Eastern versus Western ways of knowing in international teams

The opposite of a great truth is also true.

Zen Buddhist Dictum

If you are a Westerner interested in doing business or managing a team with the Chinese and not familiar with cultural differences, it is enormously useful to learn about differences in reasoning when presenting a business proposal or organizational change. As a Westerner being persuasive can be greatly enhanced by understanding some of the fundamental differences in Western and Eastern thought.

Eastern Dialecticism versus Western Formal Logic

The Chinese developed a system of thought, dialectical reasoning, which is opposed to formal logic from the Western tradition in many ways. Eastern dialecticism is at the foundation of Eastern thought and has the following characteristics:

1. The principle of relationships. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. Parts are meaningful only in relation to the whole.
2. The principle of change. Reality is a process of change (what is currently true will shortly be false;
3. The principle of contradiction. Contradiction is the dynamic underlying change;

Whereas at the foundation of the Western tradition of thought is formal logic.

Aristotle exemplified the foundation of formal logic such that:

1. A=A A is itself and not some other thing;
2. A and not A cannot be both the case. A proposition and its opposite cannot be both true.
3. Exclude everything in between. Everything must either be or not be.

Based upon various research of cultural difference, such as by the social psychologist, Richard Nisbett, people who grow up under the influence of Chinese traditions do not accept these propositions as being necessarily true for all kinds of problems. (Source: Richard E. Nisbett (2015) Mindware: Tools For Smart Thinking.)

While formal logic is broadly accepted in Western quarters, people influenced by Eastern thought may find the contradictions in certain contexts since, in Eastern thought, the principle of contradiction is the dynamic underlying change.

Dynamic of change in geographic context

I worked within a team within a global corporation where a senior manager displayed annoyance and complained about a deadline not being likely to be met by the end of the week by a Taiwanese team.   Little did he know that a typhoon had hit the capital and had all but taken the business district to a grinding halt. The Taiwanese team I was working with had understandably stayed at home for a couple of days in the interests of their own personal safety. This story highlights a cognitive blindness caused by concentrating on a specific problem (the need to meet a deadline for a project) without seeking to understand the broader situational context (an extreme weather event). An extreme weather event had not only disrupted the usual business momentum, but more importantly team members’ personal safety at was at stake. This is an example of not seeking to understand in a more holistic manner while failing to take into the geographical context.  Focussing on the brutal logic of a deadline makes no sense.  Relationships are important.  Parts are meaningful only in relation to the whole.  And where is the  humanity?

What to do?

If you are a Western educated manager leading a team of people from countries influenced by Eastern thought, you will have greater influence and illicit greater support if you explain things in terms of the big picture and a broad context. Rather than give directives to individual team members in isolation, you would be better if you provided an overview of how all the pieces fit together in the system, provide a macro-view, and provide insight into what other members of the team are doing.

Nisbett makes an insightful recommendation, which may be applicable to a Western educated manager attempting to influence a team from an Eastern educated audience:

“Sometimes it is helpful to try to dissolve contradictions, but sometimes it’s more productive to acknowledge them and see whether the truth might lie between the contradictory ideas, or whether it’s possible to transcend the contradictions and find some respect in which both are true.” 2

Effective cross-cultural collaboration with our Eastern educated friends and colleagues can be dramatically enhanced with a sensitivity to the cultural influence of Eastern thought. Try to embrace seemingly contradictory ideas and paradox and know that the parts are meaningful only in relation to the whole.

1 Richard E. Nisbett (2015) Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking

What can we learn about quality management from the VW fraud scandal?

As a manager how do you define quality?  This is a question that must troubling the Quality managers at VW.  When we think of some definitions include ‘fitness for use’, conformance to specification’, or ‘fitness for intended use’, would have these got them out of serior trouble . How can an IT manager be confident that a product or service is fit for use? Incidently what is the quality characteristic that detects fraud?

