Culturally Competent Performance Discussions

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Culturally Competent Performance

Discussions

9/16/2009 By Rebecca R. Hastings, SPHR

He avoids eye contact. She shakes her head frequently. What some managers interpret as

insecurity or disagreement might be nothing of the sort. Experts say cultural competencecan help ensure performance discussions are effective.

Performance evaluations are one of the activities that call on you to make use of all thecultural skills at your disposal, say Charlene Solomon and Michael Schell in their book

anaging Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business With a Global Mindset(McGraw-Hill, 2009). They need to be approached with understanding, wisdom and

appreciation of the cultural message.

Failing to take into account the cultural impact of providing employee evaluation andfeedback can ruin trust, demotivate individuals and even cause the organization the loss

of talent, to say nothing of the fact that the desired performance enhancement would notbe accomplished, Solomon and Schell told SHRM Online.

Performance appraisal determines ratings, compensation, careers, who will be key

contributors to business and who will be our future leaders, said Peter Bye, president ofMDB Group, Inc. and a member of the Society for Human Resource Management

(SHRM) Workplace Diversity Special Expertise Panel. Thats why its so important that

performance management be done effectively.

An American manager who is accustomed to giving direct, brief and targeted feedbackcan permanently impair the relationship with an Indian colleague who expects a more

tactful, indirect, subtle evaluation, Solomon and Schell said. Its important formanagers to observe how feedback is given in other cultures and to adapt their styles to

local expectations.

For example, the United States is a low context culture, according to Geert Hofstede,who researched cultural norms around the world. This means that the spoken word is

generally the most important part of communication, Bye explained. We are also very

direct communicators and expect people to speak their mind and not hold back [and weare] very task-oriented and quite egalitarian, he told SHRM Online.

However, individuals from cultures such as China and India will be very hesitant to speakabout themselves openly and honestly, according to Dean Foster, president of DeanFoster Associates, a global intercultural consulting and training company. They wont

speak about their successes because humility is so deeply ingrained in their culture, hesaid, and they wont talk about whether they are getting along with someone or ask their


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manager for help.

This means that managers might not be able to get the information they need in a face-to-face meeting, Foster said. Instead, communication will occur through the informal

network a manager builds with employees and third-party intermediaries over time.

Critical Skill

The ability to work cross culturallyto interpret behavior for what people mean and not

what we think the intent isand to accurately manage these differences and not tomisinterpret them, is an essential requirement for management of the 21st century,

Foster told SHRM Online. We are working across cultures, whether down the hall or ona virtual telecom; its unavoidable, he added. Anyone who does not understand cultural

differences will be lost.

Yet Bye said that two-thirds of U.S. based managers probably think they have a

multicultural perspective of cultural difference. They think they get it but they dont, hesaid. They tend to be aware of the visible 10 percent of cultural difference but are notaware of the 90 percent of the invisible aspects of cultural difference.

Its like trying to teach a fish the concept of water, said Dick Grote, founder of Grote

Consulting and author ofForced Ranking: Making Performance Management Work(Harvard Business School Press, 2005) and other books on performance management.

We are so surrounded by our culture we dont recognize it.

Bye encourages managers to think of their cultural identity as a set of tinted lenses they

have been wearing over their ears, eyes, nose, mouth and fingers since birth.

He says cultural competency should become a standard part ofleadership competencies,such as innovating or managing change, and that managers should be given the

opportunity to develop skills.

But Bye prefers the term cultural fluency to terms like cultural competency andcultural sensitivity because the opposite termscultural incompetence and cultural

insensitivity dont sound very good. We need people to understand that [training is]developmental, not to fix a problem, he said. None of us is born having a strong

multicultural perspective.

Developing Cultural Competence

Anyone who wants to improve their cultural competence must improve their ability to

adapt to different circumstances, suggests Lynae Steinhagen, managing partner of Madd-Steiny Productions, LLC, a consultancy focused on creativity, collaboration and

communication.

