Unit 4 - Managing Across Culture

LISTENING 1: Listen to two versions of a conversation between Tiffany, an intern, and

Simon, her supervisor. Underline the words that describe Simon's behaviour. Then
compare your answers with a partner.

Version 1 - Simon is: Version 2 - Simon is:

objective impatient a good listener objective impatient a good listener
dogmatic diplomatic friendly firm dogmatic diplomatic friendly firm
understanding insincere authoritarian understanding insincere authoritarian
threatening weak frank threatening weak frank

LISTENING 1:
1a - Version 1:
Simon: Morning, Tiffany. Good weekend?
Tiffany: Oh, yes, it was cool. And you?
S: No, not really. Listen, Tiffany, come into my office, I need to talk to you.
T: Oh, no, what now?
S: Look, I hear you had a problem with Maureen on Friday.
T: Oh, that. Yeah. That idiot refused to help me! Who does she think she is?!
S: You mustn't talk about your colleagues like that. Maureen is a very experienced assistant
and a valuable member of the team.
T: Maybe, but she still refused to help me
S: Yes, but she had a good reason to refuse. Maureen was very busy on Friday and you didn't
ask for help you demanded her immediate attention. As a future manager, you should
show respect to all the staff.
T: But I was just trying to finish the job.
S: Well, you won't get results from people like Maureen if you're rude.
T: Look, I was tired. I had a difficult week, OK?
S: Tiffany, everyone gets tired, and I'm getting tired of your attitude. You apologize, or
there'll be trouble. Do you understand?
T: Me? Apologize to some stupid little secretary? No way!
1b - Version 2:
Simon: Morning, Tiffany. Good weekend?
Tiffany: Oh, yes, it was cool and you?
S: Yeah, I had a good weekend too - apart from having to finish off this report. How about
you? What did you do?
T: I went to the swimming pool yesterday. Gorgeous weather.
S: Mm, sounds good. Er, Tiffany, have you got a minute?
T: Sure.
S Come in. I just wanted to have a quick word. I hear you had a problem with Maureen on
Friday.
T: Oh, that. Yeah. That idiot refused to help me! Who does she think she is?!
S: Well, Tiffany, I think perhaps you should be more careful about how you talk about your
colleagues. Maureen is a very experienced assistant and a valuable member of the team.
T: OK, but she still refused to help me.
S: Well, you might want to think about why she couldn't help you. Maureen was very busy on
Friday, and I understand you didn't really ask for help so much as demand her immediate
attention. We try hard to respect all our staff here. As a future manager, I think you ought to
do the same.
T: But I was just trying to finish the job.
S: Well, I understand that, and I appreciate that you work hard and that you expect other
people to show the same commitment. But, don't you think you might get better results from
people like Maureen by being a little more diplomatic?
T: Yeah, OK. I'm sorry, you're right. I was tired. I didn't mean to be rude.
S: OK. It can happen to anyone. Why don't you ask Maureen to have a coffee with you, and
just clear the air? OK?
T: OK. Thanks, Simon.

LISTENING 2: Listen to Sandra, an American business student, and David, a British civil
service manager, talking about problems they experienced with work placements. Answer
the questions.
1. What problems did Sandra and David have?
- Sandra was not accepted by her colleagues because they felt that she left work too early. David upset
an intern who arrived late.

2. What were the misunderstandings that caused these problems?

- Sandra misunderstood the (unwritten) office rules on working hours. David assumed Monica (the
intern) would know to inform him she had a dentist's appointment, but she didn't; Monica
misinterpreted David's friendliness as changing the supervisor-intern relationship.

2a - Sandra: I got my first placement in a PR firm in Paris. Our teachers had told us to be careful
about dress code, being on time, and so on. But I had a problem I really wasn't expecting. The
first day, I arrived at eight thirty and I was a bit surprised because I had to wait an hour and a
half for my supervisor to arrive. In fact, most people came in at about eleven o'clock. But
everybody was very friendly. They gave me a project to work on and I thought, great, I can
really do a good job here and, you know, make a good impression. Well, for the first two weeks I
worked from nine in the morning to about seven in the evening. I didn't really have a social life
because I only got home about eight, but, like I said, I wanted to make a good impression. But
then gradually, people became less friendly, and stopped talking to me. I couldn't understand
why they were giving me these funny looks, especially when I went home in the evening.
Anyway, in the end, I went and asked my supervisor what I'd done wrong. And, in fact, the
problem was that most people didn't go home until 9 or 10pm. So because I left at about seven, I
was breaking the unwritten rules. They all thought was lazy! I mean, I knew I was the first to
leave, but I arrived at 9am, and I was working really hard, you know?! But as far as they were
concerned, you couldn't do any real work before eleven, so arriving at nine in the morning didn't
count!
2b - David: I'm a department manager in the civil service. The department's actually very
informal and friendly - we're all quite young and everyone's on first name terms. We all have
lunch together in the canteen and we often go to the pub for a drink after work. We have one or
two interns per year. We try to make them feel at home and part of the team, and usually it's fine.
But, a year or two ago, I had a problem with an intern I was supervising. At first, everything was
fine. Monica was very bright and friendly, and got on well with everybody. But then one day we
had a crisis in the office. My manager needed one of Monica's files for an important meeting at
10am. We couldn't find it, and unfortunately Monica wasn't in the office; she wasn't answering
her phone, and she didn't arrive until ten fifteen! In fact, she'd been to the dentist's, but she hadn't
told me that she'd be late. Well, as you can imagine, I was stressed out and I made it very clear
that this was unacceptable. And Monica just burst into tears, so I had to tell her that, you know,
that was unprofessional too. Anyway, after that, things were never the same. She stopped
socializing with the rest of the team; she wouldn't say anything in meetings and she didn't even
eat in the canteen with us anymore. I tried to explain that it was my job to tell her when there was
a problem, and that it wasn't personal. But she couldn't accept that. For her, a boss was a boss,
and a friend was a friend, and you couldn't be a boss and a friend.

