"To love things spiritually, that is to say, intelligently and disinterestedly, means to love the love in them, to worship the good which they pursue, and to see them all prophetically in their possible beauty.
To love things as they are would be a mockery of things: a true lover must love them as they would wish to be. For nothing is quite happy as it is, and the first act of true sympathy must be to move with the object of love towards its happiness."
—George Santayana
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| Culture Clash |
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| Acquire the global and intercultural competencies it takes to manage across cultures anywhere in the world. |
Culture Clash
Like it or not, we are all touched by globalization. But the least of us are prepared for leading across cultures and across borders. The costs of cultural blindspots are enormous, entailing lawsuits and lost opportunities.
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Stories
- When Microsoft wanted to enter the Chinese market with a product, it hired Taiwanese programmers. Microsoft forgot to take into account the mutual feelings (the programmers included slogans such as “Take back the mainland!”) between the two countries and lost a 1.3 billion people market to a competitor.
- The ubiquitous “Got Milk?” campaign didn’t quite work with the Hispanic markets. Why? “Got Milk” doesn’t translate well into Spanish -- it comes out as “Tienes leche” = “Are you lactating?”
- Chevrolet: No Spanish demand for Chevy Nova: “no va” means “does not work.”
- Electrolux, the Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer, in US-campaign: “Nothing sucks like Electrolux.”
- Schweppes-Italy: “Schweppes Tonic” translated into “Schweppes Toilet Water.”
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| Cultural Intelligence Test |
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- Generally, Swiss businesspeople, relative to Americans, like
- thicker, more detailed legal contracts
- thinner, less detailed legal contracts
- contracts with the same level of detail
- A Singaporean colleague invites you to his home for dinner. It is appropriate:
- to bring wine
- to bring baked goods or fruit for the whole family.
- to bring four flowers.
- In meetings, Germans generally prefer, compared to Americans,
- a more structured agenda
- a less structured agenda
- the same level of structure
- Eastern Europeans, in general, compared to Western Europeans, show
- more leadership and initiative
- less leadership and initiative
- about the same level of leadership and initiative
- Compared to American businesspeople, Japanese businesspeople
- take longer to build consensus because they give each team member a chance to comment
- take less time to build consensus because leaders impose their views
- take about the same time to build consensus because both 1. and 2. are true
- Americans are seen by other cultures to be mainly
- individualist and moralist
- capitalist and short-termist
- both 1 and 2
[ Correct answers: A 2; B 2; C 1; D 2; E 1; F 3 ]
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