Flex Your Multi-Cultural Intelligence

Leaders in society and business face decisions every day: tensions and dilemmas they must acknowledge and solve. In a multi-cultural world this becomes even more complex, as conflicting values, cultural identities, and beliefs come into play. This means that individuals and leaders may be faced with seemingly impossible choices. 

Understanding these dilemmas is the world of Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, the founders of niche Netherlands-based consultancy Trompenaars Hampden-Turner (THT). Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner created the seven dimensions of culture model and have written extensively about how to navigate multi-cultural workplaces, conduct business in a global world, and deal with dilemmas. For them, a dilemma arises when one has to make a choice between two opposing options, both of which offer certain advantages.

Understanding dilemmas

Like an uncomfortable joke needs a punch line that ignites laughter or relief, so too does easing a business tension create space to move forward. Trompenaars, a man with a keen curiosity about people and culture, new technologies, and innovation, links this to comedy.   

Some years ago, during a two-hour train journey from Stockholm to Gothenburg in Sweden, Trompenaars found himself sitting with English comedian and actor John Cleese of Fawlty Towers and Monty Python fame. Cleese is also a speaker on creativity in management and the author of two books on psychology in relationships.

Trompenaars recalls how Cleese observed that dilemma reconciliation is the essence of humour. “Humour is when two opposite logics both turn logical, and it makes your laugh. The example John gave was: ‘Four prisoners were playing cards, one was cheating, so they kicked him out of jail.’ If you reverse text and context, it’s a way of reconciling a dilemma and it makes you laugh,” explains Trompenaars. 

This, my GIBS colleague Professor Caren Scheepers explains, is a typically South African coping mechanism and a common method of resolving tensions in our society. “It’s a skill we have,” she says. “As soon as a disaster strikes, we have the first joke coming out.”

So, on a social level, most of us appreciate the need to reset the stage in order to move forward. What GIBS and THT are now focusing on is how to translate the mechanism behind this popular comedic device into corporate dilemma reconciliation.

The 4R approach to dilemma reconciliation

The starting point is THT’s four-step 4R approach to dilemma reconciliation, which moves from recognising and identifying the diversity of perspectives, behaviours, and beliefs to respecting these viewpoints. Then work starts to reconcile these tensions to achieve a win-win solution. The final stage is realising or implementing the resolution, and shifting corporate mindsets to help deal with future issues.

The important catalyst for this reconciliation is the recognition of value and meaning in both propositions. This is the same light-hearted tension release we experience when we laugh at a joke, recognising that what look like contradictory points might actually both be logical.

This approach recognises that workplace diversity and inclusion is both a challenge and an opportunity. Managing diverse teams is not always easy. It requires understanding, respect, alignment, and quality leadership capable of solving dilemmas and tensions as they emerge. To do so, however, means moving beyond surface issues and getting to the root of the conflict, which often lies in disconnects between deeply engrained inner beliefs and cultural assumptions. 

Without falling into the trap of stereotyping people and cultures, Trompenaars argues that core beliefs impact how businesses operate in different contexts and how leaders might approach conflict resolution differently. He explains that understanding implicit culture is essential to working successfully with others.

“The core beliefs consist of basic assumptions, series of rules, and methods that a society has developed to deal with the regular problems that it faces. These methods of problem-solving have become so basic that, like breathing, people no longer think about how they do it. For an outsider, these basic assumptions can be very difficult to recognise,” writes Trompenaars. However, for those within the culture, these core beliefs are so entrenched they are almost taken for granted.

Enhanced value through collaboration

Like THT, GIBS believes in equipping leaders, students, and delegates with insights into the capabilities needed to operate with understanding and sensitivity for people of all cultures. Cultural diversities also create multiple dilemmas, so a core leadership competency is being able to reconcile day-to-day dilemmas. As GIBS Dean Prof. Morris Mthombeni explains, we also prioritise practising these skills so it becomes an embedded leadership capability.

This is why GIBS and THT have partnered to create courses on dilemma thinking. Presented by Trompenaars and certified consultants including GIBS faculty members, these courses focus on unlocking growth by helping leaders resolve business and leadership dilemmas in South Africa. The courses will challenge leaders to apply a human lens that recognises that leadership is not just about accountability, but purpose, mixed with compassion and care.

This calls for a “new paradigm of leadership”, says Trompenaars. It calls for a paradigm in which it is possible to be human, to run human organisations that have meaning for society, while still turning a profit.

To foster an approach that benefits leaders and managers in practice, as well as theory, the GIBS-THT partnership will seek to leverage unique and different capabilities to generate value across the two institutions, and not just in the education space. As Prof. Mthombeni explains, “We think there is an urgency of change that is required in our country. What is exciting with us collaborating is that it goes beyond teaching. You bring your real-life problems and real-life dilemmas and we help to reshape your mind about how you think about those dilemmas.” Most importantly, GIBS journeys with leaders and their organisations to reconcile real-world dilemmas for a better future outcome.

