Author: Andy Molinsky

Ron Bradley was pacing back and forth in his office. He knew it was time to schedule quarterly feedback sessions with his team members. This was something he did on a regular basis. But this time was different. He was more uncomfortable than ever before, and he knew exactly why. Ron felt disconnected from his employees — especially his foreign-born employees — and that put him in a very uncomfortable and awkward position as a mentor. And it certainly wasn’t from a lack of trying.

As a senior partner at a prestigious global consulting firm, Ron knew he could be intimidating to his junior colleagues, so he made it a priority to break down barriers. He asked everyone to call him Ron instead of “Dr. Bradley.” He had an open-door policy: Instead of making an official appointment to see him, he encouraged the team to just knock on his door. In fact, he always took the opportunity to make casual, relaxed small talk with his employees — about the weather, people’s families, last night’s sports event, or whatever topic seemed relevant. Finally, he implored everyone to “speak their minds” at team meetings and brainstorming discussions — to debate, discuss, and question ideas, no matter whose ideas they were (even his!).

But none of this worked with his foreign-born employees. They were polite and hardworking; there was no denying that. But in terms of building a relationship and connecting on any personal level, they appeared aloof and completely disinterested. This was particularly frustrating and disappointing to Ron, given all his efforts, and it was something he planned on discussing at each of their performance evaluation meetings.

Ron’s story is not unique; in fact, in my work over the past decade or so studying the challenges of cultural adaptation, I have met with many executives like Ron who have spoken about their frustrations connecting with their foreign employees. I have also spoken with foreign-born employees frustrated about the very same issue.

Take, for example, the case of Charles, an engaging, young consultant from Cameroon working in the U.S. for a major international firm. In Cameroon, relationships with elders, including your boss, were very hierarchical. When Charles was a child, he was taught to “speak when spoken to” and “be seen but not heard.” This was true at home, at school, and at work. In Cameroon, you would never make small talk with your boss, casually knock on his door to have a chat, or, heaven forbid, challenge anything he said during a group discussion. Yet these were the very same things that Charles had to do in order to be successful at his firm — just like Ron’s subordinates.

I have seen and heard about many cases like this: managers like Ron failing to make connections with their foreign employees, and employees like Charles failing to connect with their bosses. It can be confusing, anxiety-provoking, and frustrating for all parties involved. And for the firm, it’s a missed opportunity to leverage the benefits of a multicultural workplace. So, what can you do as a manager to connect better with your foreign-born employees?

The first thing you can do is to empathize. Having empathy for your foreign-born employees’ experiences can go a long way toward connecting with them. For example, in Ron’s case, it would mean appreciating how well-intentioned efforts at “breaking down barriers” will not work as easily or quickly with employees like Charles who come from cultures where connecting with a boss on a personal level is simply unheard of.

Then, if you have never lived or worked abroad, read up on cultural differences and about the challenges of cultural adaptation. Talk with anyone you might know in your list of contacts who is from that culture but perhaps may be more acculturated than your employee. Your contact could be a wealth of information for you and could even become a possible mentor for your employee as well.

Although it may take time, you can develop relationships with your foreign-born employees. Search for shared areas of interest — like a hobby, sport, or other activity that transcends culture and cultural differences. For example, I know an American executive who has made great connections with his Canadian employees through a shared interest in hockey, a sport he knew little about initially but has come to enjoy. Be patient in your efforts to connect and expect a learning curve. Also, don’t misattribute a lack of connection — especially at first — to a lack of interest. It takes time and effort to adapt your behavior, especially when communicating with people more powerful than you are. Imagine how uncomfortable it would be for you to completely change the way that you communicate with authority figures, especially if that style were ingrained in you from an early age.

Have patience when developing relationships with your foreign-born employees, and that patience will pay off. It may not always be easy, but there can be great benefits of establishing relationships with your employees. So stay the course, and in no time you will be reaping the benefits of a multicultural workplace.

