Reference no: EM133282873

Decision Making

The assignment has two parts. Part A is about five scenarios that might happen in your future professional career. For each scenario, five potential solutions are given. Part B is a short article by Erin Meyer with related questions.

Part A

Based on: "The Mindful International Manager" by Jeremy Comfort and Peter Franklin, 2nd edition, 2014,

In a particular situation, our actions are not only influenced by our personality, individual qualities, and cultural preferences but always also, at least partly, by the unique nature of the situation we are in. Every day managers face both familiar and new situations. For example, a familiar situation could be a customer who has not paid on time; a new situation could be a bank withdrawing credit from the company. An essential skill is knowing how to deal with these situations. International managers face similar situations, but these are made more complex because of the global context.

The particular nature of the situation we are in may influence our actions more than cultural and individual preferences. We need to use our analytical abilities and our experience of different situations to decide on the best action or way to behave. Our understanding of these three influences leads to the development of skills - more appropriate communication, more appropriate decision-making, more effective relationship-building and more effectiveness generally when working internationally.

Scenarios

Five more scenarios are below for you to decide on the best action. There is never a clear right or wrong answer, although certainly, some decisions are better than others. For each scenario, five potential actions are proposed.

Please choose one of the actions for each scenario that you think suits the situation best but is also the one which goes well with your personality.
In case non of the proposed actions for each scenario is acceptable to you, offer an alternative solution for each scenario.
Please justify your answers
Scenario 1 Poor performance

You have recently been promoted to team leader. You have five colleagues reporting to you. Four have welcomed you and so far continued to perform at a high level. The fifth colleague, Douglas, has been problematic from the start. He does the minimum in his job and has not implemented the new IT system, as everybody else in the company has done. He is an intelligent man, but he seems bitter and uninvolved. You find yourself taking on some of his tasks, and you notice that the other team members consider it unfair that he gets away with doing very little work. You have spoken to your predecessor, who never confronted the issue, saying: 'Doug is untouchable - he is disabled, and he also sits on the works council. You will have to live with him.'

Do you ...

Meet him individually and set him some clear targets for improved performance and then, if he does not achieve them, give him a formal warning of a proposed dismissal
Organize a team meeting in which the whole team commits to annual objectives and tasks, including Doug and then wait to see if he fulfils his tasks
Talk to your boss about Doug and agree on a joint strategy for dealing with his poor performance
Follow the advice of your predecessor and do nothing
Talk to your HR department about the legal requirements for dealing with poor performance and then follow them strictly
Scenario 2 A rude boss

You have been sent on a two-year foreign assignment to your company's subsidiary in China. You have been assigned to the production department, where the manager is an experienced local called Liu Song. Your job is to advise on implementing new processes in the Chinese plant. After a month, you are feeling more and more uncomfortable. Liu seems to treat his staff roughly - shouting at them and criticizing them. You are not sure if he does this just in front of you to impress you. You feel the whole department is in fear of him. The results are outstanding, and he takes all your advice on the new processes. However, you think his leadership style is very far from the expected behaviour of other bosses in the company.

Do you ...

Wait some more weeks to observe and reflect on how he is working
Talk to other colleagues in the department to see what they think. This will be difficult as they are all Chinese, and only a few speak English
Talk to your boss back in the head office about the behaviour and ask for his advice
Talk to Liu and ask him why he seems so upset with his workers
Accept the behaviour as different and how things are done locally
Scenario 3 Corruption

You are working in the sales department of an international company. You look after customers in Eastern Europe and Russia. Business is callous in the well-established markets in Western Europe but is growing rapidly in your area, and you have just been given a big bonus for exceeding your sales targets. You inherited one large key account from your predecessor - a retail chain that operates across the region. This is your reference customer and has undoubtedly led to you getting a lot of new business. The purchasing manager, Igor, whom you deal with, is usually amiable, but the last time you met him, he seemed a bit cold.

