Personal Relationships in Business

A recent survey done in Scandinavia on what young people were looking for in a job found that one of their top priorities was working with pleasant colleagues. This didn t surprise me ”indeed, I d be surprised if it wasn t a priority on most people s lists, wherever they come from. That s because we are more than a bundle of skills, a brain, and a pair of hands; we are also a complex and unique mixture of feelings, prejudices, and passions . Of course, most of us don t choose to reveal the most personal sides of our natures at work, but we do want to feel that as we carry out our jobs, our peers see us for who we are, that they accept and respect us, and even (we hope) like us.

Our cultural background shapes our ideas and expectations of what makes for a good relationship with a colleague (and indeed, what being a good colleague means). For example, do you think it is important to maintain an appropriate level of formality and professional distance in relationships with colleagues? If you are French or Japanese you may, but not if you are a U.S. American, Australian, or Israeli, for you are more likely to prefer matey informal relationships. Or another question: How much open conflict will a good relationship stand? In France it should stand a lot, because people are used to vigorous, even aggressive , debate, whereas in Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines, where harmony is highly valued, a person openly expressing an opinion that was likely to upset people would be regarded as a troublemaker rather than a loyal colleague.

And how about revealing what you are feeling at work? I know an intercultural consultant who asked groups of Finnish and Italian businesspeople which four emotions they thought were acceptable to show in the workplace. The Finns took ages to find three and then gave up, while the Italians didn t understand the question. (You mean there are some emotions that you would hide? Why would you want to do that?)

There is also the question of after-work socializing, whether that means eating and drinking together or playing softball or golf. If you don t participate in South Korea or Japan, for example, you may be regarded as standoffish and unfriendly, as well as shirking the obligation to build your network of contacts. In Scandinavia it s difficult to get people to give up their evenings to entertain foreign visitors ”their private life is more important to them. The problem is that if you break the unwritten rules governing relationships in a specific culture, you may be seen as revealing a negative side of your personality rather than simply following a different set of norms. That s one of the reasons why it can be so difficult to build relationships with people from other cultures.

Smooth relationships among people from the same company are of course desirable, but the way company employees relate to people from other organizations ( especially if they are customers) can be vital to the success of a business. In Latin-American, Southern European, Arab, and most Asian countries , personal relationships are seen as being the foundation of business, and agreements are based on relationships of trust built up over many years rather than papers drawn up by a lawyer. It may be understood that service or prices vary depending on how good the relationship between the salesperson and customer is. That s why the first chapters of this book dealt with the subjects of gift giving and eating and drinking together, because if things go right from these earliest stages the chances are that a longer- term and deeper relationship will have a chance to develop.

But these sorts of close interpersonal relationships, so desirable in Asia and Latin America, are sometimes regarded with suspicion by corporations in cultures like the U.S., for instance, which make a clear distinction between the individual and the job he or she does. It is an asset to be well- liked , as Willy Loman, the archetypal salesman in Arthur Miller s Death of a Salesman puts it, but it s not enough to guarantee you success. Indeed, there are large successful U.S. corporations whose policy is to change the account manager every two or three years so that the relationship between employee and customer does not become too personal or cozy, for the concern is that employees might put the interests of their customers above that of their own company. I would be interested to see if this way of doing things would be happily or profitably adopted by managers working in countries like China, India, and in the Middle East, where long-standing and deep-rooted personal relationships are a prerequisite to doing business. In a situation like this, hard-headed business strategists are faced with a dilemma: To achieve a pragmatic goal (to do business), managers may actually be required to spend time getting to know and taking an interest in people they neither work with nor are related to. Squaring that particular circle could keep them occupied for a while.

LETTER 145

How people get on together plays a vital part in how well their company performs .

Business backslide Letter 145

FROM NORWAY ABOUT SAUDI ARABIA

Our company has had an excellent relationship with a Saudi Arabian customer for many years, but since the retirement of the last sales manager we haven t received any orders. The new sales manager is really worried and is planning to go down there to see what s happened . What do you think has gone wrong?

It sounds as it the change from one manager to another could have been better handled. Your previous manager was obviously older and may have had personal contacts in Saudi Arabia for many years. In many countries, especially outside the U.S., Canadian, and Western European cultures, personal relationships are the most reliable way of doing business, and business is done largely between individuals rather than between companies. If you do business with a trusted business contact, you have an unspoken guarantee that he or she will take a personal interest in your business and take care of any problems that may arise.

