January 13, 2021 • 51 mins
Cultural differences can stand in the way of doing business or having good relationships. Fons Trompenaars is one of the world’s most prominent experts when it comes to exploring and defining culture. He has spent the last 30 years helping Fortune 500 companies manage and resolve cultural dilemmas and business issues.
In this episode, we talk about how you can understand your culture, how you can use cultural understanding to deal with your intercultural business issues and not least how you can resolve intercultural differences.
FONS TALKS ABOUT
- The 3 layers of culture. Conscious or not, they can be measured and are all relevant for the way we interact with other cultures.
- How you can use dilemmas to understand and reconcile cultural differences.
- The 7 dimensions of culture. Remember, awareness is not enough. You need to understand your own culture and its differences to other cultures in order to successfully reconcile your cultural dilemmas.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Morten Andersen (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to What Monkeys Do. My
name is Morten Kamp Andersen.
And this is a podcast about whatit takes to make a change and
make it stick.
Peter Drucker said that cultureeats strategy for breakfast. And
what he meant was that if thereis a difference between what an
(00:27):
organization wants to achieveand its culture, well then
culture will prevail. This isalso true for individuals,
although at a slightly differentlevel. So if you want to set out
to do something, or changesomething, which is against your
core values or unconsciousbelief, well, then you will
probably not succeed. Butculture is more than just
(00:49):
succeeding with a strategy. It'salso about how do we work well
together? And how do weunderstand the world
differently? The world hasbecome a lot more diverse, and
we must understand each otherwell, to work well together. But
what is culture? And how do webest understand our own and
(01:10):
other's culture? And how do wenavigate well in different
cultures? Well, let's find outin this episode of What Monkeys
Do. My guest today is one of thegreat business thinkers and
writers of the last 40 years. Hewas voted top five management
consultant next to MichaelPorter and Tom Peters in 99. And
(01:30):
in 2017, he was inducted intothe thinker's 50 Hall of Fame.
He earned his PhD from Wharton,he has founded the tht
consultancy company. It's anintercultural management firm,
and has spent over the last 30years helping fortune 500
leaders manage and solve theirbusiness and cultural dilemmas.
(01:52):
He's written several books, butno doubt my favorite is Riding
the Waves of Culture, which isabout to be published in its
fourth edition now, it has soldover 200,000 copies, and is the
book that really put culture inbusiness on the map. Welcome to
you Fons Trompenaars.
Fons Trompenaars (02:09):
Thank you more than a pleasure.
Morten Andersen (02:11):
Pleasure.
Great. So this episode is aboutculture, especially national
cultures. And culture is such abig theme. But let's try to see
if we can break it down. Butbefore we do that, I just want
to hear from you Fons. Can youtell us a little bit about your
background and how you gotinvolved with culture work?
Fons Trompenaars (02:30):
Yes, Morten. I very often start by saying I was
born out of a French mother anda Dutch father doesn't make you
Belgian. But it gives you abackground of cultural
sensitivity. But very implicit,you're not conscious about it.
But you get experiences in inParis, and you get experiences
in Amsterdam, where my parentscame from. And then I was,
(02:52):
luckily enough having a greatopportunity after my economics
degree, to go for the EuropeanInstitute of Advanced Studies in
management. And then this was acommunity of professors who were
asked amongst other things, toselect students to do a PhD. So
immediately I went to the US atWharton, which I never heard of.
(03:14):
But I came at Wharton, I said,Wow, what a fantastic
environment. And this was in 79.
I did my PhD work on a empiricalresearch to support my
conceptual analysis of how doescorporate culture affects
national culturesinterpretations? And how does
national culture producecorporate culture? In other
(03:38):
words, why would a manager inGermany be called her doctor,
Professor, Doctor Doctor? Well,in America, you hide your title,
because they might find out youhave thought about a subject,
which is the end of yourcarreer, it's quite interesting
that in this world, I got theopportunity to test all my stuff
in the environment of shell, Idid my empirical research
(04:05):
comparing 10 refineries ofshell. And I joined shell and in
the time, I was joining shelffor about eight years till the
end of the 80s. I did do work inHR, and really looking at why
does something work in theNetherlands that because it's an
Anglo Dutch company, and itdoesn't work in France? And
obviously, the answer is simple.
(04:28):
Nothing works in France. It'squite interesting to see the
dilemma between what you do fromheadquarters, and we need to
standardize and why very goodreason. Because people in Shell
move a lot International. So youneed some consistency between
the borders. On the other hand,you're still working in a French
(04:50):
environment or in a Polishenvironment, or in an American
environment. So I was happy totest a bit, that that stuff and
in In the meantime, I'vepopularized my PhD, which is
kind of academic talk intoRiding the Waves of Culture.
Hmm. That at least got us offthe hook of marketing, because
(05:11):
people read the book and say,That's interesting. Can you help
us? The first day of my work? Imet Charles Hamilton theater, by
phone, by the way, because whyhead of group planning for the
Netherlands? That font? Have youread this article? It's called a
tale of two paradigms ininternal magazine for Shell. And
(05:33):
it was written by Charles andLynn Turner, and it compared
east and Western culture andwhat it meant for Shell. I was
so impressed by that article,because he didn't only explain
the differences, but he went farbeyond it, namely, how do you
reconcile it? Yes. So simpleexample, is, the western mind
(05:54):
is, yeah, a Shell stationservice station gives you
gasoline, that's called aspecific culture. But in the
East, they treat you as amessenger that happens to need
gasoline that's diffused. And hesaid, how should the shell
(06:18):
service station look like ifpeople travel internationally.
And I'm not only talking aboutAsians versus what the nurse,
but I'm talking about, ingeneral, that a French and a,
check passenger in the carenough, and the shell shop at
the time, and this is 40 yearsago. 82, to be precise, is a
(06:41):
person that was served in a muchbroader sense, and it has
gasoline, and it was a shellshop, which I was impressed by
that way of thinking. So I wroteCharles, can we work
together?and john said, phones,send me your thesis. And a week
later, he called me back andsaid, funds, I think we can work
together because I reconciledall your dilemmas, said What the
(07:04):
hell is this guy talking about?
And he told me Fons, I wasafraid you were another Dutchman
to put the world on bipolarscales, namely, and I said, What
the hell is this guy talkingabout? He said, Now Fons, I see
you don't understand. And wedidn't have zoom. So it was all
by voice. And he, he said Fons?
(07:25):
If you are an individualist atthe cost of the community,
you're an egoist, and it doesn'twork. You are a collectivist at
the cost of the individual.
Which by the way yourquestionnaire assumes, then
you're a communist and itdoesn't work. Yes. So if both
ends of your scale don't work,why don't you try to combine
(07:45):
them? Because great societiestake care of excellent
individuals. And excellentindividuals are only excellent
when they give it back tosociety. Now that took me 15
years, really make it my ownwhat's called dilemma
reconciliation. So long story,but then I went into training
(08:06):
consulting, and and here we arestill doing the same and
teaching a bit.
Morten Andersen (08:13):
So dilemma reconciliation, does that mean
that we have two differentcultures and in order for them
to meet, you have to find acommon path or a common way to
understand both of thosecultures?
Fons Trompenaars (08:25):
Very much so.
And it is not only that we needto be aware of these
differences, which is aboutpreferences, but at the end of
the day to say but how can wematch to do for a better future?
Yes. An example is if you are anHR manager, and you're worried
about reward systems, then youcan say, Hey, I measured this is
more an individualistic group,the Americans, and you're
(08:47):
working together in aninternational team with the
Japanese, more collective. Andyou have a Dutchman that is a
bit like it doesn't reallymatter. As long as you avoid
taxes in that diversity. What doyou do, if you're in America,
you give an individual bonus, ifyou're in Japan, you give a
collective bonus, no problem.
(09:09):
But either if you move people orif you have multicultural teams,
which becomes the norm of thefuture, you might need a dilemma
that is reconciled. And what wedid in Shell By the way, where
we had this issue, we said 50%of the variable pay will go to
individuals. And there are onlyone criteria, who's the best
(09:30):
team player and we give teamsthe other 50% on the basis of
what they can show they havedone to make individuals Excel.
Now this is calledCooerpetition. You individually
compete to better cooperate, andyou cooperate to better
individually compete. And thatis the type of stuff we're doing
in our work.
Morten Andersen (09:51):
There's so many things in what you're saying
that I would like to dig deeperinto, but I think I'll just take
one step back and just saybecause now we're talking about
culture as we're talking Aboutthe same thing like everybody
knows what we're talking about.
But maybe we can just start bydefining what does culture mean?
What is culture because I have afeeling that most people
understand that culture isimportant. I also hear leaders
saying culture is reallyimportant. But when you then
(10:13):
come to speak about what it is,people get in all sorts of
directions. So could you maybeset the scene a little bit? What
is culture? Sure,
Fons Trompenaars (10:23):
let me start by quoting a book by Kroger and
glucagon, and I forgot thetitle, but the subtitle was the
250 definitions of gotcha. Okay.
1961. So I'm sure with all theseconsultants, we now have 400 of
them. What I love and mostinspired by Ed Schein, Ed Schein
says culture is multi layered.
(10:45):
On the outside, we have anexplicit culture, it's the way
we show ourselves, do we wear atie or not, you know, what type
of language we speak, what isthe food we eat, but be careful,
you might eat similar food fordifferent reasons. So you have
to go one layer deeper. And thatis the most used definition of
(11:06):
culture, the shared systems ofnorms and values. values are
shared orientations are what wedefine as what we like to do, we
desire and norms are sharedorientations are what we should
do. Now, a child says sobeautifully when you start
liking what you should do, whenvalues become norms, it slips
(11:30):
out of consciousness. And itbecomes a basic assumption. In
the core, it's implicit, youcan't see it, you can't smell
it. Even for people who have it,you only find out in your
culture shock, that it's it'sthe world has taken for granted.
An example. oxygen, oxygen is avalue, you all need oxygen. Hmm.
