Contradicting your boss across cultures - Part 2

Remember from our last week’s post: “German-Spanish project team facing severe issues with quality delivery”? – Here are our expert tips:

Spaniards make everything possible

In the Spanish working culture, it is seen as a sign of engagement and commitment to do your best to deliver what your boss asks for. To tell your manager that what he is requesting is not realistic is perceived as lack of engagement and interest. You always do your utmost to meet client´s and boss´s expectations fully. It is also vital to preserve the relationship with the person and not make them lose face by pointing out that what they are requesting is not feasible. A Spanish employee would be very reluctant to put their managers or clients in such an awkward position.

Germans gain standing by contradicting

In the German culture it is a sign of professionalism to analyse your client´s or boss’s request. Should the request be unrealistic, you do let them know in the clearest possible way. They may be your managers or your clients but you are the professional who can assess what is feasible and what is not. Here the facts are important. It is your duty as an expert to teach your boss or client about them.

And how did our client team learn from this

Now, back to our international team, once we highlighted these differences to them, the breakthrough came when the German Unit Manager asked the Spanish project manager to contradict him. The Unit manager explained that this would earn the Spanish employee more professional respect.

At the end of our workshop, the team had reached an agreement. Spanish people would clearly communicate to the German management when something was not feasible or wrong.

You have to change the mindset if you want to overcome cultural differences

Implementation of this type of agreements is always difficult because of how deeply ingrained cultural values and belief systems are in our behaviors. Once people get back to their normal environment and work becomes stressful, it is difficult to implement a new behaviour. Individuals automatically go back to the old way of acting when circumstances become challenging.

How intercultural coaching can help

A longer support and follow up is required to ensure a behavioural change, so the team also enlisted our help to keep their commitments.

Enlisting the help of a coach to support the team or individuals in their journey towards change is the best way to ensure that they stay on track and continue displaying the new behavior.

Some coaching questions

to help implement a new behavior in a challenging environment are:

• What are the triggers for the old and now undesired behavior?
• How could you anticipate these triggers and prepare yourself to display the new behavior when they happen?
• What would be the smallest step you could take to implement the new behavior?

It is vital to keep in mind how different values and belief systems are in different cultures. Once you know about them, you can work to integrate them. It is then that the full power of your international team can be released!! You can read more about our team coaching approach on our website here (link).