Four signs that your organization may be an elephant:

1. The organization is selling to the same demographic as always, in spite of plans to diversify. You’re also sourcing from the same suppliers. New suppliers are often the people who introduce you to different demographics, so if you’re calling the same people every time you want to place an order, your elephant prefers comfort to growth.

2. CRM technology has changed the way that businesses sell. Most companies have plans to develop a deep understanding of their customers, but elephants are weak when following-up on these plans. If you really understand your actual and potential customers,  your  elephant will be transformed into a prancing gazelle.

3. The organization is doing little to engage new markets. States like Florida are pouring taxpayer money into business support services – custom training grants, and full-service help with exports. Even tiny companies are exporting. Businesses are exporting services as well as products. Training is available and risk is managed: Ex-Im Bank insures 95% of foreign payments for $-peanuts. By leaving opportunities, your elephant leaves resources on the table for competitors.

4. The best test of being an elephant is that your beast shakes off anyone who speaks up too much, or has too many bright ideas. Elephants don’t do well with differentness: they prefer people who don’t challenge corporate culture.

Charles Handy recommended two solutions for ‘business elephantitis’. Both involve fleas. Fleas are resilient, creative people who work with elephants to help them change in an agreed way. (CPS is a flea company.)

1. A very big elephant can have a permanent team of fleas living on the elephant, if it has a very strong and powerful executive who can protect the fleas. Remember – elephants shake off fleas.

2. Any elephant can invite a flea aboard to achieve a defined result. The flea is tasked with biting the elephant to grow, at a rate that works for the elephant. Maybe the elephant wants to see further ahead, or to see how to sell new products and services to new customers. Sometimes the objective is to retain innovative, talented and diverse people. The elephant almost always wants to be more profitable. And sometimes it just needs a good run.

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Soft landings programs help to make your move easier and your adjustment more comfortable.

A soft landing program is any range of services that “catches” a new employee, family or business and helps him/her/them integrate into a new situation. It may be preparatory or a single event, or on-going, or “after the fact” – a program that recognizes the many stresses on foreign-born employees (even after years of being in a new country). It can provide almost any types of support.

Basic Business Soft Landings: These programs are usually  for companies that are relocating, opening new branches or are entrepreneurial start-ups or incubators. The programs may offer relocation funding, office space, internet connections, mentoring, networking opportunities, research resources, intellectual property assistance, or help with “red tape” issues like visas, import/export laws, permits and licenses. Sites like http://www.nbia.org/member_services/soft_landings/ list many such programs.

These programs help bring new jobs to regions, build a region’s tax base, create innovation, build exports and keep talented and educated people in an area.

Personal Relocation: These programs are for people who come to a new region. Public or private organizations provide support and information regarding jobs, education, medical services, financial obstacles, accommodation/property, transport, and cultural, social and community integration etc. Example: http://www.softlandings.com/ or http://www.korea4expats.com/. (We enjoyed a long brunch in Seoul with the creator of this site.)

Wider Approaches: As regions and organizations see the value of differentness, they are investing in making changes easier for new residents or new members of staff. Their reasons are simple: engage, retain, and let these people add value. People are potential economic engines, so let them get going as soon as possible.

What makes a good soft landing program?

1. Catch people at the beginning.  When people are new to a situation, they want it to work, so competent support, information and backup go a long way to selling them on their decision to choose your company or your region. It’s much harder to make them happy later, after some bad experiences, than to catch them at the start, or before.

2. Prepare those around newbies. New people want to adapt. However, people who live in an area (or work in a company) often have little knowledge of other regions and cultures. A new person shouldn’t have to do all the adaptation. Others should also understand their culture, and how if differs from world cultures, and have skills in communicating across cultural boundaries.

This also means thinking about families. If a spouse and kids are not happy, how long will the new talent provide ROI on the reassignment?

3. Celebrate the new perspectives people bring. If you’ve always lived in a country, you assume many things about “the way things are around here.”  Your new employee is valuable simply because s/he will see things differently, and ask new questions, which is why differentness is so highly correlated with innovation.

