People management training in Danieli Vietnam

Marco Polo Consulting activities

By Giorgia Madonno Marco Polo Consulting

In June Marco Polo Consulting delivered 4 days trainining on Leadership and People Management for Danieli Vietnam.

We discussed about the role of Leader in Danieli and the leadership transitions, about how to engage people and build a highly performing team.   

We used Cultureamp Murmur Engagement survey and we had a clear pulse of the engagement and performance level in the company, a good dashboard for leaders to start acting on their team focusing on the right drivers.

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.