Global/Multicultural
References Work Place Case
May 3, 1994
Hobbling Joint Research ... Softball Is Not the Answer
EAST FISHKILL, N.Y. - Life can be tough out here on the frontier of international business cooperation. Just ask Matt Wordeman.
Mr. Wordeman, an International Business Machines Corp. research scientist, works at the heart of one of the most ambitious cross-cultural business projects ever attempted. Three competing companies from three continents - Siemens AG of Germany, Toshiba Corp. of Japan and IBM- are trying to develop a revolutionary computer memory chip together. The Triad, as they call themselves, has been working for a year at the IBM facility in this small Hudson River Valley town on research scheduled to last until at least 1997. The undertaking is cutting-edge, both in technology and in the scope of its cross-cultural cooperation.
Initially, some organizers wondered whether more than 100 scientists from competitive, culturally diverse backgrounds could work together on such a large project. They were right to worry.
At East Fishkill, Siemens scientists were shocked to find Toshiba colleagues closing their eyes and seeming to sleep during meetings (a common practice for overworked Japanese managers when talk doesn't concern them). The Japanese, who normally work in big groups, found it painful to sit in small, individual offices and speak English; some now withdraw when they can into all-Japanese groups. IBMers complained that the Germans plan too much and that the Japanese - who like to review ideas constantly - won't make clear decisions. Suspicions circulate that some researchers are withholding information from the group.
The human issues raised in this venture offer lessons not just for the three prominent firms involved, but for companies in a wide variety of businesses across the globe.
Cooperative projects of this kind are likely to proliferate, and the reason is money. In business after business, development costs are ballooning, driving more and more cash-strapped companies to look for ways to cooperate with competitors. Participants in the Triad project won't give a precise figure, but its development costs have been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In the semiconductor business alone, cost pressure has driven Texas Instruments Inc. and Japan's Hitachi Ltd. to set up their own joint project to develop the same kind of memory chip- although their researchers work apart, in separate labs. Japan's NEC Corp. and South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. are making similar plans.
The memory chip being developed here in East Fishkill is intended to be the backbone of computers for the early 21st century. Each thumbnail-sized silicon chip is to hold 256 million bits of information, 16 times as much as today's most advanced chip. The chips must hold so much in such a tiny space that their working parts will have to be smaller than the wave length of light - hard even to detect, much less assemble.
In theory, bringing together scientists with diverse backgrounds to design such an advanced technology is supposed to generate creative leaps, yielding new approaches and dazzling discoveries. "For example," says cultural anthropologist Edward T. Hall, "Americans tend to look at objects. The Japanese look at spaces between objects. If you can relax and let everyone be himself, you can get a lot of strengths from that."
No problem, thought IBM; after all, the company hires people from all over the world. Mr. Wordeman says he figured he had plenty of experience working with foreigners, even those lacking English language skills.
"But most of those people had studied in the U.S.," he says. "They tend to become very Americanized very quickly. What's different this time is that there are entire groups of people who came with their own company ties. People have been able to stay more separate.... We don't trust each other entirely."
A disappointed Mr. Wordeman says he hasn't seen the kinds of technical leaps he had hoped for. If it weren't for the financial savings implicit in such a joint research venture, he says, he thinks IBM could do the work more easily on its own.
Mr. Wordeman and other Triad participants emphasize that, despite the huge extra effort required, the project isn't in trouble. Work is on schedule - even a bit ahead in parts - and they are finding ways to overcome communications problems, they say. Members of all three teams say they have learned huge amounts, both about technology and about cooperating with outsiders. They say it is far too soon to evaluate successes and failures, and that the hoped-for technological leaps still may emerge.
But they agree that cooperation has come much harder than anyone imagined. Part of the problem was a businesslike effort to get a quick start on the daunting microchip technology. International joint ventures need to pay early attention to team-building and understanding various approaches to work, says Nancy Adler, a professor of management at Montreal's McGill University. Otherwise, cultural differences quickly switch from opportunities to obstacles: "They are used to explain problems rather than solve them. People say, 'We missed the deadline because those Japanese are so slow.' "
That is precisely what happened with the Triad companies.
Toshiba gave employees its normal courses on working and living abroad. But, says Takaaki Tanaka, a Toshiba human resources expert in New York, "We should have done more cooperative efforts with human-resources people from Siemens and IBM, to develop joint training programs."
Siemens briefed employees on what it calls America's "hamburger style of management." American managers, Siemens says, prefer to criticize subordinates gently. They start with small talk: "How's the family?" That is the top of the hamburger bun. Then Americans slip in the meat—the criticism. And they exit with encouraging words—more bun.
"With Germans," says Alf Keogh, an Irishman who does cross-cultural training for Siemens, "all you get is the meat. And with the Japanese, it's all the soft stuff-you have to smell the meat."
The project's planners tried to address cultural differences by stipulating all work would be done in English and by creating mixed research teams of employees from all three companies. That basic plan, which seemed an obvious starting point for working together, became the first obstacle.
