Harold is Brit who is managing a global team. Harold is no stranger to global organizing; in his previous role, he managed the European Division of the company for which he worked.

Now,  Harold manages the Global  Sales Force of a US based firm which sells home-diagnostic stress kits. Harold is meeting with a consultant today “because either I need to learn something, or I need to replace my staff; because I am angry all the time”.

Harold pointed out the last 6 cases where he found himself aggravated

Frank from Boston is very gung ho, spewing false positives about the product in internal meetings. In a recent discussion about some of the products limitations, Frank said,”Guys, let’s just focus on believing in ourselves”.

Carlos from Buenos Aires rambles on and on and on. He has a serious problem “staying focused” and by the time he finishes talking. Harold does not know what he is talking about.

Oya from Tokyo is always trying to get out of meetings “because of a client commitment” . Harold wonders what is amiss because Oya is not selling anything yet his expense account is sky high.

Menashe from Israel argues all the time. Even if Harold makes a comment about the weather, Menashe will correct him.

Gloria, his HR business partner, is brainless and highly motivated. She and Frank are always initiating “team building” enabled by cooking or horseback riding. Furthermore, Gloria is very non discrete and serves as her master’s voice.

Morris from Perth is constantly blaming HQ. Even if there is no parking, Morris will attack the ignorant folks in HQ, who know nothing about Australia.

Morton, a Sales Manager from Maine, knows how important relationships are;  he studied at an Ivy League school; his class mates are in key positions in many industries and on several occasions, doors have been opened and introductions made which enabled big bucks to be made. (Morton’s boss pays big bucks to lobbyists in Washington. Morton loathes corruption he often encounters in Russia, the Mid East and South East Asia.)

Chan (m), a scientist turned entrepreneur now living Beijing, maintains a vast network of relationships with people he knows, knows of, and trusts to different degrees. Into these trustful relationships, he plugs in his business and personal decisions. Relationships are the key and almost sole enabler of doing business and getting things done. (Chan looks at his relationships like Morton looks at his net worth.)

Neta (m), a Head of a large Business Unit from Tel Aviv, knows that the dreaded Israeli bureaucracy and red tape surrounding purchasing and supply chain, can kill his business. Luckily, Neta has a very strong relationship with Elad, supply chain/procurement manager. Elad and Neta studied in the same high school and run together at the gym. Neta and Elad trade “do me a favour-s” all the time,using relationships to work around the system. (Neta does not trust the Americans who “work-to-system” since systems fail more than relationships).

Often, managers ask my why people from certain cultures are reticent or refuse to escalate issues via email/phone call when appropriate.

Let us  take an example.

Tada from Chang Mai is a product manager for Product Q 4 in Asia Pac. Recently, a leading VP from HQ returned home with a long list of issues to be fixed. Tada had shared the list of  concerns only after having been asked. Let’s see why Tada never escalated  before he was asked.

1) Tada prefers harmony to conflict. Tada believes that conflict or bad feelings need to be avoided at all costs because these unpleasant  states are almost irreversible.

2) Tada believes that the role of his boss is to know things and act. If he does not know, he should know. If the boss does not know, he should ask. If the boss does not ask, it is not  Tada’s role to tell him and “upset” him or disrespect him.

3)  Tada believes that maintaining hierarchy is more important than resolving specific issues.

4) Tada believes that he will be “stick out as a trouble maker” is he escalates, and while escalation may solve a specific issue, his  reputation within the organization will be tarnished.

Corporate HQ is not happy about the expected 8 month delay of an upcoming critical product. There is fear that a window of opportunity will close in the next quarter, which may render the product irrelevant.

In a lesson learned exercise done by an outside consulting firm, the report said “ there is too little transparency between development teams, located in San Francisco, Tel Aviv and Beijing. More transparency and better team work between the teams will drastically accelerate development”.

The truth is that transparency between the development teams is not the issue; there is fierce competition between the teams on who will be blamed for the obviously hallucinatory  overly aggressive commitments which were made to the market. The fact is that the delay will be 2 years, not eight months! (The external consultant never got it).

San Francisco based team members have “placed the résumés” on the web, to bail ship. In the meantime, they claim they are “waiting and waiting” for the Israeli designers to translate business needs into product architecture. The Israelis claim that the “business needs as described by the SF team are empty platitudes”.  In Beijing, developers who are supposed to be designing building blocks for the product are fooling around  on Facebook all day, whilst providing progress reports on non existing building blocks.