The workplace has never been more global than today. But despite that, I often find the last thing on people’s minds when doing international work is the global element. Instead, and often for good reason, people focus on concrete and pressing work details: finishing that PowerPoint deck, running the financials one more time, or planning the logistical elements of foreign travel. As a result, they tend to follow “gut” theories — what they assume to be true about adapting behavior across cultures.

The problem is that these gut instincts are often false, misleading, and difficult to apply. In studying this topic for the past decade and working with hundreds of professionals from across the globe learning to adapt behavior, I’ve identified three such “myths” of global adaptation:

Myth #1: The only thing you need to do is learn about cultural differences
Seems obvious, right? To be effective overseas, you need to learn about how cultures are different. How the Germans give feedback differently from the Chinese. How Americans tend to self-promote more than Brits, and so on. However, learning about cultural differences in theory does not necessarily translate into successful behavior in practice. In fact, it’s often quite difficult to perform behaviors you aren’t used to, even if you have an intellectual understanding of what these behaviors are supposed to be. The real key to crossing cultures isn’t learning about differences: it’s being able to adjust your behavior to actually take the differences into account.

I’ll illustrate with a personal example. When I first started in this field in the early 1990’s, I was working at a resettlement agency in Boston helping former professionals from the Soviet Union learn to interview for jobs in the United States. The clients I worked with were able to quickly learn about cultural differences — that, for example, in the United States, you had to smile, make eye contact, and answer questions in a friendly, upbeat manner about the weather or the commute to the office. But they struggled taking what they knew and translating it into actual behavior. One woman I worked with told me that if you smile in make eye contact in Russia like you do in the U.S., you’ll look like a fool (and, I presume, feel like a fool). I’ve found the same essential challenge to be true across a multitude of cultures and situations. Learning about cultural differences is clearly important, but it’s only the first step towards developing real cultural intelligence.

Myth #2: When in Rome, act like the Romans
This idea actually comes from ancient times — from the letters of St. Augustine that described how important it was to adapt to local religious customs. I’m certainly not one to quibble with St. Augustine — and acting like the Romans certainly makes sense as a philosophy for fitting in and winning the favor of local clients, customers, and business partners. However, what happens when acting like the Romans means violating your own personal or cultural values and identity? What if you are told to shake hands or kiss a man as part of a new culture’s ritual, but in your culture it’s forbidden for women to do so? Or as a less extreme case, what if you’re Russian, learning to interview in the U.S., and feel intensely uncomfortable with the level of self-promotion required to make a positive impression?

The point is not to completely avoid “acting like the Romans,” but it’s to develop a way to customize or personalize how you act in the new culture so you act appropriately but at the same time maintain your own personal integrity. Adapting behavior in another culture is not like trying to hit the absolute bulls-eye of an archery target. You typically have more leeway than that to find a way of adjusting your behavior so you have your cake and eat it too: being appropriate and effective, but without compromising who you are.

Myth #3: Just be yourself
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this from managers and executives: that the key to being effective is just “being yourself.” Of course, there is nothing wrong with “being yourself,” but at the extreme, this piece of advice completely ignores the fact that there are real cultural differences you must take account for when working overseas. Ignoring them can cause tension between you and clients or coworkers. You have to find a way to be yourself, but at the same time, act within the confines of the new culture’s code of behavior.

Adapting to a new culture takes serious effort, thoughtful strategy, and, often, a great deal of courage. But managing this balancing act will pay great dividends for you and for the people you manage and lead.

Enrique Llamas couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Lacking confidence? Not a team player? Not willing to contribute to group discussions? Enrique had thought he was all of those things. So why did he receive such a negative performance evaluation? Enrique felt hurt by the news and wanted to figure out where things could have gone wrong.

Enrique had started his job as a consultant at a firm in Houston, Texas, a few months earlier and was very keen on making a positive impression with his superiors. But this was Enrique’s first experience working abroad, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to do that. In Mexico, where Enrique was from, he knew exactly what to do. To succeed, a young consultant should get along with others, do good work, and respect his boss. Enrique figured that the same things mattered in the U.S., so that’s what he did. He worked long hours and made sure that his work was top quality. Interestingly, that did not seem to be a problem in his performance review.

