Society and politics – Argonaut

Comparing countries in the corona virus? Call an expert!

Richard Farkas — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 17:33:02 +0000

The coronavirus stole our 2020 Olympics, but the disease has given us a new way for countries to compete. Journalists are enjoying Olympic-level interest in their articles and video reports as countries battle to rank first for Personal Protective Equipment, to achieve a world-record for pop-up hospital construction or to win the race for contract-tracing apps.

News reports also give us the Covid-19 sporting tragedies, as new countries suffer a humiliating collapse in hospital bed vacancies or care-home survivals. Policy-makers also look to other countries as a measure of how well they are meeting the Covid-1 challenge.

International comparison: a new Olympic sport

The intercultural profession offers valuable expertise here. This is a community of researchers, trainers and consultants specialised in the successful adaptation of people ideas from other cultural contexts and the forming of global solutions in local circumstances.

With nothing to report in the newspapers’ sports-reporting sections, the new sport of international comparison has emerged to fill newspaper columns.

Comparing Country A with Country B sounds simple, and learning from other countries sounds like the obvious thing to do. But what if we are misunderstanding the experience of other countries and taking the wrong lessons from those international comparisons?

International rankings are filling a gap in the science

We have 150 years of epidemiological science and decades of research into the socio-economic determinants of health, but we yet don’t have the peer-reviewed science of Covid-19. With the new science lacking, and traditional epidemiology too mathematical and complicated, simplistic conclusions from international comparison are having a disproportionate impact on political decisions.

Simplistic conclusions from international comparison are having a disproportionate impact on political decisions

Presidents, Mayors, Prime Ministers and Secretary Generals come under pressure to show leadership and “do something” or be more like South Korea, “Do what the Chinese did”, take the example of New Zealand, or follow the Germans.

Effective leaders think interculturally when facing global challenges

What are these comparisons presented to us so confidently by journalists and repeated by politicians? While the smart policy-makers and business leaders these days use sophisticated intercultural models for rolling out global programmes with local sensitivity, this is rare among the media and politicians under pressure.

Mark Twain famously warned that comparison is the death of joy, but there is great advantage to international comparison, done well.

We need to approach international comparison with humility and caution. What principles would inform an international comparison, given the benefit of coaching from interculturalist?

An interculturalist in the coronvirus response team

What contribution might an interculturalist bring to a top coronavirus crisis response team? Some of the best-prepared government bodies, NGOs and businesses have been adapting to the new situation equipped with cultural intelligence developed by intercultural professionals.

Here are ten things to keep in mind when comparing countries in the coronavirus crisis.

Do the maths

Adjust for population and other relevant variables

Comparing absolute numbers gives us a severely distorted view of what is happening. The absolute death figures and other grim national “milestones” are irresistible to some journalists, but we need to look at more variables than just “country”.

The UK’s death toll rose to 233 on Saturday with a total of 5,018 confirmed cases. This is the exact same number of fatalities experienced by Italy two weeks ago

Daily Mail, March 22^nd2020

Deaths per million offers a less distorted view. So now we’re adjusting for population. we’ve made a multi-variate analysis. Let’s continue down this route. In this epidemic, when looking at national figures, it is useful to adjust for

Urbanisation
Population density of cities currently experiencing outbreaks
Age profile of the population
Incidence of multi-generational households,
Representation of minority communities disproportionately affected by the disease
Presence of transport connections and international transport hubs in the country
Physical borders of islands and other geographical features
The local season (hemisphere)

And so on. A multi-variate analysis gives a more useful comparison of the performance of nations tackling the disease.

It’s time to find your inner geodemographer. The least we can do is adjust the numbers for population and age.

Check the stats

Dig down to find what each number represents

Of all things in life which seem to have no grey areas, death seems to be the ultimate example. Counting deaths would seem to be an objective, inarguable exercise. But even here, we have to ask what does each country mean when it records a Covid-19 death?

We could also ask what do we mean by “tests”, “beds”, “deaths among frontline health workers”?