(11:52):
But it has become a norm ifyou're healthy. That's called
breathing. When the valuebecomes a norm, it slips out of
consciousness. I don't thinkevery five to 10 seconds, we are
aware of the fact that we needoxygen. You only find out if you
come in a room where there'snone. Yes. And now that's called
culture shock. That multilayered, we call it an onion
(12:15):
model. And when you unpeel it,it makes you cry. Yeah. No, that
is a bit the model. Now, if youwant a definition on this,
culture is a shared orientationof people in how to approach
problems that very often come toyou as dilemmas. Hmm. So the
(12:37):
dilemmas are human. The way weapproach the dilemma is
cultural. And that's what Ilearned from john. So to ask the
question, yeah, but why arevalues and norms different? Why,
our basic assumptions different.
It's because of a problem calledlack of oxygen, and lack of
oxygen used our breathing. Andif it works, it slips out of
(12:59):
consciousness.
Morten Andersen (13:02):
So probably one of the best ways to try to
identify so when you pose peoplewith dilemmas, then you can in
that thinking, you can see howthey approach it differently
also reached a differentconclusion. Why do they do that
is because they have differentnorms, some of them different
values, but different norms,some of them they were not even
(13:22):
aware of, or didn't even thinkthat other people could think of
those dilemmas in a differentway. And it's those dilemmas
where you can get thedifferences out in the open most
is that
Fons Trompenaars (13:32):
correct?
completely correct. The main,let's say Super Value of
humanity is the urge to survive.
And that has to do with ourfight with nature. It's very
paradoxical, because ifsomething is not go to its
nature, yes, yes. Oh, DNA isnature is not God. Okay. But
it's very paradoxical becausenature has the biggest effect on
(13:55):
our survival issue. So if youlook at the values and
behaviors, that behaviors isexplicit, the values are a bit
of a deeper layer. And the basicassumptions of the Dutch, for
example, or the Danes are aboutour fight with water. So we very
often ask ourselves, orespecially foreigners, why do
(14:15):
the Dutch have such an urge? Tofind consensus? Hmm. As a value
that involves people in decisionmaking? It's because we had to
find water and you can onlysurvive in a very low land. If
you have consensus about how tofight this water, or big
philosophical books. And why areAmericans so legalistic, is
(14:39):
because Americans withinAmerica, very mobile, and very
mobile, because of the bigspace, go west, whatever time to
develop a relationship youtrust. If you won't trust a
relationship, you need a lawyerto put it on paper so that if
the relationship is broken, youstill have consistency. paper.
(15:00):
So, there are always reasons whycultures are what they are and
that is surviving, developingcertain behaviors at work. So,
the values if it works becomes anorm, and therefore a basis. So,
Morten Andersen (15:17):
there are three layers of culture there is the
explicit the things we can goand see feel touch, there is the
second level, which is thevalues and norms, which is
somewhat visible, but probablyeasier to distinguish if you ask
people or observe people ormaybe even post them with
dilemmas. And then you have thebasic assumptions, which is the
(15:40):
core the center or epoca shinesthe the iceberg where it's
really deep. So, it is veryinvisible, difficult to, to
find, and you probably have tofind out how it is but, but it's
it's it's the basic assumptions.
I don't
Fons Trompenaars (15:55):
want to interrupt but it's easy to find
out. And I learned this from JimCollins, it's the five why
method asked why. And fromCollingwood, I remember in his
essay on metaphysics, if you aska couple of times why and people
become irritated, you like tohit them on an absolute
(16:16):
presupposition. When other wordsfor basic assumption.
Morten Andersen (16:19):
Okay, so it is possible to find out the basic
assumptions, one of the thingsthat I often hear from leaders
is that they get that culture isimportant. They hear it, they've
read it in Harvard BusinessReview for many, many years.
They want to deal with it, butit's somehow too soft, or it's
too intangible or too difficultto work with. And you have found
(16:41):
a way to some dimensions thatyou can describe a culture on,
can you can you explain them?
Fons Trompenaars (16:48):
Sure, we have done research, starting with
Hoffs data. But that was at thetime I was studying offset of
four dimensions. People saidthat, but that's not enough, you
miss this, and you missed that.
So I did my own research, andcombined a whole lot of people
and said, Oh, it's, in fact, ourrelationship with other human
beings, our relationship withtime, and our relationship with
(17:12):
nature. And I came up with sevendimensions, five in the area of
your relationships, and thentime and age. So if I go through
the five, it is, and I'll giveyou also the let's say,
dignified version. The first oneis universal versus particular,
the easier language is do yourather go for rules or
(17:37):
exceptions? So you have coachesthat say use the rule and you
follow it? And you have culturesays yeah, I know there are
rules, but I'm exceptional,which we call the particularist.
I don't have to dumb down thesecond one the most used
dimensioning culture are youmore individualistic or group
oriented? And do you start withyour first name and then the
(17:58):
family name? Or do you startwith the family name and then
the first name or do you writeit with a capital letter or not?
Yeah, signals of individualcollective then the third one is
what do we do with our emotions?
Are you neutral, you haveemotions, but you don't show
them or are you effective? Andthen it much more an expressive
(18:22):
culture? Hmm. The most difficultone to explain but but let me
try is specific versus diffuse,specific culture is a culture
that focuses is analytic. And adiffuse culture is a culture
that is holistic. So an exampleis when I got my PhD in America,
(18:42):
they called me Dr. Trump andours in the university, but I
was introduced to similar peopleand suddenly at the barbecue I
was fonds. Why, because therelationship is specific at the
university, you have this role.
And at the barbecue, you haveanother role and you change even
your title and your first name.
How about that? In Germany,which is much more diffuse? You
(19:06):
are your title?
Morten Andersen (19:07):
Yes, well,
Fons Trompenaars (19:08):
you will have a doctor at the barbecue. Your
hair doctor in the university,you're even a doctor at work.
You buy a steak at the butcherfor the barbecue. Good
nominator, Doctor, you're alonegood Navajo doctor, where are
the little doctors? Everythingis doctor and that is a diffuse
go. Yes, there is specificversus diffuse. The fifth one is
(19:29):
what gives people status isstatus based on your
achievements. Or is statusgiving you by birth? Are you
male, female? Are you young orold? What is the type of family
you're coming from? That iscalled ascription vocalized
status based on what you dostatus based on who you are.
(19:51):
Those are the five in humanrelationships then time we
distinguish three elements butin fact, you could say we have
nine dimensions but Time isabout are you more past
oriented, present orientedfuture oriented? from Edward
hall? Are you monotonic orpolychronic? And are you short
term or long term
Morten Andersen (20:12):
oriented?
Fons Trompenaars (20:13):
And then finally, in nature? Do you want
to control nature or theenvironment? Or is the
environment controlling you letgo the locus of control, those
are the seven if you like ninedimensions, where we categorize
people. And we have translatedthose nine dimensions in for
(20:34):
corporate culture models, butthat's a footnote,
Morten Andersen (20:36):
okay? By applying that tool, you can you
can understand your own culture,but also compare it with another
culture to see the differenceson different dimensions. And
that will explain how youinterpret and see the world and
respond to dilemmas in differentways.
Fons Trompenaars (20:55):
Yes, we have made on a floppy disk in 1985.
Yeah, it came out with a videoon culture. Thank you very much.
I was young. It's interesting,the floppy, depending on your
own individual profile, we gavea little questionnaire, well,
what is your own individualprofile on those seven
(21:17):
dimensions. And then you couldchoose a country where we have
empirical data of about 50countries. And it didn't matter
if you were if you touch Japan,or India, if you score lower, or
if you get the same feedback. Becareful, we sign a good
contract. And, and we said thisis too vulgar. So we now have
(21:38):
developed the last five years,and it took a long time a an app
called Culture for Business.
Yeah, you find it on ourwebsite. It's interesting,
because depending on the Delta,between your individual score on
the seven dimensions, and thecountry of choice, you get
different tips in meetings,negotiation and managing. So you
(21:58):
have to go beyond Oh, in Italy,you do this? And in France, you
do that? And in Denmark, you dothis? No, it depends on your own
profile. Yes. Because I don'twant to give an American dealing
with things, the sameinformation or tips as Japanese.
(22:20):
No. And and so awareness isfine, but you need to go beyond
it.
Morten Andersen (22:29):
And the scary thing is that, with that story,
many of our listeners will notknow what a floppy disk is. And
I'm very, very vividly butthere's a difference in in age,
rather than culture
Fons Trompenaars (22:41):
was when windows was not yet existed.
Morten Andersen (22:55):
So when I was 23, I moved from Denmark to
England to work. I lived therefor 11 years. And the funny
thing was that I learned a lotmore about Denmark when I moved
to England, because then I couldcompare the culture that I was
living in. And it was probablymuch easier for me to understand
the culture in Denmark, lookingat it, as I experienced the
(23:15):
English culture, is thatsomething you see that that's
it, that's a good way to learnabout a culture is to, to move
away from your own culture, andthen you you learn more about
it. It's it's very important,
Fons Trompenaars (23:25):
I think the main role of us is to understand
your own culture first. Cultureis about differences. And to
experience difference, you needto know where you are coming
from. And the way to do that isgoing through culture shock. In
what you assume that let's goback to the basic assumptions,
is what you took for granted,which is another word for basic
(23:48):
assumption is certainly nottaken for granted. Right? And an
example and correct me if I'mwrong, you found out more than
how direct the Danes arecompared to English. Yes. But
you never knew you thought youwere normal. I would like to
Dutch you love to insult people.
Let me tell you the truth. Yes.
Morten Andersen (24:09):
I beat around the bush. Let's Let's just be
straightforward here. And let metell you what I think here. That
did not work. Well.
Fons Trompenaars (24:15):
No, if you're in England, obviously, you say
you have an interesting face.
And then what are the days wouldyou say you're ugly? And they'll
be tell you why.
Morten Andersen (24:23):
Exactly. The teams I worked in at that time
was very diverse. So Denmark wasat that time, practically very
uniform. London was a meltingpot of different cultures. I was
different age groups, differenteducational backgrounds,
different religious backgrounds,obviously different genders and
everything. So very, verydiverse. And that's becoming
(24:45):
more than norm now. And I have afeeling that after this
pandemic, there will be morediversity because now, space and
place where you work reallydoesn't matter that much because
we can use soom much more. So myquestion is how can you use Use
cultural insights to make thosediverse teams work better.
