Seeing the forest and the trees: What bi-culturals can teachRobert E. Rushton
Karl Moore: This is Karl Moore of the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, Talking Management for The Globe and Mail. Today I am delighted to speak to Mary Yoko Brannen who is a professor at INSEAD, one of the world's top business schools.
Good morning, Mary Yoko.
Mary Yoko Brannen: Good morning, Karl.
KM: Mary Yoko, I understand that you and a team have been looking at this phenomenon of bi-cultural people. What have you learned thus far?
MYB: Yes, I have been leading a research team on bi-culturalism which is the new demographic in the work force. Statistics show that currently in California, for example, over 40 per cent of the entering work force is bi-cultural, meaning that they are either bi-racial or have immigrated to California, bring with them socializations steeped in two different cultures.
What we are interested in is what kinds of skill sets they bring to the work force and to multinational corporations. Do they have any different kinds of talent to offer in terms of bridging across cultures than mono-culturals? Is it something that can be learned? Is it something we can add to leadership skill sets, for example?
What we are finding is that bi-culturals, and this is obvious, do have different skill sets than mono-culturals but, more interestingly, there are different types of bi-culturals. So, for example, I am bi-cultural: I was born and raised in Japan. I don't look it; I am not bi-racial, but Japanese was my first language and I grew up in a country that is very cultural distinct from the U.S., which is my other cultural home. So I grew up not really fitting into the Japanese culture but going to schools in Japan, Japanese schools, and sticking out.
So I am what one would call a neither-nor bi-cultural because of that; not being able to completely fit in. People like me who are neither-nor bi-culturals bring with them skill sets called multi-cultural meta-cognition. Another part of the skill set is something we call perceptual acuity, which means being able to see both the forest and the trees and being able to be more culturally pluralistic, have observer skills, and kinds of skills that really do help in terms of a company going global and various different types of global conditions and contexts.
There are other types of bi-culturals, like either-or bi-culturals who are very skilled in understanding their home culture sets so they shift between China, their Chinese mindset for example, and their Canadian mindset, and they are able to leverage their cultural specific knowledge. So it's very important for managers and HR people to understand what skill sets these bi-culturals bring.
KM: When I hear about this, if you are mono-cultural like most people are, you are jealous of these skill sets. How can you potentially develop these skill sets?
MYB: So the way a mono-cultural can develop these skill sets are – there are a variety. They can go and study abroad, they can work in the Peace Corp., they can go teach English abroad or somehow live abroad for a period of time. What the studies are showing - Will Maddux for example at INSEAD in organizational behavior - that not just any experience abroad matters; you have to have a deep acculturation abroad. So that would mean that you would have to be there, the studies show, at least three, five years and that it's useful if you go and take on something that's transformational in terms of your life. It could be that you marry someone from a different culture, or it could be that you take on a job that you are very passionate about and that you really get entrenched in the culture to be able to begin to have the germ of another cultural mindset.
KM: This has been Karl Moore of the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, Talking Management for The Globe and Mail.