While France seems to be one of the worst-hit countries, its death figures include large categories – such as deaths in care homes – which are excluded in other countries’ death figures.

What tools can help us interpret the validity and veracity of official figures?

In many countries we know that official figures report what the authorities wish to report. The numbers reflect political decisions more than transparent reporting.

It is useful to consider how much trust the official figures traditionally earn among the country’s own residents, and how the country performs in rankings such as Transparency International’s corruption perception index.

We also need to look under the skin of the national figures. Is the data collected consistently or is there internal regional variation? Are there categories of inhabitant conveniently overlooked by the statistics or communities with wildly different outcomes, masked by average numbers?

Don’t get personal

Look at the whole country, not just the leader

The Secret to Germany’s COVID-19 Success: Angela Merkel Is a Scientist, wrote the The Atlantic on 20^th April 2020. Political leaders are sometimes useful symbols of the way a country’s general population thinks and acts.

How much has Merkel’s scientific knowledge benefitted Germans during the coronavirus crisis? Photo by kremlin.ru

In this crisis, Emmanuel Macron is painted as the thinker, pondering the epidemic’s meaning for globalisation and Western society. Donald Trump as (at best) the electioneering liberator from overbearing public authorities. President Xi as the firm hand assuring stability of Chinese society, at all costs. Leo Varadkar as the caring doc, Jair Bolsonaro as the provocateur.

But as the disease sweeps through country after country, what is having far greater effect than the personality of the leader are the hard epidemiological realities of household size, geography, age profile, health system, access to clean water and long-established cultural practices.

Germans are no doubt benefitting from having a federal leader who is comfortable with numbers, but it is beyond the influence of one woman to have created a society that falls so naturally into the role of cautious, systematic, hygiene-conscious, law-abiding, mask-wearing expert distancers.

Beware the narcissism of small differences

Zoom out to see how things look on a global scale

Historian Elaine Doyle sparked a fiery debate recently on the comparison between the UK and Ireland.

Her Twitter thread and later article explored the different outcomes for the two countries in terms of deaths per million. This seemed to be fertile ground for comparison: two countries sharing the same islands and with much common cultural heritage. However, when we zoom out and think global, the differences shrink to a level which seems to fall within the range of sampling errors and phasing. Zooming out also gives the opportunity to compare with countries where there are other interesting comparisons: NZ, Japan, Finland, Australia.

Measure success against the goals in each case

Check what each country is trying to achieve

The standardised tables ranking countries in the corona virus crisis seem to put all countries into the same race, like a league table of football clubs all chasing the top spot or sprinters listing for qualification into the Olympic 100m final.

New Zealand is succeeding in its goal to prevent new cases of the Corona virus. Sweden is not trying to win that race.

But in the coronavirus crisis and other national projects, different countries have different goals. While one country may be competing in the 100m sprint, another country is playing the relay race amongst its regions, or merely warming up for tomorrow’s marathon.

From population studies such as the World Values Survey, we know that values vary significantly between nations. And between governments, operational priorities vary. Public authorities manage within different constraints of health service resources, economic resilience, long-term thinking, short-term survival.

In the corona virus crisis, we see the very different ways that nations approach the uncomfortable task of putting value on human life as they experiment with various lockdown tightening and easing actions.

In Denmark, a country not afraid to run social experiments, we see policy-makers finding a “Danish balance” between maintaining democratic freedoms and risking higher levels of infections. The balance is different in countries where authorities place a higher value on certainty and security.

In Germany is it the same self-confidence and determination that helped them absorb the shock of reunification in 1990 and in the migrant crisis of 2015 which today gives them the belief that they can engineer themselves out of almost any problem and so beat the virus? The goal here is to win by well-coordinated technological and social action.

Meanwhile in Haiti, a country which has suffered recent epidemics of AIDS, cholera and TB, where clean water is a privilege enjoyed by the minority and crowded, insanitary living conditions are normal, should we be surprise to find fatalistic acceptance that the country’s weak health system will simply not cope? Here the goal is not to beat the virus but something more modest. NGOs and local organisations are aiming to increase access to water and soap for hand-washing. With workplaces re-opening even before the first wave of infections had passed, many Haitians expect to keep the rhythm of normality, which is the only way for most families to ensure that they can continue to put food on the table.

