Best Practices Q & A - Part 9

Question: “In working with people from other cultures, such as Mexico or China, how can one overcome the decades of often counter-productive cultural conditioning? People have been taught to simply follow the bosses direction for centuries. What actions can be taken to create a more involved, less passive mentality among workers in these kinds of cultures?”

Answer: “First, it is important to be patient – but not TOO patient. People can and will change, given the right reward system. They are the way they are because of the reward, and too often, the punishment system they have lived and worked in. Under the old-style Communist system in China, for example, people taking initiative and responsibility sometimes just disappeared in the night – not exactly an incentive for taking more responsibility. Japanese companies such as Toyota started with these cultures, then gradually evolved over the years into the highly participative, highly empowered cultures of today.

They did this by carefully altering the reward system, so people who took initiative and responsibility were rewarded in a way that made sense to them and others around them. Also, by explicitly talking about the culture change you want to engender, people are aided in making the transition. Finally, it helps to hire carefully, to screen people for deeply entrenched attitudes that are simply never going to change. Toyota was successful with the Fremont, California plant, starting with a serious labor union problem, by hiring carefully, then training thoroughly to get the culture the rest of the company had, even with a UAW union.”
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