What was a problem, however, was the fact that he was not a “team player” and was “unwilling to contribute in team discussions.” That was only partially true, Enrique thought. With peers, he was quite willing and able to participate, but when his boss and his boss’s boss were in the room, Enrique did what he would have done in Mexico: let his superiors guide the meeting and be available to help or contribute if asked. Enrique was very concerned about this negative evaluation and was also highly motivated to succeed. What could he do to improve things going forward?

If you think that it’s hard to impress your boss in your native culture, imagine what it’s like in a different culture where the way you’d naturally make a positive impression falls flat. That was certainly the case for Enrique and is also the case for hundreds of thousands of professionals in the world who work for bosses with very different expectations for how to make a positive impression. Consider, for example, the case of an employee from China working for a Brazilian manager in Brazil. In China, employees are typically valued for their formality, reserve, and self-control, but in Brazil, it would be close to the opposite. The Brazilian professional culture is quite informal and emotionally expressive. People will typically call each other by their first name at work and often by their nicknames. This is true with colleagues and even with bosses. In many Brazilian companies, there is little formal protocol, and the atmosphere is light and casual, often with a great deal of joking among colleagues. So, imagine someone from China trying to get to know and ultimately impress her Brazilian boss — and how challenging it might be to make this switch.

So how do you impress a foreign boss? The good news is that you start with what you’d typically do in your native culture: do great work, show loyalty to your boss and to the organization, and help your boss accomplish his or her professional goals. The challenging part, however, is that the way in which you accomplish each of these tasks can vary quite significantly across cultures. For example, “doing great work” in some cultures can mean listening carefully to what your boss tells you to do and then performing a given task in a very precise and accurate manner. In other cultures, it might mean something completely different, like taking the initiative, volunteering for assignments, thinking outside of the box, and being an independent producer that your boss can always count on. You can see how these different images of effectiveness can be in great conflict. So, the first key piece of advice when trying to impress a foreign boss is to step outside of your own cultural comfort zone and work hard to learn how to impress in the local context you’re in.

The second piece of advice is to get to know your boss. Not all foreign bosses are the same. That should be obvious, but it’s something people often overlook in a foreign culture because they are blinded by the most obvious difference — national culture — when the reality is that many other differences matter as well. For example, regional culture can play an important role in determining your boss’s expectations. What impresses in Manhattan may not necessarily impress in Sioux City, Iowa. Industry culture matters as well. What impresses at Morgan Stanley might not necessarily impress at Facebook or Caterpillar, or at that small advertising agency down the road. Finally, personal experience also matters a great deal in determining a boss’s expectations. Imagine two American bosses: one, a “local” who grew up in the United States, speaks only English, and who has spent his entire career working for American companies; and the second, a “cosmopolitan,” who lived and worked for a decade in Asia, and possesses a strong working knowledge of Mandarin. Do you think these two would necessarily have the same expectations of a foreign-born worker trying to impress?

When impressing a foreign boss, the devil is in the details. Don’t underestimate cultural differences, but also don’t be blinded by them. Consult with colleagues, find a cultural mentor, and do your own careful observations. In short, customize to your context, and your work will pay dividends in any cultural environment.

“Finally,” you think to yourself as you board the plane to London for a series of business meetings with the British subsidiary of your American corporation. “I can finally travel somewhere without one of those cultural guidebooks for understanding how I’m supposed to behave in a new place.” In the last year alone, you’ve been to China, Korea, and India, and in each place, you’ve worked hard to learn the key differences in how people behave in each of these cultures and how business gets done. But on this final trip of the year to London, you’re pretty sure you can make it on your own. After all, how different could British and American people be in their behaviors and orientation at work?

Turns out, quite different! Just because two cultures share a common language or are in a similar part of the world does not necessary mean that they share a common business culture. This sounds like an obvious point, but it’s one that people often overlook when doing business overseas, especially in countries with superficial similarities that can mask important underlying differences. Assumptions like these can lead to awkward — or unprofessional — interactions in a different culture.