 

Being confident about a critical software product requires an objective assessment of risk.   Developing a strategy to test software depends on the technical and business context. There is not a one size fits all best practice for all different types of software and infrastructure projects.   While I have devised numerous approaches over the years, one of the most versatile and practical is a risk-based test strategy.  A risk-based test strategy is a good approach in the manager’s toolkit.

Risk-Based Approach

Risk-based testing is an approach which provides a high level of confidence that the right features, interfaces and functions are being tested at the right time.

What is a risk-based approach to testing? (Do you know anyone who has a risk-based approach to their life?)

In project work, there are broadly two types of risks:

1. project risks; and
2. product (quality) risks.

Project risks relate to problems that arise that affect a project’s success. Lack of the right resources is an obvious example. Or the risk of not being able to deliver in the required market in a timely manner. Perhaps VW did not assess the impact to their brand and share price if their systemic fraud was discovered.

Product quality risks depend upon the specified quality characteristics and requirements definition.

Risk Identification

It is desirable to use a combination of a top down and bottom up risk assessment approach. A top down approach uses quality standard classifications and checklists.  Whereas a bottom up assessment means using interviews with experts:  solution architects, software developers and business analysts to gain insight into  the relative importance of risks and quality characteristics for the various components of a system.

A top down method of risk assessment can use software quality standards (eg. ISO9126) or other risk templates. For example the following is an example of quality characteristics derived from several sources:

•  Capability. –   Can it perform the required functions?
•  Reliability –   Will it work well and resist failure in all required    situations?
•  Usability  –   How easy is it for a real user to use the product?
•  Performance. –   How speedy and responsive is it?
•  Installability–   How easily can it be installed onto its target platform?
•  Compatibility–   How well does it work with external components & 
configurations?
•  Supportability–   How economical will it be to provide support to users of the 
product?
•  Testability–   How effectively can the product be tested?
•  Maintainability–   How economical will it be to build, fix or enhance the 
product?
•  Portability –   How economical will it be to port or reuse the technology 
elsewhere?
•  Localizability–   How economical will it be to publish the product in another 
language?

Source: Heuristic Risk-Based Testing by James Bach in Software Testing and Quality Engineering Magazine, 11/99

But what about another that if overlooked could reverberate throughout the company in years to come:  Is the software compliant with relevant regulations?

• Compliance –  Does the software comply with regulations in the various jurisdictions that it will be used in?

Risk Assessment

Assessing the risk is about determining the consequences and likelihood of potential risks. It could be useful to ask questions such as:  How serious is this potential risk? What is the likelihood of the risk eventuating?

Probability

It is important to determine the criteria to assess the probably of the risk happening. These criteria could include complexity, degree of change to a function or component, program size, programming skill etc.

Consequences

What are the consequences if this function or component was to fail?

You could assign a criticality to each risk based upon the impact on the business or company if it were to fail.   A numeric scale may be used to rate the relative criticality.

FMEA

There is a formal procedure which is another alternative which can be used if it suits the context of the project. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a formal methodology created to identify potential failure modes for a process or product, to assess the risk associated with those failure modes, which allows ranking of issues in terms of importance, and to identify and carry out corrective actions to address the most serious concerns.

Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMEA / FMECA) involves the identification of the following information:

• Item(s)
• Function(s)
• Failure(s)
• Effect(s) of Failure
• Cause(s) of Failure
• Current Control(s)
• Recommended Action(s)

Most analyses include some method to assess the risk associated with the issues identified during the analysis and to prioritize corrective actions. Two common methods include:

• Risk Prioritization; and
• Criticality Analysis

Risk Mitigation

The level of coverage of software testing is contextualised by the information gained from the previous activity of identifying and assessing risks. Scope and risk assessment combine to inform a test strategy which may include resourcing and scheduling, techniques of static analysis, dynamic testing, progression and regression, manual and automated, functional and non-functional dimensions in the overall approach.