When your previous sales manager retired he should have introduced his replacement personally to his Saudi Arabian customers, but as that obviously hasn t happened I suggest he write a letter of introduction that the new manager can take on his first visit. Alternatively, he could ask the former manager to take a half hour away from the golf course or garden and phone his Saudi contacts for a chat and to explain the new situation. Otherwise your new manager is going to have to start from scratch to build personal relationships, and that can take time.

LETTERS 146 “147

Certain patterns of behavior are encouraged or expected in different cultures. However, when practiced abroad they can result in disapproval.

Too dependent Letter 146

FROM THE U.S. ABOUT MEXICO

I was in Mexico a couple of years ago and worked quite closely with a Mexican colleague, who was very helpful. Now he is working here in New York on a six-month placement, but we are not working on the same project. He seems to be having some problems getting authorization for some of our systems, but I have a target to meet and if I spend time helping him I m going to end up behind schedule myself . He also expects us to lunch together most days, but I usually just have a sandwich at my desk, and he wants to make arrangements for after work when I have other things to do. He needs to learn to stand on his own two feet.

The poor guy. He must be having a hard time adjusting to the pace of work at your company. I know that stress is the killer of empathy and you obviously have a lot to do, and if you are working toward a bonus or a promotion you are not going to take kindly to acting as mentor to a new employee. However, forget your schedule for a minute and try to remember the inevitable adjustments you had to make to working in Mexico. Your friend eased this adjustment period for you, and you have a duty to do the same for him. In Mexico, and indeed in most Latin American cultures, long-term personal relationships are more important, both inside and outside the work environment, than they are in the U.S. in general, and New York in particular. And if you don t return his kindness you are going to confirm the preconception that U.S. Americans are opportunists who are only interested in using short-term personal relationships for their own ends. So introduce him to your network, and if necessary have a quiet word with his manager to see if you can ease any authorization issues. Don t let your belief that people should stand on their own feet stop you from offering a helping hand to a friend in need.

The role of personality Letter 147

FROM THE U.S. ABOUT THAILAND

My department has to send a representative to Thailand to see if we can do business there and I have to decide who should represent us. We have one guy (U.S. American like the rest of us) who s had very good results in Europe. He s a real extrovert with a great sense of humor, but he s a bit temperamental and I wonder how the Thais will react to him.

It might be risky to send him. The Thais, like the Japanese and Indonesians, are a people who prize self-control and quiet rather than raised voices. You say your guy is temperamental, which means he runs the risk of losing his temper on occasions, which is bad news in a country that regards such lack of control as at best childish and at worst the sign of immaturity, selfishness, and stupidity. If he lost face by behaving badly (in Thai eyes, at any rate), then the reputation of your company would also suffer and it would be difficult to establish good relations later. You want someone who will understand the Thai wish for a harmonious and mutually respectful relationship, and who has the patience to work at achieving it.

Generally speaking, you cannot ask people to adopt a very different behavior pattern when they move to a new culture. To do so can compromise their sense of identity, and they will feel uncomfortable if they cannot be themselves . On the other hand, you can ask them to adapt to the new culture and modify their behavior as best they can. If you have any doubts that this man will be able to do this, don t send him.

LETTERS 148 “151

Anger and irritation are often the result of cross-cultural contacts where people have misunderstood each other totally.

False friendliness Letter 148

FROM POLAND ABOUT THE U.S.

I have recently started working for an American hotel chain and have taken a training course on how to deal with customers. Two things that really irritate me are, first, that we have to have a permanent smile on our faces, and second, that we have to finish any conversation in English with Have a nice day. This sort of false friendliness is just not me, and I feel hypocritical and insincere when I m forced to behave like this.

You didn t say where you would be working ”in the U.S. or Poland ” but if you are to work in the U.S., your customers will be surprised if they don t receive, in their terms, friendly treatment, including a smile and a greeting and farewell. If you are working with Polish customers, I agree that they might find a broad smile of greeting a bit surprising ( What are you so happy about? ). I have also heard your reaction to the Have a nice day greeting from many Europeans ”that it s phony and that they are only out to sell you something, and why disguise that fact with warm wishes for your future happiness? Personally, if I m a customer I expect courteous treatment and have no objections to a friendly greeting. I d much rather have that than the cold contempt of some customer service personnel in Germany, France, Russia, and Eastern Europe who seem to find customers a nuisance. U.S. Americans are not especially deferential to, nor formal with, customers, and their forms of greetings reflect an egalitarian and friendly attitude toward people. You re not compromising your personal integrity if you do the same.

The useful thing about the expression Have a nice day is that it covers so many situations. It s not used much in Britain, where they tend to be more specific and will choose between, Good morning/afternoon, See you again, I hope, Have a good trip, Bye for now, or even the common or garden-variety Good-bye, depending on the situation.

