Before They Walk into the Boardroom

By Laura Moore

Students performing the Mintanan Greeting

I still remember the silence.

My team huddled around a black speaker phone set up in the center of a windowless conference room on the twelfth floor of a high-rise in Midtown Manhattan.

It was my first job out of college and I was working in account management for an advertising agency, sitting beside a slew of creative people who had been tasked with presenting a new campaign concept to our counterparts in Asia, Europe and Australia.

My boss gave a briefing, highlighting the goals of our client, before instructing participants to open PDFs and view concepts.

That's when the phone line went dead.

After what seemed like days, the group from Asia spoke first.

"I'm not sure," the person said slowly, "this will resonate with our audience."

Silence cloaked us for a long set of seconds before a discussion actually ensued, one that picked apart the core of the concept, the underlying assumption that the American ideal of winning--of outright declaring that your goal is to beat the competition--was not something other regions, particularly Asia, embraced.

Sure, the companies wanted to succeed, wanted to rise to the top of the heap, wanted to increase sales numbers and perceptions of excellence...

But not at the cost of suggesting others were somehow less.

As a 22 year old former collegiate athlete who spent her entire life up to that point striving to win, I remember sitting there, flabbergasted. I remember thinking, for the very first time, about the danger of seeing the world through a singular lens, and from that point forward, I made it my mission to better understand other points of view.

Fortunately, the students in Eva Frustaci's Higher Level International Baccalaureate (IB) Business Management class won't have to wait until the stakes are high before they grapple with reality.

This week, she and her student teacher, Kyle Davis, walked students through a cultural business simulation developed by GlobalEDGE. In this activity, students were split into two groups: the Americans and the Mintanans.

At the start of class, Mr. Davis took the Mintanan group to the Active Learning Lab and briefed them on their role, their business and the ideals at the heart of this fictitious culture. They learned the importance of family, the norms of business interactions, and the numbers required to secure a satisfactory profit in the deal. They also learned the Mintanan greeting involved crossing two hands, palms out, in front of your face, rather than extending your right hand in pursuit of a handshake. The American group stayed behind with Mrs. Frustaci, and she briefed them on their roles, their identity and their goal: to negotiate a deal at the lowest possible price.

Because the Mintanan culture respected hierarchal authority, students were told to embrace certain behaviors: they should expect that a top executive would attend any new business meeting, subordinates were not supposed to sit down until superiors gave them permission, and the president's thinking should never be questioned. Further, they were advised to act in the company's best interest at all times, and if the other company sent lower-level executives, the Mintanan junior executives should expect to carry the brunt of the negotiating.

In addition to these practices, the Mintanans believed in slower negotiations, opting to "haggle" for the best price, rather than settle right away. For that reason, regardless of how attractive an initial offer might be, their cultural norm is to engage in a back and forth exchange. Additionally, decisions about price should based on trustworthiness rather than numbers. The Mintanans were told to look at the way the other company behaved and from their observations, determine whether or not the group was respectable. If the company proved untrustworthy, then regardless of their offer, the Mintanans should not accept it.

The American group, on the other hand, was simply told to close the deal; therefore, their briefing primarily included information about prices and the goal they had to hit to save their company money. They were also told that the president of their organization had no interest in attending the meeting and demanded they go instead. Neither wanted to be there because of rumors they had heard about the authoritative culture in Mintana; however, to inspire efficacy, they were offered an excessive travel budget and promised a $40,000 bonus if they closed the deal. Unfortunately, the junior executives knew nothing about Mintanan culture, and because they arrived late the night before the meeting, their negotiations would be the first interaction they'd have in that country.

Once the two sides were briefed, the American group joined the Mintanan group in the Active Learning Lab. Instructed to engage in meetings and arrive at a deal, the class was split into four smaller groups that were now composed of both Mintanans and Americans. They held meetings for 15 minutes, and by the end, every single group arrived at a deal. Surprisingly, only one out of those four groups agreed on a contract that represented the best interest of the American company.

Following the exercise, students reflected on their experience. They acknowledged the significance of understanding other view points and norms when conducting international business, and they recognized the potential impact a lack of understanding might have. This ranged from greeting preferences to bigger things like hierarchy or behavioral norms that influence perceptions of trustworthiness and respect. They saw how all of those elements could come together to influence outcomes, and how things one group might not find to be a big deal, might be a deal-breaker to another.

While this exercise only filled 48 minutes of these student's lives, the impact has long-lasting potential. When these IB students go off to their internships, or step into roles at their very first jobs, hopefully they won't find themselves in a real moment of silence, a real moment of misunderstanding, a real moment where two groups exist on an entirely different page. As they venture out into the real world, hopefully they will be equipped to shift their lens, to question, to dig, and to understand before they walk into the boardroom.