Overview

"The Chinese characters for ""danger"" and ""opportunity"" form the word ""crisis"". Ancient Chinese wisdom sees an opportunity in danger. While cultural diversity brings challenges to the workplace, how do we turn these challenges into opportunities? Drawing on their extensive experience working with multicultural and multinational organizations, Lionel Laroche and Caroline Yang provide an in-depth analysis of cross-cultural dynamics in the workplace and offer practical suggestions at both the individual and organizational levels. The book analyzes cross-cultural challenges in six areas: the relative importance of technical and soft skills; cross-cultural communication; cross-cultural feedback; hierarchy; individualism; and risk tolerance. It then provides a solutions framework that encompasses people, systems and environment to bridge the issues that arise from cultural differences. The analysis and solutions are applied in four business contexts: managing a multicultural workforce; competing in the global talent market; collaborating with joint venture partners; and working with offshore resources. If you work with colleagues, managers, employees and customers from diverse cultures, if you are with an organization that has a multicultural workforce and/or global operations, or if your organization collaborates with joint venture partners or offshore resources from different cultures, then Danger and Opportunity: Bridging Cultural Diversity for Competitive Advantage is the book for you."

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9780415658065

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Reviews

Understanding and working with different cultures is a key element to the success of any multinational corporation or overseas venture. This book not only enhances a reader's cultural awareness, it outlines actions that can be taken to bridge cultural gaps and pave the way for the creation of effective programs allowing staff from different nationalities to work together at an optimal level. It also enhances a reader's ability to assess local labour markets and identify strategies for success. Lionel and Caroline have created an excellent tool for HR professionals and senior executives to align different cultures with the corporate culture of their organizations. - Christine Barwell, Vice President, Human Resources, Alamos Gold Inc., Toronto, Canada In this book, Laroche and Yang provide effective and fascinating ways to handle multicultural business contexts. Their recommendations and findings in the domain of cultural differences are based on one of the richest worldwide experiences that I have ever seen. This book will certainly help managers of global companies use cultural differences as opportunities to implement outstanding and robust internal and external processes from all possible perspectives (communication, reporting, hiring, performance management, development, risk management, and more) and therefore create very strong and undisputed competitive advantages. - Philippe Bastie, Ph.D. Global Head of Information and Grading, Euler Hermes Credit Insurance - ALLIANZ Group, Paris, France Promoting and championing diversity is critical to building a successful organization. This book provides a practical approach to integrating simple solutions that foster an inclusive workplace culture. An insightful tool for leadership and employees alike! - Albert Elliott, former Vice-President of Human Resources, Communications and Administration at Total Exploration & Production, Canada This book will carry you to the next level of understanding multicultural environments. Understanding cultural differences is the starting point of integrating oneself into new culture, or to managing multicultural teams, and Lionel and Caroline have captured the essence of positive communication. Whether you are a seasoned manager or an employee in a multicultural team, this book gives the essential guidance to understanding cultural differences and applying that insight to build effective teams. Beyond the work environment, the advice given here truly helps better your understanding of everyday interactions in our multicultural world. - Andrej Zdravkovic, Senior Vice President, Giesecke and Devrient, Germany This book is really a blueprint for the powerful Diversity and Inclusion training program that Lionel and Caroline brought to our organization. Applying these principles will help organizations that are committed to finding ways to leverage Diversity and Inclusion into a competitive advantage. - Richard Pinnock, Sr. Manager, Diversity & Inclusion, People and Organizational Capability, Walmart Canada Corp. Danger and Opportunity combines insightful analysis of cross-cultural issues in the workplace with practical solutions both for individuals and organizations. The part that resonates most with me is the examples and stories; my colleagues and I have experienced many of the challenges and situations described in this book. Having lead teams of brilliant technical experts in several world-class organizations, I have found that the model analyzing the relative importance of technical and soft skills to be a tremendous help. The impact of risk tolerance on problem solving is also an enlightening model that I have applied in guiding technical teams to agree on the data they need to gather before making decisions. Danger and Opportunity is a must read for any manager leading multicultural technical teams and organizations. - Maja Veljkovic, Clients Solutions Executive and Research Liaison IBM, Natural Resources Solution, Canada

Understanding and working with different cultures is a key element to the success of any multinational corporation or overseas venture. This book not only enhances a reader's cultural awareness, it outlines actions that can be taken to bridge cultural gaps and pave the way for the creation of effective programs allowing staff from different nationalities to work together at an optimal level. It also enhances a reader's ability to assess local labour markets and identify strategies for success. Lionel and Caroline have created an excellent tool for HR professionals and senior executives to align different cultures with the corporate culture of their organizations. - Christine Barwell, Vice President, Human Resources, Alamos Gold Inc., Toronto, Canada In this book, Laroche and Yang provide effective and fascinating ways to handle multicultural business contexts. Their recommendations and findings in the domain of cultural differences are based on one of the richest worldwide experiences that I have ever seen. This book will certainly help managers of global companies use cultural differences as opportunities to implement outstanding and robust internal and external processes from all possible perspectives (communication, reporting, hiring, performance management, development, risk management, and more) and therefore create very strong and undisputed competitive advantages. - Philippe Bastie, Ph.D. Global Head of Information and Grading, Euler Hermes Credit Insurance - ALLIANZ Group, Paris, France

Author Information

Lionel Laroche is founder of MultiCultural Business Solutions, Canada. He consults on the impact of cultural differences in multinational organizations. Lionel has written two books, and runs regular training programs. Caroline Yang is a cross-cultural consultant at MultiCultural Business Solutions, Canada. With over 15 years' experience in human resources, she has authored books on leadership, teamwork and global human resource policies.

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