group – Success Across Cultures

As we discussed in a previous post, individualist motivational management is obviously very much centered around the individual.

Praise for outstanding work, recognition, both material and immaterial. “Employee of the Month” springs to mind.

For individualist cultures, being recognized for individual achievement means you are succeeding in your career – and at life.

But these same tactics do not always work in other cultures.

So, what does work?

Translating Cultural Dimensions into Workplace Management

In order to discover what works in managerially motivating across cultures, you must identify the in-group.

Last week, we talked about how economic success does not depend wholly on whether a culture is individualistic or collectivistic.

Rather, the in-group is what matters.

Whether company or country, in-groups are the primary drivers of workplace motivation.

Loyalty to groups is key to economic growth, and identifying the culture’s in-group can help you adapt your management style to the culture’s values.

In many collectivist cultures, the in-group is the family or the clan. The fact that it isn’t the company or oneself creates motivational differences from individualist cultures.

Learn Some Cultural Motivations

Diplomas – Diplomas are a way to climb the status ladder in collectivist cultures. Rather than seeing diplomas as paving the way toward the career ladder of better opportunities, diplomas are a door opening to a higher status group.

Because of this cultural perspective, diplomas are not sought to increase self-confidence in one’s abilities, but rather primarily to gain status.

Mobility – There are various types of mobility – occupational, geographical, hierarchical, etc. – and they are viewed differently across cultures.

In collectivist cultures, where the in-group is incredibly important, mobility across all types is lower, because it results in a change in one’s in-group.

Why?

If you have geographical mobility, you might leave your family. If you have hierarchical mobility, your in-group must approve of any upward change in position within your company, or this new position must be consistent with the role they’ve bestowed upon you.

An example: becoming the company boss of a clan elder is likely out of the question. The in-group’s hierarchy (which, in this case, is the clan) will always supersede that of a company’s organizational formalities.

Nepotism – Hiring or promoting family members/friends is seen as morally wrong in Western cultures, particularly if that family member has no qualifications for the role.

This is because individualist cultures view employees as “economic persons” who are motivated to pursue the employer’s interests if it aligns with their own self-interest.

Not so much in collectivist cultures.

One’s self-interest – and/or that of one’s employer – is always usurped by that of the in-group.

Therefore, nepotism in a collectivist culture would not only be acceptable, it would be expected.

One example of this in a collectivist culture: Burkina Faso’s former President Blaise Compoare not only hired family members to fill positions in government, but he also built a zoo and an airport in his village and supplied it with electricity (the only village with light for years, at the time).

While this action may have caused an uproar in a Western country, the culture saw Compoare’s actions as morally just. He was caring for his in-group, his people, which is seen as a positive thing in Burkina Faso.

Next week, we’ll talk more about the employer-employee relationship across cultures.

The core group in collectivist cultures is family.

And the definition of family differs across cultures, as we’ve previously discussed.

The West often considers the two-generational core to be “family,” while other cultures include extended relations – or even an entire village – under the umbrella.

Other “groups” in collectivist cultures include in-groups, like the company one works for, or society as a whole.

A group’s success and survival – whether the group is family, the village, the company, or society – ensures individual success and survival.

Because of this, harmony is valued in collectivist cultures, as is interdependence of individual members.

Children are socialized in groups early on in order to become interdependent.

Everyone depends on everyone else, because the group only survives as one.

Being recognized for individual achievement is almost unheard of; rather, collectivists work in tandem and share with group members – both their successes and their failures.

Group Loyalty = Self-Loyalty

In a collectivist culture, group loyalty is self-loyalty.

Think of it this way: society, a company, or a family is like a human body. Each member is a limb or an organ; each member is vital to the body’s function.

So, if one organ fails, the body fails.

If one limb is neglected, then the body isn’t functioning at its most optimal.

It’s with this mentality that collectivist cultures place a higher value on the group than the individual.

An individual’s personal goals and ambitions come second to the group’s overall success and well-being.

To return to our analogy, if a body’s personal goal or ambition was to win an arm-wrestling contest, so it pumped iron every day, focusing only on building up the biceps, but forgot about its legs or its core, then the arms might be able to succeed in meeting their ambition, but the rest of the body would suffer.

This is how collectivist societies view personal goals and ambitions.

Your arm (you, the individual) does not work alone.

A collectivist would sacrifice his own career goals for the sake of the group’s.

Society, First

When society comes first, self comes second.

This is one of the main reasons that in collectivist societies, management differs from individualist cultures.

Last week, we talked about how these differences clash through workplace incentives. “Employee of the Month” is one way in which management in individualist societies incentivize hard work.

But would this work in collectivist cultures? Not so much.

What would then?

We’ll talk about that more next week.