Let’s start with self-promotion, which is one of the strongest differences I found in my research over the past year interviewing managers in the U.S. and the UK. As anyone familiar with U.S. business communication culture knows, Americans aren’t shy talking up their accomplishments and selling themselves. We do it all the time — at job fairs, interviews, sales calls, performance evaluations, and when vying for prized internal assignments and positions. Of course, there are limits to self-promotion in the U.S. Not everyone feels equally comfortable selling themselves — nor is everyone equally adept at doing it — and some corporate cultures and contexts are more forgiving of self-promotion than others. But the overall point is that self-promotion is clearly a necessary and useful skill for getting ahead in the U.S. professional world.

In the UK, on the other hand, overt self-promotion isn’t only uncommon; it’s essentially taboo. Most Brits are very uncomfortable with being praised in public and are quick to deflect and deflate such compliments with a witty counter. You don’t promote yourself and your accomplishments to your British colleagues, and if you do, you’ll definitely suffer the consequences, most likely in the form of some serious “piss-taking” (mocking and ridicule). If you want to tell your boss what you have accomplished in the UK, describe it in a straightforward, non-exaggerated, fact-based manner. No embellishment and certainly no grandstanding. In fact, if self-promotion is an art in the U.S., the corresponding art in the UK is self-deprecation.

Another key difference between the two cultures is how emotionally expressive people are at work. In the U.S., it is culturally acceptable — even admirable — to show enthusiasm. When arguing for a point in a meeting, for example, it is quite appropriate to express your opinions enthusiastically. Or when speaking with a potential employer at a networking event, it is appropriate to express your interest enthusiastically. In fact, in this particular situation, the employer might interpret your interest as real and genuine because of the enthusiasm you express. Not true in the UK, where Brits are typically much more understated in their emotional expressiveness.

A great performance, for example, in the UK would typically be characterized as being “not bad.” Or when someone asks how you are doing, the typical answer is “fine” (as opposed to “Great!” or “Good!” as it might be in the U.S.). In general, people in the UK value moderation and self-control rather than emotional expressiveness. High fives aren’t part of the typical UK cultural repertoire. If you strike a really big deal or make a significant achievement at work, people will typically celebrate or congratulate, but with a certain level of self-restraint. They might very well be excited for a short time and celebrate with some light applause and congratulatory gestures; however, the level of outward, visible excitement would typically be far less than in the U.S. and last for a shorter time.

Of course, not all Americans are characteristic of the “typical” American style, nor are all Brits typically British. When considering how to act in any given situation that you happen to encounter, it’s important to know about other aspects of the culture you’re in as well. The culture of your industry might matter a great deal, for example (investment banking might have quite different norms in the UK, for example, than television or media). So too might your corporate culture (e.g., Google vs. Barclays), as well as the particular cultural background of the person or people you’re interacting with — especially since the U.S. and UK workplaces are comprised of people from so many different nationalities.

But still, despite these finer points, the overall message remains: Just because the U.S. and UK share a common language (and even that could be debatable), we don’t necessarily share a common business communication style. Realizing that superficial similarities can mask important underlying differences is a key point to remember no matter what culture you’re adapting to.

Mohammed Abdullah fixed his tie, took a deep breath, and walked into the room. This was his second interview, and he wanted to make it a good one. Across from him were two gentlemen, much older than he was, dressed very formally and sitting at a long wooden table. They motioned for Mohammed to take a seat, which he did, and they began peppering him with questions: Did he have any problems finding the office? How was the commute? Did he know this neighborhood? Was he from around here?

Mohammed knew these small talk questions were coming, but he still felt uncomfortable answering them. In Saudi Arabia, where Mohammed was born and raised, you are trained to act in a very respectful, deferential, even humble manner in a professional setting — especially when interviewing for a job and when speaking with someone much more senior than you.