4. Create a culture that understands that differentness is different – not wrong. Be patient with new people -  they will get things wrong and be mystified by medical, educational, and other systems that you take for granted. You would do the same in a different environment.

5.Remember that the stresses of coming to a new culture do not end after six weeks or six months. One may see the shadow of a merger over a company five or more years after an acquisition (if no help is given). One sees immigrants struggling (from time to time) years after coming to a different culture. Good companies work continuously to support all talent, and to educate people about cultural differentness.

6. Try to remember that good people have other options.  David Heenen, author of Flight Capital: The Alarming Exodus of America’s Best and Brightest assessed US progress on recruiting and retaining immigrants (and how it’s hurting American companies) and said:

“On a 10-point scale, in terms of national incentives, we’re at about a one. The U.S. policy is basically, let the market decide. If people want to come here, whoopee, good for them. In fact, a lot of our immigration attitudes and policies keep people out.”

The “immigrant advantage” is the history of the USA. When new immigrants enter, there is a well-documented pattern of their joining existing citizens and creating explosions of wealth, innovation, jobs and competitive advantage. (The odds of a company being successful sky-rocket if it has at least one immigrant founder.)

Other nations know that their best and brightest can succeed anywhere. Governments and corporations in places like Taiwan, Ireland, Singapore etc offer incentives for top talent to return to their motherland, where a soft landing awaits. The USA is still competing with many other economies for talent.

Big corporations keep people in a simple way. If you’d like to work in your home country, and you prefer your own education system for your kids (a major issue for many immigrants), then that’s fine. They have large offices there and will transfer you rather than lose you.

A soft landing program is worth a lot of money on your bottom line. Retain and engage your people, and their families. Understand their feelings. (CPS can help.)

Reference on feelings when in a new environment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22764986?goback=.gde_972477_member_247365325

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Over time, however, you notice something. Your manager gets on well with everyone, but seems to chat more to a young man in your team. Let’s call the young man Dale. Sometimes you see Dale in the boss’ office, in intense discussion. Once you’ve seen the boss give him a business book to read. Dale really seems to know what is going on in company. You’re not surprised when the opportunity to go to a conference comes up, and Dale goes.

Dale is working hard. You work hard too, but Dale is having FUN working hard. He sometimes attends meetings when you don’t even know there are meetings. You get all general emails, but Dale is inside information loops you don’t even know are there. He’s getting informal mentoring and spending time with people you’d love to know: he hangs out with others who are “insiders” and he’s even going for drinks with the managers after work.

Asking for a place in his group seems like butting in. You turn to others who are more like you – other women, other minorities, other people who are not from Southern States or whomever seems to be “your tribe around here.” At the next company function, you sit together. At the one after, you may find an excuse not to attend.

Inclusion and Diversity.

I often note, when training diversity and inclusion, that many participants arrive and seat themselves by hierarchy/status, gender, race and ethnicity, generation and other diversity factors. One may see little expectation of sustained conversation across group boundaries.

Even advertising diverse and multicultural events gets some pretty weird responses. http://www.aibcouncil.com/tampa-bay-diversity/.

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Here is the PowerPoint of the presentation. Please contact me at glynis@c-psolutions.com if you have problems downloading it.

Anyone is welcome to contact us for further discussion of the role of a multicultural environment, as our society adjusts to a multicultural world – whether it is in justice, education, health, business or any other field.

Sincerely, Glynis and Hilton Ross-Munro

Judiciary presentation 5 April 2013

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Greg was the 2012 Conductor of Florida’s Startupbus, and will donate a week of time to being the 2013 Conductor. Greg, Dr. Sean Lux and Nathan Schwagler put Tampa Bay on the national entrepreneurship map in 2010, as finalists at SXSW, Austin TX, in the Startupbus competition.

You do not need to speak French to enjoy an event with FRAMCO, the French American Business Council of West Florida: you only need an interest in cultural fluency and global business. An enjoyment of good food and wine helps too.

Edison Food and Drink Lab is at 912 W Kennedy Blvd. Event time 6.00 p.m. – 8.30 pm. M. Jean-Charles Faust, Honorary Consul of France, can be contacted at (727) 459-0720 or president.framco@gmail.com.