Tussling with tensions

Anytime a leader applies humanity to a problem, considers things from another’s perspective, or operates from a place of inclusion, the potential for creative tension is increased as new factors and considerations come into play. Consider, for instance, how a leader might resolve the conflict between wanting to pay staff more while dealing with shareholder expectations. “That’s a dilemma,” Trompenaars says. You need both stakeholders, and if you don’t reconcile the tension, the value of your relationships and work will suffer. 

Similarly, addressing the United Nations sustainable development goals at a country or company level can present a dilemma. What is the trade-off between supporting life on Earth or overcoming poverty? Both have positive intentions, but addressing one could have implications for another, thereby seemingly putting them at odds. THT’s approach works on the assumption that both elements have value, and then looks to find ways to create more value. It’s not about compromising, but harnessing the power of both possibilities.

Finding these innovative solutions requires intuitive leaders who are capable of peeling back the cultural onion to get to the core of the matter. This can be a heavy task, filled with paradoxes and head-scratching moments. Which is why, when the going gets tough, you might need to tap into your inner comedian.

The partnership

Fons Trompenaars recalls visiting South Africa a decade ago to give classes at GIBS. He also led a large project in 2023 with telecoms group MTN, which came about following an introduction by former GIBS Dean Prof. Nick Binedell. So, when THT began looking for academic partners, GIBS was a top contender.

The motivation for a partnership of this nature was to draw out the wealth of information, themes, and trends locked away in THT’s extensive database. After 35 years of conducting workshops and harvesting data, THT was sitting with raw data about some 52 000 leadership dilemmas.

These dilemmas emerged out of cultural differences which, when given their due credence by leaders, had the potential to turn into conflicts. “We have a huge database on cultural differences,” says Trompenaars. “I think 140 000 people have filled in [our intercultural awareness profile questionnaire] for almost 35 or 40 years, but what were we doing with those databases?”

THT is currently in the process of tidying up this data to make the resource more searchable and user-friendly, in order to extract quality touchpoints. Once this is in place, and the database has been streamlined, it will be easier to extract the dilemmas and incorporate these insights into THT’s global presentations and business consultations.

The partnership with GIBS, beyond building teaching capabilities and client-centred courses, also provides future research opportunities as THT’s data is leveraged to highlight effective solutions.

The research

Professor Caren Scheepers, a prolific transdisciplinary researcher, award-winning business case writer, and lecturer, is part of the GIBS team that will be working closely with THT in the years to come to distil insights from this dataset into relevant and usable themes for local and international business leaders. Working closely with Prof. Scheepers will be senior lecturer Gloria Mbokota, who is tasked with assisting in analysing the data to derive meaning from the qualitative data sets on dilemmas. 

“There is huge potential for this project,” Scheepers says, adding that while it is early days yet the intention behind the partnership is to share data and insights, draw out Africa-focused numbers, and extract ways to create value.

Scheepers and Mbokota are two of five GIBS faculty members currently undergoing THT’s online dilemma reconciliation training in order to teach Trompenaar and Hamden-Turner’s approach. During these sessions data will also be collected for further analysis.

Already, Scheepers has included THT assessments for her students on her diversity and inclusion MBA elective and identified that reconciliation of differences is something South African business needs to work on. Fortunately, says Scheepers, “These are skills we now have access to and we can use to train our clients and students.”

Scheepers hopes that by 2026 – when GIBS hosts the globally respected Diana International Research Conference on Women Entrepreneurship – this partnership will have yielded meaningful qualitative and quantitative research and data sets from Africa. In particular, she is keen to explore dilemma reconciliation from a gender perspective.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A new GIBS partnership with Dutch consultancy Trompenaars Hampden-Turner (THT) aims to help leaders better manage conflict and reconcile dilemmas arising due to cultural misunderstandings and differences in beliefs and values.
• The two organisations will leverage existing leadership dilemma data for research and to create learning experiences.

The GIBS take on humane-centred leadership

Humane leadership is a concept that emphasises compassionate and empathetic leadership practices. It recognises the importance of treating employees and stakeholders with respect, dignity, and fairness, while fostering a positive and inclusive work environment. Some common themes on humane leadership include wellbeing, empathy, compassion, multicultural or cross-cultural intelligence, collaboration, and empowerment. Humane leadership is responsible, inclusive, and ethical, and it prioritises the personal growth and well-being of people above all else.

We also believe that humane leadership is something you keep working at each and every day, in the choices you make and the empathy you bring to your role as leader. This is a challenging path to walk, which is why GIBS has structures in place to support leaders through education as well as exposure to humane-leadership experiences that encourage our delegates to replicate these approaches in their organisations.

Alison Reid is the head of personal and applied learning at GIBS, which offers applied leadership development and coaching for all levels of management. Reid’s academic background lies in the field of sports psychology, leadership development, and coaching. Reid’s professional background and training is as a facilitator and coach, and her areas of interest include leadership development for sustainability, for human-specific skills of the future, and for humane organisations.