You are expected to show this deference by listening carefully to what your elders have to say and by not saying too much yourself. If someone is senior to you — especially if they are much senior to you, as these particular gentlemen were — you let them start the conversation. Your role is to be polite, listen, reflect upon their words, and demonstrate through your actions that you are the type of employee that they are looking for: that you have good judgment, are able to follow the local cultural rules, and know that it takes time to build and invest in relationships.

Unfortunately for Mohammed, he now needed to be effective in New York, not Riyadh. And he wasn’t quite ready. His small talk was awkward, his handshake was weak, and he had trouble contributing to a casual, lighthearted chat.

We all make cultural mistakes when adapting our behavior in foreign settings. In Mohammed’s case, it was an employment interview, but cultural faux pas can happen anywhere — when delivering feedback, participating at a meeting, making small talk with colleagues, or even returning home from a long time abroad. What can you do when you need to perform now, but realize cultural mistakes are inevitable?

The first and most important thing you can do is work hard to influence how people will make sense of your cultural mistakes. For example, do they see them as evidence that you don’t care enough to learn about their culture or as evidence that you’re trying but haven’t fully mastered the rules? There’s clearly a big difference between the two, and it should be fairly obvious which one you’re trying to avoid! You want people to see your mistakes as honest mistakes, committed by someone who is trying to understand their culture.

How can you do that? By working hard to show genuine interest in their culture. This needs to be authentic, not superficial. Let’s say you’re in India and happen to be interested in fashion, sports, food, or whatever it may be. Use that existing, authentic interest of yours to start building an authentic connection with your colleagues based on shared interests. Then, when you do commit that cultural mistake, it won’t be judged so harshly because they already know you — and see you as someone who cares about their culture.

In doing so, your goal is to create what we might call a “swift” sense of trust. Be curious, interested, and respectful of their culture. Use your own personal style to bond with your new colleagues. The trick here, of course, is that the very way one creates trust differs across cultures. So, at the top of your to-do list, next to “learning the new cultural rules,” should be learning how to establish interpersonal trust in the local setting. This is something well worth taking the time to learn. If you do it well, it can really pay dividends.

Finally, find a cultural mentor. Knowledgeable guides to another culture are worth their weight in gold. In the case of cultural mistakes, they can help coach you ahead of time so you are less likely to commit them in situations that really count. Find someone you trust with expertise in the local setting and someone who empathizes with the challenges that you face.

You probably have a strategy for learning how to behave appropriately in a new culture. But do you have a forgiveness strategy? If not, you ought to develop one.

Picture the following: Greg O’Leary, a 32-year-old mid-level manager, is in Shanghai for the first time to negotiate a critical deal with a distributor. To prepare himself for the trip, Greg has learned some key cultural differences between China and the U.S. — about how important deference and humility are in Chinese culture, and how Chinese tend to communicate more indirectly than Americans do. He also has learned about how important it is in China to respect a person’s public image or “face.” Finally, Greg also learned a few Chinese words, which he thought could be good potential icebreakers when starting a meeting.

Greg quickly realizes, however, that learning cultural differences in theory does not always translate into successful behavior in practice. The first problem comes when Greg, who is praised for his “excellent Chinese,” proudly accept the acknowledgement, not realizing how publicly expressing pride in this way runs counter to the important role of humility in Chinese culture and could come across as arrogant to his Chinese counterparts. He then quickly backtracks and deflects the praise, but feels awkward and clumsy doing so. Next, Greg tries to use a more indirect communication style to impress his colleagues. But here again, Greg struggles. Greg is such a straight shooter by nature that it feels awkward and evasive not to say what he means. He also has no clue how indirect he should be. By the end, it becomes frustrating, and all Greg wants to do is end the conversation.

This situation highlights a challenge that global leaders and managers constantly face in their global work: The way that you need to behave to be effective in a new setting is different from how you’d naturally and comfortably behave in the same situation at home.