Don t want to upset them Letter 149

FROM BELGIUM ABOUT JAPAN

We have a number of Japanese managers we feel are underperforming. We would like to discuss the situation with them, not to apportion blame but to help them improve performance. However, we have heard that one has to be very careful how one proceeds here.

Confronting anyone , however tactfully, with their failure is always tricky, especially in cultures where face is important, like Japan, China, and South Korea. It may be better to handle this indirectly, perhaps through a Japanese third party. Before doing this, you should ensure that the problem in fact does lie with the individuals concerned , that the course of action they implemented was not decided by a group , or that they thought they were implementing management decisions. Otherwise your criticism will be resented as being unfair. You mention that there are several managers you are worried about. Perhaps you should have a meeting with all of them first to see whether they have a common problem, but when telling them about the meeting avoid the use of the word problem. Say instead you would like them to come up with ways of improving performance. If you do identify some managers who in your opinion are making repeated mistakes, ensure that any feedback is delivered with tact and sympathy, is given on a one-to-one basis, and is kept completely confidential.

Why a lawyer? Letter 150

FROM SOUTH AFRICA ABOUT THE U.S.

We have been in touch with an American company off and on for a couple of years with the aim of our possibly acting as their agents here in South Africa. We were very surprised when their sales director had a company lawyer with him on his first visit. This seems to us like putting the cart before the horse. We don t even have an agreement in principle yet. This displays the lack of even a basic degree of trust or goodwill, and in my opinion is not a good sign for the success of any future business.

Lawyers are an important part of the American business scene. There is probably a greater need for their services in cultures like the U.S. that put a high value on individual initiative and going it alone than in cultures like South Africa, Japan, or Finland, for example, where business is based on relationships of trust, probably going back a number of years. There are cultures where a handshake is enough to guarantee an agreement, but in the U.S. this is not the case, and lawyers are often involved from the very earliest stages of an agreement (like the drawing up of prenuptial contracts, which have become a big business in the U.S.). It s not that they don t trust you or your company in particular ”that s just their way of doing business.

Don t judge us Letter 151

FROM ITALY ABOUT SWEDEN

We have just heard from our Swedish headquarters that we are all going to be subjected to a performance appraisal. In our department we are all very worried and some of my colleagues are rather angry . This seems to mean that people who don t understand the nature of our work are going to judge whether our performance is satisfactory.

First of all, performance appraisals are usually carried out by your immediate manager, who probably has a good idea of your work. Secondly, don t take this process as any sort of suggestion that you aren t performing well. Most companies in the U.S. and many multinationals now regard the performance appraisal process as routine. It is seen by management as an opportunity to give employees feedback on how they are doing, so they can learn and improve. This feedback is meant to be constructive and, as well as looking at what you already do well, will concentrate on what can be improved. Its purpose is not simply to find fault, and it should not be regarded as a call to the principal s office because you have done something wrong! Indeed, the best companies use appraisal interviews to give employees an opportunity to comment on how their jobs can be improved, how they see their own careers developing, and how their superiors are performing (although I can imagine this last point may be difficult for Italian mangers to accept, as they are not used to being questioned or criticized ”however constructively ”by subordinates ).

Before you start Letter 152

FROM TURKEY ABOUT WORKING GLOBALLY

I work for a large multinational organization and have recently been appointed project leader for a global team. I know from past experience how important it is that relationships start off on the right foot , and I wonder if you have any advice on how to achieve this.

The golden rule is to meet face to face as often as your organization can afford it. Obviously it is very expensive and time-consuming to arrange meetings all over the globe, but you can t get around the fact that such meetings reduce the possibilities of misunderstandings and contribute hugely to good interpersonal relationships. One reason is that when you speak to a person in a conference room as opposed to, say, communicating via e-mail, you receive the whole message, and not only the part that is made up of words. That means you can pick up the tone of voice and hear the suggestive pause before a certain word, as well as see the nonverbal clues of facial expression and body language that can tell you so much. And naturally, the better you understand each other the better your relationships are going to be.

Face-to-face meetings are particularly important for participants who do not have the same native language as the majority of the group, who are used to expressing themselves indirectly, or who place a high value on how the message is put across, as well as the concrete information it conveys. For different reasons, most of the people from Asia and Latin America fall into this group. They tend to be more interested in the individual behind the message than the more pragmatic Aussies or U.S. Americans who concentrate on the content of the message itself. For this reason, when people do meet face to face it is very important to give them the opportunity to socialize before or after meetings.