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Cultural fluency is more than knowing a little about another demographic group, or respecting differences. It is a deep, persistent awareness of the invisible ways in which we all see the world differently. It’s also an ability to anticipate how others might see a situation.

CQ or CI (cultural intelligence) is a learned skill and has huge value in business and community life. A culture is not merely national or ethnic: it can be generational, gender, professional, organizational, regional, linguistic etc.

The overlapping cultures around you shape the way you see “the way we do things around here.” Cultures tell you what to eat or wear, how to manage time and rules, what you think of tattoos, or how detailed a contract should be. Cultural directives feel “right.”

A colleague or customer with a different cultural orientation also feels that his/her worldview is right. Unfortunately, that idea of “the way things should be done around here” might be quite different from yours.

This month, I recommend two articles. The first article is a follow up to the Harvard Business Review report that CQ (cultural intelligence) is the most important competence for successful global business. It lays out a five-item vision of where cultural fluency training should be going. http://www.trainingmag.com/node/12670. I’d suggest that you pick one item and “make it happen.”

The second article is a story of an expensive, international software project that collapsed because of a lack of cultural fluency skills. It was saved from disaster when a CI expert came to the rescue, but the whole problem could have been prevented by some basic training. http://www.astd.org/Publications/Newsletters/ASTD-Links/ASTD-Links-Articles/2013/02/Training-for-Trust-Across-Cultures. Log in to read the whole article, or you can email me for a synopsis.

CPS remains Tampa Bay’s resource team in the cultural field, with global experience in culture fluency, organizational development and instructional design. CPS has strong hands-on experience in entrepreneurship, strategy, sales, technology, innovation and management.

Hilton’s cell phone is 813 598 9180. Mine is 813 598 9184. You can contact Greg Ross-Munro on 813-679-0873.

May the Year of the Snake be good to you,

Glynis Ross-Munro
www.c-psolutions.com
glynis@c-psolutions.com

Happy New Year: At this time of the Lunar New Year, CPS wishes all our customers, suppliers, friends and associates health, happiness and prosperity during the Year of the Snake.

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Researchers from the Harvard School of Business, and the University of Texas have again confirmed that a business’ range of diversity is a solid predictor of its ability to reach out to, and work with, new markets and customers.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7101.html

This is not news. It is the basis of considerable science, many books and articles. Diversity and inclusion are major factors in the well-documented ‘immigrant advantage‘, and businesses benefit in many ways from having varied but inclusive teams. Diverse teams often have differing points of view, wider knowledge bases and information resources, comfort with differentness, and broader networks.

The choice to pursue diversity is not easy. A “birds of a feather” team can be more comfortable. Communication usually feels easier, and conflict resolution may take less work. Trust may feel more easily established, and interpersonal risk seems easier to manage, as cultural fluency is less of a challenge.

In diverse teams and companies,  people have put more effort into learning to communicate across distances and differences (which repeatedly makes projects more successful).  The business must think more rigorously about systems and processes, as there is a greater awareness that one cannot rely on unspoken assumptions about “how things work around here.” Diverse teams may put more work into clarifying objectives, setting metrics, sharing risk assessments and doing contingency planning.  Paradoxically, these demands strengthen companies in a world of complexity and change.

The odds of success are greater in the diverse option (http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/immigrant-entrepreneurs-are-key-job-creators.html) so opportunities to grow and compete on a bigger stage provide exciting opportunities.

Perhaps it sounds as if I’m trying to scare you off multicultural or diverse teams, but there is plenty of training, coaching and on-going support available for those who are prepared to do a bit of extra work and reap a lot of extra rewards. There are many free local and national support services too.

Those who think outside the borders soon find that the brand of America is strong. Around the world, people are eager to work with those who are willing to expand on the international stage. I’ve worked with clients or prospective clients in well over 100 countries, and every one of them wanted to buy American.

Professors  Cohen,  Malloy and Gurun are making a point that is repeated in dozens of posts on the CPS website, and in a myriad  TBIBC’s events and articles.

