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THE ESCALATION BOX

We can all become trapped in the Escalation Box. In a cross-cultural encounter it is always possible and easy – to give or take offence. Participants in the encounter need to check the underlying cultural orientations that are in conflict and break the potentially distructive cycle.

Have you ever been in any kind of personal interaction in which the conflict could have escalated, but didn’t? What happened? What did you or the other party do to defuse the situation and move on?

OVERCOMING BARRIERS

Pay attention to feedback and adjust communication accordingly.

Take responsibility for the communication by actively limiting the loss of meaning.

Limit the time in the escalation box by a cultural check to examine what orientations are at work in the conflict.

Apply damage control by recognizing your mistake and doing what is needed before the situation is beyond repair.

Maximize your influence by building and sustaining your credibility: demonstrate preparation, flexibility, expertise, ethics, self-confidence, commitment, patience, enthusiasm, and respect.

BARRIERS AT WORK

Apply all that you have learned about cross-cultural communication in the unit and analyze the following critical incidents for:

What barriers hindered communication and how they served to create crosscultural conflict.

What the protagonist in each incident could have done to prevent or resolve the conflict.

Study Question 1:

What communication barriers are at work in this incident and how could they be overcome?

Alan Richardson was assigned to head up the relatively new marketing department of his company’s off-shore office in Mexico City. He was very excited about this career opportunity – and the chance to use his fluent Spanish.

His overall responsibility was to increase marketing’s visibility and role and bring new personnel on as well. With increasing competition in Mexico, U.S. headquarters communicated to Alan that he was to bring the department in line with those in other international office.

Alan called his first meeting in his office on Friday afternoon with the man who had been handling prior marketing efforts and all support staff. After everyone arrived, he greeted them briefly and promptly began the meeting. The first item on his agenda was to ask for suggestions as to how they might increase sales by using promotional campaigns. After a short discussion, he then proposed that the two primary marketing researchers, Eduardo and Miguel, look into a marketing research system, thinking that whoever proved to be the better researcher would be promoted to manager. He concluded the meeting by

thanking them for their time and saying that the group would meet again next week to share information.

The group sat silently until Alan said in the fluent Spanish that he had been speaking all day, “That’s all for now, guys. Have a good weekend”.

Next week at the follow-up meeting, he was surprised to find that no one in the group had anything to suggest or report on.

Study Question 2.

What communication barriers are at work in this incident and how could they be overcome?

Cynthia Greene, a manager with multinational insurance company, was daily becoming more frustrated in her work regarding the company’s business unit in the U.K. Her project team needed the advice and input of the units director to complete a very important project satisfactorily; however, the director never seemed to be available to Cynthia’s British counterparts. Several times over the last few weeks, she had left messages and faxes for her co-workers expressing her need for critical input from Mr. Thomas, the director. Her co-workers had agreed with her that this would help move things along considerably; however, it seemed that no one would take the initiative to request Mr. Thomas’s involvement in the project. Cynthia felt uncomfortable about approaching Mr. Thomas herself, assuming that such a request would be better received if it came directly from one of the British staff members who had been working with him for a while.

However, after several weeks of no action. Cynthia called Mr. Thomas herself with a request for his involvement. She presented him with a plan that required direct action from him in several areas, as well as information that was in his area of expertise. She was received politely and thanked for her thoughts and recommendations.

Another week passed, however, and Cynthia found herself feeling increasingly isolated from her counterparts. The small social interactions that used to characterize their telephone calls and correspondence became less frequent and a “coldness” seemed to pervade their communications.

CROSS-CULTURAL SCENARIOS

Read the following cross-cultural scenarios. In each mini-case study there is a basic cultural conflict between the actors involved. Try to identify the source of the conflict and suggest how it could have been avoided or minimized.

Scenario 1

Frank McDougal had been chosen to set up a branch office of his engineering consulting firm in Seoul, Korea. Although the six engineering

consultants who would eventually be transferred to Seoul were Americans, Frank was interested in hiring local staff. He was particularly interested in hiring a local person with excellent accounting skills to handle the company’s books.

He was quite confident that he would be able to find the right person for the job because his company was prepared to offer an excellent salary and benefits package. After receiving what he considered to be several excellent leads from a friend at the Rotary Club, he was quite surprised to be turned down by all four prospective candidates. They were very appreciative of being considered for the position but all preferred to stay with their current employer. Frank just couldn’t understand why all four of these Koreans chose to pass up an increase in salary and fringe benefits.

HOW WOULD YOU EXPLAIN THIS SITUATION TO FRANK?

Scenario 2

Tom Forrest, an up-and-coming executive for a U.S. electronics company, was sent to Japan to work out the details of a joint venture with a Japanese electronics firm. During the first several weeks Tom felt that the negotiations were proceeding better than he had expected. He found that he had very cordial working relationships with the team of Japanese executive, and in fact, they had agreed on the major policies and strategies governing the new joint venture. During the third week of negotiations Tom was present at a meeting held to review their progress. The meeting was chaired by the president of the Japanese firm, Mr. Hayakawa, a man in his mid-forties, who had recently taken over the presidency from his 82-year-old grandfather. The new president, who had been involved in most of the negotiations during the preceding weeks, seemed to Tom to be one of the strongest advocates of the plan that had been developed to date.

Also attending the meeting was Hayakawa’s grandfather, the recently retired president. After the plans had been discussed in some detail, the octogenarian past president proceeded to give a long soliloquy about how some of the features of this plan violated the traditional practices on which the company had been founded. Much to Tom’s amazement, Mr. Hayakawa did nothing to explain or defend the policies and strategies that they had taken weeks to develop. Feeling extremely frustrated, Tom then gave a fairly strongly argued defense of the plan. To Tom’s further amazement, not one else in the meeting spoke up in defense of the plan. The tension in the air was quite heavy and the meeting adjourned shortly thereafter. Within days the Japanese firm completely terminated the negotiations on the joint venture.

HOW COULD YOU HELP TOM BETTER UNDERSTAND THIS BEWILDERING SITUATION?