For six groups understanding the influence of national culture on their work is critical to success: Executive management making strategic decisions. They need to make the right decisions. Senior management leading cross-Atlantic teams. They need to execute that strategy effectively. Long-term delegates building bridges between the two cultures. They need to build stable bridges. Subject […]
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Time Do a simple calculation. Note down how many hours per week you collaborate cross-border. Let’s take 10 hours. Then increase that number by 10% due to cultural differences. That’s 1 extra hour per week. Doesn’t seem that dramatic? Multiply that 1 extra hour per week times 48 work weeks in a year. That’s 6 days. […]
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We all know that most cross-border mergers underperform. We know that some of them fail in a very big way. How do we know? The press reports on these disasters. The business schools teach about them. Consulting firms claim they can prevent them. But, what’s interesting is they all cite cultural differences as one of […]
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Let’s take sports. The one team has a clear strategy. Their formation on the field is based on that strategy. Each player knows what their job is and how to do it. They communicate among themselves and with the coaching staff. And they can adjust to changing circumstances on the field. They play as a […]
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What does it actually mean to quantify so-called hard factors? Are the complex interactions within global companies really so simple that you can isolate specific interactions and assign numbers to them? Perhaps in discreet motion studies on an assemply line. Perhaps in the number of packages a worker can move in a warehouse. But in […]
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Take a piece of printer paper. Unlined. Fold it in half. Twice. You have quadrants. Turn the paper sideways to the landscape position. Now use a pencil and an eraser. Baseline Number First, what is your baseline number? It could be a hard number: revenue, profit, cost. Or a soft number: speed, quality, response time. […]
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Ok, you are probably wondering why you were asked to put a number in the top-left quadrant in the exercise Four Questions. Good, let’s get a sense for the numbers when Americans and Germans do or do not understand each other. Let’s take the topic Communication. Again four questions: 1. What is your organization’s target […]
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Your company has acquired another company. Or another company has acquired yours. Or within your company a reorganization is taking place. It doesn’t really matter. The dynamics are the same. Colleagues will be collaborating across borders. Many of them for the first time. Now, if cross-border collaboration works, everyone wins. If it does not work, […]
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Your company has acquired another company. In another country. From another business culture. One of largest investments in the history of the company. There are reasons for the acquisition. Those reasons make up the business case. Business cases are translated into goals. Goals require a path to them. That path – let’s call it post-merger […]
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Imagine this. Your company has just acquired another company. That other company happens to be in a different country. That means your company and the other company are at home in different cultures. Your company is German. The acquired company is American. Or switch it around. It doesn’t make any difference. Either way, the merger […]
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