Fons Trompenaars (25:05):
Great point, Morten. Yes, I fully agree. In
Amsterdam, we now have 53% ofpeople living here that don't
have Dutch parents. So the normbecomes diversity. I saw a sign
in, in Miami, which as we speakEnglish here, interesting in an
American state. Yeah. And on topof that, we have created a
(25:26):
diversity of diversity. You getin the, let's say, labor
systems, more females workingthan in the past, you get more
young people that have somethingto contribute to the to the
labor system. Now, if you havean American female of age 23,
and talks to an old male inGhana, what is causing the
(25:47):
problem? Is it age is a gender?
Is it nationality? And on top ofthat, the dynamics between the
three? Well, what we havelearned is that if you want to
take advantage of culturaldiversity, don't start with
culture. Start with yourbusiness issues. Your what is
the issue, and then it doesn'tmatter if it comes from being
(26:07):
Ghanese, or American, or male,female or young, old. Who cares?
It might be helpful, because youmight say, Yeah, but this is
this is typically Ghanese andAmerican, right could be. But
the issue in in diverseenvironments, where all these
things come together, is thatit's very difficult to just
(26:28):
explain cultural differences,and then leave the room and say
good luck, no help people inreconciling the dilemmas on the
table, and be aware of the factthat it might be caused by the
diversity. And that increases anenormous amount of respect,
because in our method of dilemmareconciliation, we have a step
called stretching, where bothparties need to say, what is the
(26:51):
plus of your side? And the minusof your side? And what is the
plus of the other side and theminus of the other side? So you
get a balanced view. And thathelps tremendously in respecting
each other. And then thequestion, What can your side
help us with the other side? Somay I run example, otherwise,
it's all abstract. If you are arepresentative of headquarters,
(27:15):
with the subculture of yourcompany, of headquarters
culture, we need to standardizewe are there for the
shareholders. And we need tomake sure that everybody listens
to us, versus the local culture,which has Yeah, but we are
different. And we have intimaterelationship with the client.
And you don't understandanything of it at headquarters.
(27:37):
You know, this,
Morten Andersen (27:40):
yes.
Fons Trompenaars (27:41):
If you're a lousy leader, you will say let's
make a choice. Are we local? Orare we global, and you have them
in one room? Now, a good leaderwould say, this is a dilemma,
because we need both. Well, Iwould like to ask all of you,
what can we do locally, to makethe company more global? And
(28:02):
what can we do from headquartersglobally, that serves your local
customer better? Now? That'sdilemma reconciliation. And that
is combining opposites. And youcome with answers like, Oh,
yeah, what we could do issharing best local practices,
combined them in next practices,which we then globalize, yes.
(28:24):
And globally. Oh, you know, whatwe could do is have projects
where people from headquartersgo locally to understand what is
happening locally. And we'll getback globally. That went got
enough stuff. Yeah.
Morten Andersen (28:39):
So if I understand it, right, so let's
say that I'm a manager of a veryglobal team, you're essentially
saying, Let's not focus on thecultural differences. First,
let's focus on the businessissues, and a way to work
together, it might be a usefulthing to have a cultural
introduction. So there is anunderstanding that there are
cultural differences. Butessentially, you take dilemmas
(29:00):
and then you look at thosedilemmas and you look at how you
approach them differently. Andthen through a workshop try to
find reconciliations betweenthose dilemmas. So you take the
best from both worlds, so tospeak, in not a compromise, but
in a in a win win solution. Andthat is how you work well with
(29:20):
cultural differences. Is thatcorrect?
Fons Trompenaars (29:22):
Completely.
Greg Morton, what you justdescribed is the essence of
innovation. Innovation isbringing together values that
you never thought could bejoined, therefore scarce
therefore profitable. So if youtake Apple, what have they
combined? They've combined thevalue of aesthetics, with the
value of functionality, what itmakes more than an end. Because
people say oh, what you mean isnot either or it's and and no,
(29:47):
it's through through because andand is you have a department
aesthetics and you have adepartment engineering, for
functionality, but they nevertalk to each other. In Apple,
every engineer will say yes itworks. Can we make it beautiful?
And every designer will say,yeah, it's beautiful. Does it
have a function? Oh, it take theplate of an iPhone or an iPad?
(30:10):
It's beautiful because itdoesn't have a frame. Because it
doesn't have a frame. It'sfunctional because you don't
break your nails. While swipingit. Yes. So beauty has become
functional Formula One, thedilemma, the value tension is
speed and safety. Now thequestion that every engineer in
Formula One to ask, how can weuse the speed to make the car
(30:34):
more safe? way to make a carsafe is easy. You take off the
wheels, hypogene, you losespeed. You can make the car very
speedy yet but you lose safety.
But if you go into thatquestions, answer, how can we
use speed to make the car moresafe? You're in aerodynamics? Mm
hmm. By going faster, you havemore downforce, right? That is
(30:59):
dilemma reconciliation. And theproblem in this world is that
most of our models suck,including cultural models,
because they don't invite us toreconcile. If you take Europe,
psychology is more than amongstmany other things, right? Yes.
Myers Briggs, the most usedpsychological test? How awful
can it be? Then if you scorehigh on thinking, you score low
(31:22):
on feeling? Yes. What kind ofidiot has developed this?
Because if you are thinkingwithout feeling you're a robot,
if you are feeling withoutthinking you're a neurotic, it
has, and both don't work. Sogreat leaders frame their
feelings by their thinking andtest their thinking, by their
(31:45):
feeling. Which questionnairemeasures that the combination of
both did you score under one andundid on the
Morten Andersen (31:52):
other? Now, this
Fons Trompenaars (31:53):
is just one example. But all our models,
including cultural models, Igave the example in the
beginning. If you're anindividualist, you score low on
collectivism, what kind ofnonsense is that? Yes, if you're
centralized, you score low on
Morten Anders (32:07):
decentralization, I can see some phenomenal
insights that you can get thefirst, just by understanding
going through the dilemmas willgive an enormous insight into my
own way of thinking, but alsohow that is different from
others. And the reconciliationmust be a fantastic process
where you, as you say, probablycreate your innovation by coming
(32:29):
to a completely new a new step.
I guess the first step of all ofthis is to recognize that your
perspective is as good as mine,that mine is not better than
yours, that there's no right orwrong answer here. Sometimes you
will enter a room where there'llbe some people thinking, they
are wrong, I'm right. How do yousoften that view?
Fons Trompenaars (32:50):
That? That's a very deep question. First of
all, to recognize that we sharethings despite our different
preferences. Hmm. So very often,Myers Briggs, defense, bipolar
models defense, is we talk aboutpreference we know you have to
end with one has preference overthe other in writing, yes, or in
(33:16):
touching whatever, right. But weare in the world of clapping.
Once you realize that in theworld of clapping, the dominance
of your hand disappears becauseit's about coordination. Now,
Charles, my job as an attorneyhas taught me that if we
understand that the dilemmas arehuman, that we all share the
same dynamics, but that weapproach the learners
(33:37):
differently, or that makes yourelax tremendously. I even wrote
a book with the title, did thepedestrian die, you're working
in a car driven by a closefriend of yours, your friend is
going 50 kilometers an hourwhere you're allowed to go 30
and your friend hits apedestrian, you've gone to court
and the lawyer of your friendsays Don't worry, you're the
(33:58):
only witness two questions whatis the right of your friend to
expect you to live for Him?
Second question is would you lieYes or no? Now, I very often
asked this, by the way, in ourquestionnaire, this is the first
question. Now we have a databaseof another 40,000 people who
filled it in. And we know theanswers. I asked the question
also in workshop, who would liketo be in this situation? And
(34:23):
I've never met a person whoraised their hand and said,
wonderful situation to be thenout dry. Now they use other
words, but they say it's adilemma. And it doesn't matter
if you're in South Korea, inNigeria, in America or in
Denmark, people tend to say thisis a dilemma. I said, Why? Oh,
because we all want to helpfriends. But at the same time,
(34:45):
we all have something with thetruth.
Morten Andersen (34:49):
Yes.
Fons Trompenaars (34:50):
Then I look at the answers. And I do this by
memory. 92% of the American saymy friend has no right or some
right and I will not To help bylying, by the way, 95% of the
Swiss, I think the 5% of theFrench speaking, and we have 32%
in Venezuela. Now the rich hereis that Americans they are you
(35:13):
see, the Venezuelans arecorrupt, because you've got to
trust them, they always helptheir friends. Did I did a
workshop in Venezuela. And aVenezuelan told me, thank you,
Mr. Trump, and I knew theAmericans are corrupt, say why
you can't talk, they won't evenhave that friend. So what I'm
doing with this is to make anyvalue ridiculous, because what
(35:34):
you need is to combine them.
Now, let me finish the story byreconciliation, you know, that
Americans 10 years ago haveinvented that if you don't have
values, you write them on thewall, there was a club where you
worked with in Morristown, NewJersey, they had that training
center. And obviously, that fivevalues American company
(35:56):
financial services, and two ofthem were the following. One was
integrity. So I asked inMorristown, the top 50 of that
company, how does integrity helpyou to reconcile the or to give
the correct answer to the caraccident dilemma, and there was
an American who stood up as aMr. Trump and as I lost you, if
(36:19):
you have integrity, you will notlie. And by the way, if you have
integrity, your friend will notexpect you to lie. There was a
reason in the room? Who said,john, I disagree. How can you
have integrity and not help yourfriend. And here the dilemma was
back again, they had a secondvalue. We respect the culture of
(36:39):
others. I said, Take these twovalues, as a company worldwide.