"My biggest problem is the English language," says Motoya Okazaki, a Toshiba researcher, who had been a student of foreign languages and cultures before coming to East Fishkill . "It took me almost one year to learn to communicate slightly well."
The Toshiba researchers also faced the biggest adjustment problem in terms corporate culture. They are accustomed working together in big tank-like room which they compare to classrooms. By overhearing conversations, everyone knows what others are doing—from research to family problems. Senior people constantly look over subordinates' shoulders. "They live in a sea of information," says Mr. Hall, the anthropologist.
Toshiba wanted such a system here. But IBM's building already was cut up into a maze of small offices. To save time, the Japanese finally agreed to keep it that way, knocking out a few walls to improve communication.
"For us," explains Toru Watanabe, a senior Toshiba researcher, "very important information exchanges are handled in informal situations-just after finishing lunch, while relaxing and discussing baseball. We say, 'I have a new idea, what do you think?' But here, you have to go to someone's office and say, 'Do you have a minute?' Small talk doesn't come naturally."
The Germans had difficulty adjusting to their American work space, too. In Germany, Siemens people say, no one would be asked to work in a windowless office; in East Fishkill, Siemens engineers learned to their horror, most of the offices are windowless. Office doors have narrow panes of glass so that visitors can see before entering whether occupants are busy; German and Japanese researchers, not accustomed to this, sometimes hang their coats over the glass, annoying IBMers. Equally annoying to some of the foreign visitors is IBM's strict no-smoking policy, requiring them to go outdoors in any weather if they want to light up.
Then comes the delicate question of how to make suggestions. Siemens engineer Klaus Roithner says he spent days analyzing IBM's pilot manufacturing system and then made some gentle proposals for improving it. IBM colleagues first told him to be more specific, he says; then they accused him of simply wanting to do things the Siemens way. Concluding that IBMers don't like outside suggestions, he finally resorted to amateur psychology. Nowadays, he says, "I indirectly suggest an idea to IBM engineers, and let them think they have come up with it themselves."
Also, Mr. Roithner says, deep corporate rivalries may be at work. "I have never been reluctant to share secrets," he says. "But I have had the feeling that this problem exists. Here you are working in a team, but you are still employed by your mother company. Some people still have to think, 'Don't tell too much about your company secrets.' "
For the first few months of the Triad project, the researchers say, everyone was on best behavior—and having fun. People spoke slowly and carefully to one another making extra efforts to be understood. But with time, people fell into more normal speech and behavior patterns. The honeymoon ended: little slights were felt. The three groups grew more isolated, and some Japanese in particular began speaking less English.
"They do read English all day, but most of their communication now will be done in Japanese," says Mr. Wordeman. "People will talk if you seek them out, but there is very little casual chatting and dropping in the office across company lines—whereas there is a great deal of that kind of contact within each of the three companies."
"I see it most often at 7 or 8 in the evening," says Mr. Roithner, the German engineer. "The American engineers are gone. Most of the German engineers are gone. And half the Japanese engineers are in the aisles, talking. You can see that real work is going on unplanned and informal."
The separation has prevented the hoped-for big creative leaps that researchers call Aha! effects. "I wish I had a good example of breaking through that and coming up with a great new idea, but unfortunately that hasn't happened very much," says Mr. Wordeman. He adds, however, that the engineers themselves are extremely talented, and this has permitted them to overcome disappointments and wasted time, keeping the project on track.
One program that could have helped smooth over differences was a "buddy system" created by IBM to teach foreign colleagues the internal IBM computer system. Once that technical information was passed on to the first wave of researchers project leaders ended the buddy system— figuring that later arrivals could learn faster from people of their own nationality. IBM's senior person on the project, John Abernathey, now says that if he had it to do again, he would keep the buddy system in place, to help build friendships outside the office.
"It takes time to get to know one another," says Mr. Hall, the anthropologist. "One thing that seems to work across all three cultures is to go out and get drunk together."
But project organizers also were reluctant to push after-hours socializing, and now, in their second year of the project, Triad researchers tend to spend free time with colleagues from their own countries.
"For the Germans and the Japanese, this is a big adventure," says Mr. Abernathey. "But for the U.S. people, this is their home. They have school-board meeings, PTA meetings and other activities.?'
One effort at cross-cultural schmoozing, a softball game, backfired.
"The Americans and Japanese know this game well, but the Germans don't," explains Mr. Roithner of Siemens. Determined to measure up in the new sport "highly motivated," as he puts it—he hit the ball and raced for first. He beat the throw, but made the mistake of hitting the base stiff-legged, fracturing his hip. A Japanese co-worker took him to the hospital. An American colleague lent him a laptop computer to use at home. The cross cultural softball project was canceled.
One small consolation: Mr. Roithner found what he calls "the perfect doctor." Why was he perfect? He spoke German— he had studied in Switzerland. It is hard to explain where something hurts in a foreign language."