* * *

There is an on-going learning curve involved in building a diverse enterprise, and letting this diversity help you reach out across the globe to many waiting customers – whether you are a micro-business or a mega-corporation. Science shows that human beings have ‘tribal’ tendencies, which we reinforce by ‘Stranger Danger’ training in childhood. We often have to learn comfort and skills with diversity and inclusion in our multi-cultural and global business world.

Good strategic leaders take this point of view.  They see the big picture. It takes some work and some learning to grow into our new world, but the prosperity of our communities and our organizations is the business of business.

Whether you are a one-person business, or a multi-billion-dollar organization, there is a path of growth, profitability and innovation for you, through diversity networking, increased diverse hiring, diversity and inclusion training, engaging and retaining diverse talent, supplier diversity efforts, and strategic inclusion.

Please contact CPS if you have questions in this area. We have the psychological, cultural and business qualifications to help and we’ve sold millions of dollars of products and services locally and internationally. We can also point you towards government or other resources who can give you free assistance with any red-tape or roadblocks.

Sincerely

Glynis Ross-Munro
813 598 9184
Glynis@c-psolutions.com
www.c-psolutions.com
The Tampa Bay International Business Council (www.tbibc.org) is a free, non-profit organization that helps business people of all cultures to network and to build cultural fluency. to grow Collaboration, Diversity and Prosperity in our community.

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Alexey Shevd

In our complex, multi-cultural world, there are more and more adjustments to generational, regional, technological or other cultural factors.

The Minnasota Timberwolves saw this when they signed a Russian rookie, Alexey Shevd. He had thousands of national-culture assumptions. For instance, his idea of the right behavior at a traffic stop, with police?  Apologize and give them five dollars. The Timberwolves assigned another Russian NBA player, Andrei Kirilenko, to be Alexey’s cultural coach and his personal Wikipedia of “how things work around here”.

Many sports teams help new players to understand local and team culture. Management also invests in training for the rest of the team and staff to understand different cultures. This way, everyone can give of his/her best, and remain motivated and engaged. New people adapt more quickly, and usually want to stay with the team.

Businesses need to do the same (see Soft Landings). A two-pronged approach is best:

1. Companies need training or coaching. Examples of a culturally-fluent company might be that:

• People understand how Mediterranean, Asian, Hispanic, African-American, African and Arabic cultures tend to use high-context (diffuse) communication. They also understand how Northern American and Northern European, Australian etc prefer low-context (specific) relationships and communication styles.
• A high percentage of staff understand how cultures and personal styles affect meetings, decision-making, communication and project management.
• Sales and customer service staff are well trained in cultural fluency. The business works well with customers of all ages, with customers with disabilities (this is a trillion-dollar market in the USA), and with the 95% of customers who live outside our borders.

The link in the paragraph above is to a video made by a Belgian company that does the kind of work that CPS does. While it shows high and low context communication, it also shows some interesting stereotyping of “the tough American boss who has low EQ and low CQ (cultural fluency).”  I might have made the video-clip using a Scandinavian or Australian specific-culture example, to avoid this element. 

2. Multi-cultural team members need training or coaching. To quote Alexey: “So, the little things, it’s different.”

Millions of Americans come from non-mainstream cultures. They face challenges that stress and puzzle them, often without support. This affects their work, engagement, productivity, and motivation, as well as wider business results.

Their understanding of “how things work around here” may be different because of their military experience, gender orientation, home language, age, ethnicity or disabilities.

Diverse perspectives are a rich vein of opportunity for innovation and process improvement if valued and used. These can also create exclusion,  misunderstanding and lower performance if there is a lack of support and training, for the diverse team member, and for the team as a whole.

