Dean Foster on Leading Beyond Borders
In a global meeting, the words are rarely the whole message. A pause can mean disagreement, respect, confusion, or resistance. A quick yes can be a commitment, a courtesy, or a way to keep the conversation moving until the real decision happens somewhere else. Leaders who have worked across borders learn this through experience, sometimes the hard way.
Dean Foster has spent more than three decades inside that reality, working in more than 100 cultures and advising organizations that operate at scale. His perspective is practical, earned in real conversations where the stakes were high. He has also watched the world change. Leaders once navigated cultures one at a time. Today they engage many simultaneously, sometimes in the same team, the same meeting, even the same sentence.
What I appreciated most in my first interaction with Dean was his humility. He does not present cross-cultural work as a checklist of do’s and don’ts. He treats it as leadership. Pay attention. Stay curious. Assume you might be missing something. Judge your own behavior before judging someone else’s. That mindset alone can save months of frustration and more than a few relationships.
His new book, Business Beyond Borders : Stories, Tales and Lessons Learned from Working in 100 Cultures Around the World, brings those lessons to life through stories that are as entertaining as they are instructive. You will find yourself smiling at the small moments, then realizing those moments are the point. Culture shows up in the details, in how people signal disagreement, how they handle hierarchy, how they share bad news, and how they define what “progress” looks like.
I asked Dean about the missteps that shaped his thinking, the patterns he sees leaders repeat, and the practical adjustments that help teams work better across differences. Here is our conversation.
You make the case that culture is the primary driver of human behavior. What changed your thinking from seeing culture as one factor to seeing it as the factor?
My background and academic training is sociology and cultural anthropology, so the “hammer sees a nail” means for me that I tend to see culture as the prime mover in human behavior. But precisely because of my soc/anthro perspective (OK, maybe it’s an intellectual bias), I am also always very aware of the need to always “test” this cultural perspective against possible other interpretations, which my work has enabled me to do, and time after time, experience after experience, culture trumps any other explanation for “what’s going on” and why.
Working mainly with business organizations, I’ve seen time and again, how the organization reflects the culture in which it was created more profoundly than that of any one individual, political decision or economic or social policy. Sure economic, political and social policy decisions – along with the personalities of powerful individuals – have an effect on how a business organization behaves, but these decisions more fundamentally reflect the cultures in which they were created, rather than the other way around. This is why business, political and social policy decisions can be so different, society by society. Our DNA is powerful, but it need not be our destiny, and the social institutions of the many varied societies we create reflect the various ways we can make and define the realities we choose to live in. I guess that’s why I am essentially an optimist: we are, as social beings, in control of creating our destiny. The problem is not in our DNA…it’s in our choices.
Early in your career, what was a moment where you realized you had misread a culture in a way that mattered?
Oh, boy! I really mis-read Russian culture back in the 90’s during the “glasnost” post-Soviet period when I had the opportunity to work with several US and (Western) European businesses doing work with Russia. Despite what I knew about Russian culture, I’d never personally experienced how it manifested in work situations, specifically in business negotiations, team-work, decision-making, etc., and I was on the receiving end – along with my clients – of many “classic” Russian cultural behaviors at the business table. Most importantly, this included the carefully Russian-crafted impression that Russians share similar goals when they actually do not, which then allows them to blame any negotiation failures on the other.
Many leaders still think of culture as country-based. You argue we’ve moved beyond that. What replaced it?
We’ve moved from being in a world that was “becoming global” to a world that “is global”, so individual cultures – and the people living there – have still retained their own inherent cultural identities, but there is now an added layer of “globalization” that influences the behaviors of these cultures. Ahmed in Saudi Arabia, for example, knows everything about how to do business in Riyadh as a Saudi, but he also, as an individual and a globalized Saudi today, has been influenced by the rest of the world. He – just like all of us – now works with people from many different cultures every day, and knowing how to work with his Saudi colleagues in Riyadh is not enough: he must also know how to work with many other cultures on the same global team, and to always factor in the possibility that they do not necessarily know how to work with him or each other. Through globalization, the world has gotten more complicated, not less so.
You describe the shift from doing business across cultures to doing business beyond cultures. What does that mean in practical terms for a CEO?