Juggling time, resources and quality

A risk-based approach to testing is designed to mitigate risks and find the right trade-offs in time, resources and quality.   Quality should not be compromised by other project imperatives.  Is your product’s quality and conformance ready for the world to see?  The systemic fraud that was designed into the emissions software of VW’s cars highlights the imperative for compliance as well all the usual product risks to be mitigated.

Hows your fitness for use?

As an IT manager are you prepared to go against the dominant logic of your organisation if there is systemic fraud and non-compliance?  How is your product’s fitness for use?

References:

Heuristic Risk-Based Testing by James Bach in Software Testing and Quality Engineering Magazine, 11/99

A First Course in Quality Engineering:  Integrating Statistical and Management Methods of Quality (2nd Ed.)  K.S. Krishnamoorthi, V.  Ram Krishnamoorthi.

Risk Based Testing and Metrics, article by Stale Amland for 5th International Conference, EuroSTAR ’99, November 8-12, 1999, Barcelona, Spain.

Software  Risk Management:  Principles and Practices by Barry W. Boehm, IEEE Software, Vol. 8, No. 1 January 1991.

How does a manager manage a multitude of mental models ?

Mental models are the way that we interpret the world. The simple representation we form of something is a model. For a manager this is important since these representations of reality are usually incomplete, imprecise and fuzzy.

Our Mental models are based upon the inferences we make of our a priori assumptions and beliefs. But these underlying beliefs are more often than not outside our awareness.  My experience has been that it is important to respect not only your own but other’s unique perspectives and mental models.  This might mean that a leader or manager would be well suited to applying eclecticism to leading people and solving problems – not being fixed on a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draw on multiple theories to gain a more  balanced  perspective on an issue or problem.

Prejudicial assumptions

 If we see someone of a vastly different cultural background, what initial inner dialogue runs through our mind? Do we need to consciously step in to ensure that we do not act on an unconscious prejudice?   Imagine an elderly white man walking down an alley who encounters a group of black teenagers wearing hooded sweaters. What are his initial thought impressions? Does the elderly white man’s unconscious assumptions produce inferences about their likely behavior as being threatening? It is often the case that people are not aware of what unconscious assumptions influences their behaviour and thoughts.

Organisational Learning

The concept of mental models was popularized in the organisational learning literature of the 1990s in Peter Senge’s seminal work, The Fifth Discipline: the art and practice of the learning organisation. “What we carry in our heads are images, assumptions and stories” is one of Senge’s descriptions.

“ ‘In the traditional authoritarian organization, the dogma was managing, organizing, and controlling,’ says Hanover’s CEO Bill O’Brien. ‘In the learning organization, the new ‘dogma’ will be vision, values and mental models. The healthy corporations will be one which can systematize ways to bring people together to develop the best possible mental models for facing any situation at hand.’ ”

Source: Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge, p.181

Mental model in a successful online retailer

Zappos, an online shoe retailer has been enormously successful, which went from $1.6 million in sales in 2000, to over a billion in 2008. The CEO, Tony Hsieh wrote about the culture of Zappos in his book, Delivering Happiness. One of the mental models that has infused the culture at Zappos is of the importance of connection. Zappos executives conducted research which concluded that a feeling of connection among employees is good for productivity. The greater connection that people feel with their colleagues at work, the happier they are. This feeling of connection leads to greater productivity.   The mental model of the importance of creating happiness as an important key to productivity and morale lead the Zappos executives to also generate a culture of learning. Subsequently free classes taught by other employees were created to contribute to the growth of employees within the company. (Source:  Scrum: A revolutionary approach to building teams, beating deadlines and boosting productivity by Dr Jeff Sutherland)

What can a leader do to facilitate creative mental models?

Create meaning through empowering story telling. The stories should create meaning and in doing so highlight core values and basic rules that are the key to the excellence of running your business.  Creating a positive culture should inform strategy and creative mental models are like a toolkit to achieve the business objectives.

How can a manager create coherence in different cultural environments?

