It's hard enough keeping up with your colleagues down the hall, let alone those across the world. But it's worth making the effort, say Charlene Solomon and Michael Schell, who have a combined 50 years of experience working with companies such as GE, HSBC, Intel, and Colgate-Palmolive, in their new book "Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset."
Solomon and Schell believe in today's global marketplace, it isn't enough to be smart, talented, or technically skilled. The key to excelling in business today is to be culturally competent, they say, because global business skills "are not only vital in being effective over there, but also are a necessary skill set over here."
The authors identify seven key behaviors that teach business leaders how to recognize, appreciate, and actively manage cultural diversity.
Among the topics they address are:
• The role culture played in creating the current financial crisis and how it will influence the recovery.
• How culture translates into tangible productivity, and has a direct business impact.
• The avoidable cultural pitfalls that damaged companies like Wal-Mart and DaimlerChrysler in the global marketplace and what business leaders at any stage can learn from these mistakes.
• The seven keys to doing business with a global mindset—from understanding the way people view authority and the way different societies communicate to how certain cultures value time and the role relationships play in business across cultural boundaries.
• How organizations can pinpoint specific cultural and global diversity challenges.
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