I’m sure that this isn’t news to any of you. Many of us have lived, worked, or studied abroad, and if you haven’t, you’ve certainly read one of the many books or articles describing cultural differences. But what these books don’t tell you is that learning about differences across cultures is only a first step toward effective cultural adaptation, and if all you do is learn differences, you will likely suffer the same fate as Greg. It’s not only the differences that most people need to understand to be effective in foreign cultural interactions: It’s global dexterity, the ability to adapt or shift behavior in light of these cultural differences. And that’s something that’s often easier said than done.

Why? Well, for starters, it’s often very difficult to perform behaviors you aren’t used to, even if you have an intellectual understanding of what these behaviors are supposed to be. From my work interviewing and working with hundreds of professionals from a wide range of different countries and cultures, I find that it is very common to feel awkward, inauthentic, or even resentful when trying to adapt behavior overseas. And when you have such strong internal reactions to adapting cultural behavior, your external performance can suffer. The negative feelings can leak into your performance and make you look awkward or unnatural. They can also cause you to want to avoid these situations altogether — in a similar way that by the end of Greg’s conversation, he just wanted it to end.

Now of course, not all situations are so difficult. Some situations — like, say, learning to kiss on two cheeks for an American in Europe (or three or four, depending on where you are) — are a bit unusual, but don’t feel deeply disingenuous to do. But many other situations — like giving performance feedback, participating in a meeting, delivering bad news, interviewing for a job, or promoting yourself or your product — require behavior of you that simply is much harder to perform. And these very same situations are also often critical to your success in a foreign culture. So how can you learn to adapt behavior successfully without feeling like you are losing yourself in the process? Here are a few quick tips:

First, make the behavior your own. Behaving in a new culture isn’t like hitting the bull’s-eye of an archery target. In many cultures and in many situations, you have leeway to adjust, and by doing this smartly, you can achieve success without compromising your authenticity. For example, instead of saying something like, “No, no, my Chinese is very poor” (a prototypical Chinese response), Greg might have tried something like, “Thank you. I have been trying hard to learn, but my Chinese is still very poor.” This is a cultural blend — a hybrid. It mixes Chinese humility with a bit of pride, acknowledging that he has been trying hard to learn the rules. Now in some places and contexts in China, this might not work; it might seem too Western. But in other places, it might.

That’s where a cultural mentor comes in: someone capable of telling you whether these changes work in the new setting. Now, remember that it’s not all of China Greg needs to worry about; it’s the specific people he’s interacting with. So, find a mentor who is familiar with China or the culture you’re operating in, but also someone familiar with your particular work environment. For example, perhaps Greg is interacting with 20-somethings who did their MBA in the States and have a Western approach. Or perhaps they’re employees of a state-run enterprise with a very traditional background and set of expectations. Knowing this is critical when learning to customize your behavior.

So too is assessing internally how comfortable it feels to make these adjustments. Perhaps the adjustments are good externally, but feel wrong, inappropriate, or inauthentic internally. That’s ultimately no good for you because the discomfort you experience will likely leak into your performance and make it hard to perform the behavior authentically, which is key for forging relationships in any culture. You’ll have to break out of your comfort zone to some degree, but make sure you still retain who you are.

The final piece of advice is to develop a forgiveness strategy. You will make mistakes as you experiment with cultural adaptation. Do what you can to not be punished for them! Signal to others that you’re trying to learn their cultural rules, even though you haven’t yet mastered them, and that you care about and respect their traditions. That will go a long way toward building cultural capital that you can cash in in any foreign setting.

You are a new expatriate manager at the American subsidiary of your German firm in Chicago. With a few minutes to spare between meetings, you walk into the mail room to retrieve your mail and get a quick cup of coffee.

“Hey, David, how are you?” one of the senior partners at the firm asks you.

“Good, thank you, Dr. Greer,” you reply. You’ve really been wanting to make a connection with the senior leadership at the firm, and this seems like a great opportunity. But as you start to think of something to say (secretly worrying whether it’s actually appropriate to say anything at all to a senior partner), your American colleague swoops in to steal your spotlight.

