By William R. Dodson
I was disappointed this morning to read in a recent
issue of The New York Times that the British are working longer
hours than they worked ten years ago. One in three British men work at
least 50 hours each week, while one in ten British women do the same.
What disappoints me here is a clear indicator of the disappearance of
the pub culture that I’ve come to know and love after working in
London. Nothing like it, really, a couple pints of Guinness and a no-holds-barred
chat with chaps from work.
The New York Times article stated, “The
all-work, all-the-time culture that appears to be taking hold sounded
familiar to Simon Rostron, a partner in a public relations firm whose
clients include some of London’s large financial institutions. He said
he longs for the days when a three-hour lunch over multiple bottles of
claret was still the norm. “Today, people are actually arranging
meetings at 2 p.m.," he added. ‘That is a cause for indigestion.’”
Not that I had that many two-hour-long lunches in London; well, ok, a
few.
Of course, that’s still happily the norm in Mexico.
A Chinese employee of an American multinational once told me, “You
don’t want to get too personal with people you work with daily in
the US. On the contrary, work is more than ‘pure work’ back
in my homeland. Work is part of life—no matter how many years spent
in the US, no matter how Americanized you’ve become—your interests
outside work are very different. Thus, work is not that enjoyable if you
cannot socialize with peers. This is not just saying hello, and talking
about the weather in the office.”
After working in Mexico for a while, which is a foreign
country to me, I felt closer to the people at work. I think it is because
of the people. The General Manager there will invite you to his personal
residence for drinks. You have to say Mexicans are more openly affectionate.
A Turkish colleague explained to me, “In Turkey, you call your co-workers
‘friend’ – arkada. In the States, though, there is a
distinct separation between friend and co-worker.”
The Jordanian we were with concurred the case was the
same in his homeland. “In Jordan, you actively socialize with your
co-workers, who are also your friends.”
Spain, France and Italy still maintain a closer integration
between work and socializing than does the Anglo-American approach to
productivity. Still, they prefer not to discuss work-related problems
over the meal, since that spoils the ambiance and the taste of the moment,
and is considered lousy for digestion.
It’s significant that the developed countries
that do take time for a mid-day and/or early evening repast have productivity
levels that are on par with if not greater than that of America. “In
the seven years to 2000, NDP per hour rose by an average of 1.8% in the
euro area, but by only 1.4% in America,” according to the Economist
Magazine (8 Nov. 2001). NDP (Net Domestic Product) is like Gross Domestic
Product, except that NDP subtracts the greater capital depreciation of
information technology investments.
Managers who work in countries that more tightly integrate
social and professional aspects of life should take advantage of these
periods of grace during which you can come to better know your counterparts.
It’s during these precious moments that you can expand the base
of trust upon which so much of the expediency you require in a foreign
country relies. Further, you may find yourself with lifelong friends with
whom you would not have become acquainted, people for whom relationship
is not an aspect of business, as it is so many times in America. The same
is true of foreign nationals who work in your home office, and who come
from countries in which they are used to “working to live.”
Take a little extra time out of the day or at the end of the day to get
to know them, singularly, not in some large group in a bar with blaring
80’s music. You may be surprised the next day at the loyalty you
inspire in people who want to contribute their entire selves to your group’s
success—not just the part of them that is conscious from 9 to 5.
Author Bio: William R. Dodson is Managing
Director of Silk Road Communications, L.L.C., a management consultancy
that builds and improves working relationships across cultures. He is
a contributing editor of American Management Association’s (AMA) MWorld
Journal of Management. He can be reached at wdodson@silkrc.com
or +1 (847)722-7817.
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