PITFALL 3. Harmony among the peoples of the world, an alibi for the West’s continued domination.
Though the sincerity of well-meaning projects to allow a less distorted communication among men makes no question, it is hard at the same time not to refer to an important fact of Western civilization: its irresistible “instinct for mastery” [1]. This is not without consequences; Western culture weighs heavily indeed on the destiny of today’s post-colonial world and globalizing economy. It is not a Western author’s ethnocentric point of view to claim that Western culture shapes the ways and means [2] by which corporate giants operate, that they offer themselves as models for aspiring managers from the world over. In all branches of the world economy, the top-10 companies are indifferently American, German, British, French – and Japanese. Under the pretext of a de-babelization of the world and with the ambition to unfold the secrets of smoother, more efficient and happier relations with diverse or remotely scattered teams, with a wide range of client or partner expectations around the globe, eager to march on new found markets and open up opportunities far over the seas, cross-cultural management recipes are nothing but an instrument of economic power and management control, a tool for the successful securing of market share. That they work is yet another discussion, here we are interested in the culturally-charged motives at their origin. The goal-orientedness of the theories here is concomitant with their readership’s interests, which they serve. The overall objective is to “obtain the desired response”, not so much to understand or act and think like the Other – a precept drawn from Edward T. Hall’s otherwise prudent and respectful approach to cultural differences [3]. At the least, such mindset reveals a dubious altruism, not deprived of a certain interest.
Maybe the question is about strategy and domination, economic war and world competition – but why not say it then? Why such double-tongue language? Why advocate instead “the better understanding of cultures” or the promotion of “a better understanding AMONG cultures”, “the fostering of mutually respectful business relationships”? Why justify economic war with fallacious Judeo-Christian resolutions? Or is it all we have left, fallacious resolutions, to regulate or limit somehow our greed? That would lead more than one to think that not saying it is yet another tactic to make the rest of the world believe of the West’s good intentions and to allow – or even JUSTIFY – the adoption by the non-Western world of Western ways of thinking.
At this point we must look a long time back – by which you will understand that today’s cross-cultural management as we know it comes from very long ago. I would like to start with the historical beginnings of the complex processes we call now “globalization”, namely the end of the Middle Ages, which coincide with the “discoveries” of the American continent. How else can one explain the European conquest of the Americas by anything but this strange mixture of attraction for the Other and the burning desire to exploit him and his lands at the same time? What made possible the control over the whole Aztec empire’s population by a handful of conquistadores? Simply their capability to “communicate”, i.e. to feel like it is to be in someone else’s shoes, to know his fears and expectations, and to obtain from him the desired response… The conquistadores alienated themselves the services of an interpreter [4] to exploit the weaknesses and the beliefs (and the inner divisions) of a society which, in turn, was not ready to understand these Europeans coming from too far-away lands. The conquistadores were struck with this formidable intuition that their culture was not absolute – as the theorists say in echo: “in culture, all is relative” – nor the Indians’ who, subjugated as they were, couldn’t but take the Spaniards for gods. Thus entering the realm of the Relative, the conquistadores imagined the possibility for a competition among civilizations, so that the best would prevail, whereas the Aztecs remained in the Absolute. In French writer J.-M. G. Le Clézio’s “Le rêve mexicain”, even the evidence of the Spaniards’ established superiority does not let them go of their magic conception of the world. It is on the contrary by virtue of this view that the Spaniards must win over them as if, in the end, there was no other explanation but irrational, divine – and pagan! – to admit the radicality of their enemy’s difference. On the other hand, the Spaniards turned to their advantage the knowledge that they had of the relativity of cultures to triumph of the Aztecs’ culture; but this relativity, in a way, fed their belief that they were in the Right and the True, whereas the Indians were in the Wrong. There is no possible direct “grip” of one culture onto the other; that is why only a lot of violence would finally allow the Spaniards to convert the Indians to their religion.
Maybe a lot of love too… In a novel by French-Chinese author François Cheng (“L’éternité n’est pas de trop”) there is the figure of a pair of Jesuits in 17th century China who literally radiate with a kind of love unknown to the Chinese and which makes them capable of “un-rooting” themselves, yet to comprehend, appropriate in a spectacular way the culture and language of the Other to eventually better transform it from within. This strength is of such an extraordinary efficiency which, without necessarily one’s noticing its “lineage” (with the West in general, south and later north-European, then Anglo-Saxon, and now scientific and utilitarian) is of the same nature as the one looked for in the cross-cultural recipes applied by cultural tips-hungry companies (regardless of the scientific validity of the tips here) and found in the gargantuan greed of the West or, in fact, its irresistible “instinct for mastery”.
That the understanding of the Other be an instrument of power for companies goes without saying. Cross-cultural management, in its better versions, is a tool for smoothly operating, culture-conscious organizations and, through the extreme attention it grants to the expectations of managers from all around the world, it teaches them the great value they can get from an integrated consciousness of cultural diversity and a series of managerial reflexes at all levels in their companies, which are too actors in the human community. In a world where digital technologies and satellite transmissions shape the ways we communicate and are an incredible source of power for those who hold them in their hands, in a world where everything I say here can be heard elsewhere instantly, the means of mutual understanding across cultures become increasingly crucial, to an unprecedented degree, for the survival of companies, but also for societies and the individual in general. Cross-cultural management teachers and consultants, with well-meaning ideas deeply-kneaded into them, one would think, are in the best position to help this world be a better place and have it in their hands to take at heart the project they say they have to allow for a mutual comprehension among men that is beneficial to all. May these “pitfalls” not discourage the most authentic at heart, and wean those dependent on false views from their mentors.
[1] I am referring to a term used by Tzvetan Todorov, in French “pulsion d’emprise”, found in his book “La conquête de l’Amérique”, itself apparently borrowed from psychoanalysis (in German, “Bemächtigunstrieb”, translated as “instinct for mastery”), here applied to 15th century Europe’s greed, obsession to possess and rule whole new continents, and also understood as its lust for the domination of NATURE whereby nature also means HUMAN nature…
[2] Corporate culture is defined in simple terms by “the way we do things round here”. The models for the ideally modern company today are predominantly of Western – if not North American – origin.
[3] Anthropologist Edward T. Hall, in his classic book “The Hidden Dimension”, claims himself to be a pioneer in cultural studies. He declares himself one of the firsts to consider culture a possible object of scientific research. The contradiction in Hall’s approach is, according to him, that Man is a ultimately a cultural being; so the study of culture cannot be of culture per se and is tantamount to the study of Man; yet culture remains in his eyes a separate object of scientific research.
[4] “La Malincha” meant the captain’s woman in the Aztecs’ view and was named Dona Marina by the Spaniards. She was chosen to become Hernan Cortés’ interpreter; Tzvetan Todorov, in “La conquête de l’Amérique” (pp. 130-134), explains the meaning of her action and destiny in the story of the Conquista and collective memory of Mexico. Further, the author remarks (p. 314): “The Indians favor exchanges with the world, the Europeans favor exchanges with men ; neither of them is intrinsicly superior to the other, and one always needs both ; if one side only prevails, there is much to lose.” La Malincha stands between the two worlds; her simultaneous understanding of them makes of her the first mixed-blood person in the history of Mexico – as much as the indispensable instrument of the Aztec empire’s destruction.