Today’s CEO must realize that their fundamental role is to identify and broker the best practices of getting things done that exist in all parts of their global organization to the rest of the organization. There is no one best way, and the way it worked in the past at headquarters may not be the best way for the rest of the organization to get things done in their part of the world. Or that there may be real advantages to the way they get things done in Singapore that can benefit us here in Milwaukee. And in the Paris office. And at headquarters in New York. Doing business across cultures meant understanding the way they got things done in Delhi. Doing business beyond cultures means being able to bring the best practices of the rest of the organization to Delhi, and the best practices in Delhi to the rest of the organization.
Your stories often start with small moments. Why are those moments more revealing than big strategic decisions?
Big strategic decisions often requiring synthesizing many factors in complex ways, and it’s been my experience that recognizing – sometimes even just seeing – the cultural influence on what is going on is often missed under the weight of many of these other considerations; it’s often simply easier to see culture’s influence in small, one-on-one human-scale interactions: the influence is always the same, but the change in scale makes it visible and comprehensible. The implications, the cultural lesson we can learn, however, whether buried under the weight of big strategic issues or more visibly in your face in the small, human-scale interactions, are almost always the same. So, the lesson is simply more easily understood in the small moments.
In your experience, what is the most common mistake Western executives make when working globally?
Thinking and acting like they have all the answers already. They don’t. Nobody does. Think and act instead as if the answers lie somewhere between “us” and “them”, and that your job is to find them.
You highlight indirect communication in some cultures. How should leaders adjust without losing clarity or accountability?
Be culturally prepared: know whether the culture you are working with is a “high-context” (facts – especially problematic ones – are revealed slowly and indirectly) or “low-context” (facts – especially problematic ones – are revealed immediately and directly), and the specific non-verbal clues in that culture that may imply more than words can say. Once prepared, you’ll avoid misunderstanding their intent, and you can adjust your style more or less to avoid them misunderstanding you.
The Bhopal example is sobering. What does that case teach about the cost of cultural misunderstanding at scale?
The lesson: you cannot ignore, overcome or minimize the impact of cultural differences: they exist in the smallest of human interactions, and in the biggest strategic global business decision, and in the case of Bhopal, the cultural facts (Indian and Western differences in how people of different rank are supposed to communicate with one another) are the same, but the outcome can be devastatingly different.
How do you advise leaders to balance speed with the need to understand cultural context?
Distinguish the difference between “efficiency” and “effectiveness”. In “speed” focused cultures, fixing things after decisions are made, for example, is often acceptable; in other cultures, it represents a failure in effective planning. Stay focused on what it takes to be effective at the end of the day in the culture in which you are working, for in many cultures, it does not require speed but instead requires careful planning. In such cultures, you can often arrive at being effective faster by taking things a bit more slowly.
Many organizations invest in cultural training but see limited impact. What are they getting wrong?
The focus of any good training – cultural or otherwise – should always be on its impact: how well can the individuals being trained apply the information learned? This requires a focus not just on facts and information provided, but on the development of SKILLS. This means being able to quantitatively measure the intercultural effectiveness of individuals being trained against benchmarks that represent intercultural excellence. Organizations delivering the training need to provide data on how well individuals interculturally perform after being trained. Most do not, unfortunately. Most training organizations rate fair to great on the cultural information they provide, but most are poor on how well-trained individuals can apply the information in their daily work. Intercultural skills require much more than just knowledge, for individuals need to be able to adapt their own behaviors authentically to the intercultural differences they are learning about, and this skill is often overlooked.
You’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies for decades. Are they improving in cultural competence, or repeating the same mistakes?
I do see an overall improvement in intercultural competence, probably a result of many factors, including more uptake of better intercultural training, and more awareness of the need for intercultural competency development in order for the organization to globally succeed. Interestingly, while Gen Z and beyond come to the workforce for the most part with an awareness of cultural diversity and its benefits, they are often as unaware of what those specific differences are and what to do about them when they encounter them in their work (compared to previous generations who often did not come to the workforce anticipating cultural differences in the first place). At the end of the day, the need for cultural competency training for all groups remains the same.
What role does hierarchy play across cultures, and how should leaders adapt their style without losing authority?
