POSITIONING

A COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT NEWSLETTER

Spring 1998                                                                                                                                                 VOL. 9 NO. 2

Anyone who has ever lived or worked abroad knows all too well the differences that exist between American and foreign cultures.

Consider the expectations of Michael Jackson's entourage as the singer arrived in Bangkok during his 1991 "Dangerous" tour. At past stops on the tour, Jackson had been all but attacked by frenzied fans. "It seemed they were anticipating an airport filled with thousands of hysterical fans," said Mary Devereux, Director, Ogilvy & Mather Public Relations in Seoul, South Korea to a reporter at the Korea Herald. "No one considered the fact that Thailand is a more restrained culture. Jackson's arrival was a low-key affair featuring a few hundred people clapping politely as he entered his hotel."

According to Bill Baker, a Maryland native and current Director of Land Rover Communications Programs for Rover Group Limited International in Warwick, England, "Americans doing business overseas need to remember it's best when you're in Rome to do what the Romans do." Baker has worked in several foreign countries with Land Rover and, prior to this, with Volvo, Fiat and Sony.

"Americans are more direct and get to the point quicker," he adds. "The British don't like the hard sell and don't want to say, 'No.' You have to be patient and constantly find new ways to have your ideas understood. One has to be able to determine the different layers of culture by asking himself, 'Is this person operating this way because it's the corporate culture, the country culture or his or her personality?"

Tom Mattia, Director of North American Public Affairs for the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, was recruited several years ago to create an international communications organization. He had spent much of his career conducting business in Asia and Latin America, and had lived in Hong Kong for two years when he worked for Hill and Knowlton in the early 199Os. "The Asian society is very formal and they follow a prescribed way of interacting. Your success depends on how much time you spend building relationships," he says. "Latin America is a much quicker bonding society and relationships don't take as much time to develop."

Kay Breakstone, President and CEO of Ludgate Communications, began her international career for BursonMarsteller in the early 1980s, spending considerable time in Mexico. "At the time, there wasn't a lot of information available to me and I had to learn that you can't impose the American way of doing business, which is very cut and dry."

Speaking the native language certainly helps bridge some of the cultural gap. "Other cultures really appreciate that you're trying to make a connection with them by learning their language," says Peters. Working at Powell Tate in Washington, DC, she witnessed a wave of relief wash over a French client's face when he discovered she knew his language. "He embraced me and trusted me, which enabled me to do my job very well," she recalls. "Knowing a client's language gives you inroads into their business that others wouldn't have."

The Value of Training
It appears that training individuals for foreign assignments and then assimilating them for their return to America can make a difference. According to a survey conducted by Rosalie Thng, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, and sponsored by Arthur Andersen's International Executive Services practice, more than two-thirds of respondents believe their companies failed to do a satisfactory job of providing them with a clear picture of what to expect from their assignments. About the same number also said that their companies did not pay enough attention to cross-cultural training.

"There are an estimated 300,000 executives on extended business-sponsored assignments (defined as a minimum of three years) and many of these individuals are not properly prepared to deal with the sudden culture shock of moving to another part of the world," says John Watta, Director of Marketing at International Orientation Resources, a cross-cultural training company in Northbrook, Illinois, which works with executives and their families. "It's very expensive for a company to send an American overseas to work. Our service helps companies and individuals get a jump start on being productive."

The cost for training a family of four is approximately $7,000. "The bottom line is if the entire family is adjusted and happy, then the employee is productive," adds Watta.

According to many expatriates, though, corporate training in itself is not sufficient. "I was given a wealth of material on the culture, but they could only do so much," says Jim Rutterman, a public relations manager at IBM in White Plains, who recently returned from a 3 1/2 year assignment in Paris. "You only learn by being immersed in the culture."

There is little doubt that families play an important role in the adjustment process. The 1996 Global Relocation Trends Surveys report sponsored by Windham International and the National Foreign Trade Council found that over 70% of expatriates are married and 57% will relocate accompanied by children. When asked to name family challenges that were critical to their companies, 65% indicated "family adjustment."

"In order for my assignment to be successful I knew my wife and children would have to buy into it," says Rutterman. "I was aware of an executive from another company who transferred overseas and after a year had to leave because his wife couldn't adapt to the new way of life. He eventually had to leave the company and the incident hurt his career."

Rutterman, whose children were both pre-schoolers at the beginning of his assignment, believes the transition is easier for a family when the offspring are young. "When the kids are older, they have to break ties they've formed," he says.

Roger Bentley, Director of External Communications for Digital Equipment Corporation in Marlboro, Massachusetts, moved his family to London for two years to work with DEC's European management team, where he spent 30% to 40% of his time traveling away from his relocated home. He credits the success of his overseas stint to the support of his family. "If my family wasn't into it, it wouldn't have worked out," he says. "They enjoyed it so much, my wife would go back to live in London tomorrow."

Similarly, Tom Mattia's family adjusted well to life in Hong Kong. "In major international cities, there are significant expatriate communities that help families get involved," he says. "The only problem that arose was that it was disruptive to my children's education. In the long run, however, they have a much broader view of the world than other children their age."

Re-Entry Problems
For many, returning to the United States can be as unsettling as leaving. "I was concerned about how going abroad for four years would affect my career," says Bentley. "It was very important, yet challenging for me to maintain a network in the company and in the industry in the United States while I was away."

