Pirelli Cross-cultural training

Why Italians always interrupt me? They are rude!

By Giorgia Madonno Marco Polo Consulting

Based on my experience on Cross-cultural training and leaving in China, Chinese people struggle with Italians mainly for our, very different, way of communicating, and vice-versa.
Chinese are much more indirect than Italians.
Chinese are not emotional, while Italians are so.
Chinese are very, very annoyed when someone interrupts them while speaking, and we know ... Italians always interrupt. 
This creates many misunderstanding and uncomfortable feelings. Italians struggle to understand when a Chinese try to say very politely that the time for an appointment is not convenient. A Chinese will never say something like "No, I am not available at that time" (which would be very clear for an Italian) but will probably say... "mmmm"... is that time convenient for you? or maybe will answer back with another question like "do you think this time is ok?". All these are indirect ways to say no and to not upset the speaker but for an Italian they are very much confusing.
During meetings then, more likely, Italians will passionately involve in heated discussions. Instead of interpretating it as passion, interest or just emotional espression, Chinese will probably take it as personal attack and aggressiveness, and they will feel unconfortable. 
Last but not least Chinese always wait the other speaker to finish talking before starting to say something. Often they even keep some additional moment of silence in order to think about what the other person said. This is clashing with the Italian attitude of speaking over others and it is perceived by Chinese as a strong form of disrespect. Why Italians behave in this way althougth? This is not for misbehaviours but for passion, for interest in the topic and willingness to take part of it. 

What all this can teach us: the same behavior can have very different meanings depending on the cultural glasses that you have on. The first good way to become cultural aware is to keep this clearly in mind and try to find other possible interpretations. 

Probably a Chinese could rationally  better accept an Italian interrupting him/her knowing that it is for passion and emotional involvement. He/She will still feel uncomfortable emotionally but more in control.  

The second step after emotional management is to understand that sometimes in certain context is better to adapt to the other cultural behavior and start to behave in the same way. A Chinese meeting with many Italians will probably never have the opportunity to talk without interrupting or asking for his/her turn. 

At the same time it is important that people from different cultures help each other to understand what can be perceived negatively, this in order to ask for a mitigation of certain hurting behaviors when possible.

In summary:
1) be open to understand that other behaviors may have different meanings
2) be curious and study a lot about different cultures: read books, ask to other people, take advantage of every opportunity for learning
3) always be emphatic with the other person, trying to understand which can be the perceived feeling
4) help the people from other cultures to understand your culture

The difficult relation between Corporate HQ and Chinese location

Do you want to build a warmer communication between Chinese and Head Quarter colleagues? The answer can be a video.

By Giorgia Madonno - Marco Polo Consulting

Have a look to this esilarating video from one of our clients. 
They had a problem: the employees from the Corporate Head Quarter preferred to send email to Chinese colleagues instead of calling them over the phone. Language barrier, cultural distance were the main reasons for this behavior, but this was creating disfunctional communication between the two organizations. Let's see the unconventional approach taken by the General Manager of the Chinese Organization to solve the issue: an invitation by video, "Call me maybe" ... instead of sending me emails. 

Engagement & retention in China

China: looking for meaning in the Corporate environment

By Giorgia Madonno Marco Polo Consulting

Having a dinner with some of my EMBA students and my young assistant I had the opportunity to discuss about an important challenge the Chinese society is facing: the loss of values and meaning. The huge transformation Chinese people are living brings the feeling of having lost common values. The ones from traditional culture have somehow lost their strenghts after the cultural revolution, the new ones coming from the West are accepted but felt as external. The young generation feels lost, without points of reference in this extremely fast change. The more mature people are worried about this lost of ethical values and standards. 
In this context my assistant explained me that many young people look for values and meaning in the organizational context, they are attracted by strong corporate culture that can give them a sense of belonging and "spiritual", "value based" directions. In the meanwhile they do an individual search for alternative thinking where they may find a path to happiness. Positive psychology starts to have a strong appeal in China: trainings, videos about this new approach are becoming more and more commonly distributed here in China and this seems to be one of the possible answers to young Chinese' quest of sense of community and meaning. Here attached an example of a video on Positive psycology by a Harvard Professor posted on web channels in China with Chinese subtitles: See the Video
If there is a lack of well being in current Chinese society, on the other end it is important that a movement of search is under going. 
Even if personally I feel difficult to find an answer to life meaning only in the corporate environment, for sure in terms of engagement and retention  the companies have now a huge opportunity. If they find a way to build a real sense of belonging they may succeed in engaging the young staff not only using, the less effective, economic incentive. We are observing today a rise of quest of collective sense, hopefully organization can be the first step to find an answer and than maybe collective society will follow.