There are many cultural “dimensions” that all leaders need to understand that affect how we work with each other. Like the “indirect and direct communication” issue of the earlier question, there are also “hierarchical” and “egalitarian” cultures, with the different orientations affecting everything from decision-making (who is authorized to make the decision?) to who can speak at a meeting, when and how we speak to each other, how we share or information (or don’t), how much information is required, different protocols around interactions between age, gender and rank differences, etc. As with any cultural dimensional differences, this one around hierarchy also requires that leaders be culturally prepared: know ahead of time where the culture lies on this dimension, and develop the tactics and strategies required for adapting your style to the expectations of the leader in that culture. This takes proper intercultural preparation or experience. (Ideally both!)
How should leaders handle situations where cultural norms conflict with organizational values?
You cannot change a culture. (Well, maybe with enough time and resources one can, but that is usually not what a leader is paid to do, and it is a long, hard slough). You’re there to do your job successfully, and in some cases, that means figuring out a way to achieve your company’s goals even in a culture where the cultural norms conflict with organizational values. So, the first step is to understand that this is a possibility and make a pre-emptive decision about it: since you cannot change the culture or their values, you need to decide ahead of time whether your organization will nevertheless continue to do business there, or whether this is a deal-breaker. If you decide to stay, you must accept your organization’s role as complicit with their values or as a passive or active agent of change; if the difference is a deal-breaker, you must change your decision to work there.
You talk about individuals behaving differently than their culture might predict. What drives that variation?
Global experience, which in today’s world, occurs from birth, from exposure to global media, education (almost all school children today most anywhere in the world, learn English as a second or third language), advantage (Ahmed, our Saudi friend in an earlier question, may have spent his summer at his father’s flat in London, and gotten his degree from UCLA), previous job working on a global project, etc. In all cases, these individuals know the cultural expectations of their formative culture, but in addition, know a bit more about working with other cultures as well. Don’t assume Ahmed will act like a “stereotypical” Saudi. He likely will not.
What is one signal leaders should watch for that tells them a cross-cultural interaction is off track?
Look at the quantitative data: if a project involving global work is taking too long, or costing too much, when compared with similar NON-GLOBAL projects, it is probably going off-track due to cultural disconnects. Look at qualitative information, as well: if you know there is discomfort and frustration on the global team, generally due to lack of progress, often revealed in “blaming”, where individuals express their discontent as the result of someone else’s behavior, this generally indicates the interaction is going off-track due to cultural problems.
If you had to simplify your advice into one principle for leaders working globally, what would it be?
Judge your own behavior before judging the behavior of others. What might YOU be bringing to the table that is advancing and accelerating success…or making problems? Stay humble.
What surprised you most while writing this book compared to your previous work?
How easily I found my voice as a storyteller. I was excited to write a book that required me to open up to my own mistakes, what I learned, and what I didn’t know, rather than a book (like my earlier five books) that were much more “how-to”, written in a voice that was more the “authority” or the “professor”. I was excited, but unsure, if I could be honest enough as an autobiographical storyteller, but I really relished the opportunity to do so. It felt freeing, and I hope my stories of what happened to me carry important lessons for the reader.
For someone early in their career, what is the fastest way to build real cross-cultural competence?
Get over yourself. The center of the universe is everywhere else. You’re just journeying through, so listen deeply, avoid judging, and take responsibility for not knowing when you realize (congratulations!) you don’t (that means, seek people who can explain things to you).
You’ve spent a career studying how people misunderstand each other. What gives you optimism that we can get better at it?
It’s not all that hard, but it requires a choice to get over ourselves, our ego, our authority, and recognize that our experience as a cultural being is limited. Instead of seeing differences we’ve been programmed to see as challenges, we can see them instead as the gifts they are that can help us see the world differently, and which might contain solutions to problems that our own limited experience cannot provide.
Global leadership begins with humility, curiosity, and the discipline to see culture as one of the forces shaping every conversation. For leaders who want to build that discipline, Business Beyond Borders : Stories, Tales and Lessons Learned from Working in 100 Cultures Around the World is a practical and memorable guide to seeing what is really happening across cultures, before the cost of misunderstanding becomes too high.
Image Credit: nikhilesh boppana
