The best managers manage their people to success. As the world changes managers are having to extract exceptional performance from a varied pool of employees.



It's a valuable manager indeed who is able to work across the cultural divide. Having an ability to get the best performamce from employees, often spread across the globe, is a quality a new breed of intercultural managers have in abundance.

Almost all the major companies nowadays get involved with buying, selling or working with people from varied cultural background.

Multinationals have offices around the world; native audiences are not the sole consumer of products or services; manufacturers have to depend on foreign markets and distributors or even labor.

Value-creating diversification management skills are, for many, the challenge of the new millennium and beyond.

Intercultural Management - The Basic Issues

The bottom line is that there is now, in a tough marketplace, a need for exceptional managers who can work worldwide to get the best from cultural differences.

The term "intercultural management skills" is loosely defined as the ability of a manager to deal and communicate with people from different cultures.

Of course, one of the most vital skills is the ability to communicate clearly wherever your team is spread to around the globe.

It's vital to recognize just how shared understanding is the most important piece of the puzzle in businesses that work across international boundaries.

Within the business, an multicultural manager plays the role of a go-between for senior personnel and employees and must have clear and effective communication with all.

The manager must also build and oversee an efficient team of often worldwide employees to ensure that and strategies and global plans get delivered at the sharp end.

Of course, when there is the oppoortunity to experience a location at first hand by living there, many of the challenges about understanding a culture can be by-passed. Those who have this experience are all the more valuable for it.

Some managers have the knack of great relationship building sklills wherever they are in the world - a talent to be much admired!

Potential areas of success and failure arising from culture differences must be analyzed carefully, managed effectively and, where possible leveraged for the value such expertise brings.

Intercultural Management - Different Skills - Or Not?

The intercultural manager therefore must ensure that there are no misunderstandings due to cultural differences between colleagues, customers and clients.

For achieving this goal the intercultural manager must possess certain attributes such as:-

1. A focused awareness of the target location(s)

2. An ability to create value from new cultures

3. Considered approach to business

4. A great sense of patience!

For any manager who has had experience in different cultures, the awareness of this alone is worth it's weight in gold. It doesn't necessarily matter that the country is different - the awareness that differences occur and how to aproach them is valuable in it's own right.

Knowledge about the different relationships and their manifestations across international boundaries is necessity, because such managers can only develop the requisite skills by absorbing the many intercultural differences in the target country.

International Managers Must Be Resourceful

Simply having lived in a number of different countries gives people the capacity to work almost anywhere. Their approach is to be flexible and ensure that they pace themselves and understand that things do not always go to plan.

A flexible manager deals with such problems smoothly with positive solutions.

It's amazing how those who do really well, learn fast how to get the best from their local environment, leveraging local knowledge and radical solutions that come from out-of-the-box ideas that may be completely unexpected elsewhere.

Then new possibilities come from new horizons, that any business can value and create new outcomes from.

Managed well, by an effective manager, experienced in extracting the benefits of such a role, will lead to added value for the organization, as well as to the advantage of employees in the target country too.

"A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains", as the Dutch are known to say.

By being patient, especially in these, some of the most challenging circumstances a manager can find themselves in, can lead to fabulous results.