When we’re comparing performance in the corona competition, the fairest metric is how well each nation is achieving its own goals.

Don’t make countries into symbols of something

Allow some complexity and some internal contradictions into your understanding of each country

Countries differ, but they are complex and we must resist the temptation to caricature national cultures.

For the bloggers and journalists, Sweden has become the symbol of the carefree business-as-usual approach, Italy’s hospitals the symbol of crisis management, the USA the symbol of top-down chaos. Germany is given the role of supremely-confident Best-Prepared Western Country. China is painted as the victorious regime where the disease is beaten. New Zealand gets the role of quiet backwater which the virus never really reached. And Singapore is praised as the over-achieving Asian nation which administered the disease out of existence.

In each case the myth is false or hides a far more complex situation. In Germany, fear was a major motivator, as Die Welt put it “Politik der Angst”. In Sweden, everyday life has seen dramatic changes.

Which scene will you find in Sweden’s restaurants during the coronavirus epidemic?

In the USA charismatic and competent leaders are shining at State, City and enterprise levels. In Singapore, the cracks in the country’s immaculate image are showing, in the desperate situation in the dormitories of low-wage workers and the emergence of a second wave of infection.

When a country is presented to you as a simple case of Category X or Category Y, there may be some truth or even hard evidence to support the story. But drill deeper and you’ll find plenty of confounding exceptions.

Look for contrasts

Find the surprising as well as the familiar

At times of uncertainty, we are drawn to the comfortable and familiar. No doubt with good intentions, journalists are falling into an easy trap of believing that people are the same everywhere you go.

Italy’s Coronavirus Response Is a Warning From the Future
The Atlantic

Italy’s Nightmare Offers a Chilling Preview of What’s Coming
Bloomberg

Headlines suggest that all countries inevitably follow the same path.

But when we look into another culture, sometimes the contrasts and surprises are more enlightening than the similarities.

Are the journalists succeeding exploring the immense cultural diversity apparent in the coronavirus crisis, and its implications for readers back home? Have readers been asked to put themselves into the shoes of a truly foreign person, perhaps like…

the Seoul resident who receives a call from the police, because she have left the State-loaned tracking device untouched for two hours
the Swede whose public health authorities say they cannot and will not try to stop the deaths completely
the Brazilian or American who joins a crowd of politically-motivated protestors at a time of lockdown
the elderly British person who refuses to visit a hospital where there are plenty of staff and space to care for them

Around Europe and the USA, commentators looked at the experience of Northern Italy and concluded that that would inevitably come to their country too. With the best intentions and a belief in our common humanity, they missed the fact that local conditions can vary so much.

In fact, the pandemic is turning out to be a series of very different local epidemics, playing out in contrasting ways in different locations. Finns and Bulgarians are finding out that there was nothing inevitable about following the Northern Italian experience in their countries.

A large part of foreign reporting in the corona crisis has been an exercise in finding a narrative in other countries which we want to promote in our own country.

By appreciating the deep differences between nations, we can make more sophisticated predictions about how global phenomena will manifest in different locations.

Know the communication styles

Interpret what people say according to the culture from where the speaker comes

Foreign correspondents of news organisations typically report with deep insight and empathy for their host nation. But the coronavirus crisis has given us journalism based on short-term assignments or even internet research where are articles are penned with very little understanding of the countries which are the subject of the article.

When a travelling journalist sent on a corona virus mission into an unfamiliar culture, or even a Zoom meeting, the signals can be misleading and confusing. Are those journalists equipped with cultural filters to interpret what their interviewees are saying?

While Iranians and Italians may talk of their corona virus experience with colourful, hyperbolic language, stoic Estonians, cautious Russians or fatalistic Indonesians may report similar experiences in very different ways.

Relatively low numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths have been accompanied by strict rules in Poland. Photo Marco Verch

Aside from words, actions also need a cultural lens.

