How can we support mentoring relationships involving different national cultures?
Lis Merrick reports
With the rise in global mentoring programmes comes issues associated with the norms, beliefs and behaviours of different national cultures and how these can impact mentors and mentees working cross-culturally.
In same national culture relationships, there tends to be an expectation of similarity in values and world view. In mentor and mentee matches where cultures are different, there can be fears, biases and stereotypes about other races and ethnicities. The mentor needs to find a way to empathise with and understand their mentee’s personal life situation.
Research by Hofstede et al (2010) on the Power Distance Index (PDI) across different cultures is a way of viewing the extent to which lower ranking people accept and expect power to be distributed unequally. In global organisations, this means employees from cultures with a high PDI tend to be passive and do what they’re told, whereas employees from cultures with a low PDI tend to feel their opinion is just as legitimate as that of their boss! Countries with a low PDI include the UK, US, Netherlands and Scandinavia. Countries with a high PDI include India, much of South East Asia and the Arab States.
This can be thought-provoking when considering the potential challenges of putting two people together in developmental mentoring where the power should ‘be parked’, and when working with countries with different PDIs.
What should you do?
- Find mentors who are curious, open-minded and at ease working outside their culture
- Mentors and mentees find comfort in similarity at the beginning of a relationship.
The stress and stretch of someone completely different can be too much without engaging buy-in at the matching stage. Avoid patronising mentors who think they are doing their mentee (from a less developed part of the world) a favour by working with them, as the power dynamics will be wrong from the beginning - If you aren’t sure what mentees need, ask them. Where there are glass ceilings, mentees can be hesitant to express honest opinions. Creating an anonymous survey on these topics will cultivate inclusivity and transparency in your programme
- Focus energy in briefings on how to build trust and understanding.
I use the work of Molinsky (2013) when briefing mentors and mentees in cross-national programmes.
First, we consider how to diagnose the cultural code your mentor or mentee is using, based on the following spectrums: Directness, Enthusiasm, Formality, Assertiveness, Self-promotion and Personal disclosure.
Second, we create a four-step plan which:
1. Diagnoses the cultural code
2. Identifies the mentor’s/mentee’s personal challenges
3. Customises their behaviour
4. Makes the behaviour into ‘muscle memory’
I find this is an easy way to consider differences objectively, but also to build a plan to each participant to support them in working more effectively with their partner.
Encouraging cross-cultural connections makes for incredibly rich learning in mentoring, but it needs to be well focused and the participants need to be very aware of the challenges, and then work to ensure these are overcome.
- Next issue: A consultancy model for developing a mentoring programme
References
- G Hofstede, G J Hofstede &M Minkov, Cultures and Organisations: Software of the Mind, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education, 2010
- A Molinsky, Global Dexterity, Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review, 2013
Lis Merrick is a consultant specialising in mentoring programme design and development. She welcomes correspondence on anything to do with mentoring. Contact: Lismerrick@coachmentoring.co.uk