“So Arnold,” your colleague says to your boss, in such a casual manner that it makes your German soul cringe. “So what’s your Super bowl prediction? I mean, you’re a Niners fan, right? Didn’t you do your MBA at Berkeley?”

The conversation moves on, and you slink back to your desk with your coffee. You know how important small talk is in the U.S., and you feel jealous of people like your colleague who can do it well — and with no remorse.

There’s nothing small about the role that small talk plays in American professional culture. People from other countries are often surprised at how important small talk is in the U.S. and how naturally and comfortably people seem to do it — with peers, subordinates, men, women, and even with superiors like Dr. Greer. You can be the most technically skilled worker in the world, but your ability to progress in your job and move up the corporate ladder in the United States is highly dependent on your ability to build and maintain positive relationships with people at work. And guess what skill is critical for building and maintaining these relationships? Small talk.

When searching for a job, the ability to make effective small talk is essential for creating a quick sense of rapport with potential employers. Once you secure a position, small talk is essential to bond with colleagues, create a positive relationship with your boss, and win the trust and respect of clients, suppliers, and people in your extended professional network. What is also crucial in the eyes of a potential employer, boss, or client is whether they feel they can trust you — and whether they like you and want to work with you. The ability to forge connections and relationships through small talk is a critical tool for achieving this purpose.

This is certainly true in formal situations such as an interview or a meeting, where small talk is often used as a friendly, lighthearted precursor to the main, “serious” portion of the discussion. It is also critically important during more unpredictable and unscheduled moments of organizational life, such as that impromptu chat you happen to have in the elevator with your boss or on the subway home. Or the discussion you have with a colleague or client seated next to you at a corporate event.

In all these situations, small talk is a critical tool for creating a personal bond. Although ultimately you will likely be accepted or rejected based on more concrete aspects of your work, the fact of the matter is that these interpersonal impressions matter a great deal along the way and can even shape how people judge your more technical production.

The problem, of course, is that small talk differs across cultures, not only in how it’s done, but also in terms of its role and importance in business communication. In many cultures — especially those with more formal rules for communication and with a strong emphasis on social hierarchy — it’s considered inappropriate to engage in casual conversation with superiors. In addition, it can also feel impolite and even dangerous to openly express your opinion during small talk, especially if it could potentially conflict with the other person’s opinion. For example, if you express your allegiance toward a particular team or a point of view about any other topic without knowing that of your colleague, you might put them in the uncomfortable position of having to either suppress their own preference or express something that conflicts with yours.

In many cultures, it can also be particularly inappropriate to make small talk with strangers or to share any personal information with someone you don’t know. America may be one of the only countries in the world where it’s common to strike up a personal conversation with a complete stranger.

Finally, the way that Americans ask others how things are going or how they are doing can feel superficial to people from other cultures who are used to providing an actual, elaborated answer to such questions. They might understandably assume that if someone is asking them how they are doing, the person is genuinely interested in the answer, when in the U.S., this may just actually be a ritualized way of greeting that doesn’t really actually demand a long answer — and, in fact, a long, elaborated answer to the question of “How’s it going?” would likely be inappropriate for most people in the U.S.

What can you do if you are from another culture and want to learn to use small talk in the U.S. to build relationships and establish trust? First, work hard to hone your own version of American-style small talk. Watch how others do it — the topics they cover, the tone they use, their style of verbal and non-verbal communication. You don’t have to mimic what they do; in fact, that would likely backfire because people would see you as inauthentic. But if you can develop your own personal version, that can go a long way toward making you feel comfortable and competence.

Second, as you are honing your style, also work hard to appreciate why Americans make small talk as they do from their cultural perspective. Yes, from your point of view, American small talk might feel superficial or irrelevant or unnecessary, but is that how Americans see it? The more you can appreciate the new culture from that culture’s own mind-set, the more legitimate you will ultimately feel adopting their norms.