Impressed by the strict rules and harsh punishments in Poland, journalists may wonder why in the Nordics the authorities offer mere “recommendations”. In fact, expert recommendations carry enormous weight in the Nordic region. The effect on behaviour of expert guidance in the apparently soft regimes of Northern Europe can have similar force as the “harsh punishments” of Asian countries.

The Polish and Nordic approaches seem to differ, but in each case the action is appropriate to the culture. These different methods may in fact be very close in their intention and effects.

Don’t declare victory 3km (2 miles) into the marathon

Give more attention to the direction, speed and the route and less to the current position

As the virus moves relentlessly through the global population, it arrives, accelerates and sometimes slows at different moments and different paces and different places. Live comparisons of the racers in this marathon are meaningless. Looking at how countries move along the Corona curve is more informative.

In fact, some countries specialise in a wait-and-see approach, seeking “last-mover advantage”. Luxembourg, for example, has a long pre-epidemic tradition of conservatively waiting to see the trials and failures of its bigger, trend-setting neighbours before deciding what to do, and then usually doing it better than any other country.

In some national cultures, political and factional debate seems like delay, but then implementation is swift and effective. In others, nothing much happens until the shit hits the fan, then resources are mobilised at impressive speed (yes, we are looking at you, US and UK).

New York Times comparison of countries against their own past averages

International comparisons need to be adjusted for time and place. In the sporting world and in many Paralympic events, we give attention to personal bests. In the international coronavirus competition, a good measure of performance is how each country is faring in comparison to its own normal fluctuations in mortality or earlier crises. Instead of looking at who is leading the international rankings, a better question is in which country is achieving new “personal bests”?

The Netherlands was one of the first countries to draw attention to the variation on its own historical death rates, rather than looking across borders at how the neighbours are doing. The New York times used this as the basis for a more sophisticated comparison of self-comparisons.

Whether a fast-moving crisis or in slower, longer-term development, appreciating the phases of development is essential to evaluating the performance of different countries.

Stay friendly: you might need each other

Use comparisons to enlighten both sides

A storm blew through the 1984 Olympics when South African Zola Budd tripped American runner Mary Decker. It seemed to be a case of unsporting behaviour. Although spectators and media found the story fascinating, it meant we never got to see two great athletes complete the battle at full strength.

Who tripped whom?

In the coronavirus crisis of 2020 there have been some collisions on the race-track too. Personal protective equipment has been diverted en route from one country to another, leading to accusations of modern-day piracy. Travel has been unilaterally banned, and international comparisons have been used to brag against rivals.

The conversation around UK-Ireland comparison in death rates became so tense that inevitably the Twitter storm summoned shadows of past conflicts and historical injustice.

Similar barely-disguised antagonism exists in the comparison of China and Western countries’ handling of the virus.

Instead of following this dark, combative route, we have an opportunity here. Countries are at different points of the coronavirus curve. They have had different levels of exposure to epidemics in the past. They have complimentary resources of science, data, local experience and social experiments. Together our countries can benefit from fast, effective pooling of knowledge, coupled with mutual understanding of the context from which the information comes.

Not only that, but we’ve seen practical cross-border support brought between friendly neighbours, and there’s plenty more potential for that.

If we hit a second or third wave in 2020, or a worse epidemic in future years, the Irish who share a divided island, the Swedes and Finns, the Canadians and Americans may need to pool resources to get through peaks.

Rather than a source of competition, pride and superiority, the fact that countries are hitting their coronavirus peaks at different times may be an advantage.

International comparisons which are 10x more intercultural

These ten ways to make your international comparisons more intercultural, and more accurate, are built with the toolkit of the intercultural profession.

If your coronavirus work involves taking lessons from the experience of other countries, or giving epidemic guidance across cultural boundaries, consult an interculturalist and borrow some perspectives from the field of cross-cultural research.

More than ever, a clear-sighted view of other cultures could save lives in your own.