Being open to, and curious about, a diversity of communication styles, opinions, values


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and cultural norms makes individuals far more effective in dealing with the vast array ofdifference evident in the workplace and marketplace today, she told SHRM Online.

For example, feedback can be given in a more indirect style, according to Anita

Zanchettin, director of global diversity and inclusion for the consultancy Aperian Global

and member of SHRMs Workplace Diversity Special Expertise Panel. Instead ofcalling it feedback they can talk about expectations, they can speak to the entire group, orthey could give it in more informal settings, such as walking down the hall or grabbing a

cup of coffee together.

If a formal, face-to-face performance appraisal does take place, Steinhagen suggests,managers should:

Observe the behavior of the other person and have a willingness to adjustbehavior to match it, as appropriate.

Let go of judgments about the other persons body language.

Sit comfortably near the employee, without a desk or table in between. Respectthe space around the other person while creating a sense of safety and welcoming. Have notes handy to share but dont read them. Speak from the heart with

authenticity. Accept that the person you are speaking with recognizes that you are in a position

of power. Consider whether it is more appropriate to be relationship focused or task

focused, and adapt as needed. Recognize that cultural values might influence the amount of feedback you

receive from the employee. Make time for the conversation to flow naturally. Schedule a performance

discussion when you are sure to have no interruptions and can provide yourundivided attention for at least 60 minutes. Learn to be comfortable with a little

silence. Offer some time for the employee to think about the performance feedback and to

respond later during a separate meeting or via e-mail.

Body Language

The ability to interpret an employees body language correctly is essential.

In some cultures eye contact is assumed to indicate honesty and straightforwardness; in

others it is seen as challenging and rude, Steinhagen said. In Western cultures, eyecontact is generally valued as an expression of confidence, respect, interest or common

courtesy. In African or East-Asian cultures direct eye contact with an individual inauthority is generally regarded as aggressive and rude.

However, too much eye contact (such as staring) can make Westerners very

uncomfortable, she added, while in Latin and some Middle Eastern cultures, maintaining


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eye contact for a long period of time during interactions is considered respectful.

Other forms of body language hold different meanings. In Western cultures noddingyour head up and down is known to mean yes, and yet in Bulgaria and Greece, this

gesture means no, Steinhagen explained.

People can get very different meanings out of the conversation, and it can be particularlytragic when its a high-leverage, high-value conversation like the performance appraisal

meeting, Bye said, since it can determine the whole future of a persons career.

Customize the Communication

However, Bye noted that its important not to assume that individuals from certain

cultures will behave in a particular way. If differences are noticed, however, a supervisormight want to discuss them so the individuals can find a way to communicate effectively.

To be an effective manager you have to develop people-specific and team-specific waysof communicating and working together effectively, Bye said. Its laying thegroundwork first for effect performance and then for an effective performance

discussion.

Bye contrasted the golden rule (do unto others as you would have done unto you) with

the platinum rule (do unto others as they would like to have done unto them) to explainthat managers should interact with employees based on the employees cultural norms,

not the managers.

Plan

Waiting until the night before a performance appraisal discussion to bone up on culturewont work, Bye said.

Corporate leadership needs to build cultural competence into the organizations DNA,according to Foster, and make it a part of how the organization operates.

Performance conversations are not once- or twice-a-year events, said Lance Jensen

Richards, GPHR, SPHR, senior director and global practice leader of human resourcesconsulting, Kelly Outsourcing and Consulting Group. A really good manager, regardless

of where in the world she or he works, engenders and maintains an ongoing performance

conversation with their people.

Your role as a leader is to help someone elses performance improve. You must seek

to find the best possible way to achieve that goal, Steinhagen said.An effectivemanager or leader is one who can adapt his or her style to any situation and to any

culture.

We need to think about whats getting in the way [of success] so we can all be very


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creative about how we deal with it, Zanchettin said.

Rebecca R. Hastings, SPHR, is an online editor/manager for SHRM.

Documents

Culturally Competent Performance Discussions