Competency & Performance Solutions provides a range of customized training and coaching services to help leaders, teams and individuals succeed in our diverse world. We invite you to look at some generic ideas: the downloadable pdf is here: Programs Differentness

You can also meet CPS’s multi-cultural, multi-generational and talented team here: http://www.c-psolutions.com/about-us/cps-team/

Sincerely

Glynis Ross-Munro

Glynis@c-psolutions.com,813-598-9184
Hilton@c-psolutions.com, 813-598-9180

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A. Why? Two reasons:

1. They don’t feel they are getting enough training and coaching.

2. They don’t feel that they are getting enough mentoring.

This new twelve-year study confirms what we’ve known all along. Train both your managers and your talented newer staff, or lose them.

Www.c-psolutions.com offers calculations of the costs of turnover on your bottom line, (see website) and multiple suggestions on the best topics for training.

B. “Yes but…” -> “if only.”

Yes but… you’re too busy, you’re not sure what training to give them, you need to guarantee sustainable competency-based learning…

->If only….you’d found a way train them, coach them, or found someone who could make it all happen, or someone had organized workforce training funding or delivered good answers with lasting results. (But now that talented young person has gone.)

This cohort often wants management training, cultural fluency or technology training. They want team skills, critical thinking, project management, sales or intrapreneurship. There are other common desirables, almost always skills that will make them more effective and productive for your company.

They will also be more productive if you fulfill their need for development. You will create emerging managers who are growing with your company, who understand your industry, your customers, your evolving products and services, and your brand.

Please email/call me or email/call Hilton at hilton@c-psolutions.com for a no-cost consultation on answers on how to retain your talented young people. Hilton’s phone number is 813 598 9180.

Sincerely,
Glynis Ross-Munro
President: CPS / Competency & Performance Solutions
glynis@c-psolutions.com / 813 598 9184
Director: Tampa Bay International Business Council:www.tbibc.org.

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Here is a downloadable description of our special fall course programs. All CPS programs are customized for our clients.

1. Building Multicultural Teams
2. Managing Multicultural Teams & Projects
3. Communicating Across Distances and Differences
4. Multicultural Sales & Marketing (and Networking)
5. Soft Landings: Successful Retention & Development (USA & Foreign Assignments)
6. Diversity and Inclusion
7. Supplier Diversity & Other Culture Change Programs That Work (Long-term results.)

Our special computer program for Fall is Creating Great Websites (for Internet and Intranet).

Please scroll down for details of each program.

1. Building Multicultural Teams

Suitable for management and team leaders. Also suitable for entire  teams.

It’s not easy to build focused, sustainable and effective teams. It’s harder when team members have a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, individual styles, world-views, knowledge bases and values.

This program addresses the issues of differences, while building team trust and resilience. It clarifies team vision and builds insight into team dynamics.
Team members learn about each other’s world-views and assumptions while clarifying their objectives, roles and contributions. They streamline working processes while developing problem and conflict solving tools. They understand their different approaches to performance and execution.

Successful, diverse teams are dynamic, innovative and engaged. This program gives them the skills to be like this.

2. Managing Multicultural Teams & Projects.

Suitable for senior and line managers, team leaders, cross-functional and inter-departmental work, and for project team leaders. Applicable in M&A situations.

Many leaders are challenged to build and manage multicultural teams, often across a range of differences. These may include national origin, professional orientation, departmental allegiances, or other diversity or team factors.

Differences may be large, or almost invisible when similar professions or corporate cultures work together, but can still make management  a profoundly difficult task, and create road-blocks to results.

Leaders learn to achieve team and project objectives across different styles of communication, information-sharing, decision-making and feedback.

This program is customized to give teams the tools they need, e.g. multi-cultural meetings, performance review skills, or other relevant competencies.

3. Communicating Across Distances and Differences.

Suitable for anyone who works across differences and distances. Mergers,  multiple offices, traveling or distance workers, national and international situations. Includes writing and results by writing. Customized.

The world of technology has created new communication challenges, especially across distances and differences.
Skim-reading, second-language barriers, technology issues, and information overload can hamper business results. Projects fail, misunderstandings occur. Priorities become muddled, assumptions replace accuracy or execution.

This program addresses a variety of problems and is especially helpful when people in different time zones communicate in writing. It trains and coaches participants in a toolbox of skills and systems to achieve objectives, obtain responses, drive action, deliver results, and build relationships, over distances across technological connections.