Effective communication for managers and leaders should be layered, sensitive to context, and the message needs to be relevant to the recipients of the communication. One way to become a more persuasive communicator is to understand whether a team member is from a high or low context culture. While everyone is different, there are some cultural norms that are useful to be aware of. This discussion will look at ways in which managers can create coherence in different cultural environments.

What is the difference between low and high context?

Some countries favor communication that is precise, simple and clear. This means a preference for low context communication. Countries on far end of the low context dimension include US, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Germany. On the other end of the scale are countries, where sophisticated, nuanced and layered communication is deemed to be good communication. Messages may be implied in speech and people tend to read between the lines. Countries on the high context end of the spectrum include Japan, China, Indonesia and Korea.

Source: The Culture Map: Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business by Erin Meyer

Influences of history and language

The history of a country has a significant impact on the position of the country on the context communication scale. Language is also relevant however notice in the table above that there is a considerable space between the United States and the United Kingdom, even though they are both English-speaking countries.

A high-context country such as Japan is collectivist rather than individualist. Shared meaning and context have been transmitted through a broad network of relationships from generation to generation in a long history of thousands of years. In this environment, the Japanese have become adept at reading between the lines and picking up nuances in communication. Whereas a country like Australia is a relatively young country with only several hundred years built on a foundation of immigration. Its cultural norms could be thought of as more eclectic spanning across its cultural diversity. In a census from 2011, the nominated ancestry comprised of English (36.1%), followed by Australian (35.4%),[218] Irish (10.4%), Scottish (8.9%), Italian (4.6%), German (4.5%), Chinese (4.3%), Indian (2.0%), Greek (1.9%), and Dutch (1.7%).

(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia)

Australia is characterized as a highly individualistic country, on the individualism versus collectivism index from the Hofstede cultural dimensions model .   Given these characteristics: its short history, cultural diversity and individualism, Australia is a country that generally favours low-context communication. Many people believe that good communication is precise, succinct, and simple.  While precise and simple communication, using the right language to appeal to people from different cultures, are important in defining expectations and goals, it necessary to set the right context.

Situational Context Matters

Effective communication needs to be supplemented with creating the right context in the work environment. If an organisation creates clear communication but an environment with an expectation that employees should put in extreme work hours, then this context in the environment is unlikely to create strong morale and productivity:

“…many of the companies in Silicon Valley and Alley areas pride themselves on having 20-hour days for employees and untold sacrifices of family life.  To hold an employee’s family in utter disregard is unlikely to create a context of respect and trust, both of which are prerequisites of coherence.”

(Source: The Next Common Sense: The e-Manager’s Guide to Mastering Complexity by Michael Lissack and Johan Roos) 

However what about if you are functioning within a complex system of thousands of geographically dispersed employees in a national or global organisation?  Precise communication of project goals should not come at the expense of understanding the context of a particular geographic region.

Geographical and historical context matters

I have had experience in an international organisation in which senior managers planned for the role out of a global technology solution but did not initially take into account of the unique geographical and historical contexts of the agreement with a major client within a particular region.  The specific contractual agreement with this major client had clauses that did not conform to the global standardisation of technological solution.   Furthermore there were particular privacy clauses in the agreement which made the implementation of the technology as having unique, tailored conformance requirements.  Sometime local, situational context needs to be taken into consideration rather than relying on oversimplifying with a global mental model.  The parts of the system (eg. a specific historical and geographic context) need to sometimes be redefined and recombined to form a new whole.

Steps managers can take to create team coherence

 Promoting coherence within an organization can be difficult and sufficient effort needs to be made to create it. The following steps outline an overall approach devised by Michael Lissack and Johan Roos in The Next Common Sense:

         1. Clarify your purpose and objectives within the organization

Be accountable for your actions which are in alignment to your goals. Articulate your goals clearly and precisely, but don’t forget that face to face talks, teleconferences are more effective forms of communication than emails.