LETTER 152

Building an international team can be fraught with difficulty, but if you get the communication right from the start, relations between team members will benefit.

The best alternative to a physical meeting is a videoconference, although that inhibits the kind of social interchange that is a natural part of face-to-face meetings. If you are going to set these up, make sure they don t inconvenience the same people every time (having to turn up repeatedly at the office at 8:00 P.M. or 6 A.M. because that is a good time for the people at HQ, which is in a different time zone, is going to put a damper on the warmest interpersonal relationships).

IN A NUTSHELL: Personal Relationships in Business

• Argentina: See Brazil. There is a certain distrust of authority figures. (See Letters 146 and 152.)

• Australia: It is important to be regarded as friendly (not snooty ) and have social skills, but ultimately you are judged by job performance. (See Letter 152.)

• Austria: Business and personal feelings are kept strictly separate. Business relations are usually quite pragmatic, although loyalty and long-term relationships are valued.

• Belgium: Personal and business relationships are kept strictly separate. Relatively formal business relationships are the norm. Being overly friendly or personal is regarded negatively. Interpersonal conflict is not regarded with as much fear as in many other cultures. (See Letters 145 and 149.)

• Brazil: Personalismo is very important ”the personal element. Ties of emotional warmth are sought. Preference is often given to family and friends . (See Letters 146 and 152.)

• Canada: It is important to be regarded as a pleasant person and have social skills, but ultimately you are judged by job performance. (See Letter 145.)

• China: Loyalty is a Confucian virtue. Tight social networks (family and work teams ) are held together by this quality. Business is facilitated by guanxi (connections). They place community concerns above individual ones. (See Letters 149 and 152.)

• Denmark: Most business does not require a personal element. Feelings are kept out of business. Business relations are usually quite pragmatic. (See Letter 145.)

• Finland: See Denmark. (See Letters 145 and 150.)

• France: See Belgium. (See Letter 148.)

• Germany: Business and personal feelings are kept strictly separate. Business relations are usually quite pragmatic, although loyalty and long-term relationships are valued. (See Letters 145 and 148.)

• Hong Kong: See China. (See Letters 149 and 152.)

• India: Family firms with traditional loyalties to family, caste, and friends are common. Young highly educated employees in multinationals may be more dispassionate. (See Letters 151 and 152.)

• Indonesia: An individual s status in an organization determines how fellow employees and business contacts relate to him or her. Employees place family and community concerns above individual and business concerns. (See Letters 147 and 152.)

• Italy: Rivalry can affect relationships between different regions of the country. Clientelismo , exchanging favors with friends or business connections, is important. Business relationships are based on loyalty and trust. (See Letter 151.)

• Japan: Life-long employment by the same company encourages ties of loyalty to coworkers. (However, life-long positions are rapidly disappearing .) The value placed on harmony means interpersonal conflict is rare. People place community concerns above individual ones. (See Letters 147, 149, 150, and 152.)

• Mexico: See Brazil. (See Letters 146 and 152.)

• Netherlands: See Denmark. (See Letter 145.)

• Norway: See Denmark. Relationships are usually informal and friendly. (See Letter 145.)

• Poland: Poles can be assertive and individualistic, and are not afraid of debate. This will not interfere with the formation or continuation of a good relationship. (See Letter 148.)

• Russia: Russians are reluctant to deal with anyone they have not met personally. Building a relationship is vital before business takes place, and it can be a long process. (See Letter 148.)

• Saudi Arabia: Business is done with an individual (who may happen to belong to another organization) rather than with the organization itself. Interpersonal relationships are more important than intercompany business. (See Letter 145.)

• South Africa: In the white community, belonging to the old boys network is an advantage. (See Letter 150.)

• South Korea: An individual s status in an organization will determine how fellow employees and business contacts relate to him or her. Written agreements and contracts are not taken as seriously as in the U.S. (See Letters 149 and 152.)

• Spain: Social class affects business relationships. Status is linked more to the individual s position in the hierarchy and less to performance.

• Sweden: See Denmark. (See Letters 145 and 151.)

• Switzerland: See Austria.

• Taiwan: See China. (See Letter 152.)

• Thailand: Respect is accorded to age, experience, and wisdom. Loyalty is to individuals rather than institutions. (See Letters 147 and 152.)

• Turkey: See Saudi Arabia.

• UK: See Canada. (See Letters 145 and 148.)

• US: Business relationships may be cordial, but they are often short-term. Business and personal feelings are kept strictly apart. Legal agreements are more important than individual relationships and loyalties. (See Letters 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, and 152.)

• Venezuela: See Brazil. (See Letters 146 and 152.)