Erin Meyer

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">Idea in Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
  <h5>The Problem</h5>
  <p>Many global corporations suffer from miscommunication and misunderstandings, especially between the head office and regional units. This leads to a breakdown in trust. In trying to prevent those problems, companies often lose a key component of what makes them successful.</p>
  <h5>The Challenge</h5>
  <p>How can managers adapt individual employees and the organization as a whole to the realities of working in a global marketplace?</p>
  <h5>The Approach</h5>
  <p>Success involves the careful application of five principles:</p>
  <ul>
   <li>Identify the dimensions of difference</li>
   <li>Give everyone a voice</li>
   <li>Protect your most creative units</li>
   <li>Train everyone in key norms</li>
   <li>Be heterogeneous everywhere</li>
  </ul>
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief><p>Until recently most of us worked in organizations that were largely local. We interacted with colleagues and clients who were with us and culturally like us. Fellow staff members were often in the same building and at the very least were in the same country, which meant that they had similar ways of communicating and making decisions.</p>

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<p>As companies internationalize, their employees lose shared assumptions and norms. People in different countries react to inputs differently, communicate differently, and make decisions differently. Organically grown corporate cultures begin to break down; miscommunication becomes more frequent, and trust erodes, especially between the head office and the regional units. In their efforts to fix these problems, companies risk compromising attributes that underlie their commercial success.</p>
<p>INSEAD&#8217;s Erin Meyer presents five principles that can prevent disintegration. Managers should:</p>
<ul>
<li>identify the dimensions of difference between the corporate culture and local ones</li>
<li>make sure every cultural group has a voice</li>
<li>protect the most creative units, letting communication and job descriptions remain more ambiguous</li>
<li>train everyone in key norms</li>
<li>ensure diversity in every location</li>
</ul>
<p>Getting culture right should never be an afterthought. Companies that don&#8217;t plan for how individual employees and the organization as a whole will adapt to working in a global marketplace will sooner or later stumble because of unnoticed potholes. By the time they regain their balance, their economic opportunity may have passed.</p>
<p class="reprint">HBR Reprint R1510C</p>

When Culture Doesn’t Translate

When Culture Doesn&rsquo;t Translate

As companies internationalize, their employees lose shared assumptions and norms. People in different countries react to inputs differently, communicate differently, and make decisions differently. Organically grown corporate cultures begin to break down; miscommunication becomes more frequent, and trust erodes, especially between the head office and the regional units. In their efforts to fix these problems, companies risk compromising attributes that underlie their commercial success. INSEAD’s Erin Meyer presents five principles that can prevent disintegration. Managers should: identify the dimensions of difference between the corporate culture and local ones make sure every cultural group has a voice protect the most creative units, letting communication and job descriptions remain more ambiguous train everyone in key norms ensure diversity in every location Getting culture right should never be an afterthought. Companies that don’t plan for how individual employees and the organization as a whole will adapt to working in a global marketplace will sooner or later stumble because of unnoticed potholes. By the time they regain their balance, their economic opportunity may have passed. HBR Reprint R1510C

When Culture Doesn’t Translate

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