Latest Op Ed: Bad News and Cultural DNA
All of us experience career ups-and-downs, including me. But you can’t look backwards, only forward. Thanks to Jacob Mardell and his influential UK-based Blog, The China Road, for running my latest Op Ed work entitled: Bad News and Cultural DNA. An abstract is below and full text available on this link. A shout out to BU colleague Gerry Fine for his content input on this piece.
Best intentions notwithstanding, hard work does not always guarantee good results. Far more important, though, is how you handle bad news and improve things moving forward. Not surprisingly, with vast differences in cultural DNA, coping processes around the world are anything but uniform.
Discussing what went wrong: In terms of disseminating what happened and commiserating together, the Japanese probably get the highest marks for their willingness to openly communicate. Ironically, no matter how abhorrent a project’s results might have been, the Japanese will rarely discuss it in the office, even in an informal group setting. Folks in the Land of the Rising Sun do come clean when things go awry, but do so through something called “Nomunication” (飲みニケーション) after hours —a play on two words combining the Japanese word for drinking and communication. The real litmus test isn’t your boss’ in-office body language, but rather how well things go for you in the restaurant, or bar, under the collective eyes of your subordinates, peers and bosses.