LISTENING 3: (MKL, p55, CD1 50:52-53:15) Listen to the first part of an interview with
Jeff Toms, Marketing Director at the International Briefing Centre at Farnham Castle,
Surrey. He talks about training courses which prepare people for doing business
internationally. Complete the list of issues that he mentions.
Issues covered by the training course
 1. Cutural awareness
 Practical issues of 2. living and 3. working overseas
 Dealing with 4 culture shock
 Schooling; 5. health care; international security
 How to negotiate 6. Contracts
 Communication
- telephone - e-mail - the 7. Written word
 Presentation skills
- the words you use
- the 8. colors you use
 - how to deal with 9. Questions and answers
- managing your 10 audience
I: How do you prepare people to do business intemationally?
JT: How we prepare people to do business internationally really depends on the task that
they're undertaking on behalf of their company or organisation. For example, if you're being sent
by your company to live and work overseas for a period say of two or three years, as an assignee,
then we would provide you either with a one-or two-day programme covering such issues as:
cultural awareness, practical issues of living in, working in, as well as how to deal with culture
shock, which everybody goes through when they go on assignment. We'll also deal with
particular issues such as schooling, health care and, in particular parts of the world increasingly,
with security. However, if, as is the case now, many more people are not actually going to live
overseas but have intemational responsibility. You need a different set of learning tools and that
is, first of all, a general cultural awareness and understanding of how you should really operate
when dealing with people with other cultures; teaching you how to negotiate contracts;
communication, just generally whether that's by telephone, by e-mail or even by the written
word. The words that you choose have a very different effect on the recipient depending on
which culture you're conversing with Another important area these days is presentation skills. In
the past it has been assumed that you use the same presentation from your home country when
presenting to a more multi-cultural audience. That's very much not the case, and we teach people
even down to the kind of words you use on the slides, the colours you use, and indeed how to
deal with questions and answers and manage your audience because of course in different
cultures there's a different response. Finally, it's very important we believe here at Famham
Castle, to underpin all this with some ability to communicate in the host language. Whilst
English is still very much regarded as the international language of business, it is increasingly
expected that people will make at least some effort and attempt to learn the language of the
people that they are dealing with, particularly in a social environment. It really demonstrates an
interest and an affinity with the people that really you are trying to build relationships with and,
of course, business is all about building relationships.

LISTENING 4: Listen to the second part of the interview. Jeff talks about the personality
traits that help in doing business internationally. Which three personality traits does he
consider to be important?
adaptability, to listen carefully, a positive attitude

LISTENING 5: Listen to the third part of the interview. Which two cultural aspects does
Jeff mention and what does he say about them?
▪ Entertaining ▪ Gift-giving ▪ Hierarchy
▪ Time ▪ Greetings ▪ Dress
There are lots of quoted examples and I think they are really to do with attitudes, particular facets
of cultures. For example, timc would be a very important cultural aspect that you really do have
to learn if you are from a western culture then how you do approach time and how you do
business. For example, in a country like Saudi Arabia would be very important. Other examples
are really attitudes to hierarchy. For example: there are many US corporations wbo have very
young, high-flying business, very successful business executives. For example, if you send one
of those individuals to meet and do business with a senior Asian businessperson, again Japan
coines to mind, then they will be met with a very distinctively negative response, and what
indeed will happen is that the senior Asian businessperson will see it very much as an insult,
probably either leave the meeting or refuse to attend the meeting and will actually send
somebody who thcy think is of equal status and age to negotiate with that individual and because
that lower individual, more junior individual doesn't have the authority then you're very unlikely
to achicve anything out of that meeting.
Hierarchy - Jeff talks specifically about the Asian attitude to hierarchy. Sending a very young,
business executive to Japan, however successful, will create a negative response: a senior Asian
businessman will see it as an insult and either leave the meeting or send a young executive who
will be of a lower status.