Marco Polo Consulting training

Cross-Cultural training Faist-Minigears in Suzhou

By Giorgia Madonno - Marco Polo Consulting


Here below some pics form our last training in Suzhou:
an advanced session on Cross-culture. 

We talked about Italian and Chinese communication and conflict management, how to be a good leader in China, Generation Y, Women leadership and Innovation in China

We also invited Andrea Fenn from Fireworks to introduce social media in China. A lot of discussion, exercises and contents. 

University EMBA lessons

MIP-TONGJI University EMBA
HR & Organizational behaviors class

By Giorgia Madonno Marco Polo Consulting



Today I started my EMBA class at MIP-Tongji University in Shanghai.

The lessons are about HR & Organizational behaviors. The EMBA students are all Chinese entrepreneurs and top managers in the industries of Design, Urban planning, Engineering, Real Estate.

During this first 4 days we spoke about Engagement and Performance, HR Business Partnership, Staffing, Performance management, Learning, Succession planning & talent management, Compensation & benefit.

Here below the Syllabus:

Leaders in different industries, organizational levels and business growth stages may encounter similar but not identical challenges in terms of people and organization, but they will have the same objective: improving performance and engagement within their organization. Taking the perspective of organizational leaders, we are going to discuss the main organizational challenges and to provide approaches, knowledge, theory and best practices to improve the effectiveness of organizations and people.

The course is structured in 2 main parts:

1)      Human Resources Management

2)      Organizational behaviour

The “Human Resources Management” part focuses on the most important processes and approaches finalized to improve performance and engagement in the organization. Human Resources can be managed having a business partnership approach and playing several integrated roles: Strategist, Change agent, Employee Champion, in addition to the most traditional Administrative expert role. We will discuss about Leaders and HR function responsibilities on people and organization. Through examples and best practices, we see how the recruitment process can be optimized in order to bring the right talents in the organization. We focus on long term plans for talent identification and development in harmony with the company business strategy. Competencies, learning, performance management, compensation and benefit are the other HR aspects the course is focusing on. 

We study how to set up the structure and manage the development of an organization, manage effectively the change, leverage the corporate culture asset and communicate internally and externally having in mind an employer branding approach.

The “Organizational Behaviour part could be defined as the “study of people’s behaviour within organisations and relative dynamics”, in other words how people and teams influence and view the organisation, in order to reach their objectives, as a group or as an individual, and therefore achieve the success of the organisation.

Lessons focus on individuals, team and organization, they show how to manage group dynamics and each person’s personal contribution, in the most positive way.

We see the value and challenges of individual diversity, and aspects linked to self- awareness and management, personality, emotional intelligence, career anchors and values, stress management, cognitive styles and cultural diversity.

We therefore cover topics related to the team: group dynamics, stages in team development, the roles in a team, the potential dysfunctions of a team and how to overcome them.

During the course there is also a session focused on Coaching theory and practice for leaders. Coaching is a very powerful approach that is more and more used by leaders and external coaches to develop talents or people who have to improve their performance in the organization. Coaching can be used to address behavioural change, lack of performance, career management, cross-cultural or communication challenges. Coaching is a perfect topic to close our course: it is both an HR practice and a managerial skill for  organizational behaviours improvement .

Some of the materials and examples discussed in class focus on situations specific to China and organization operating in “knowledge intensive” service industries; others represent global best practices and knowledge and thought not directly linked to your current environment can provide ideas and approaches that you can use to improve the effectiveness of your organization.



Cross-cultural skills between Italy and China in Shanghai by Marco Polo Consulting

Do not miss our training!

By Giorgia Madonno Marco Polo Consulting

New intercompany training on May 7th in Shanghai.

Cross-cultural skills between Italy and China by Marco Polo Consulting in collaboration with the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Adecco. Registration is open!

For more information:
Read details on ICCC website             

Leadership - Difficult conversations

How to have a performance conversation with an employee

By Giorgia Madonno Marco Polo Consulting

Having a honest and candid conversation with your team member is never easy especially when you have to address a poor performance. How to make it professionally without risking to lower your staff engagement? 

On HRBartender Sharlyn Lauby gives useful tips - read more on HRbartender

2013 Luxury HR report - China

Which are the main HRM challenges in Luxury retail industry in China?

By Giorgia Madonno Marco Polo Consulting

Based on an interesting research made by  财富品质研究院 & 上海东浩人力资源有限公司 here below what Staff, Managers and HR think are the main HRM challenges faced by the Retail luxury industry in 2013

Main HRM challanges

Staff    Managers        HR High Turnover rate                           27%        20%         42%    Management of 80s and 90s              16%        25%        17% Shaping/sharing company culture        33%       24%        16% Recruiting/performance review            12%        20%        15% Others                                           12%        11%        10%