▶︎ Note This is a companion deck to my presentation at Product Camp Singapore. To learn more, please read my post on Mind The Product. (Link below.) ---- Product management has two diversity problems. The first one is well-acknowledged: our industry must have more women, other ethnicities, and better representation from LGBTQIA. The second is more subtle: in those instances when we do achieve diversity, and especially cross-cultural diversity, we are unable to handle it. Our engineers and designers can come from anywhere, yet everything we learn about product management focuses on teams that consist mostly of white Westerners. Product rituals like standups, backlog grooming meetings, and retrospectives work well for people brought up in typical egalitarian Western cultures like the US, Canada, and the UK. Yet those same tried and true activities, which do miracles to help Western teams express feedback and discuss ideas, fall remarkably short when applied to people whose culture prescribes them to make suggestions indirectly or in private. If you’ve ever tried to run a typical Agile retrospective with a team where one of the engineers is from China, you know what I mean. It simply doesn’t work. ▶︎ Read more here: http://www.mindtheproduct.com/2017/03/product-management-culture-management/

3. San Francisco, California

4. This is Product Management…
… is it really?

5. Typical
product
processes
FAIL

6. We are ambassadors of our cultures.

7. “The first time I used the company’s
form to give a performance review, I
was confused. Where was the section to
talk about problem areas? The positive
wording sounded over the top.”
– A manager at Google France
When Culture Doesn’t Translate, Eryn Meyer, HBR, Oct 2015

8. “Is it important for a manager to have at
hand precise answers to most questions
subordinates may raise about their work?”

9. “Even if I know the answer, I probably
won’t give it to my staff … because
I want them to figure it out
for themselves.”
– Swedish manager
Erin Meyer, The Culture Map

10. “I would try to not ask my boss a
question unless I was pretty sure he
knew the answer.”
– Japanese Executive
Erin Meyer, The Culture Map

11. “When I would ask my staff members for
their thoughts, advice, or opinions,
they would sit quietly staring at
their shoelaces.”
– Australian manager about his Chinese team
Erin Meyer, The Culture Map

12. Implicit communication fails us

13. DEALING
WITH
CULTURE

14. #1 Calibrate the team

15. https://hbr.org/resources/html/infographics/2014/05/R1405K-Meyer/May_MY_Meyer_v2.html
Israel
Russia
https://hbr.org/2014/05/navigating-the-cultural-minefield

16. Establish
the baseline culture.

17. #2 Say NO to Leadership Colonialism

18. Just
because
you
succeeded
doesn’t
in your
home
country,
mean
you’ll
succeed
with a
foreign
team.

19. “One of the biggest mistakes […] managers
make is assuming that the other individual is
purposely omitting information or unable to
communicate explicitly.”
Erin Meyer, The Culture Map

20. #3 Don’t
rely on
people
skills and
empathy”.

21. Culturally-specific empathy is a
“learned ability”.
The Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy: Development, Validation, and Reliability, Yu-Wei Wang, M. Meghan Davidson, Oksana F.
Yakushko, Holly Bielstein Savoy, Jeffrey A. Tan, and Joseph K. Bleier, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 2003, Vol. 50, No. 2, 221–234

22. You must be trained in cross-cultural
receptivity and empathy.
The Role of Culture in Affective Empathy: Cultural and Bicultural Differences
T. G. Cassels et al. / Journal of Cognition and Culture 10 (2010) 309–326
Cross-Cultural Empathy And Training The Contemporary Psychotherapist, Lawrence Dyche, A.C.S.W., And Luis H. Zayas, Ph.D.
- Clinical Social Work Journal Vol. 29, No. 3, Fall 2001

23. #4 Study your team

24. Take a step back and
observe the team.

25. Find a unique approach to each
of your team members.

26. Embrace
small
talk.

27. Try
instant
retrospectives.

28. #5 Read and Learn

29. Become a cultural chameleon

30. Have a range of
communication styles
which you can choose from.

32. The Culture Map, Erin Meyer
International Leadership and Organizational Behavior [Coursera]
Intercultural Communication and Conflict Resolution [Coursera]
… and many more on edX, Udemy