As he refreshed his email for what felt like the hundredth time, Partha Shah still couldn’t believe what he was seeing: a job offer from one of the Fortune 100 global technology companies he had dreamed about since starting business school. His application had been a longshot — he didn’t have the quantitative chops the company was looking for. But Partha did bring many other things to the table, like his marketing internships, a keen sense of strategy and design, and the ability to seamlessly interact across cultures. This last talent came naturally: He had easily made friends with students from nearly every continent, he followed creators from around the world to stay up on global trends, and he leapt at any chance to travel abroad. Given his deep interest in cultures near and far, the part of his new job that he was least worried about was the multicultural aspect.
Building Cross-Cultural Relationships in a Global Workplace
Most of us never consider how culture shapes our expectations and assumptions about relationship building. But research shows that our cultural upbringing influences how we form and maintain connections with others — often quite significantly. This article identifies six core elements of the relationship code: where relationship building takes place, who can initiate relationships with whom, what kinds of relationships people attempt to form, what types of personal information people share, how people present themselves in the early stages of getting acquainted, and how quickly we expect to establish a working sense of trust and rapport. These elements are at the root of the confusion and misunderstanding that can occur when people attempt to build relationships across cultures. By paying attention to these six elements, global workers will gain insight into why things may “feel different” when getting to know their colleagues. They may even discover they have more in common with their colleagues than they thought.
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