So the next time someone asks you, “How’s it going?” or “What do you think of the weather?” don’t think of it as an imposition. See it as an opportunity! Use small talk just like Americans do — as a way to build and establish connections and to set the stage for potentially deeper relationships.

Although many of us don’t like to do it, we know that critiquing others’ work — ideally in a constructive, polite, empowering manner — is an essential part of our jobs. But does critical feedback work similarly across cultures? Do people in Shanghai provide critical feedback in the same way as people in Stuttgart, Strasbourg, and Stockholm?

Nicht, non, and nej.

Instead, they confront situations where they do have to adjust their feedback style, and sometimes that’s easier said than done. Take the case of Jens, a German executive who was sent by the German corporate headquarters of his company to improve efficiency at the company’s manufacturing plant in Shanghai. Despite being sent to improve efficiency at the plant, all his efforts seemed to be producing the exact opposite result. Jens’s Chinese employees seemed to be losing efficiency and effectiveness, and he could not figure out what was going wrong. He was using everything he knew that worked in Germany — especially in terms of performance feedback. In fact, he made doubly sure to be just as demanding and exacting with his Chinese employees as he would have been in Germany. If his Chinese employees failed to produce what he was looking for, Jens would be “on it,” providing immediate critique to get the process moving back in the right direction. But the problem was, this didn’t work. In fact, it failed miserably. Rather than improving productivity, Jens seemed to be reducing it, and his own bosses from corporate started to make calls. The entire situation was becoming a disaster.

It turns out that what worked in Germany in terms of tough, critical, to-the-point negative feedback was actually demotivating to Jens’s new Chinese employees, who were used to a far gentler feedback style. In Germany, you don’t single out specific accomplishments or offer praise unless the accomplishment is truly extraordinary. From a German point of view, these positive work behaviors are normal, rather than extraordinary. Employees are expected to do a particular job, and when they do that job, they do not need to be recognized. In China — at least at this particular plant — the culture was quite different. Employees expected more positive reinforcement than pure critique. These positive comments motivated them to increase productivity and put forth that extra, discretionary effort.

It took quite some time and effort on Jens’s part to recognize this difference and to be willing to adapt his behavior to accommodate the difference, because to Jens such a motivational style felt awkward and unnatural. He didn’t feel himself being so “soft” with his employees, and he had serious doubts about its effectiveness. However, over time and through quite a bit of trial and error, Jens was able to develop a new feedback style that worked in the Chinese setting and also felt acceptable (or acceptable enough) to his German mentality. It took time and effort, but in the end was quite effective.

Clearly, performance feedback can be very different across cultures, whether you’re in Germany, China, the UK, or the U.S. Given that fact and our interest in becoming effective global managers, what can you do to ensure your style fits the new setting?

Tip #1: Learn the new cultural rules. This is an obvious one, but many managers I speak with tell me how they had just assumed their style was universal, and that lack of awareness is what initially got them into trouble. How direct and to-the-point are you expected to be? How important is it to protect the face or social standing of others when delivering feedback in group settings? Learning the “cultural code” by reading up on the culture and observing it in action is the very first step toward developing cultural fluency.

Tip #2: Find a cultural mentor. In Jens’s case, he actually had a Chinese-born cultural mentor to help guide him out of this quagmire. Although this particular consultant was not German-born, he was globally savvy, having worked in high-level positions in multinational companies for many years. A mentor who appreciates your position as well as the expectations of the new culture can help you craft a new style that fits where you are and that feels authentic to you.

Tip #3: Customize your behavior. Don’t assume you have to “go native” to be successful. In Jens’s case, he was able to adjust his feedback style to be somewhat less frank than his German approach, and it worked. You often can create a blend or a hybrid that feels comfortable (enough) for you that is effective in the new setting.

In our increasingly global world, most of us will be face-to-face with colleagues of different cultural backgrounds, whether it’s abroad or in your own office. As a manager, learning how to navigate difficult conversations and to provide critique across cultures is certainly challenge, and there are many important differences to consider. But with these tips in mind, you can face this challenge head-on, no matter what part of the world you’re in.