An excerpt from the diary of a global traveler
It was pretty unusual to get a phone call from my largest client in Germany after 3 PM on a Friday. Bavarians like to get an early start on the weekend. But I immediately recognized the caller ID display as coming from just that company. The caller identified himself as responsible for beginning the due diligence process in anticipation of his company purchasing a large division of one of their American competitors. All in all, 18,000 employees would be involved.
He asked if I would be willing to facilitate the first technical meeting between the two companies. Then he added that the meeting would start the following Monday… in the U.S. I learned that it was the last minute idea of a very senior person that there should be an external facilitator so as not to appear to dominant or aggressive in the meeting. My knowledge of both cultures and both languages qualified me. And I was fascinated.
I learned there would be 12 people from the German company and 12 from the Americans. There would also be two lawyers and three consultants from global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company, an organization known for cutting out deadwood and removing overlaps after a merger or acquisition. Competitive bids in the marketplace required that information about product costs could not be mentioned whatsoever. And I assume that McKinsey was brought in to start preparing for the future slicing away of fat.
I asked about the agenda for the three-day meeting and it was explained that they would begin with five minutes of overview about each of the companies and then start into a comparative product line analysis. My client was somewhat taken aback when I explained that I would need to add 90 minutes at the very beginning for the people to get to know each other. He objected that that was not the purpose of the meeting. It was about the products so that they could see how their portfolios lined up or overlapped.
I politely explained that if he wanted me to do the facilitate this meeting, I would need certain freedoms. And this 90-minute opening session was one. He reluctantly agreed, not even asking me what I intended to do in those 90 minutes, and the rest of our discussion went smoothly.
Now it's 9 AM Monday morning in the US and I am handing each participant a flipchart page and some colored markers with instructions to draw pictures that show what he or she likes to do in their spare time, what work achievements they are proudest of and how they feel about the possible purchase. Once everyone's chart was finished I paired up perfect strangers (one German with one American) and ask them to learn about each other. Then one pair at a time was invited to the front of the room to introduce his or her new friend with the help of their flipchart page. That took 90 minutes, but during that time I heard people spontaneously using phrases that warmed my heart, for example "I'd like to introduce my new friend Günter who I just learned enjoys sailing as much as I do. So we'll be going out together on my boat this weekend."
After the close of the final session, my client came up to me and said "When you started with those drawings I was beginning to regret having hired you. But now I see it was the most important thing we did. It broke down the barriers caused by fear and unfamiliarity, replacing them with a sense that these people from the other company and other country have interests like mine and whatever happens, we will be able to get along."
Through no fault of this team the due diligence process took a full nine months. But throughout the time, other people often commented on how well this group worked together.
Whether you're going abroad to meet a new client for the first time or launching a new product with a team of people who don't know each other, do something at the very beginning to break down barriers. The salesperson might invite the client to dinner on arrival day and purposely not talk about business, but use the time to learn about the other person.
Let's turn the situation around because I would like to share with you what I observed when the leader is entirely focused on tasks and not the people who will do those tasks. A large manufacturing company asked me to do a teambuilding program for their Budapest office comprised of a German boss and approximately 12 Hungarian employees. The problem was that employee morale was declining seriously. Up to then I had not had the pleasure of visiting the magnificent Hungarian capital. So I asked my German client if he could recommend a city tour that I might take on the afternoon before our training. I was very pleased when the German fellow said that he would organize a private tour and accompany me. The tour was wonderful. The guide had just the right mix of historical facts and enchanting anecdotes. Seeing that the German appeared to be learning as much as I was even though he had been working and living in Budapest for nearly a year, I asked him about that. He explained that he had an apartment on the same street as the office so he also took almost all of his meals on that street. Further, he had a girlfriend in Düsseldorf so every Friday afternoon he flew to see her and stayed until Monday morning. In other words, other than taxi rides to and from the airport, all he ever experienced was the street on which you lived and worked.
You might think to yourself that you now know what the problem was between this boss and his employees. But that was only the symptom. The problem was that he showed no interest in learning about Budapest or Hungary overall. This manifested itself in the appearance of arrogance or disdain by the German for the Hungarians who are proud people with elegant traditions and the most extraordinary capital city.
I easily made connection with the Hungarian employees, especially as I spoke enthusiastically about the things I saw the day before. The boss only needed to build a psychological connection and show respect for his employees and they were ready to work hard.
The bottom line is that whether we talk about the relationship between a leader and his or her employees or a salesperson and customer, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. In his outstanding book on customer relations (Hug Your Customers), Jack Mitchell maintains that a good salesperson's motto should be "Once a customer, always a friend." A trusting and caring relationship creates the necessary precondition for people to invest themselves in the business they are doing together. Without that relationship, full commitment and trust will not occur. And nowhere is this truer than in the intercultural relationships where a greater effort must often be invested to achieve full trust and openness.
Herb