Evaluating People: Part Two

Last month's newsletter pointed to problems connected with evaluating people in a cross-border business setting. This month we offer suggestions about how to make more accurate and effective evaluations.

The best recipe for evaluating people in a multicultural setting begins with viewing employees through others' eyes as well as our own. If we are working primarily through the lens of our own assumptions and expectations, the probability that a poor decision will result is high. Knowing how employees or customers from another culture would regard the same person is a vital step in making an informed choice - even if we do not ultimately agree with their views, or wind up making an evaluation that is based upon a blend of their views and our own.

Western businesspeople working with Japanese colleagues, for example, find it helpful to compare the concepts of the "Stand-Out" and the "Stand-In" Leader.¹ They could search long and hard with limited prospects of success for a Western-style "Stand-Out" leader who forges ahead with a vision and mission for the organization and orchestrates a team of specialized individuals. Meanwhile they would be missing solid leadership candidates who are striving to achieve a different sort of leadership ideal based on indigenous traditions. Here are some characteristics of the "Stand-In Leader":

• Senior, experienced, knows every job;
• Always there for people: sits with the team; arrives first and leaves last;
• Assumes full responsibility for subordinates' actions; expects quick notice when problems arise and consults with employees to generate solutions;
• Understands subordinates better than they understand themselves; acts as a career "mentor" as well as a manager;
• Demonstrates a strong dedication to quality, reliability, and customer service;
• Has a broad network of human connections that helps to get things done;
• Knows how to use either discipline or positive motivation as appropriate;
• Rarely gives verbal compliments; may direct public criticism at promising subordinates in order to stimulate others;
• Socializes after hours to draw out and solve problems;
• Teaches more by implicit example than explicit explanation.

Another way of seeing through the eyes of others is to understand the labels that local employees themselves use in evaluating people within the organization. The table below, Common Employee Types: Foreign Capital Companies in Japan, gives examples of four employee types.

"Traditionalists" are often consistent contributors, but they can become a source of frustration for foreign executives focused on a change agenda that is encountering resistance - under these circumstances it is difficult to perceive or effectively utilize the loyalty and steady effort invested by such employees.

The next two labels, the "Lone Wolf" and the "English Store" are direct translations from Japanese expressions (ippiki ookami and eigoya). Foreign managers often diverge widely from their Japanese colleagues in evaluating these two types. They tend to overestimate the capabilities of the "Lone Wolf" based on his or her assertive self-presentation, missing problems with teamwork and management. The "English Store" is the Japanese version of the glib and self-confident speaker who leads a foreign executive astray with strong communication skills that mask deficiencies in other areas.

Finally, true "Internationalists" - whom everybody wants - are not always easy to spot because they may lack those same communication skills; when promoted ahead of others without proper positioning they also become a target of envy and political infighting.

A typology such as this one is easily misunderstood and misused. It is not intended to reduce complex individual personalities to broad and simple types. The purpose is rather to assist a foreign manager to begin to view his or her people through local perspectives instead of just through imported lenses, expanding the range of vision while promoting constructive dialogue and inquiry into further variety.

Any one of these categories could be further elaborated into additional subcategories. For instance, variations of the "English Store" include solid employees who have the potential to develop other capabilities but are simply inexperienced, those who are already stretched in their current role, a "Smokescreen" type who points to false cultural differences as a way to mask poor results, and manipulators who abuse their privileged intermediary position to further personal or political ends. But the ultimate point is to get beyond types altogether and to evaluate each employee accurately based upon assumptions that are both flexible and regularly reexamined.