The international manager

In recent years, many companies have expanded globally. They have done this through mergers, joint ventures and co-operation with foreign companies. Because of this globalization trend, many more employees are working abroad in managerial positions or as part of a multinational team.

Although it is common nowadays for staff to work abroad to gain experience, many people have difficulty adapting to the new culture. The failure fate in the US multinationals is estimated to be as high as 30% and it costs US business $3 billion a year.

Two typical failures have been described in the journal Management Today. The first example concerns a German manager with IBM who took up a position as product manager in England. He found that at most lunchtimes and especially on Fridays, many members of staff went to the pub. “I stopped that right away”, he says. “Now they are not allowed off the premises. It didn’t make me very popular at the time but it is not good for efficiency. There is no way we would do that in Germany. No way”.

The second example is about American manager who came to France on a management assignment. He was unable to win the trust of his staff although he tried all kinds of ways to do so. He set clear goals, worked longer hours than everybody, participated in all the projects, visited people’s offices and even took employees out to lunch one by one. But nothing seemed to work. This was because the staff believed strongly that the management were trying to exploit them.

The German manager’s mistake was that he hadn’t foreseen cultural differences. IBM had a firm rule about drinking during working hours. It was not allowed. He didn’t understand that staff in other countries might be more flexible in applying the rule.

The American manager used the ways he was familiar with to gain the staff’s trust. To them he seemed more interested in getting the job done than in developing personal relationships.

When managers work in foreign countries, they may find it difficult to understand the behaviour of their employees. Moreover, they may find that the techniques which worked at home are not effective in their new workplace.

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Make one sentence from two. Use the word(s) in brackets in your sentences.	\|	Exercise 2. Translate the text without dictionary

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