Palanca (pah-lanka) -- Spanish for a tool, such as a tire iron, allowing you to exert significant force with minor effort on your part.  So what does this have to do with International Business Management, MBAs, the Titanic, and Capt. Sullenberger?

Sullenberger?

I know you think you have heard everything about the life-saving actions of Capt. Sullenberger, of US Air Flight 1549, who, moments after take-off, faced a sudden dilemma with only two outcomes; hero-status success or death and destruction for himself and hundreds of innocent passengers and others on the ground.  By the way, I loved Janis Krums' photo (below) of the First Class passengers in a raft (actually it was the inflated escape slide) while coach people were standing on the wing in the water awaiting rescue...  Just one more reason to fly First Class ;-)

LET'S HEAR IT FOR "SILVER" HAIRED PEOPLE: I was reading in a recent Workforce Management article[1], which pointed to “larger than life” management lessons from this near-calamity – regardless of your business endeavors.  The overarching take-away lesson: resist the corporate “herding instinct” to cut training and experienced personnel – particularly in tight economic times.

In my world of Cross Cultural Communications training, in tight economic times, experienced, trained personnel and more --not less -- Cross-Cultural Communications knowledge, acts as a force multiplier of your efforts.  This is your “palanca” and frequently overlooked -- until it all goes bad. Cross Cultural Competency -- earned through Cross Cultural Communications training -- immediately separates you from your competitors who are thrashing like fish in a feeding frenzy over fewer customers.  Your client views you differently – you stand out; you are different; you are easier to work with -- and for all the right reasons. 

This is as important to remember as it is costly to ignore.

The international business world overflows with cross cultural horror stories.  Some are costly but comical, such as Ford marketing the Pinto (Pen-toe) in Brazil where Pinto (PEEN-toe) translates to, ahem, small male genitals, while others cost millions of dollars and even lives such as the Bangladesh riots over Thom McCann shoes with “Allah” written inside each pair, or more recently, the NIKE shoes with a stitched-flame on the heel that looks virtually identical to the Arabic script for "Allah" as well.

Cultural Competency would have caught each of these issues before they became a problem.  Period.

BUT IF I TRAIN MY PEOPLE THEY WILL LEAVE!

So, don't train them and keep them?  Huh?

Here is an international business universal:  after a failed international sales disaster, everyone clearly points to cross cultural issues then faults everyone remotely connected to the endeavor. Take the Titanic disaster as an example; untrained personnel (hundreds arrived just as the ship departed!), no emergency procedures for crew, no lifeboat drill for passengers -- not even enough lifeboats.  Yet, in an effort to "please corporate" by setting a trans-Atlantic speed record, the Captain drove the “unsinkable” 39,000-ton ship at 20 knots into a huge belt of icebergs 10 miles wide and extending over 35 miles to his left and right – yep, squarely in front of him.

American international business managers do the same thing every day by sending their international sales representatives around the world with no cross cultural training whatsoever.

I know this because I speak to them on airplanes, in airports, or in bars where they are trying to come up with a way to tell their boss in the US that they didn't make the sale. These representatives don’t understand contrasting cultural elements and can’t discuss local events or issues.  So, they know nothing about the “exploit-able” hi-value cultural handholds for sales, know nothing about culturally-grounded negotiation styles-behavior, religion, culturally sound relationship building, etc. Yet these representatives are still pushed directly into the iceberg fields by their management expecting them to “exceed all sales standards and goals.”

Sometimes, international reps get lucky and despite cultural difficulties, score a noteworthy contract, etc.  More often however, they crash -- despite better prices and superior products -- and often, over issues we Americans feel are completely, totally, absolutely irrelevant to their business -- or as one frustrated sales guy said to me once, “what does Karaoke have to do with my sales price?”[2]

The first time you return to the office triumphantly after “closing the deal” because of your Cross Cultural skills you and your organization will become believers.  Most importantly, your clients now view you as special because you engaged them -- you didn’t just sell them a product. This is way beyond product ‘branding.”  This is personal.

They aren't clients.

They are fans.

My biggest Cultural Palanca success story comes from training a group of rather-senior, rather-reluctant international sales-program managers in an effort to turn around a nearly dead sales opportunity.  Result? BILLIONS (yea, with a “B”) in sales across the next several years. 

Cultural Competency isn't limited to the business world.  I have had the honor of training many of our US Special Forces and military types on using the prevailing cultural to their advantage in intelligence gathering, special operations, international counterterrorism efforts, etc. 

Focused and practical by design, Cross Cultural Communications training is important during the good times and especially important during the tough times. Besides, wouldn’t it be refreshing if instead of pointing to a Cross Cultural train wreck, someone was pointing to you and commenting, “these folks did it right!”

 
 
[1] Holland, J., “The Last Word,” Workforce Management, 16 February 2009, p. 50.

[2] Dr. Culture Article, Karaoke: No Panic Attacks, Trauma, Depression- International Business Behavior Training for Japan, http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/87105