And you have a multiculturalteam, whether it's an American,
a Korean, a Dane, a Dutch,Italian, at one table, and
you're having a discussion aboutyour corporate values. What
would you do in order to use thevalues to give the correct
(37:03):
answer to the car accident?
dilemma? Yes. And it is deadsilent. What you have to respect
the green view, you have torespect the American view. And
like you said, in your earlierquestion, now, what I learned in
Japan is very often that theysay, our option is not on your
(37:25):
list. In Japan, what we will dois we will test the strength of
our friendship by asking ourfriend to tell the truth and God
Himself. So we can talk to thejudge to lower the sentence for
his courage. And what I like ofthis answer is there is a
dilemma between the friend andthe truth. And instead of
(37:46):
choosing between the two, whichare models, as you, as you crack
the line, you have a Y and an Xaxis, where one axis says
friendship, and the other axissays truth. And you want to have
the if the British 1010, the1010 answer, namely, how can I
connect the friend to the truth,and that comes back to perhaps
(38:10):
the meta value of what we'retalking about. And that is
integrity. If you look at theetymological dictionary, and you
look up integrity, and manydefinitions, by the way, but
it's always about wholeness. Andthe one I like most is integrity
is creating holders, through theintegration of opposites. And
(38:30):
that was done here. And it isworking in every culture. And
you will see what works in everyculture are funny labels,
because our language cannotcapture the so for example, co
op petition, you individuallycompete to better cooperate, you
cooperate to have individualsbetter compete, servant
(38:51):
leadership, it is how can I leadfrom top down to listen to
people serving, bottom up? Yes,etc, etc.
Morten Andersen (39:03):
So if I'm an organization, and I do want to
create a number of values, we dowant to have a distinct culture
and values is a level of cultureof the three levels, that's
probably the level we can workbest at. So by identifying our
values is a good first step, wecan then create them into norms.
What you're just saying now,which is that the interpretation
(39:25):
of values are very different indifferent cultures. How do I
then still maintain that I wantto create a company culture
across the globe? whileunderstanding that there are
different interpretations ofthat? How does that work?
Fons Trompenaars (39:41):
Let me give an answer with an anecdote.
Morten Andersen (39:43):
Fantastic.
Fons Trompenaars (39:44):
I was called to three years ago by a company
I can mention the name we'vepublished about it. CDP que esta
de poder plasmonic avec one ofthe big investment funds in in
Quebec in Canada, and the headof HR a wonderful lady who knows
Stock said font, we followedsome of your articles. And we
(40:04):
introduced the yin and yangvalues. I said, Why? Now because
we in 2008, were killed by ourvalue. I said, Tell me more now,
you know, financial crisis 2008.
We had three values, ambition,innovation, collaboration, we
follow those values, and we wereproud of them. So ambition meant
that we took too many risks.
(40:26):
Collaboration meant that wecould hold nobody accountable.
And innovation meant that wedidn't understand our own
financial products anymore. Ourvalues killed us. We lost in a
week time 50 billion, have aportfolio of 450 by the way, so
not too bad.
Morten Andersen (40:42):
Not too bad, actually, in the prices now. And
Fons Trompenaars (40:44):
then we were on zoom. She sent me three
pictures on that share screen.
And there were three elevatorswith two doors each. On one
door, it said ambition on thedoor other door, it said prudent
on one door, it said innovationon the other door discipline, or
rigor rigor on one door, it saidcollaboration on the other door,
(41:05):
it's an individualaccountability. Wow. Yeah,
sounds people love it. So we areenriching our values with its
opposite. But I call you false.
Because how do we make thisreal? How do we make this basic
assumptions because people loveit. And we respect our own
(41:26):
values. Now any valuedisconnected from its opposite
leads or has the risk of leadingto a pathology. And like I said,
individual lism withoutcollectivity becomes egoism,
collectivity without individualsbecomes communism. And I can do
that with any value. So anyorganization that has values I
(41:46):
say, and what about theopposite? Now, what we have done
to make this real? We have askedthe question, first, we started
with the board. And it's noteasy, by the way, but good
things are not easy. We havesaid, What can I do with rigor
to make our company moreinnovative? What can I do with
(42:07):
prudence to be more ambitious?
What can I ask these questions?
And what behavior do I want toshow in this theme? By the way,
this is called values tobehavior in an intact team, so
that you end up with a charterof behavior, which shows how you
combine one value with theother, okay? In the beginning,
(42:28):
there was sweating, and this wasthe board, not stupid people,
but it's not easy. But once youhave it and the CEO says, he
said, I am a non executivedirector of Cirque du Soleil.
And we found out that the peoplein the trapeze didn't want to
take more risk. Their ambitionwas leveling, we have made them
(42:49):
head of the task force for newsafety net. And since they
trusted the safety net, theytook more risk, and they felt
less in the training. So funny.
prudence will help you to getmore ambition. And then he said,
this is a metaphor, I want youto think what in our bank are
the safety net, in order for usto be more ambitious? And then
(43:10):
people came out, you know, andthat's another learning in in
dilemma reconciliation. We oftenuse metaphors, you know, what is
the best metaphor that workseverywhere? No. is the family
Yes, your father and mother ofkids, all the dilemmas, rules
versus exceptions, individualversus family, showing emotions
(43:31):
being neutral, blah, blah, blah,blah, are all there in the
family and then look at what aservant leadership, the best for
is a good father or mother, youare there to serve your kids.
And it's not for yourself, it'sto make them perform better. And
what means sometimes you'retough, and sometimes you caress
(43:51):
them, and you play the swappinggame. Yes. So you're tough in
the context of unconditionallove, that is servant
leadership.
Morten Andersen (44:04):
I guess what I hear you say is it is possible
to have a company culture,across national cultures,
obviously, they will be affectedby the national culture, but it
is, however, a strong corporateculture that is mindful of their
natural culture, as well asstill having something which is
uniquely theirs.
Fons Trompenaars (44:24):
Completely and modern, again, you're in the
same field. For me, thedefinition of corporate culture
is the end result of competingvalues fighting for preference.
Every culture has a fightbetween long term vision short
term results. If one valuedominates its opposite, you run
(44:45):
a risk or you're lessperforming. Once you have
reconciled short term and longterm or push and pull. You
mentioned it. You are highperforming and more innovative.
Morten Andersen (44:55):
Yes.
Fons Trompenaars (44:56):
And so the role of cultural change is to
introduce the company with itsopposite. And the quality of
leadership is to facilitate thatprocess. Yes. So if you are
Philips are Dutch company, andyou go for Bush, all the
patterns come from Phyllis. Butthe money was made by Sony who
(45:17):
said thank you, Phyllis for theinvention, we will make it into
something close to the customer.
Then Phillips did the setup adesign company does Oh, let's
invite Italian designers becausethey're full of dazed, blah,
blah, blah, blah. But they nevertalked to each other. So dad,
and and not through through. Nowthey're in another business.
(45:39):
They're more in health. But thepoint is, can we make dilemma
reconciliation, a process? Thatis the essence of managing
change, namely, enriching thecompany culture by its opposite,
rather than throwing it away?
but also as a good leader? Whatis not a dilemma?And what is it
(46:00):
another
Morten Andersen (46:00):
fantastic lesson, I think we could
continue this conversation forhours and hours. It's really,
really fascinating. And I thinkthere is not one of our
listeners who are not engagedwith some kind of cultural, I
wouldn't say conflict, but atleast management because they're
working with in differentorganizations or with people
from different countries ordifferent backgrounds. So thanks
(46:23):
a lot for this conversation. Ithink your work is phenomenal. I
remember, I read your book,Riding the Waves of Culture. I
think I read it in early 2000s.
I think it's from 97 orsomething. It's coming out in
the fourth edition.Now is thatcorrect?
Fons Trompenaars (46:39):
Yeah. Very soon. around December, January.
Morten Andersen (46:42):
Yeah, right.
Okay. Fantastic. And I just willurge anyone to read it, because
it is a phenomenal book still.
So so thanks a lot. Thanks, alot. conversation. Thanks a lot
for taking the time to speakwith me. I really, really
appreciate that.
Fons Trompenaars (46:54):
Yeah. And Morten, there is a little free
app that we have launchedrecently. And it's called the
COVID-19 resilience app. Andwhat we have done is we have
done work on what are thedilemmas created by the
pandemic. And I like the bigdata metadata lemma is health
versus economy. Yes. And usethat those who choose for the
(47:16):
economy have a problem withhealth. Yes, those who choose
for health have a problem withthe economy. It is the asking
the question, What can I do withthe economy to make our society
more healthy, and vice versa?
Simple example, if you are infashion, you make a face mask
for 60 euros, that is washable,helps you in health and making
(47:38):
turnover for the fashioncompany. Simple example. And and
we have a little app that thatends in what are your dilemmas
on the individual level, and onyour societal level. And we are
now into ann app on new ways ofworking because the result of
dealing with these dilemmas, hasan effect on organizations. And
(48:00):
digital versus analog is anotherdilemma that hopefully we can be
helpful in at least giving you afree analysis of where you are
as either an organization or oran individual.
Morten Andersen (48:15):
Fantastic. I'll put a link to that in our show
notes. So please, the listenergo in and look for that. That
sounds like a fantastic app. Soagain, thank you very much for
your time here. I reallyappreciate that. And good
speaking with you
Fons Trompenaars (48:29):
same here Morten, it was a pleasure to be
interviewed by you.
Morten Andersen (48:33):
Thank you very much. I think cultures so
interesting and what a greatconversation with Fons. I took
three things away from theinterview. One, you can measure
culture, you can think ofcultures having three levels,
the explicit, which is theobservable reality of language,
(48:56):
buildings, houses, food,fashions, customs and art. In
other words, it's predominantlythe products of the culture. The
second layer is the norms andvalues, the norms are the rights
and wrongs. The values, on theother hand, is the good and bad.
And finally, the third layer isthe underlying assumptions of
(49:17):
the people in the culture. Thislevel is no longer conscious.
And people are not constantlyquestioning this level and
they've become self evident forthe people in the culture.
Anyway, these three levels canbe measured on seven dimensions
to describe the culture twodilemma resolution is the way to
(49:37):
understand each other and moveforward despite cultural
differences. This was reallyfascinating. So we all share
dilemmas. So across cultures, werecognize a dilemma. We share
them, but how we solve thedilemmas are different. So will
you lie in court to save afriend? Well, that will be a yes
(49:58):
in some cultures and no inothers. And it is through those
dilemma resolutions that weunderstand differences and can
start the journey to understandeach other. And third, when you
want to change a culture startwith the business issues, not
the culture. Fons warns us notto do big cultural projects in
organizations, they rarely work.