Rover Group's Baker recommends that expatriates stay abreast of the policies and procedures in the home office and maintain their contacts to minimize the distance. Adds Mattia, "Before you accept any work overseas, take a good hard look at the company you work for to see how they view international assignments."

Although a 1997 Heyman survey revealed that fewer than 20% of respondents strongly agreed with the statement that "a foreign assignment or domestic relocation offers a career boost," most of those interviewed who have actually gone abroad see it as extremely beneficial.

"Learning to develop relationships internationally is a priceless skill to have," says Jamie Anderson, Communications Manager at Texas Instruments in Dallas. "Traveling and working internationally gives you a view on life you don't have working closer to home," says Mattia. "Having these experiences is what brought me to Ford in the first place."

Kay Breakstone agrees. "Working with different companies, cultures and points of view have been very helpful to me," she says. "It's given me a range of skills and experience like no other."

Eric Kraus, Director of Communications for the Gillette Company's North Atlantic Group in Boston is responsible for the communications efforts in 19 countries. "Having international experience has helped my career," he says. "It's rounded out my experience and offered me opportunities I never would have bad."

To IBM's Rutterman, "International experience is seen as a valuable commodity, especially in a global company like ours."

Not everyone sees the differences as so daunting. Mary Carol Linder, Senior Vice President of Communications at Estee Lauder in New York City, thinks that people can overestimate cultural differences. "After spending time doing business all over the world, I would have to say that people have more in common than not."

Of course, the success of such a career move lies with the individual. "It should be a lifestyle decision," says Disney's Peters. " If you love communicating with other cultures and people, the rest will be easy."

Whether you're a CEO wooing potential investors, or a communications specialist speaking to the press, the "Dolly" hubbub in the media is instructive for what long-term "reputation management" challenges for our industry are all about. Let me explain.

A reporter asked me what the Biotechnology Industry Organization's strategy was in handling the press and public reaction to the cloning of Dolly. "Simple," I said. "trust." He then asked how BIO should prepare for the next Dolly incident. "With more trust," I said. Building trust before, during and after such incidents is our strategy. Having your audiences - whether they are the press, investors or the general public - trust you and what you say is your key "reputation management" objective, because breakthroughs like Dolly will happen again and again.

Now think about our "trust" strategy in geographical terms. Imagine two lines on two graphs in an annual report. First, down at the bottom, is biotech's line of progress. It climbs steadily upward, moving from rising plateaus to higher slopes, a little jagged, but always upward. That is the line that tracks the advances of our industry, measured by products produced, total assets or value of equity. As this line progresses, and biotech and BIO educates more people about the benefits of biotechnology, we build trust with many different audiences, because we are delivering.

But there is another line on the other graph, more erratic, with big spikes, always tumbling forward, like a series of earthquake shockwaves on the Richter scale. This line shows how science, which we cannot predict or control, is forging into the future. These spikes come suddenly, often rife with headlines. Dolly was a 7.1 on the Richter scale. Public reaction runs the gamut of human emotions, but you can count on people being apprehensive about what we or science is doing to the established, comfortable order.

These spikes from the world of science shake everything up as newfound knowledge bursts through the crust of previous knowledge. We never know when one of these spikes will hit, but we can prepare ourselves. We can build our industry in the same wise way that construction engineers build bridges and towers in California, particularly near the fault lines.

First, we must realize that public reaction to Dolly events can hurt us. BIO took a giant step in building trust when the cloning story first broke from Scotland. With no prior notice to his industry, BIO reacted immediately. We realized that our industry had to stand solidly together against the fears and anxieties that were sure to be roused among the public. We released a statement on the ethical commitment of all our members to work for the betterment of humankind -not to clone human beings- and advised the President by letter that steps should be taken to prevent human cloning.

We united on an ethical stand. We put BIO on record, out front of the waves of public reaction to this scientific breakthrough. We will need to structure more responses on ethical issues raised by science. This must be an everyday commitment.

Experts have invented corporate formulas for trust. They've created circles to show credibility establishing reliability, leading to trust which, in turn, underpins credibility. But I see trust as plain and straight-forward. Trust is the visible track record of good purpose that the public knows it can always count on whenever a scientific shock strikes.

There are many ways to build trust. First and foremost, there is biotech's integrity in its laboratory operations. People can count on products to benefit human well-being, and every advance in product production increases that trust.

Openness with the public also builds trust- a fair exchange for the protection provided by patents on procedures and products.

Finally, trust increasingly depends on our squarely facing the ethical issues raised by science as they affect biotech. We should remain on the forefront - not just abreast - of those ethical issues. And we must, with one voice, speak out on those issues as an industry.

All of the above reinforce public faith in biotech. And people - seeing us stand firm - will be more willing to provide us the capital, freedom in inquiry and entrepreneurial opportunity to develop new products for their human betterment.

Those of us in biotechnology with the responsibility to communicate (and that includes all CEOs) must do so with that goal in mind. This means that we must each make a conscious daily effort to reach out and demonstrate our trustworthiness through such local efforts as community involvement, student tours and speeches, and through such national efforts as participating in groups that solve some of America's big and little problems.

A national survey a few years ago gave Americans a list of 10 words, and asked them to pick the words most important to their lives. The word that topped the list - by a wide majority - was trust. Beyond our products, beyond our financial statements, beyond everything, that is our industry's fundamental commodity.