Few work experiences offer more immediate, personal insight than an overseas internship or international job.
Once a month, for more than a year, my first international job meant a quick flight from Minneapolis to Sao Paulo to work with a client at 3Ms main Brazil plant. Although my senior client was an Italian-American New Yorker, my first experience in the cross-cultural, organizational politics of Brazil was never-to-be forgotten. Having grown up in the Eastern and Southern European diversity of Detroit in the 1940s and ‘50s, we made certain our three daughters got out of Minnesota homogeneity and took to Europe for part of their college experience. My youngest worked in Greece for nearly a year after graduating. They, too, found those experiences to be of great, pragmatic benefit.
Phyllis Korkki, in Sunday’s Times, recommends overseas internships for those able to able to float the airfare and expenses, in spite of fact that they are often “all work and no pay.” Korkki emphasizes the importance of finding host companies that will provide a great deal of value to the student. They’ll gain the opportunity to improve language skills and what may be more important, understanding a different culture. Her caution makes a lot of sense: “People have internships on the brain,” but it’s important to choose the right time and place for them.
Korkki doesn’t deal with my own reasoning for encouraging international experience for every student who can possibly dig up the change for six months or a year. Yeah, I’m well aware that parents are liable to have to continue paying the same American college or university for their kids’ international experience. But if you’re a part of the class that’s willing and able to dig up the shekels for it, it’s an experience that will bring a lot of value to the younger generation whether or not they are planning for an international job.
Similar values and rewards also come from managerial tenures in international settings. Though most corporations recognize international experience as a plus, the more backward organizations may penalize the employee, in one way or another, for outside the US (OUS) experience. As a result managers may need to weigh the career pluses and minuses at his current organization. But the experience may be richly rewarded in another organization. Whether or not the organization rewards you for your experience, the values you can receive from that experience are significant.
Much of the international learning applies directly to the US organizational experience.
Cultural boundaries define us because they stable systems of behaviors and cognition. When a person is placed in another stable system, he or she is forced to learn behavioral and thinking ways that differ markedly from their original system. This gives them inherently different ways of perceiving their own American organization. They are far better at conceptualizing present and potential differences.
People of one culture immersed in another gain a highly useful understanding of different “realities.” Our own culture teaches us what to see and what to ignore. Experience in another culture teaches us that another culture sees and ignores different things. Opportunities in Greece, for example, are closely tied to family relationships. An outsider may be shocked by the direct question of “how much do you make?” Or, “how much did that cost?” If the foreigner is reluctant to answer that question, he may be foregoing unwittingly the proffered acceptance as a friend. Effective product and process designers can use the experience of different realities to focus on design questions from many different angles, often providing significant innovations to their American company.
Adjusting to different beliefs about the workplace.
International experience can make it far more easy for a person to adjust and manage today’s endless reorganizations and restructuring. The classic intercultural experience deals with many of the various workplace questions today’s organizations are focusing upon. How much planning should precede action? How are incentives, rewards and control best managed? How much conformity and initiative are expected? What does an effective work setting look like? And how do diverse ethnicities and religions affect expectations?
Putting important experiences into appropriate perspective.
Managers inevitably draw an infinite number of conclusions from important, conflicted or questionable experiences. What did my boss mean by that? Is he suggesting that I’m going to get laid off? Does he expect me to be at this meeting? Was his anger directed at me? What kind of changes does he expect of me?
But international experience puts that analysis in front of our noses. We’re forced to resolve questions about the meaning of language and gesture. We learn quickly that different cultures organize and process information very different than our American way. Objective facts don’t mean much in many cultures and social values can pose much difficulty. Business practices like making appointments and contacts differ. Negotiating with some cultures can force us to completely rethink how we normally go about the process. Etc., etc.
Emphasizing the role and value of street smarts.
Although a lot of less experienced employees don’t understand the value of street smarts, that ability to deal effectively with all kinds of people and levels of hierarchy, an intercultural experience brings all kinds of issues to the fore. Sometimes the issues are shockingly immediate and embarrassing. It may be a misunderstood gesture, failure to understand how time is used, or even the American penchant for getting to business without taking the time to exercise a different culture’s social protocols and relationship behaviors.
The struggles for business success are now international, not merely local. The reality is that each of us comes from a long line of ancestors who were raised in many different cultures, even though we’ve been Americanized to the hilt. Success in today’s business world will require more and more intercultural moxie. An international experience will be key for many of us.