He says, instead, start with abusiness issues because your
(50:22):
share them, and then use thedilemmas and the dilemma
resolution workshops to resolvedilemmas as they occur, and
through them understand and workwith a culture. You can change
your culture, you can build auniform culture within an
organization, but don't make itinto a big culture project. Fons
(50:42):
has made a great TEDx talk,where he talks about growing up
in a multi culture familyworking with cultures many, many
years and why dilemmas are soimportant. It's fun, it's
enlightening, which is my kindof talks. So I will encourage
you all to check it out. Enjoythat one. Until next time, take
(51:05):
care
Hello, and welcome to What Monkeys Do. My
name is Morten Kamp Andersen.
And this is a podcast about whatit takes to make a change and
make it stick.
Peter Drucker said that cultureeats strategy for breakfast. And
what he meant was that if thereis a difference between what an
(00:27):
organization wants to achieveand its culture, well then
culture will prevail. This isalso true for individuals,
although at a slightly differentlevel. So if you want to set out
to do something, or changesomething, which is against your
core values or unconsciousbelief, well, then you will
probably not succeed. Butculture is more than just
(00:49):
succeeding with a strategy. It'salso about how do we work well
together? And how do weunderstand the world
differently? The world hasbecome a lot more diverse, and
we must understand each otherwell, to work well together. But
what is culture? And how do webest understand our own and
(01:10):
other's culture? And how do wenavigate well in different
cultures? Well, let's find outin this episode of What Monkeys
Do. My guest today is one of thegreat business thinkers and
writers of the last 40 years. Hewas voted top five management
consultant next to MichaelPorter and Tom Peters in 99. And
(01:30):
in 2017, he was inducted intothe thinker's 50 Hall of Fame.
He earned his PhD from Wharton,he has founded the tht
consultancy company. It's anintercultural management firm,
and has spent over the last 30years helping fortune 500
leaders manage and solve theirbusiness and cultural dilemmas.
(01:52):
He's written several books, butno doubt my favorite is Riding
the Waves of Culture, which isabout to be published in its
fourth edition now, it has soldover 200,000 copies, and is the
book that really put culture inbusiness on the map. Welcome to
you Fons Trompenaars.
Fons Trompenaars (02:09):
Thank you more than a pleasure.
Morten Andersen (02:11):
Pleasure.
Great. So this episode is aboutculture, especially national
cultures. And culture is such abig theme. But let's try to see
if we can break it down. Butbefore we do that, I just want
to hear from you Fons. Can youtell us a little bit about your
background and how you gotinvolved with culture work?
Fons Trompenaars (02:30):
Yes, Morten. I very often start by saying I was
born out of a French mother anda Dutch father doesn't make you
Belgian. But it gives you abackground of cultural
sensitivity. But very implicit,you're not conscious about it.
But you get experiences in inParis, and you get experiences
in Amsterdam, where my parentscame from. And then I was,
(02:52):
luckily enough having a greatopportunity after my economics
degree, to go for the EuropeanInstitute of Advanced Studies in
management. And then this was acommunity of professors who were
asked amongst other things, toselect students to do a PhD. So
immediately I went to the US atWharton, which I never heard of.
(03:14):
But I came at Wharton, I said,Wow, what a fantastic
environment. And this was in 79.
I did my PhD work on a empiricalresearch to support my
conceptual analysis of how doescorporate culture affects
national culturesinterpretations? And how does
national culture producecorporate culture? In other
(03:38):
words, why would a manager inGermany be called her doctor,
Professor, Doctor Doctor? Well,in America, you hide your title,
because they might find out youhave thought about a subject,
which is the end of yourcarreer, it's quite interesting
that in this world, I got theopportunity to test all my stuff
in the environment of shell, Idid my empirical research
(04:05):
comparing 10 refineries ofshell. And I joined shell and in
the time, I was joining shelffor about eight years till the
end of the 80s. I did do work inHR, and really looking at why
does something work in theNetherlands that because it's an
Anglo Dutch company, and itdoesn't work in France? And
obviously, the answer is simple.
(04:28):
Nothing works in France. It'squite interesting to see the
dilemma between what you do fromheadquarters, and we need to
standardize and why very goodreason. Because people in Shell
move a lot International. So youneed some consistency between
the borders. On the other hand,you're still working in a French
(04:50):
environment or in a Polishenvironment, or in an American
environment. So I was happy totest a bit, that that stuff and
in In the meantime, I'vepopularized my PhD, which is
kind of academic talk intoRiding the Waves of Culture.
Hmm. That at least got us offthe hook of marketing, because
(05:11):
people read the book and say,That's interesting. Can you help
us? The first day of my work? Imet Charles Hamilton theater, by
phone, by the way, because whyhead of group planning for the
Netherlands? That font? Have youread this article? It's called a
tale of two paradigms ininternal magazine for Shell. And
(05:33):
it was written by Charles andLynn Turner, and it compared
east and Western culture andwhat it meant for Shell. I was
so impressed by that article,because he didn't only explain
the differences, but he went farbeyond it, namely, how do you
reconcile it? Yes. So simpleexample, is, the western mind
(05:54):
is, yeah, a Shell stationservice station gives you
gasoline, that's called aspecific culture. But in the
East, they treat you as amessenger that happens to need
gasoline that's diffused. And hesaid, how should the shell
(06:18):
service station look like ifpeople travel internationally.
And I'm not only talking aboutAsians versus what the nurse,
but I'm talking about, ingeneral, that a French and a,
check passenger in the carenough, and the shell shop at
the time, and this is 40 yearsago. 82, to be precise, is a
(06:41):
person that was served in a muchbroader sense, and it has
gasoline, and it was a shellshop, which I was impressed by
that way of thinking. So I wroteCharles, can we work
together?and john said, phones,send me your thesis. And a week
later, he called me back andsaid, funds, I think we can work
together because I reconciledall your dilemmas, said What the
(07:04):
hell is this guy talking about?
And he told me Fons, I wasafraid you were another Dutchman
to put the world on bipolarscales, namely, and I said, What
the hell is this guy talkingabout? He said, Now Fons, I see
you don't understand. And wedidn't have zoom. So it was all
by voice. And he, he said Fons?
(07:25):
If you are an individualist atthe cost of the community,
you're an egoist, and it doesn'twork. You are a collectivist at
the cost of the individual.
Which by the way yourquestionnaire assumes, then
you're a communist and itdoesn't work. Yes. So if both
ends of your scale don't work,why don't you try to combine
(07:45):
them? Because great societiestake care of excellent
individuals. And excellentindividuals are only excellent
when they give it back tosociety. Now that took me 15
years, really make it my ownwhat's called dilemma
reconciliation. So long story,but then I went into training
(08:06):
consulting, and and here we arestill doing the same and
teaching a bit.
Morten Andersen (08:13):
So dilemma reconciliation, does that mean
that we have two differentcultures and in order for them
to meet, you have to find acommon path or a common way to
understand both of thosecultures?
Fons Trompenaars (08:25):
Very much so.
And it is not only that we needto be aware of these
differences, which is aboutpreferences, but at the end of
the day to say but how can wematch to do for a better future?
Yes. An example is if you are anHR manager, and you're worried
about reward systems, then youcan say, Hey, I measured this is
more an individualistic group,the Americans, and you're
(08:47):
working together in aninternational team with the
Japanese, more collective. Andyou have a Dutchman that is a
bit like it doesn't reallymatter. As long as you avoid
taxes in that diversity. What doyou do, if you're in America,
you give an individual bonus, ifyou're in Japan, you give a
collective bonus, no problem.
(09:09):
But either if you move people orif you have multicultural teams,
which becomes the norm of thefuture, you might need a dilemma
that is reconciled. And what wedid in Shell By the way, where
we had this issue, we said 50%of the variable pay will go to
individuals. And there are onlyone criteria, who's the best
(09:30):
team player and we give teamsthe other 50% on the basis of
what they can show they havedone to make individuals Excel.
Now this is calledCooerpetition. You individually
compete to better cooperate, andyou cooperate to better
individually compete. And thatis the type of stuff we're doing
in our work.
Morten Andersen (09:51):
There's so many things in what you're saying
that I would like to dig deeperinto, but I think I'll just take
one step back and just saybecause now we're talking about
culture as we're talking Aboutthe same thing like everybody
knows what we're talking about.
But maybe we can just start bydefining what does culture mean?
What is culture because I have afeeling that most people
understand that culture isimportant. I also hear leaders
saying culture is reallyimportant. But when you then
(10:13):
come to speak about what it is,people get in all sorts of
directions. So could you maybeset the scene a little bit? What
is culture? Sure,
Fons Trompenaars (10:23):
let me start by quoting a book by Kroger and
glucagon, and I forgot thetitle, but the subtitle was the
250 definitions of gotcha. Okay.
1961. So I'm sure with all theseconsultants, we now have 400 of
them. What I love and mostinspired by Ed Schein, Ed Schein
says culture is multi layered.
(10:45):
On the outside, we have anexplicit culture, it's the way
we show ourselves, do we wear atie or not, you know, what type
of language we speak, what isthe food we eat, but be careful,
you might eat similar food fordifferent reasons. So you have
to go one layer deeper. And thatis the most used definition of
(11:06):
culture, the shared systems ofnorms and values. values are
shared orientations are what wedefine as what we like to do, we
desire and norms are sharedorientations are what we should
do. Now, a child says sobeautifully when you start
liking what you should do, whenvalues become norms, it slips
(11:30):
out of consciousness. And itbecomes a basic assumption. In
the core, it's implicit, youcan't see it, you can't smell
it. Even for people who have it,you only find out in your
culture shock, that it's it'sthe world has taken for granted.
An example. oxygen, oxygen is avalue, you all need oxygen. Hmm.
(11:52):
But it has become a norm ifyou're healthy. That's called
breathing. When the valuebecomes a norm, it slips out of
consciousness. I don't thinkevery five to 10 seconds, we are
aware of the fact that we needoxygen. You only find out if you
come in a room where there'snone. Yes. And now that's called
culture shock. That multilayered, we call it an onion
(12:15):
model. And when you unpeel it,it makes you cry. Yeah. No, that
is a bit the model. Now, if youwant a definition on this,
culture is a shared orientationof people in how to approach
problems that very often come toyou as dilemmas. Hmm. So the
(12:37):
dilemmas are human. The way weapproach the dilemma is
cultural. And that's what Ilearned from john. So to ask the
question, yeah, but why arevalues and norms different? Why,
our basic assumptions different.
