The first step in bridging any conflict is acceptance.
Acceptance does not necessarily mean approval; it just means you are not whipping out your red pen and labeling something “bad” or “wrong” before engaging with it in a thoughtful manner.
Acceptance means tolerance.
When you’re no longer actively butting your head against something unmovable, you are demonstrating your willingness to engage with that with which you are unfamiliar or may not inherently agree.
And to work in a cross-cultural environment, you will have to engage in various ways. Change is inevitable.
So, how do you relinquish judgment and accept another culture’s values and norms?
Good vs. Bad; Right vs. Wrong
Cultural values define what’s good and bad, what’s right and wrong, making each of us innate judges of other people’s behavior and character.
This judgment becomes even starker in another culture when the people aren’t playing by the same rules. Their “good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong” are not the same as that of the foreigner who is passing judgment.
In a sense, when managing in a foreign culture, you are entering a world of moral ambiguity.
How do you navigate it?
Morality in Question
You aren’t likely to encourage debates of morality in a professional setting while working abroad. But that doesn’t mean your conscience won’t awaken when faced with another culture’s values.
We’ve discussed some of the differences across cultures in our self-assessment over the past couple weeks.
These profound conflicts of conscience might affect you outside of the workplace or inside it.
For instance, you might face the following questions:
- Does the culture in which you are working consider gifts bribes?
- Are your competitors circumventing the tax laws in this country? And does that mean you should follow suit, so as not to be at a competitive disadvantage?
- Are women treated as inferior to men in the company?
- What is the dress code like? Are public-facing jobs expected to dress professionally…and what does that even mean in this culture?
- What if your company is manufacturing a product that directly conflicts with your cultural values (drugs used for executions, for instance)?
Here’s the thing: as a foreign manager in another culture, you aren’t going to click your fingers and change the societal values and norms by acting against the grain.
Nor should you completely abandon your convictions, because your values and norms are a substantial part of you.
All you can do is cope, which comes in the form of accepting, adapting to, and adopting the culture wherever you can.
We’ll expand on the four principles of cultural acceptance next week.
Success Across Cultures 