You asked a colleague about this, and he said that your predecessor used to invite Igor and his family to join them on a winter skiing holiday. It was never obvious who paid, but your colleague suspects your predecessor used to finance much of it through expenses. This type of hospitality is against the code of ethics of your company, but there is usually some flexibility in the interpretation of the code.

Do you...

Explain to Igor that there are strict ethical guidelines and so you can no longer invite him and his family
Ask Igor to join your company's annual skiing trip for employees but make it clear that he will have to pay
Take Igor out to lunch and offer him better price incentives but don't mention the skiing holiday
Talk to the director in charge of sales and ask for his advice on how to deal with this situation
Do nothing but continue to provide good products at good prices
Scenario 4 Divided loyalties

You're the key-account manager in an international cosmetics company. You look after a significant customer with branches across the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region. You have had a long, professional relationship with the cosmetics buyer in this company, Helga Ebke. Your range of products has been doing very well in the Middle East, particularly in their Dubai store. On a recent trip, you met with the store manager, Ahmed Malami. He confided in you that he was about to leave the group and become a director of the region's largest luxury goods chain. He offered you an exclusive deal whereby they become the sole promoters and sellers of your cosmetic range across the region.

Do you ...

Inform Helga of the approach you have had from Ahmed?
Inform Helga of the threat posed to your businesses by this regional luxury-goods chain without telling her about the plans Ahmed has
Continue to focus on your business and relationship with Helga without mentioning any developments in Dubai
Hint that Helga needs to talk to Ahmed about his plans
Call Ahmed and tell him to tell Helga about his plans before you do
Scenario 5 Close relationships

You are a man and have been sent to work on a project in Central America. You will be based in Mexico for about a year. Your objective is to establish a new SAP-based database system in all the sales offices of the region. Your team is international, but you have two local project members: one of them, Martine, is Mexican and a very successful brand manager. You respect her work but find her very personal in how she relates to you. She tends to share her personal problems as much as the professional, telling you about difficulties she has at home and with one or two colleagues in the team. At first, you appreciated her emotional honesty, but now you feel it negatively influences her judgement. She got upset and even cried in your office recently when she told you about her mother's illness. You would like to get the relationship back on a more professional basis.

Do you ...

Ask her colleague, the other local project member, to talk to her and explain that she can't continue getting so emotionally upset at work
Talk to Martine yourself and explain that she needs to separate her private and professional life in future
Talk to the whole team about the need to focus on key deliverables and not be distracted over the next few months
Accept that Martine is an emotional person and needs to have the opportunity to express herself sometimes
Accept Martine's behaviour for this project but determine never to let yourself get so close to a colleague in future

Part B

Avoiding Culture Clashes When Making Decisions

INSEAD Knowledge / By Erin Meyer

Please read the article carefully.
Please choose four key messages that you think could be helpful for you when working in a multicultural team and global management or leadership roles.
Please justify your answers
When I first moved to Europe, my new Swedish boss, Per Engman, introduced himself as a typical consensus-building manager. Conscious of my American roots, he explained that this was the best way to ensure everyone was on board, and he hoped that I would be patient with this very Swedish process.

I was initially delighted with the prospect of working with an inclusive boss who listened carefully to his staff and weighed everyone's views before making a decision. But after my first few weeks, the emails had started mounting up. One morning, this message arrived:

Hey team,
I thought we should meet for an annual face-to-face on December 6th. We could focus the meeting on how to be more client-centric. What do you think?
Per

Our firm was a small consultancy with more work than we could handle and my colleagues, mainly energetic young Swedes, worked long hours to meet targets and keep our clients happy. I didn't feel I had much of an opinion on Per's question, so my automatic response was to hit the delete button and get back to work. But in the following hours, my Swedish colleagues began sending their responses, adding suggestions and views on what to focus on. Occasionally Per would inject an email with a few comments. Slowly, they began to reach an agreement. I then got an individual email:

Hi Erin,
I haven't heard from you, what do you think?
Per

I really wanted to respond by saying, "I have absolutely no opinion; please make a decision so we can get back to work." But remembering how delighted I felt when Per had told me that he favoured consensual decision-making, I simply replied that I supported whatever the group decided.