It's because of a problem calledlack of oxygen, and lack of
oxygen used our breathing. Andif it works, it slips out of
(12:59):
consciousness.
Morten Andersen (13:02):
So probably one of the best ways to try to
identify so when you pose peoplewith dilemmas, then you can in
that thinking, you can see howthey approach it differently
also reached a differentconclusion. Why do they do that
is because they have differentnorms, some of them different
values, but different norms,some of them they were not even
(13:22):
aware of, or didn't even thinkthat other people could think of
those dilemmas in a differentway. And it's those dilemmas
where you can get thedifferences out in the open most
is that
Fons Trompenaars (13:32):
correct?
completely correct. The main,let's say Super Value of
humanity is the urge to survive.
And that has to do with ourfight with nature. It's very
paradoxical, because ifsomething is not go to its
nature, yes, yes. Oh, DNA isnature is not God. Okay. But
it's very paradoxical becausenature has the biggest effect on
(13:55):
our survival issue. So if youlook at the values and
behaviors, that behaviors isexplicit, the values are a bit
of a deeper layer. And the basicassumptions of the Dutch, for
example, or the Danes are aboutour fight with water. So we very
often ask ourselves, orespecially foreigners, why do
(14:15):
the Dutch have such an urge? Tofind consensus? Hmm. As a value
that involves people in decisionmaking? It's because we had to
find water and you can onlysurvive in a very low land. If
you have consensus about how tofight this water, or big
philosophical books. And why areAmericans so legalistic, is
(14:39):
because Americans withinAmerica, very mobile, and very
mobile, because of the bigspace, go west, whatever time to
develop a relationship youtrust. If you won't trust a
relationship, you need a lawyerto put it on paper so that if
the relationship is broken, youstill have consistency. paper.
(15:00):
So, there are always reasons whycultures are what they are and
that is surviving, developingcertain behaviors at work. So,
the values if it works becomes anorm, and therefore a basis. So,
Morten Andersen (15:17):
there are three layers of culture there is the
explicit the things we can goand see feel touch, there is the
second level, which is thevalues and norms, which is
somewhat visible, but probablyeasier to distinguish if you ask
people or observe people ormaybe even post them with
dilemmas. And then you have thebasic assumptions, which is the
(15:40):
core the center or epoca shinesthe the iceberg where it's
really deep. So, it is veryinvisible, difficult to, to
find, and you probably have tofind out how it is but, but it's
it's it's the basic assumptions.
I don't
Fons Trompenaars (15:55):
want to interrupt but it's easy to find
out. And I learned this from JimCollins, it's the five why
method asked why. And fromCollingwood, I remember in his
essay on metaphysics, if you aska couple of times why and people
become irritated, you like tohit them on an absolute
(16:16):
presupposition. When other wordsfor basic assumption.
Morten Andersen (16:19):
Okay, so it is possible to find out the basic
assumptions, one of the thingsthat I often hear from leaders
is that they get that culture isimportant. They hear it, they've
read it in Harvard BusinessReview for many, many years.
They want to deal with it, butit's somehow too soft, or it's
too intangible or too difficultto work with. And you have found
(16:41):
a way to some dimensions thatyou can describe a culture on,
can you can you explain them?
Fons Trompenaars (16:48):
Sure, we have done research, starting with
Hoffs data. But that was at thetime I was studying offset of
four dimensions. People saidthat, but that's not enough, you
miss this, and you missed that.
So I did my own research, andcombined a whole lot of people
and said, Oh, it's, in fact, ourrelationship with other human
beings, our relationship withtime, and our relationship with
(17:12):
nature. And I came up with sevendimensions, five in the area of
your relationships, and thentime and age. So if I go through
the five, it is, and I'll giveyou also the let's say,
dignified version. The first oneis universal versus particular,
the easier language is do yourather go for rules or
(17:37):
exceptions? So you have coachesthat say use the rule and you
follow it? And you have culturesays yeah, I know there are
rules, but I'm exceptional,which we call the particularist.
I don't have to dumb down thesecond one the most used
dimensioning culture are youmore individualistic or group
oriented? And do you start withyour first name and then the
(17:58):
family name? Or do you startwith the family name and then
the first name or do you writeit with a capital letter or not?
Yeah, signals of individualcollective then the third one is
what do we do with our emotions?
Are you neutral, you haveemotions, but you don't show
them or are you effective? Andthen it much more an expressive
(18:22):
culture? Hmm. The most difficultone to explain but but let me
try is specific versus diffuse,specific culture is a culture
that focuses is analytic. And adiffuse culture is a culture
that is holistic. So an exampleis when I got my PhD in America,
(18:42):
they called me Dr. Trump andours in the university, but I
was introduced to similar peopleand suddenly at the barbecue I
was fonds. Why, because therelationship is specific at the
university, you have this role.
And at the barbecue, you haveanother role and you change even
your title and your first name.
How about that? In Germany,which is much more diffuse? You
(19:06):
are your title?
Morten Andersen (19:07):
Yes, well,
Fons Trompenaars (19:08):
you will have a doctor at the barbecue. Your
hair doctor in the university,you're even a doctor at work.
You buy a steak at the butcherfor the barbecue. Good
nominator, Doctor, you're alonegood Navajo doctor, where are
the little doctors? Everythingis doctor and that is a diffuse
go. Yes, there is specificversus diffuse. The fifth one is
(19:29):
what gives people status isstatus based on your
achievements. Or is statusgiving you by birth? Are you
male, female? Are you young orold? What is the type of family
you're coming from? That iscalled ascription vocalized
status based on what you dostatus based on who you are.
(19:51):
Those are the five in humanrelationships then time we
distinguish three elements butin fact, you could say we have
nine dimensions but Time isabout are you more past
oriented, present orientedfuture oriented? from Edward
hall? Are you monotonic orpolychronic? And are you short
term or long term
Morten Andersen (20:12):
oriented?
Fons Trompenaars (20:13):
And then finally, in nature? Do you want
to control nature or theenvironment? Or is the
environment controlling you letgo the locus of control, those
are the seven if you like ninedimensions, where we categorize
people. And we have translatedthose nine dimensions in for
(20:34):
corporate culture models, butthat's a footnote,
Morten Andersen (20:36):
okay? By applying that tool, you can you
can understand your own culture,but also compare it with another
culture to see the differenceson different dimensions. And
that will explain how youinterpret and see the world and
respond to dilemmas in differentways.
Fons Trompenaars (20:55):
Yes, we have made on a floppy disk in 1985.
Yeah, it came out with a videoon culture. Thank you very much.
I was young. It's interesting,the floppy, depending on your
own individual profile, we gavea little questionnaire, well,
what is your own individualprofile on those seven
(21:17):
dimensions. And then you couldchoose a country where we have
empirical data of about 50countries. And it didn't matter
if you were if you touch Japan,or India, if you score lower, or
if you get the same feedback. Becareful, we sign a good
contract. And, and we said thisis too vulgar. So we now have
(21:38):
developed the last five years,and it took a long time a an app
called Culture for Business.
Yeah, you find it on ourwebsite. It's interesting,
because depending on the Delta,between your individual score on
the seven dimensions, and thecountry of choice, you get
different tips in meetings,negotiation and managing. So you
(21:58):
have to go beyond Oh, in Italy,you do this? And in France, you
do that? And in Denmark, you dothis? No, it depends on your own
profile. Yes. Because I don'twant to give an American dealing
with things, the sameinformation or tips as Japanese.
(22:20):
No. And and so awareness isfine, but you need to go beyond
it.
Morten Andersen (22:29):
And the scary thing is that, with that story,
many of our listeners will notknow what a floppy disk is. And
I'm very, very vividly butthere's a difference in in age,
rather than culture
Fons Trompenaars (22:41):
was when windows was not yet existed.
Morten Andersen (22:55):
So when I was 23, I moved from Denmark to
England to work. I lived therefor 11 years. And the funny
thing was that I learned a lotmore about Denmark when I moved
to England, because then I couldcompare the culture that I was
living in. And it was probablymuch easier for me to understand
the culture in Denmark, lookingat it, as I experienced the
(23:15):
English culture, is thatsomething you see that that's
it, that's a good way to learnabout a culture is to, to move
away from your own culture, andthen you you learn more about
it. It's it's very important,
Fons Trompenaars (23:25):
I think the main role of us is to understand
your own culture first. Cultureis about differences. And to
experience difference, you needto know where you are coming
from. And the way to do that isgoing through culture shock. In
what you assume that let's goback to the basic assumptions,
is what you took for granted,which is another word for basic
(23:48):
assumption is certainly nottaken for granted. Right? And an
example and correct me if I'mwrong, you found out more than
how direct the Danes arecompared to English. Yes. But
you never knew you thought youwere normal. I would like to
Dutch you love to insult people.
Let me tell you the truth. Yes.
Morten Andersen (24:09):
I beat around the bush. Let's Let's just be
straightforward here. And let metell you what I think here. That
did not work. Well.
Fons Trompenaars (24:15):
No, if you're in England, obviously, you say
you have an interesting face.
And then what are the days wouldyou say you're ugly? And they'll
be tell you why.
Morten Andersen (24:23):
Exactly. The teams I worked in at that time
was very diverse. So Denmark wasat that time, practically very
uniform. London was a meltingpot of different cultures. I was
different age groups, differenteducational backgrounds,
different religious backgrounds,obviously different genders and
everything. So very, verydiverse. And that's becoming
(24:45):
more than norm now. And I have afeeling that after this
pandemic, there will be morediversity because now, space and
place where you work reallydoesn't matter that much because
we can use soom much more. So myquestion is how can you use Use
cultural insights to make thosediverse teams work better.
Fons Trompenaars (25:05):
Great point, Morten. Yes, I fully agree. In
Amsterdam, we now have 53% ofpeople living here that don't
have Dutch parents. So the normbecomes diversity. I saw a sign
in, in Miami, which as we speakEnglish here, interesting in an
American state. Yeah. And on topof that, we have created a
(25:26):
diversity of diversity. You getin the, let's say, labor
systems, more females workingthan in the past, you get more
young people that have somethingto contribute to the to the
labor system. Now, if you havean American female of age 23,
and talks to an old male inGhana, what is causing the
(25:47):
problem? Is it age is a gender?
