From the course: Developing Cross-Cultural Intelligence (2016)

Individual and group-focused cultures

From the course: Developing Cross-Cultural Intelligence (2016)

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Individual and group-focused cultures

- When you work in a new culture, one of the differences you often notice is whether people identify more with a group, or the focus is on the individual. Let me give you a personal example. I was born and raised in Greece, which at the time boasted a thorough and robust public school education. When I first came into the United States, I was perplexed by many of the terms and labels my American classmates used, for example valedictorian, graduating class rank, athlete of the year, most valuable player, and the campus competition at the time was the big man on campus. None of it meant anything to me. At the time, I did not realize that I had been transported into a culture focusing on the individual, or an individualistic culture which was the antithesis of the team-oriented or collectivist perspective I was educated in in Greece. These almost antagonistic perspectives of collectivism versus individualism have been studied in many contexts, including political ideologies and religious beliefs. Among the leading researchers is the Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede, who has studied these dimensions in detail. His center's website provides further detail and research-based rankings by country. For the purpose of this course, I will focus on how they create differences in the way people behave in the workplace. In collectivist cultures, such as Indonesia, Japan, China, Korea, people place high value on collaborative work environments. Decisions are made by the group. Credit for the work is given to the team, and in general people are cognizant of society as a whole versus just themselves. People identify with their family, their extended family, their work team, or even their geographic region. In a collectivist culture, ingroups are formed based on commonly shared values, and most decisions emerge from these often intertwined groups. For example, businesses routinely hire family members, a practice often prohibited by human resources policies of companies in individualistic cultures. In individualistic cultures, mainly Western societies, people tend to openly talk about their personal accomplishments and set individual goals that they have little or nothing to do with the team. Decisions are generally more independent and individually focused when compared to those that arise from a collectivist culture. People tend to be more competitive, and they're not shy about taking credit for their work or contributions to a group-based project. You hear the word I versus we more often in workplace conversations. Now, teaching in a U.S. business school, I find that this approach often results in conflict among students. Even though the United States ranks high in individualism on the Hofstede scale, companies still value teamwork, and recruiters look for students who can demonstrate strong collaborative skills. This could be a problem because in the U.S. education system, individualism is highly rewarded. And as a result, when students come into a group-focused university culture, they have a tough time making group decisions that require taking more time to reach consensus, and it often involves sharing credit with others. On the other hand our international students coming from a collectivist culture struggle to find the balance between self-promotion and modesty. I remember the dilemma of a student from China who was nominated for a leadership award at the end of his summer internship. He couldn't get himself to accept credit for something the rest of his team had contributed to. For him, accepting the award was as shameful as being rejected for it. Even though the dimension of individualism versus collectivism is somewhat dependent on both personality and the culture you were brought up in, you can broaden your approach to take advantage of the best of each perspective. Getting a sense of the level of individuality people have in the workplace and what is valued by the culture is the key ingredient in successful interactions. What I have found to work successfully is a mix of both strong individual thinking and flexibility within a team producing collective results. Be mindful of this continuum as you enter a new cultural workplace, and gather information before you make assumptions.

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