know a lot about Asian cultures. I'm very interested to learn and spend more time over there. But what I think I know. You please correct me, Andy if I've got I'm missing a point here. But I believe in maybe the Chinese culture, maybe the Japanese culture, that when someone gives you their business card, or you give them their your business card, they take it in both their hands and then they read the whole thing, They study the whole thing, that's respectful. We Americans tend to grab it and just put in our pocket. Right, So, when I'm interacting with someone and from there where, I believe that that would be the way they want me to receive their business card. I do that. I take it with both my hands and read that I read it, and I usually will say something about the card to show that I did read it. What culture is that?

42:49 Do I have that right? Japan? Yeah? Japan. And you also want to make sure that when you're handing someone in your card that the writing is facing them. Okay, yeah, is another sign of respect. Just I just think it's just beautiful. So, you know, little things that you can do to step out of your normal way of being and relating to show this person I see you. I know this is important to you. I've made an effort, and I made an. Effort exactly right. So so and you do talk about I'm going to go because we're coming close to I don't know where the time goes, so fast, let's go on. I want to talk about building relationships in a team environment, especially today, as you say, you know we've we can have a team of that might represent you know, fourteen different countries so interesting, So let's talk a little bit.

43:35 You offer five conditions for a team's success, plus an insight, you say, on leveraging cultural brokers. Maybe we can just talk briefly about those that'd be great. Yeah, sure, so so those those So the cultural broker idea I'll just quickly say, is that there is some interesting research by a colleague of Mind and NCID in France, the Business Glanciad that says that teams that have people who fulfill the role of a cultural broker tend to be more effective, more creative, and so on. And what a cultural broker is is it someone who's either familiar with the two cultures on the team, in other words, they're bilingual by cultural or very skilled in both, or they're very knowledgeable about crossing cultures in general. And it's sort of like a resource that the team actually has within it. And so when we're staffing teams and when we're creating global teams, we don't often necessarily think about that, right, we just think about, you know, the who's on the team because of the particular function that they have, or you know, so on, and how it relates to the actual work. But the cross cultural softer. You know, let's say element I think is also quite important. The other aspects of building a team in that chapter have to do with some classic features of team building. Actually, you know then they have to do with things like having the right people on the team, providing the critical resources information that the team needs, uh, establishing norms early on

45:08 for being successful as a team. Uh. And you know it's it's like, you know, we might come from we might all come from different cultures, but you know what, what's what's this team's culture going to be? I think that's a really important, uh, really important thing to do as a team leader or just even as a self managing team to decide what the norms how we're going to operate, right, because otherwise people just bring their default perspectives and it might just be sort of like a mismatch. Uh and and and potentially cause misperception. So those are some of the ideas mm hm. So I did chuckle about this. Andy. You also put forth in that one to provide competent coaching, I would say, as opposed to incompetent coaching, But it just made me laugh.

45:53 I'm like, that's part of what I do in my work. So I just I had a little small giggle on that. Yeah, so we're probably the less time. We can cover here. Just this is so important to recognize that we are going to have disagreements in conflicts when we were working across culturally. It's a natural manifestation of working with people from different perspectives and ways of operating. And I love the example that you have in the book about Clara and Philippe that you know they and what I love about that is the way she especially handled that. She had the confidence because she had, you know, done her homework and worked in schooling herself in this way so that when she got Phelipe's very strong response to how he perceived her workshop, that she didn't take it personally and she didn't she wasn't crushed by it.

46:34 So can you just say a little bit about this notion of like like with maybe in a minute navigating you know, disagreements in conflict. Yeah, I think so what I would say is disagreement in conflict is quasi inevitable. And I think that what you really want to do is you want to try to stabilize a relationship by sending three critical messages. However you want to send them. However you can send them given the content, text, your personality, your style, whatever, and what you want to see, what you want to show, and what you want to say, and what you want to do is show that you value the other person, you value the relationship, and that you value yourself. You know, and however you do that, those those meta messages I value the relationship, I value you, and I value myself.

47:23 And I think by communicating those things and however you do them, I think those are really critical to be able to stabilize and potentially even grow the relationship, transform a conflict into an opportunity for learning, understanding, maybe even deepening. Beautiful Andy, So you know by now, I think that this show has has been on air for nine years. It's listened to by people around the world who tune in because they want to either learn more about how they can have a more meaningful work experience, they want to be part of helping to create those destination workplaces. What would you like to leave them with today? That crossing cultures building relationships across cultures is not rocket science, but there are some really important tips and things to consider, and it's a skill that is absolutely learnable. And don't just focus on cultural differences. That's what I would say.

48:16 Love it, Andy. I'm so happy to know you, happy to share you with my listeners and viewers around the world. And as you heard me say before we got on air, you're in Boston. I come through Boston. You could get a knock on your door. So just so you know you've been forewarned. Yeah, that sounds good. All right, listeners and viewers, You've got to learn more about doctor Andy Malinsky, the work he does helping people to develop the insights and courage necessary to act outside their personal and cultural comfort zones, and the various books that he has written, including Forging Bonds. Start by visiting his personal website. It's Andymolinsky dot com. Let me spell that for you A N D y mo l I N sky Andy Mlinsky dot com. You can also find him on LinkedIn as well. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch youv you record a podcast as whenever or wherever you get your podcast.

49:02 We were on air with doctor Raj Sisodia talking about his latest book, which is number sixteen. It's called Awaken, The Path to Purpose, Inner Peace and Healing. It was an incredible honor to have him back on and have him share so deeply and openly and vulnerably about his life and all he's gone through to become who he is today. I dare say you will laugh, cry, and be inspired by the interview in his book. See you next week for another vitalizing and uplifting conversation that will help you more meaningfully connect with your work while providing insight on creating destination workplaces where people can do the best work of their lives while becoming the best version of themselves. See you there. Remember our work is one of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential and making the impact we crave. So let's work on Purpose.

49:47 We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on W four C. Why Together We'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership and inspires and passion performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.