An interculturalist in the coronvirus response team

Richard Farkas — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 11:04:59 +0000

In the 2020 coronavirus crisis, the impact of the intercultural profession on the crisis response has been indirect. Some of the best-prepared government bodies, NGOs and businesses have been adapting to the new situation equipped with cultural intelligence developed by intercultural professionals over the preceding years.

It’s been very satisfying to see interculturalists switch into supporting individuals and organisations through this new crisis situation. But to my knowledge, no interculturalist or institution from the intercultural field has yet been called into service to work directly with strategic national- or supranational policy-makers in a covid-19 crisis response team. The pandemic requires a team of all the talents: epidemiology, medicine, social policy, economics, communications, security, logistics and project management, analytics and risk, and more.

What contribution might an interculturalist bring to a top coronavirus crisis response team?

Effective interaction between bi-lateral and multi-lateral international partners

Even while borders are closing, now more than ever it’s important that countries collaborate effectively in research, procurement, securing of supply chains, repatriation, diplomacy, and global initiatives, such financial stimulus and aid, oil and medicines.

Interculturalists specialise in setting up ways of working and communicating which maximise the input of all parties and minimise misunderstandings.

Localisation of global programmes

In order for a global initiative to succeed, its advocates must abandon any goal of uniform, consistent implementation. In a diverse world where geography, culture, resources, climate, logistics vary so much, teams delivering global programmes require sensitivity to local contexts.

We are facing a pandemic in the sense that the virus respects no borders and seems to impact all humanity in the same way. The WHO rightly declared covid-19 a pandemic. However, on the ground we are in fact facing a series of local and regional epidemics which are rolling out very differently in different contexts.

Interculturalists are expert in adapting global programmes to local cultures. Guidance from the WHO, from a business’s head office, from a research team working on the global response may need heavy interpretation for the local context, in order to have its intended impact.

Resilience

Teams, families, organisations and individuals are experiencing stress, fear and disorientation. Many feel their world has shrunk or changed, that they must navigate new rules, new etiquette and new expectations. They must give up some freedoms and take new responsibilities. It’s a familiar situation for those who work in global mobility, coaching and strategic change programmes.

Interculturalists are able to identify common sources of stress, to reframe and mitigate the negative emotions and to develop the skills and coping mechanisms required for sustained periods of uncertainty.

Remote working

To keep the people safe while keeping the wheels of business, government and public services turning, we need to use social distancing at work, avoid unnecessary travel and enable employees to work from home.

The intercultural field has many specialists in virtual collaboration, forming and leading distributed teams. The normal challenges of working across cultures can be amplified when working remotely, even if those challenges are sometimes less visible at first.

Taboos and moral choices

The coronavirus crisis has had a unifying effect among many people, bringing together communities in national and international efforts, and creating high levels of team spirit among frontline workers. But we have also seen blame, suspicion, exclusion, diversion and conflicts of interest between people and nations. The pandemic raises big questions almost daily around intergenerational fairness, adaptation of religious and cultural practices, competition for resources, transparency, equitable treatment of communities within larger populations, personal hygiene and acts of charity, to name just a few.

Interculturalists represent a deep resource of skill and knowledge in conflict resolution. The profession also helps individuals and organisations step outside of their comfort zone, away from safe spaces, into new a challenging situations where we are forced to confront questions of identity, moral compromise and taboo and arrive at conclusions which we can reconcile with our own values.

Influencing and compliance

Global experts and international bodies are chased for guidance in the coronavirus crisis relating to mask-wearing, washing, physical distance, essential travel, closing and re-opening of businesses, sharing of private data for contact tracing and immunity passports plus a long list of new requirements. Authorities are faced with choices about the relevance, mode of implementation and sustainability of the new rules in their communities. One-size-fits-all prescriptions may be enthusiastically adopted in some cultures, ignored or rejected in others.

The skills of interculturalists are often brought into knowlege-transfer and compliance programmes where global organisations seek to achieve consistent results in very different cultural contexts. The intercultural profession, perhaps more than any other, brings the skills to adapt messaging effectively into diverse cultures. The input of interculturalists is valuable both in forming the original source guidance and in its implementation in local communications campaigns.