There is special emphasis on thinking, writing and communicating for results in a writing-based world.

4. Multicultural Sales & Marketing (may include Networking)

Suitable for strategic and operational management, marketing team leaders, account managers and sales teams.

Sales is ever-more targeted on each customer’s needs and characteristics. This program trains and coaches sales personnel to build a full understanding of decision makers and gatekeepers, and their thinking and cultural styles.

It also considers how culture affects issues such as introductions, networking, referrals, negotiation processes, proposals, RFPs, pricing structures etc.

Culturally fluent thinkers integrate this knowledge into the sales cycle, tie it to their CRM, and use it in their sales process. Ultimately, the knowledge is seen in the evolving CQ (cultural intelligence) of the organization.

CPS offers coaching in both on-line multicultural social networking and in ‘old fashioned’ multicultural networking, marketing and sales, as part of the learning experience.

5. Soft Landings: Successful Retention & Development (USA or Foreign Assignments)

Suitable for multicultural companies, on-boarding, developing or retaining diverse talent, or preparing people for foreign assignments. Includes in-company transfers.

The art and science of helping talented people (and their families) adapt to new places, and new cultures, has significant bottom-line value for all employers.

Newly-hired or transferred employees have to cope with thousands of obvious, practical challenges. They also deal with innumerable invisible cultural discomforts, even if they move between “similar” cultures.

As CQ (cultural intelligence) improves in organizations, there is a greater awareness of the stress and cost of these changes. This program develops the scope of traditional soft landing processes, showing organizations how to meet best-practice standards – and why.

6. Diversity and Inclusion

Suitable for all companies in our diverse nation and global economy.  

Many 1990s Diversity programs focused on compliance and workplace fairness towards veterans, women, minorities, seniors, the disabled, and those whose creeds, languages and national origins were different from that of mainstream culture.

Today, diversity is a proven source of innovation, and offers a strong competitive advantage. Today’s inclusive company is able to brand and align itself with its customer base where:

• Disabled customers spend over a trillion dollars a year in the USA, and one in four households has a disabled family member.
• 50% of US citizens will be “minorities” by 2050, and immigrant citizens hold a disproportionate number of STEM qualifications.
• About 50% (or more) of US citizens are women.
• Inclusive companies retain and engage top talent, avoid strategic surprise, and innovate at an unparalleled rate.

CPS has an unusual tried-and-tested D&I program. We are also a W/MBE (diverse within ourselves) with years of international experience in this field.

7. Supplier Diversity Programs That Work (and other long-term diversity and culture change programs)

Suitable for companies interested in measurable progress, with bottom-line impact. Applicable to supplier diversity, diversity and inclusion, CQ (cultural fluency) or related programs.

Many organizations work on their Diversity, Inclusion, or Supplier Diversity programs, year after year, yet see little true organizational-wide, cultural change.

Interest is minimal, commitment is patchy, and most people don’t even believe that the organization is seeing a 7% saving from diverse suppliers. The Supplier Diversity department may be toothless, and often everyone is busy – too overworked to step outside their usual comfort zones anyway. CPS knows what’s wrong and can help.

HR talks about diverse hiring and succession, but it may not be happening. Perhaps your new Chinese PhD says nothing in meetings and that good Caribbean engineer is looking for a new job? CPS knows how to help.

8. Computer Users’ Special Program: Creating Great Websites (Internet and Intranet).

 Suitable for business people who want to create the ideal message and content for their company or departmental websites. 

CPS trains and coaches you to think out and write the core message and content of your company or departmental website.

After that you have options. We can train you to build and maintain your own site (usually in WordPress) and to become a high-functioning communicator yourself.

Alternatively, your business may already have people to provide the SEO, graphics, hosting, blogging etc. services that maintain the website as required. Or CPS can do this for you – we have the resources.

Websites are a thinking and a writing challenge: Who are you? What do you want to say? How do you want to brand and structure your message to suit the internet visitor or communicator?

Think well, write well and reach your internet or intranet objectives. CPS will help, with input from www.SourceTOAD.com, CPS’s sister company.

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