The external consulting firm not see the  root cause of the dirty politics as a derivative of the  hallucinatory commitment to the marketplace. The external consultants were too ideological about the need for transparency and team work in global teams. The external consulting firm worked with a productized OD model on “how to succeed in global development”. The consultant had 3 years experience. His last project was improving supply chain issues in the frozen meat industry. The consultant has never travelled outside of the US, yet the firm for which he works is “well-branded”.

Bill manages a cutting edge development team based in Durham N.C., Amsterdam Holland and Haifa Israel. The team is working on Version 21.1 to be released in 3 weeks

A crisis in India has arisen with version 19.5 and 3 engineers need to fly to the client. This will be tremendous wear and tear on the other members of the development team.

Hank (Holland) said this pressure reminded him of a joke and proceeded to tell a very off colour joke; naturally, Chicago based Nancy White, EVP HR jotted this down as an urgent “actionable item” for her upcoming 1/1 with Hank. After the joke, Hank  said that the decision to bend over backwards to accommodate the Indian customer was “idiotic”.

Hadas (f) from Haifa criticized Mike for “poor judgement”. She then lectured for 20 minutes on priority management and “what I vud do if I was in your shoes”. She then  asked Bill: “Have you fallen on your head”? and “Are you crazy”?

Bill was flabbergasted at the pushback. He expected is team to perhaps disagree with the decision yet commit to make it happen.

Which is exactly what was happening, except Billy-boy did not understand it. Hank’s bluntness and Hadas’ lecture and verbal pushback had nothing to do with what both will DO.

George from Portland manages the Sales Organization.

Smadar, his EMEA director  is based in Israel. His APAC director, Ming (m), is based in Taipei. Smadar and Ming talk and sms (text) on their cellphones all the time.

George is about to have his annual sales meeting in Salzburg Austria. George has been asked by other members of his staff to ensure that Ming and Smadar turn OFF their phones during meetings, and surrender their phones to the admin at the start of each session.

George shot off an email to Ming and Smadar telling them of the phones off rule for the upcoming pow wow. George also said an admin will ensure enforcement.

Ming was highly offended; Ming believes that he must be available ALL THE TIME for his clients and agents. While Ming’s clients and agents would not be angry  were he not to answer, they would feel Ming is not respecting them.

Smadar thinks that George is ramming yet another rule down her throat and if there were less rules, there would be more Sales. Smadar believes urgent things are important things and answering calls is urgent.. She believes that a client who calls her NOW may not call her back “later”.

Ming and Smadar both believe George does not respect their way of doing business.

Smadar plans to take calls and will not surrender her phone to the admin; she will label each call “an exception”.

Ming plans very long and frequent bio breaks with a second phone he is bringing.

George will open the Sales Meeting with a lecture he will give on “Focus, Focus and Focus”. Ming will be in the lobby; Smadar will be texting.

Kevin wants the new software release moved out by two weeks for the sake of simplicity and serviceability.

“What do you all think?”, asked Kevin in the quarterly meeting in Vancouver.

Adi from Jerusalem said, “Bad idea; you are waiting for a state of stability which is never achievable. I am for staying the present release day and cleaning up the ensuing mess”. Adi has no unspoken message.

Som from Bangkok said, “Interesting idea, Khun Kevin. If the new release is more robust, then it could be a good idea. Her unspoken message was “could be, but is NOT”.

Watanabe from Japan spoke about the need to fully satisfy the customers needs yet  stick to  promises and suggested lots of hard work. He rambled on and on and his position sounded  totally ambiguous. His unspoken message was “be tougher on the troops and force people to work 24 hours a day”.

Laura from Manila said she supports the idea. Her unspoken message was “This is not the forum for me to tell the boss that he is wrong”.

Stanley manages a weekly PORM  (Plan of Record Meeting) where very aggressive software commitments are formalized with developers and project management.

Stanley has discovered that many people view commitments made at the PORM very differently.

Yaniv (Israeli male) believes that planning should be very aggressive and “even 90% success is good enough”. Yaniv’s peers think he is out to impress management and show other people up.

Arabella (German female) believes than planning must be accurate to the extreme because it is the ultimate control device. Arabella asks endless questions and piles on the facts high; her peers think she is stalling and foot dragging because it is very hard to get her to commit.

Jacque (French male) views planning as a logical and “non emotional” exercise. Jacques refuses to “negotiate” deadlines; he analyses things and is seen by his peers as “stubborn and unmovable”.

Tanaka (Japanese male) sees planning as what need to be done by whom in order to satisfy the demands as defined by the customerPeers see Tanaka as detached from reality at times, albeit highly customer focused.

Stanley from Ottawa sees planning as the way to “get us all reading off the same sheet of music.”

It appears however that without digging down into cultural assumptions about planning, Stanley’s band isn’t headed for a Grammy.