Decision-making

Policy-makers, committees and leaders are faced with big decisions in the era of the coronavirus pandemic. Do change our business model? What level of risk can we ask our stakeholders to take on? When is the right time to stop or resume operations? Which core activities must we protect? How can we balance the need for speed with the need to consult and follow the usual channels? How much can we compromise our usual standards?

Intercultural professionals are used as personal performance coaches by executives and teams who are moving into unfamiliar situations or simply wishing to improve decision-making skills. Intercultural skills are needed for sourcing input to decisions, generating a sense of inclusion and commitment from the multicultural teams whose work those decisions affect.

Leadership

At times of uncertainty, communities and employees look for leadership. The coronavirus crisis has given leaders a unique moment to show career-defining wisdom, skill and decisiveness. In many cases, lives and livelihoods might depend on it.

Many interculturalists are providing the global leadership skills or even the entire set of leadership skills in corporate leadership training. In cross-border organisations, leaders need to an additional set of competences.When the context shifts from home culture a foreign or multicultural situation, an interculturalist can help leaders review their previously successful habits need rethinking for the new operating environment.

Brazil myth-busting

Richard Farkas — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Victor

Ana Carolina

Interview with Victor Batista and Ana Carolina Jacinto

“It’s like a test. It’s like one, big test” cries Charlize Theron’s character in the 1997 film Devil’s Advocate. It’s a movie that CultureConnector’s Cultural Correspondent for Brazil, Victor Batista, has thought about a lot. “The Keanu Reeves character is forced to confront his principles as he chases riches in a new land of hidden deals, power-brokers and compromised principles. Sometimes in Brazil, it’s like the film. You get opportunities for short-term advantage by breaking the rules. It’s frustrating to walk away from that and see others take those opportunities.”

But now Victor is celebrating 20 years since he founded Forvm, a company which exists to build a trading bridge between Brazil and Europe. “We are doing the right thing,” says Victor. “We have kept our principles and built a sustainable business in Brazil without breaking our ethical code. It’s one of the myths about Brazil, that to do business here, you must pay bribes.”

Few people have more experience of the ocean of cultural difference and the need for a bridge than Victor Batista. Although culture and intercultural competence is often not on the radar at first for Forvm’s customers, a big part of the long-term value of the company’s service is bringing together very different mindsets.

“We give hands-on support with very practical tasks for companies setting up here, or trading. But we are also here to give insight, encouragement and to help them navigate each other’s culture,” adds Victor. Foreign companies often start out with misconceptions about Brazil. “There are myths we must bust,” insists Victor.

Myth-busting

From Victor’s team, Ana Carolina Jacinto has a professional interest in the cultural dimension of international trade. “People around the world are getting to know Brazil. They witnessed the 2016 Olympics, they know carnival, they may drink Brazilian coffee and even have Brazilian colleagues or Facebook connections. However, some myths have real staying-power and still influence how people outside think about Brazil,” she says. We asked Ana Carolina to describe some of the big ones.

Brazil is a big country. “That’s true, and yes, there is one flag and one national language. But this is not just a bigger version of most countries on earth. At 200 million people Brazil has such diversity that a one-size-fits-all approach cannot succeed. A Brazilian from the south may feel closer in working style to Europeans than to other Brazilians from the north, who themselves may identify more closely with Spanish-speaking Mexicans than with fellow Brazilians further south. Any ‘strategy for Brazil’ is likely to need variations for different markets and regions within the country.”
Brazil just produces the basics. “In fact, there are small, medium and large Brazil-based organisations producing world-class, high-tech products and services. Against all the evidence, many European organisations still don’t believe in Brazilian tech. The situation is made worse by Brazilian companies holding the same mistaken view. They need to believe in themselves too.”
Business models that work elsewhere will work in Brazil too. “Sometimes a tried-and-tested formula that has worked in other countries simply doesn’t work in Brazil. We were helping to set up a subsidiary in Brazil for a foreign company one time. To succeed here we needed to introduce a major adjustment to their organisation structure, adding people just to deal with tax calculation and international communication. The roles did not exist anywhere else in the 50 countries where the company operated, but were essential here.”

