Tinelli on Leadership )
Ideas you can use today Issue 81 - September 30, 2011
In This Issue
  • Leaders, Culture, and Perspective.
  • Leadership and Hiring.
  • Leadership and Fact.
  • Fall is here. Chill is in the air.

    It's a time of transition in the weather.

    Is it also a time of change for you? If so, to what?


    Archie Tinelli, Ph.D.

    Leaders, Culture, and Perspective.

    I've just returned from three weeks in Italy and Greece. The culture and traditions in those countries take some getting used to. For example, at dinner in both places, there is no rush to turn over the tables and get another group of people in, unlike what I've noticed in the United States. It was quite common to sit for hours, talking, joking, telling stories, eating, and drinking with absolutely no pressure to leave. Dinner regularly lasted several hours. You often had to ask for the check in order to leave as the proprietors were in no hurry to have you go.

    Having come from another culture with a different perspective influenced how I understood and responded to my experiences there. Leaders are similarly influenced by culture and perspective at work.

    Heidi grew up in Switzerland, went to university in France, and got her first job in Germany. After working for companies in Germany and Spain, she was promoted to a position managing a newly acquired subsidiary of a British company in Boston. It wasn't long before cultural issues arose.

    She was more formal and restrained in her communications and she didn't attend the monthly pizza parties or go to the Boston Red Sox games (Oh dear, the poor Red Sox fans!). As a result, she was seen as aloof and haughty, not really connecting with the American executives. Over time, as the subsidiary lagged in growth and its profits slipped, her subordinates quietly distanced themselves from her policies and decisions until, eventually, she was replaced with one of their own.

    Her communication style, developed and effective in Europe, didn't translate well with the more informal customs of her mostly-American direct reports.

    Culture and perspective are not only the result of differences in national origin. Marlin grew up on a farm in Iowa, one of several sons of a family that had worked the land for more than four generations. His degree from Nebraska and his first job in Denver were the first time that any member of his family had left Iowa for college or work.

    When he took a job in San Francisco, his colleagues quickly recognized and began to razz him for his rural, unsophisticated, down-to-earth manner. He continued to drive the Chevy pickup he had in college, he was an unabashed Nebraska football fan, proudly displaying Cornhusker paraphernalia in his cubicle, and he joked about the highbrow habits of his colleagues who preferred wine to beer and sushi to burgers.

    Over time, he and his colleagues accommodated the differences in perspective that were so obvious to them all. He adopted the local pro teams, the Forty-niners and Giants, as his teams and they enjoyed the backyard barbeques with burgers and corn-on-the-cob that he hosted at his place when Nebraska played.

    Marlin retained his down-to-earth, direct approach, which soon became an important and valued contribution to the business discussions. Thus, despite what could have been a divisive barrier of culture, he and his colleagues acknowledged, appreciated and incorporated the differences to enhance their communications and interactions.

    Diane came from a military family; she, her brother, and her father each retired after having served more than twenty years. Her no-nonsense, own-the-problem, make-a-decision-now style was as familiar to her as breathing and eating.

    When she joined a government-contracting firm, she had been warned that her straightforward manner might need to change; her colleagues might not appreciate her approach. For the most part, she didn't have a problem. The majority of her staff of newly hired college graduates was willing to be told what to do as they learned how to function in the working world. She was jokingly referred to as "our Drill Sergeant" and rapidly became the person they turned to when they had questions or needed advice.

    The one area that created a problem for her was the lack of training available to her staff. Having had numerous and extensive training programs in the Army, she expected the same level of support in the civilian world. Eventually, she found what resources she could on the company intranet and spent far more time mentoring and coaching her staff than she had initially believed would be needed.

    Culture provides perspective that can either help or hinder communications and leadership, depending upon how it is understood and managed. What cultural perspectives do you bring with you? How have they influenced your leadership and your relationships at work? What else might you have to do to ensure that the cultural perspectives of you and your staff don't undermine your work?

    Leadership and Hiring.

    When asked in a NY Times interview what he looks for in people he's hiring, Jeffrey Swartz, the President and CEO of the Timberland Company summed it up as follows:

    "Comfort with ambiguity is one thing and faith in a solution is another and a commitment to fight for a worthy outcome is the third."

    What do you look for? How do you know the people you're going to hire have it?

    Leadership and Fact.

    The banner across the top of The Guardian website reads, "comment is free, but facts are sacred," quoting C.P. Scott, a former editor.

    Leaders can fall into the habit of listening to key advisors whose comments are more opinion than fact, leading to ill-founded decisions.

    How well do you sift fact from opinion? What steps can you take to ensure that you find the facts underlying the comment? How can you help others to do the same?

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