Is it nationality? And on top ofthat, the dynamics between the
three? Well, what we havelearned is that if you want to
take advantage of culturaldiversity, don't start with
culture. Start with yourbusiness issues. Your what is
the issue, and then it doesn'tmatter if it comes from being
(26:07):
Ghanese, or American, or male,female or young, old. Who cares?
It might be helpful, because youmight say, Yeah, but this is
this is typically Ghanese andAmerican, right could be. But
the issue in in diverseenvironments, where all these
things come together, is thatit's very difficult to just
(26:28):
explain cultural differences,and then leave the room and say
good luck, no help people inreconciling the dilemmas on the
table, and be aware of the factthat it might be caused by the
diversity. And that increases anenormous amount of respect,
because in our method of dilemmareconciliation, we have a step
called stretching, where bothparties need to say, what is the
(26:51):
plus of your side? And the minusof your side? And what is the
plus of the other side and theminus of the other side? So you
get a balanced view. And thathelps tremendously in respecting
each other. And then thequestion, What can your side
help us with the other side? Somay I run example, otherwise,
it's all abstract. If you are arepresentative of headquarters,
(27:15):
with the subculture of yourcompany, of headquarters
culture, we need to standardizewe are there for the
shareholders. And we need tomake sure that everybody listens
to us, versus the local culture,which has Yeah, but we are
different. And we have intimaterelationship with the client.
And you don't understandanything of it at headquarters.
(27:37):
You know, this,
Morten Andersen (27:40):
yes.
Fons Trompenaars (27:41):
If you're a lousy leader, you will say let's
make a choice. Are we local? Orare we global, and you have them
in one room? Now, a good leaderwould say, this is a dilemma,
because we need both. Well, Iwould like to ask all of you,
what can we do locally, to makethe company more global? And
(28:02):
what can we do from headquartersglobally, that serves your local
customer better? Now? That'sdilemma reconciliation. And that
is combining opposites. And youcome with answers like, Oh,
yeah, what we could do issharing best local practices,
combined them in next practices,which we then globalize, yes.
(28:24):
And globally. Oh, you know, whatwe could do is have projects
where people from headquartersgo locally to understand what is
happening locally. And we'll getback globally. That went got
enough stuff. Yeah.
Morten Andersen (28:39):
So if I understand it, right, so let's
say that I'm a manager of a veryglobal team, you're essentially
saying, Let's not focus on thecultural differences. First,
let's focus on the businessissues, and a way to work
together, it might be a usefulthing to have a cultural
introduction. So there is anunderstanding that there are
cultural differences. Butessentially, you take dilemmas
(29:00):
and then you look at thosedilemmas and you look at how you
approach them differently. Andthen through a workshop try to
find reconciliations betweenthose dilemmas. So you take the
best from both worlds, so tospeak, in not a compromise, but
in a in a win win solution. Andthat is how you work well with
(29:20):
cultural differences. Is thatcorrect?
Fons Trompenaars (29:22):
Completely.
Greg Morton, what you justdescribed is the essence of
innovation. Innovation isbringing together values that
you never thought could bejoined, therefore scarce
therefore profitable. So if youtake Apple, what have they
combined? They've combined thevalue of aesthetics, with the
value of functionality, what itmakes more than an end. Because
people say oh, what you mean isnot either or it's and and no,
(29:47):
it's through through because andand is you have a department
aesthetics and you have adepartment engineering, for
functionality, but they nevertalk to each other. In Apple,
every engineer will say yes itworks. Can we make it beautiful?
And every designer will say,yeah, it's beautiful. Does it
have a function? Oh, it take theplate of an iPhone or an iPad?
(30:10):
It's beautiful because itdoesn't have a frame. Because it
doesn't have a frame. It'sfunctional because you don't
break your nails. While swipingit. Yes. So beauty has become
functional Formula One, thedilemma, the value tension is
speed and safety. Now thequestion that every engineer in
Formula One to ask, how can weuse the speed to make the car
(30:34):
more safe? way to make a carsafe is easy. You take off the
wheels, hypogene, you losespeed. You can make the car very
speedy yet but you lose safety.
But if you go into thatquestions, answer, how can we
use speed to make the car moresafe? You're in aerodynamics? Mm
hmm. By going faster, you havemore downforce, right? That is
(30:59):
dilemma reconciliation. And theproblem in this world is that
most of our models suck,including cultural models,
because they don't invite us toreconcile. If you take Europe,
psychology is more than amongstmany other things, right? Yes.
Myers Briggs, the most usedpsychological test? How awful
can it be? Then if you scorehigh on thinking, you score low
(31:22):
on feeling? Yes. What kind ofidiot has developed this?
Because if you are thinkingwithout feeling you're a robot,
if you are feeling withoutthinking you're a neurotic, it
has, and both don't work. Sogreat leaders frame their
feelings by their thinking andtest their thinking, by their
(31:45):
feeling. Which questionnairemeasures that the combination of
both did you score under one andundid on the
Morten Andersen (31:52):
other? Now, this
Fons Trompenaars (31:53):
is just one example. But all our models,
including cultural models, Igave the example in the
beginning. If you're anindividualist, you score low on
collectivism, what kind ofnonsense is that? Yes, if you're
centralized, you score low on
Morten Anders (32:07):
decentralization, I can see some phenomenal
insights that you can get thefirst, just by understanding
going through the dilemmas willgive an enormous insight into my
own way of thinking, but alsohow that is different from
others. And the reconciliationmust be a fantastic process
where you, as you say, probablycreate your innovation by coming
(32:29):
to a completely new a new step.
I guess the first step of all ofthis is to recognize that your
perspective is as good as mine,that mine is not better than
yours, that there's no right orwrong answer here. Sometimes you
will enter a room where there'llbe some people thinking, they
are wrong, I'm right. How do yousoften that view?
Fons Trompenaars (32:50):
That? That's a very deep question. First of
all, to recognize that we sharethings despite our different
preferences. Hmm. So very often,Myers Briggs, defense, bipolar
models defense, is we talk aboutpreference we know you have to
end with one has preference overthe other in writing, yes, or in
(33:16):
touching whatever, right. But weare in the world of clapping.
Once you realize that in theworld of clapping, the dominance
of your hand disappears becauseit's about coordination. Now,
Charles, my job as an attorneyhas taught me that if we
understand that the dilemmas arehuman, that we all share the
same dynamics, but that weapproach the learners
(33:37):
differently, or that makes yourelax tremendously. I even wrote
a book with the title, did thepedestrian die, you're working
in a car driven by a closefriend of yours, your friend is
going 50 kilometers an hourwhere you're allowed to go 30
and your friend hits apedestrian, you've gone to court
and the lawyer of your friendsays Don't worry, you're the
(33:58):
only witness two questions whatis the right of your friend to
expect you to live for Him?
Second question is would you lieYes or no? Now, I very often
asked this, by the way, in ourquestionnaire, this is the first
question. Now we have a databaseof another 40,000 people who
filled it in. And we know theanswers. I asked the question
also in workshop, who would liketo be in this situation? And
(34:23):
I've never met a person whoraised their hand and said,
wonderful situation to be thenout dry. Now they use other
words, but they say it's adilemma. And it doesn't matter
if you're in South Korea, inNigeria, in America or in
Denmark, people tend to say thisis a dilemma. I said, Why? Oh,
because we all want to helpfriends. But at the same time,
(34:45):
we all have something with thetruth.
Morten Andersen (34:49):
Yes.
Fons Trompenaars (34:50):
Then I look at the answers. And I do this by
memory. 92% of the American saymy friend has no right or some
right and I will not To help bylying, by the way, 95% of the
Swiss, I think the 5% of theFrench speaking, and we have 32%
in Venezuela. Now the rich hereis that Americans they are you
(35:13):
see, the Venezuelans arecorrupt, because you've got to
trust them, they always helptheir friends. Did I did a
workshop in Venezuela. And aVenezuelan told me, thank you,
Mr. Trump, and I knew theAmericans are corrupt, say why
you can't talk, they won't evenhave that friend. So what I'm
doing with this is to make anyvalue ridiculous, because what
(35:34):
you need is to combine them.
Now, let me finish the story byreconciliation, you know, that
Americans 10 years ago haveinvented that if you don't have
values, you write them on thewall, there was a club where you
worked with in Morristown, NewJersey, they had that training
center. And obviously, that fivevalues American company
(35:56):
financial services, and two ofthem were the following. One was
integrity. So I asked inMorristown, the top 50 of that
company, how does integrity helpyou to reconcile the or to give
the correct answer to the caraccident dilemma, and there was
an American who stood up as aMr. Trump and as I lost you, if
(36:19):
you have integrity, you will notlie. And by the way, if you have
integrity, your friend will notexpect you to lie. There was a
reason in the room? Who said,john, I disagree. How can you
have integrity and not help yourfriend. And here the dilemma was
back again, they had a secondvalue. We respect the culture of
(36:39):
others. I said, Take these twovalues, as a company worldwide.
And you have a multiculturalteam, whether it's an American,
a Korean, a Dane, a Dutch,Italian, at one table, and
you're having a discussion aboutyour corporate values. What
would you do in order to use thevalues to give the correct
(37:03):
answer to the car accident?
dilemma? Yes. And it is deadsilent. What you have to respect
the green view, you have torespect the American view. And
like you said, in your earlierquestion, now, what I learned in
Japan is very often that theysay, our option is not on your
(37:25):
list. In Japan, what we will dois we will test the strength of
our friendship by asking ourfriend to tell the truth and God
Himself. So we can talk to thejudge to lower the sentence for
his courage. And what I like ofthis answer is there is a
dilemma between the friend andthe truth. And instead of
(37:46):
choosing between the two, whichare models, as you, as you crack
the line, you have a Y and an Xaxis, where one axis says
friendship, and the other axissays truth. And you want to have
the if the British 1010, the1010 answer, namely, how can I
connect the friend to the truth,and that comes back to perhaps
(38:10):
the meta value of what we'retalking about. And that is
integrity. If you look at theetymological dictionary, and you
look up integrity, and manydefinitions, by the way, but
it's always about wholeness. Andthe one I like most is integrity
is creating holders, through theintegration of opposites. And
(38:30):
that was done here. And it isworking in every culture. And
you will see what works in everyculture are funny labels,
because our language cannotcapture the so for example, co
op petition, you individuallycompete to better cooperate, you
cooperate to have individualsbetter compete, servant
(38:51):
leadership, it is how can I leadfrom top down to listen to
people serving, bottom up? Yes,etc, etc.