World champions in bureaucracy

Although a lot of bureaucracy is handled online, it’s still slow and complex

Victor is Swiss-Brazilian and has worked on both sides of the Atlantic. “I sometimes hear Europeans complain that the only certainties in life are taxes and death. Let’s bring a Brazilian perspective to this. Running a business in Switzerland I had to pay three taxes per year: a relatively simple tax return for the city, canton (region) and to the national government. In Brazil my company Forvm often pays forty taxes per month, each with its own calculation and paperwork.”

“Brazil is the World Champion in tax bureaucracy” Victor adds. “It’s been estimated that a typical company is required to spend 2600 hours per year just to calculate taxes, before any payments, queries and other tax administration.”

Impact of politics on working life in Brazil

Politics matters in Brazil. For people working in Brazilian organisations, the priorities of the government can have far-reaching consequences on everyday life. “The change from Fernando Henrique Cardoso to Lula in 2004 was a big one,” says Victor. “The earlier government had built levers to manage the economy, steering Brazilian organisations softly towards development and growth, so when Lula came in with a harder, more interventionist approach, Brazilian organisations faced a big increase in regulation.”

“Things can change dramatically, and they did again in 2016 when we got a new president. Some organisations took advantage of the liberalising agenda of the new government. But many large organisations continued with old habits – even those which were privatised and moved from the public sector to become private enterprises.”

Change and no change in Brazil

Victor strongly believes in getting to know the operating environment of your Brazilian partner or subsidiary. “Based on nearly 30 years of conducting market research for inward investors, I can tell you that when you deal with a Brazilian organisation, you could find yourself in a modern working environment with innovative management practices, low hierarchies, transparency and businesslike mindset. After all, Brazil has a strong and growing tech sector. But there are also many traditional organisations who have not changed and seemingly will not change.”

Victor goes on to explain that sometimes these traditional organisations are protected from change because the normal pressures of global business do not apply. Corrupt deals in the past may mean that innovation was not required: competitors were not given a fair chance. This had some distorting effects, right through the organisation. Without the heat of competition, there was less need for innovation, efficiency or logical problem-solving. The distorting effect could repeat through the whole supply chain.

“When starting to work with a Brazilian organisation, you need to know the full context of how it operates. The desire of a Brazilian organisation to innovate, change and play by international standards depends on how much money the company is currently making. We’ve seen some large family businesses simply repeating mistakes until they run out of money.”

Change is also slowed in Brazil by what Victor calls its colony mindset. “We have a culture of passively waiting for colonists to come and show us new techniques. Oftentimes, Brazilians do not reach out to explore technologies and approaches which are already established elsewhere. They might expect the world to come to Brazil. They want to be taught.”

Resources and resourcefulness

It’s a myth that Brazil has few middle-class people with money to spare

“At Forvm we’re helping Brazilian and foreign organisations overcome these challenges every day. But let’s remember the enormous opportunities of crossing the bridge between Brazil and the rest of the world. We have amazing resources of workers and consumers in Brazil, tens of millions of whom have spending power equal to citizens of the world’s richest nations. We also have a large population of the poor, and a lot of activities for development agencies working to improve the lives of lower-income and excluded people.”

“…And that’s to say nothing of Brazil’s fabulous natural resources, protected by strict laws environmental laws (weakly enforced) which add to the richness of the country.”

In the movie Devil’s Advocate, Al Pacino stands in the way of a perfect Hollywood ending, but “the results are good for our customers” says Ana Carolina. “Crossing the cultural bridge is an adventure, but in my work I get the privilege of seeing the rewards flowing back to the investors, to the adventurous personnel who make it happen and to the communities around them.”

Victor and Ana Carolina have recently updated the content of CultureConnector on Brazil.

Fast change and slow change in Canadian culture

Lucie Houde — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 12:21:07 +0000

Most values change slowly most of the time. And then once in a while, political changes try to shift them quickly. We’re living in one of those moments in Canada now.

