What to Avoid When Going Abroad

Like all the professional passages, it’s not the event itself that makes or breaks you as a leader but your reaction to it. Moving into a leadership role or receiving responsibility for a business can foster leadership growth only when you respond to these events in a way that fosters self-development. Living abroad might have no more impact on your leadership skills than moving to a new house down the block. Perhaps you receive a unique opportunity to open your company’s new China office or spend a year traveling throughout the Indian subcontinent. But if you spend this time working, living, and thinking in the same way you always have, the year will be wasted. We have worked with many executives both abroad and at home. We have learned through our research that when you live abroad, the following traps should be avoided in order to grow as a leader:

• Don’t live in a bubble. This trap is not as easy to avoid as it might seem. When you’re living in another country, you can easily convince yourself that you’re experiencing it fully, simply because the sights and sounds around you are so foreign. If you’re working abroad, you may be interacting with employees from this new country, and their speech and dress and work style may reinforce the idea that you are far from home. These superficial interactions, however, aren’t sufficient to provide you with fresh perspectives or appreciate diversity at a meaningful level.

  Many of us have a bubble-wrap reflex when we encounter a foreign culture, and it makes us uncertain and uncomfortable. It may not be a conscious decision to isolate and protect ourselves from the differences of the culture, but that is the net effect. We once knew a CEO for a major corporation who was visiting operations in Poland, and his Polish hosts wanted to give him a taste of the food and entertainment of their country. They threw a lavish evening party that was true to their Polish traditions, and that went on for quite a while. Finally, they took the CEO to the airport so he could board his jet and fly to another country for meetings the next day. Just before they arrived at the hangar, they passed a new McDonald’s, and the CEO said, “Why the hell didn’t we just go to McDonald’s? It was on the way to the airport anyway.” This antipathy toward other cultures is not unique to this CEO. His preference for the familiar, his emphasis on saving time, and his subtle contempt are surprising only because they were expressed so openly.

• Don’t be a prisoner of your own experience. When you have the opportunity to live abroad, be aware of your reflex to isolate yourself from the culture. To maintain this awareness, ask yourself the following simple questions:

Do I regularly eat local food at local restaurants?

Do I seek out and accept invitations to stay in people’s homes who are native to the country?

Do I take advantage of opportunities to travel in the host country and visit important cultural, religious, and political landmarks?

Do I regularly try to communicate with all different types of people in this country?

Do I work to establish trusting, open friendships with some people in this country that will outlast my assignment?

If I’m in the country as part of a work assignment, do I make an effort to meet people who have nothing to do with work?

Do I make an effort to learn the country’s customs and history through observation and conversation?

Do I shop at local stores, socialize with people who are native to the country, and generally try and live as the people in the country do?

Do I use my awareness of cultural differences to better understand the culture from which I came?

The dawn of a new marriage, a new career in Financial Services, and now an adopted daughter have just made me comfortable with whatever successes I have achieved and leadership I have provided. Life is a journey and business success can be an outcome, but it is seldom the driver.

Bill Campbell, chairman, jpmorgan chase card services

Finally, if you’re living abroad because of a work assignment, recognize that an international business class has emerged and that you’re still in the bubble if you limit your experiences to this business class. Our colleague, Stephen Rhinesmith, has noted that an executive at the top of most large global corporations anywhere in the world probably has more in common with other senior global executives than with a farmer in his or her own country. Because of global business practices, extensive use of English as a business language, and constant movement around the world in a cocoon of first-class air travel, restaurants, hotels, and offices, a global business class has emerged that is less identified with its own country than with other members of the class. Living on a farm in their own country might be more enlightening for these people than traveling throughout the world and not experiencing it.