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Critical Incident: “The Sales Strategy Meeting”

Sep 27
Posted by Sean Oliver in American culture, Cross-cultural, DIN Game, Diversity, Intercultural Competence, Training, Working with...

Once again, it’s time for LCW’s “DIN Game,” our live, interactive debrief of an intercultural incident on Twitter.  The next edition will take place October 4th at 5 PM CST, and we’ll be using the hashtag #DINGame.  For a complete description of how the game works, check out our previous blog entry: http://navigatingcultures.com/blog/?p=779.  The intercultural incident we’ll be debriefing is posted below; we hope you’ll join us!  We’ll be posting the results following the October 4th debrief.

An American, Julie Barton, is the newly appointed Sales Director for the Indian subsidiary of a U.S. based management consulting firm. Julie has been asked by HQ to increase the subsidiary’s sales by 20% by this time next year. Julie flies to India to meet the team in person, and for a meeting with Divyesh Kapoor, the Bangalore Sales Team Leader, to discuss strategy for achieving this goal for his team. Julie is looking forward to meeting him.

She’s a little annoyed when he arrives 20 minutes late, and says in a friendly manner that he had to take his son to school on the way to the office. Divyesh then starts chit-chatting – asking about her trip, what has she done since she arrived in India, her opinion about Indian food and the neighborhood, etc. Already frustrated about falling behind, she asks politely but firmly if Divyesh could get down to business. Divyesh looks genuinely surprised at this.

When Julie asks him to present his unit’s sales strategy, he launches into a lengthy discourse about the history of the Indian subsidiary, strategies of past Sales teams, and revenue estimates based on past trends he’s observed in the various service lines. Julie impatiently wonders when Divyesh is going to get to the business plan for the upcoming year. She tells him that although she appreciate his briefing, she’d really like to get to the action steps and time frames to achieve the upcoming year’s sales targets. Divyesh appears somewhat flustered, and immediately offers to put together a detailed report within a few days.

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DIN Game Debrief: A New Team Member

Sep 07
Posted by Sean Oliver in Cross-cultural, Diversity, General, Inclusion, Intercultural Competence, LGBT, Training

We debriefed an intercultural incident (previous post) live on Twitter last night, with help from some great participants, using our “DIN” model (Describe – Interpret – Navigate).  We’ve listed a few of the responses that we received on Twitter last night, with a few of our own observations. Please feel free to share more in the comments section, or ask any questions that come to mind.  We hope you join us next month for the second edition of the DIN Game!

Carol: Describe

  • Conceived “dream team” based on individual performance history & skills.
  • Told Phil David was her first choice.
  • Wondered if not assigning David constituted discrimination.

 

 Phil: Describe

  • Gave Carol Carte Blanc to select team members.
  • Said he wants the best people on the team.
  • Told Carol he wasn’t sure the Muslim, SE Asian clients would want an out, leader of a GLBT affinity group “in their midst”.
  • Thanked David for leading a difficult meeting the week before.

 

 David: Describe

  • Saved a project similar to this two years ago.
  • Recently facilitated a difficult meeting.
  • Has been involved in a yearlong cross cultural skill building initiative.
  • Demonstrated leadership around GLBT issues within the firm.

 
Carol: Interpret

  • Excited by career growth.
  • Believes in equality.
  • Wants to play by the rules/respects the law.
  • Respects hierarchy – questions if she should question her boss further.

 

 Phil: Interpret

  • Prefers to be indirect, and non-confrontational about this GLBT issue.
  • Respects cultural contrast of Southeast Asian client.
  • Wants to make a client-centered decision.

 

 David: Interpret

  • Likely comfortable with difficult conversations and situations.
  • Values collaboration, cross-cultural competence, diversity, and learning about cultures.
  • Likely to be very open to the idea of talking frankly about the impact of being GLBT in certain client markets.
                                                                               Navigate

  • All parties need to share a common understanding of how GLBT issues might impact the firm’s relationship with the client. One set of strategies would be to deploy some GLBT-specific training materials. 
  • All parties need to discuss how GLBT issues might impact the firm’s relationship with the clients. 
  • Carol and Phil need to acknowledge that GLBT make choices about how “out” they are based on complex personal and professional cultural sense. Dialoging with David may be one way to explore this specific incident. 
  • Understanding from this lesson needs to be refracted through the firm’s explicit commitment to equality and policy of nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation.
  • Carol could engage Phil indirectly; by having a 3rd party that has a relationship with him talk to him first.  This could be an effective way to deal with Phil’s preference for indirectness in this matter.
  • Carol could ask for David’s advice about how one could navigate a culture whose religious beliefs don’t gel with some members of a global team, and use that as a springboard to start a conversation with Phil.
  • All the actors should be engaged on this issue in a way they’re all comfortable with, in order to arrive at a solution that works for everyone.
  • David needs to be clear what a successful client relationship with the Southeast Asian firm might look like. What does he want? 

 

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