In 2015 the Canadian Federal elections passed power from a Conservative government to a new administration under the Liberal politician Justin Trudeau.

There is real political change happening impacting society and it has been a good time to review and update the cultural profile of Canada in CultureConnector. By coincidence, the original Canadian cultural profile in CultureConnector’s predecessor service “Argonaut” was created about the time when political power was passing from the Liberals to the Conservatives in Canada in 2004-2006.

Even slow changes make a difference over ten years

For ten years, the Conservatives were a steadying influence on Canadian economy. They managed the country cautiously:

rise of technology in the workplace
globalisation of business and working life
emergence of new values associated with Generation X, Y and Millenials, including the importance of work-life balance and job satisfaction, and less long-term commitment to a single employer
greater opportunities for women at work, together with an aging population meaning more people are combining careers with family responsibilities

These changes are common to many developed economies. Canadians have adapted well, without great shocks or divisions and has managed the 2008 economy crises better than most developed countries.

Trudeau introduces a period of faster change

Since Justin Trudeau’s arrival as Canada’s Prime Minister last year we’ve seen the multicultural dream of his father resurface (Pierre Trudeau was a leading politician of the 1960s, 70s and 80s). That dream of a multicultural Canada is now promoted more than ever before. Today, the young Trudeau uses the media to be seen with various cultural groups or religious groups. He has also shown strong support for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans people and feminist causes.

The intense interest in multiculturalism is new in 21st Century Canadian politics. Trudeau has his supporters, the true believers, and his opponents, but it seems that the new attention to multiculturalism are really trying to accelerate some changes which were already happening in Canadian society.

No fear of culture clash

Some Canadians now tend to see the similarities between people but not always recognise the potential sources of culture clash in a deeper sense. We may be overlooking the challenges ahead.

Promoting mutliculturalism could lead to the regrouping of people from the same cultural background without integration to Canadian society. We don’t know the future social impact in the long run. Currently it is OK to be this kind of Canadian or that kind of Canadian. There are multiple ways to be Canadian. This is strongly reinforced by the Trudeau government’s multicultural policies.

Risks of multiculturalism without integration

Canada has quickly become a rainbow nation of diverse cultures. Multiculturalism can succeed with active participation from the intercultural industry, helping communities, companies and government agencies to integrate diverse team members or whole groups in our work projects, institutions and neighbourhoods. Currently, the speed of change could run ahead of the capacity of the intercultural industry to support it and maintain the positive, integration pathway.

Integration: a personal experience

In Quebec Province, where I am based, we have placed a focus on intercultural relations and integration. A good example of integrated multiculturalism is in Montreal. I live in a multi-ethnic area. On my street my closest neighbours are Czech, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, VietNamese, Chinese, Jamaican, Pakistani, Indian, some English and French Canadian, plus me and my multicultural household. This is not unusual in Montreal, in Côte-des-Neiges sector alone, 75 nationalities live altogether. Although zooming out you can still see that the West of the city is more English-speaking while the French-speakers are concentrated in the East and Plateau.

Best wishes for rapid change

There is a rush of interest and acceptance of diversity in Canada. Many Canadians welcome this, but good wishes alone are not enough to guarantee success. Integration of new comers goes hand in hand with finding a job. Canadian workplace requires systemic changes. Organizations need to take on a higher level their diversity and inclusion practices, kills, knowledge, understanding and techniques to run operations in an environment of great diversity.

The new imigrants I work with all call Canada home and are overwhelmingly determined to succeed and contribute to society and they are a great asset in the workplace. Think about it: experiencing immigration as an individual has required competencies any employer would benefit from, to name a few:

Project management
Adaptation
Risk taking
Achieving goals
Flexibility
Various perspectives
Speak many langages

In Canada, we are living diversity. Canada has received 320 000 immigrants this past year. A record not met since 1910 according to Statistics Canada, when the country was colonizing Western Canada. A lot of crosscultural challenges to be met, and we, interculturalists are making sure we meet the challenges for all to succeed.

_{Trudeau photo by arindambanerjee / Shutterstock.com}