As the weeks went on, many other topics got the same treatment, and I realized my first impression of this style of working was not at all how I liked to work. I now understood why Per felt he had to explain this consensual approach to me. He later described how it feels to be Swedish working with Americans, who are "too busy to be good team members" and "always trying to impose a decision for decision's sake without soliciting feedback".

As with all cultural characteristics, these different decision-making styles have historical roots. American pioneers, many of whom had fled the formal hierarchical structures of their homelands, putemphasizeeed and individualism. The successful pioneers were those who arrived first and worked hard, regarding mistakes as an inevitable side-effect of speed. Americans, therefore, naturally developed a dislike for too much discussion, preferring to make decisions quickly.

In a culture like that of the United States, the decision-making responsibility is invested largely in an individual. Decisions tend to be made quickly, early in the process, by one person. But each decision is also flexible-a decision, as I put it, with lowercase. As more discussions occur, new information arises, or differing opinions surface and decisions may be easily revisited or altered. So plans are subject to continual revision-which means that implementation can take quite a long time.

In a consensual culture, it is the decision-making that may take a long time, since everyone is consulted. But once the decision is made, the implementation is rapid, since everyone is on board. And once the decision is made, it is fixed. Once the group makes a choice, the decision is unlikely to change. A decision with a capital D, one might say. A good example of this phenomenon is the Japanese ringi decision-making process, a very consensual decision-making protocol.

Jack Sheldon, a British executive who attended a seminar that I ran for Astellas, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, shared stories about his mishaps while trying to work with Tokyo-based managers. Following a problem with a particular product, a decision had to be made regarding whether to discontinue its development. Sheldon was invited to Tokyo to give his view, which was strongly that testing should continue.

"One of the Japanese managers gave an opening presentation, and during his speech, he presented an argument followed by conclusions for why the testing should stop. I sensed that the others were in agreement with his comments. In fact, it seemed that the decision had already been finalized within the group. I presented my slides still feeling that my point of view would win out. But although people were still very polite, it was clear that the Japanese managers were 100 percent aligned against continued testing. I gave all of my arguments and presented all of the facts, but the group wouldn't budge."

What Sheldon hadn't understood was that before Japanese company members sign off on a proposal, consensus building starts with informal, face-to-face discussions. This process of informally making a proposal, getting input, and solidifying support is called nemawashi. Literally meaning "root-binding", nemawashi is a gardening term that refers to the process of preparing the roots of a plant or tree for transplanting, which protects them from damage. Similarly, nemawashi protects a Japanese organization from damage caused by disagreement or lack of commitment and follow-through. At Astellas, the ringi process is even managed by a dedicated software program.

Both consensual and unilateral styles of decision-making can be effective, but members of a global team generally have expectations about decision-making based on their own cultural norms. This can make clashes difficult to understand and manage. If you find yourself working with a team more familiar with consensual decision-making, try applying the following strategies:

Expect the decision-making process to take longer and involve more meetings and correspondence
Be patient, even when opinions diverge
Check in with your counterparts regularly to show your commitment
Cultivate informal contacts within the team to monitor the progress of decision-making
Resist the temptation to push for a quick decision
On the other hand, if you are working with a group of people who favour a more individualist approach to decision-making, these techniques might be useful:

Expect decisions to be made by one person (often the boss) with less discussion
Be ready to follow a decision that does not include your input
If you are in charge, solicit input but strive to make decisions quickly
When the group is divided, suggest a vote
Remain flexible; decisions are rarely set in stone
If your team includes members from both a consensual and unilateral decision-making culture, problems could be avoided by explicitly discussing and agreeing upon a decision-making method during the early stages of collaboration. Consider defining the parameters of the ultimate decision: whether it should be by vote or by the boss; whether 100 percent agreement is needed; and how open the group will be to later changes. The more those on both sides of the cultural divide talk to each other, the more natural it becomes to adjust to one another.