2. Use the right language

Selecting the right language means understanding the various contexts: the social, political contexts, attitudes of executive teams, existing norms of the organization. With this type of awareness and knowledge, the right language can be crafted to articulate your goals.

3. Create the right context

Determine what components in the environment are available to fulfill your corporate objectives. Conduct a gap analysis to ascertain what elements in your environment (cultural, technical, financial, people) are missing to meet your goals.   What are the heuristics and environmental factors required to meet your organizational objectives?

4. Turn people loose and get out of the way

Put your energy into your principles, purpose, motivation and conduct rather than micromanaging people in your team.   A great way to inhibit people is to hover which can impede people from taking the initiative to take ownership of their work and apply their own creativity. Get out of the way, but provide a supportive emotional environment, the technology and information required, and give team members a sense of making progress.

(Source: The Progress Principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work by Terese Amabile & Steven Kramer)

5. Use communication that works

 Convey meaning through stories. Relate stories that are communicated from the heart. Somehow relate your stories to the basic values shared in the organization. Engage the imagination of the listeners. Open up a discussion to explore the stories, their relevance and ramifications.

Sources:

The Next Common Sense: The E-Manager’s Guide to Mastering Complexity by Michael Lissack and Johan Roos

An excellent guide to managing complexity in organisations

The Culture Map: Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business by Erin Meyer

A comprehensive examination and advice relating to cross-cultural communication in business.

The Progress Principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work by Terese Amabile & Steven Kramer

A definite guide to getting the best out of your team through cultivating a positive inner work life

The art of persuasion in cross-cultural teams

The art of persuasion in cross-cultural teams is a crucial business skill. Leaders and managers need to effectively attract support and develop rapport in cross-cultural contexts. Leading people requires motivating teams to adopt a new approach, cooperate and collectively to achieve an organisatonal objective. I have found that it is critical to seek to understand other’s mental models and cultural perspectives to gain wide support across cultural and organizational boundaries.

Beliefs embedded in cultural assumptions

Individual belief systems are deeply rooted in their culture’s philosophical, educational and religious assumptions. A leader cannot expect to persuade all the members of cross-cultural teams without having developed a degree of cultural sensitivity driven by curiosity about other’s perspectives.

There is one take home skill for the art of persuading in cross-cultural management. Understand how people are persuaded from different cultures.

Two Types of Reasoning

In the art of persuasion, there are two types of reasoning, which have different degrees of impact across cultures: principle-first (deductive) reasoning and applications-first (inductive) reasoning. Principle-first reasoning derives conclusions from general principles. For example, if we were to use a famous example of deductive reasoning:

1. The general principle: All men are mortal;
2. Socrates is a man;
3. Therefore Socrates is mortal.

Whereas with application-first (inductive) reasoning, general conclusions are derived from factual observations in the real world. For example, if it is noted that recorded readings of weather patterns from various sites around the world are hotter than average over the last 50 years, then climate scientists make various conclusions based upon those facts.

Most people are more accustomed to one of the two methods of reasoning which is influenced by the particular culture’s educational system. However depending upon where education took place there is a greater emphasis on one style of reasoning over another.

Anglo-Saxon cultures like Australia, United States, UK, Canada and New Zealand are on the application-first side of the persuasion scale.  Whereas countries such as Italy, France, Russia and Spain are on the principles-first side of the persuasive scale.

So how does a manager adapt her persuasive technique when attempting to persuade a team from various nationalities around the world to adopt a new method of working in an organization?

Take home message: alternate between these approaches

The most effective technique is to use a combination of theoretical explanations and practical examples. Theoretical explanations will appeal to the preferences of members of the team who have a preference for principle-first reasoning.

While those people who are more inclined to application-first reasoning are more likely to immediately respond to practical examples. In business schools, the case study method is an example of how application-first reasoning is applied in an MBA program. The art of persuasion for leaders and managers is best achieved through alternating between these two approaches.