Morten Andersen (39:03):
So if I'm an organization, and I do want to
create a number of values, we dowant to have a distinct culture
and values is a level of cultureof the three levels, that's
probably the level we can workbest at. So by identifying our
values is a good first step, wecan then create them into norms.
What you're just saying now,which is that the interpretation
(39:25):
of values are very different indifferent cultures. How do I
then still maintain that I wantto create a company culture
across the globe? whileunderstanding that there are
different interpretations ofthat? How does that work?
Fons Trompenaars (39:41):
Let me give an answer with an anecdote.
Morten Andersen (39:43):
Fantastic.
Fons Trompenaars (39:44):
I was called to three years ago by a company
I can mention the name we'vepublished about it. CDP que esta
de poder plasmonic avec one ofthe big investment funds in in
Quebec in Canada, and the headof HR a wonderful lady who knows
Stock said font, we followedsome of your articles. And we
(40:04):
introduced the yin and yangvalues. I said, Why? Now because
we in 2008, were killed by ourvalue. I said, Tell me more now,
you know, financial crisis 2008.
We had three values, ambition,innovation, collaboration, we
follow those values, and we wereproud of them. So ambition meant
that we took too many risks.
(40:26):
Collaboration meant that wecould hold nobody accountable.
And innovation meant that wedidn't understand our own
financial products anymore. Ourvalues killed us. We lost in a
week time 50 billion, have aportfolio of 450 by the way, so
not too bad.
Morten Andersen (40:42):
Not too bad, actually, in the prices now. And
Fons Trompenaars (40:44):
then we were on zoom. She sent me three
pictures on that share screen.
And there were three elevatorswith two doors each. On one
door, it said ambition on thedoor other door, it said prudent
on one door, it said innovationon the other door discipline, or
rigor rigor on one door, it saidcollaboration on the other door,
(41:05):
it's an individualaccountability. Wow. Yeah,
sounds people love it. So we areenriching our values with its
opposite. But I call you false.
Because how do we make thisreal? How do we make this basic
assumptions because people loveit. And we respect our own
(41:26):
values. Now any valuedisconnected from its opposite
leads or has the risk of leadingto a pathology. And like I said,
individual lism withoutcollectivity becomes egoism,
collectivity without individualsbecomes communism. And I can do
that with any value. So anyorganization that has values I
(41:46):
say, and what about theopposite? Now, what we have done
to make this real? We have askedthe question, first, we started
with the board. And it's noteasy, by the way, but good
things are not easy. We havesaid, What can I do with rigor
to make our company moreinnovative? What can I do with
(42:07):
prudence to be more ambitious?
What can I ask these questions?
And what behavior do I want toshow in this theme? By the way,
this is called values tobehavior in an intact team, so
that you end up with a charterof behavior, which shows how you
combine one value with theother, okay? In the beginning,
(42:28):
there was sweating, and this wasthe board, not stupid people,
but it's not easy. But once youhave it and the CEO says, he
said, I am a non executivedirector of Cirque du Soleil.
And we found out that the peoplein the trapeze didn't want to
take more risk. Their ambitionwas leveling, we have made them
(42:49):
head of the task force for newsafety net. And since they
trusted the safety net, theytook more risk, and they felt
less in the training. So funny.
prudence will help you to getmore ambition. And then he said,
this is a metaphor, I want youto think what in our bank are
the safety net, in order for usto be more ambitious? And then
(43:10):
people came out, you know, andthat's another learning in in
dilemma reconciliation. We oftenuse metaphors, you know, what is
the best metaphor that workseverywhere? No. is the family
Yes, your father and mother ofkids, all the dilemmas, rules
versus exceptions, individualversus family, showing emotions
(43:31):
being neutral, blah, blah, blah,blah, are all there in the
family and then look at what aservant leadership, the best for
is a good father or mother, youare there to serve your kids.
And it's not for yourself, it'sto make them perform better. And
what means sometimes you'retough, and sometimes you caress
(43:51):
them, and you play the swappinggame. Yes. So you're tough in
the context of unconditionallove, that is servant
leadership.
Morten Andersen (44:04):
I guess what I hear you say is it is possible
to have a company culture,across national cultures,
obviously, they will be affectedby the national culture, but it
is, however, a strong corporateculture that is mindful of their
natural culture, as well asstill having something which is
uniquely theirs.
Fons Trompenaars (44:24):
Completely and modern, again, you're in the
same field. For me, thedefinition of corporate culture
is the end result of competingvalues fighting for preference.
Every culture has a fightbetween long term vision short
term results. If one valuedominates its opposite, you run
(44:45):
a risk or you're lessperforming. Once you have
reconciled short term and longterm or push and pull. You
mentioned it. You are highperforming and more innovative.
Morten Andersen (44:55):
Yes.
Fons Trompenaars (44:56):
And so the role of cultural change is to
introduce the company with itsopposite. And the quality of
leadership is to facilitate thatprocess. Yes. So if you are
Philips are Dutch company, andyou go for Bush, all the
patterns come from Phyllis. Butthe money was made by Sony who
(45:17):
said thank you, Phyllis for theinvention, we will make it into
something close to the customer.
Then Phillips did the setup adesign company does Oh, let's
invite Italian designers becausethey're full of dazed, blah,
blah, blah, blah. But they nevertalked to each other. So dad,
and and not through through. Nowthey're in another business.
(45:39):
They're more in health. But thepoint is, can we make dilemma
reconciliation, a process? Thatis the essence of managing
change, namely, enriching thecompany culture by its opposite,
rather than throwing it away?
but also as a good leader? Whatis not a dilemma?And what is it
(46:00):
another
Morten Andersen (46:00):
fantastic lesson, I think we could
continue this conversation forhours and hours. It's really,
really fascinating. And I thinkthere is not one of our
listeners who are not engagedwith some kind of cultural, I
wouldn't say conflict, but atleast management because they're
working with in differentorganizations or with people
from different countries ordifferent backgrounds. So thanks
(46:23):
a lot for this conversation. Ithink your work is phenomenal. I
remember, I read your book,Riding the Waves of Culture. I
think I read it in early 2000s.
I think it's from 97 orsomething. It's coming out in
the fourth edition.Now is thatcorrect?
Fons Trompenaars (46:39):
Yeah. Very soon. around December, January.
Morten Andersen (46:42):
Yeah, right.
Okay. Fantastic. And I just willurge anyone to read it, because
it is a phenomenal book still.
So so thanks a lot. Thanks, alot. conversation. Thanks a lot
for taking the time to speakwith me. I really, really
appreciate that.
Fons Trompenaars (46:54):
Yeah. And Morten, there is a little free
app that we have launchedrecently. And it's called the
COVID-19 resilience app. Andwhat we have done is we have
done work on what are thedilemmas created by the
pandemic. And I like the bigdata metadata lemma is health
versus economy. Yes. And usethat those who choose for the
(47:16):
economy have a problem withhealth. Yes, those who choose
for health have a problem withthe economy. It is the asking
the question, What can I do withthe economy to make our society
more healthy, and vice versa?
Simple example, if you are infashion, you make a face mask
for 60 euros, that is washable,helps you in health and making
(47:38):
turnover for the fashioncompany. Simple example. And and
we have a little app that thatends in what are your dilemmas
on the individual level, and onyour societal level. And we are
now into ann app on new ways ofworking because the result of
dealing with these dilemmas, hasan effect on organizations. And
(48:00):
digital versus analog is anotherdilemma that hopefully we can be
helpful in at least giving you afree analysis of where you are
as either an organization or oran individual.
Morten Andersen (48:15):
Fantastic. I'll put a link to that in our show
notes. So please, the listenergo in and look for that. That
sounds like a fantastic app. Soagain, thank you very much for
your time here. I reallyappreciate that. And good
speaking with you
Fons Trompenaars (48:29):
same here Morten, it was a pleasure to be
interviewed by you.
Morten Andersen (48:33):
Thank you very much. I think cultures so
interesting and what a greatconversation with Fons. I took
three things away from theinterview. One, you can measure
culture, you can think ofcultures having three levels,
the explicit, which is theobservable reality of language,
(48:56):
buildings, houses, food,fashions, customs and art. In
other words, it's predominantlythe products of the culture. The
second layer is the norms andvalues, the norms are the rights
and wrongs. The values, on theother hand, is the good and bad.
And finally, the third layer isthe underlying assumptions of
(49:17):
the people in the culture. Thislevel is no longer conscious.
And people are not constantlyquestioning this level and
they've become self evident forthe people in the culture.
Anyway, these three levels canbe measured on seven dimensions
to describe the culture twodilemma resolution is the way to
(49:37):
understand each other and moveforward despite cultural
differences. This was reallyfascinating. So we all share
dilemmas. So across cultures, werecognize a dilemma. We share
them, but how we solve thedilemmas are different. So will
you lie in court to save afriend? Well, that will be a yes
(49:58):
in some cultures and no inothers. And it is through those
dilemma resolutions that weunderstand differences and can
start the journey to understandeach other. And third, when you
want to change a culture startwith the business issues, not
the culture. Fons warns us notto do big cultural projects in
organizations, they rarely work.
He says, instead, start with abusiness issues because your
(50:22):
share them, and then use thedilemmas and the dilemma
resolution workshops to resolvedilemmas as they occur, and
through them understand and workwith a culture. You can change
your culture, you can build auniform culture within an
organization, but don't make itinto a big culture project. Fons
(50:42):
has made a great TEDx talk,where he talks about growing up
in a multi culture familyworking with cultures many, many
years and why dilemmas are soimportant. It's fun, it's
enlightening, which is my kindof talks. So I will encourage
you all to check it out. Enjoythat one. Until next time, take
(51:05):
care
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