Managing international assignments

The traditional concept of an ‘international assignment’ is rapidly becoming a misnomer. Certainly the situation whereby an individual (with or without accompanying family) is sent to an overseas location for two or three years still occurs – despite the recent downturn in business. However, today there are all sorts of permutations of business activities that can result in business people working with international colleagues and clients. It may be that people are on short-term assignments (e.g. one to six months) in another country or that they are frequent business travelers visiting subsidiaries and clients or even that they are managers of long-distance teams working on developing new products for third country markets.

Text by Richard Cook

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Managing international assignments

Different business practices

For both the traditional assignee and the newer kinds of international working scenarios the following business-meeting scenarios can be challenging. With your current knowledge would you understand what is going on and, more importantly, would you be able to manage the situation effectively for your organization.

The French meeting

At a meeting in Paris your French counterparts are picking our proposal apart, nit-picking every detail, questioning every fact. Yet when you want information from them, they always seem to talk in circles and never get to the point. What is all this about?

The French are deductive thinkers, placing perhaps more importance on the process, the way, rather than the conclusion, or the result. Other cultures may be inductive thinkers, placing more importance on pragmatic experience, or the bottom-line, with less concern for the ...

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