Esprit has succeeded to create an image as a serious academic institution. Over the past two years, the sales volume has increased tremendously and it has become a large company. The need for restructuring is great and they are aware of that.
The authors Trompenaars and Wooliams have developed the 3R model in the book "Business Across Cultures".
The 3R stands for Recognize, Respect and Reconcile. "Recognize" means that you have the ability to recognize and acknowledge cultural differences, both your own and others.
"Respect" means to respect the differences.
"Reconcile" is when you manage to unite cultures. I have applied this model for more than twenty years and therefore it is not very difficult for me to work in a Tunisian company, right?
I know that I am organized ,structured and an effective worker! I know that I am used to cooperate and everyone knows what others do! I know that I am presenting true facts and I do not change things around! I know that I work to improve the future!
But above all, I know that Tunisians are working differently and yet after all these years, I forget that deep down I have a different culture and approach. I almost "become" one with the new culture, but in the end, I do not know where to draw the line between me and the new culture.
In my subconscious mixed culture, I started to examine the school in cause and effect, where the main reasons were that:
- Everyone in a management position still work in a small company where informal yet structured meetings are held, where you have all the time in the world to discuss the details and no time to lift the discussion to the overall work.
- The question everyone asked themselves was, who does what?
- The "existing" procedures that will be recorded, handled, and reprocessed by a person who is not familiar with their daily work.
- Group work where members of the group working in the same direction is replaced by many meetings, but which is followed by further individual work.
- The absence of a complete customer focus.
- The absence of a coordinated and efficient computer system.
After that, I began trying to define and "recognize" my culture to better understand the Esprit culture. Then I tried to reconcile the two cultures, by setting up dilemmas such as:
On the one hand, it is important to preserve the wonderful unique atmosphere that exists which makes people happy at work.
On the other hand, Esprit needs an organization that is far more effective and structured with clear (although not quantifiable) goals and strategies.
On the one hand, it is important to continue to create international relationships and partners as well as constantly update the education system.
On the other hand, it is important to create a service output that does not present a bad image for the product, to focus more on understanding the different customer groups needs and desires, and to reduce the tempo of development until the setup is completed.
The question now is now: How do we combine these dilemmas, and the two very different corporate cultures? But if you look at it from this angle, it means of course that when different cultures meet difficulties arise, right?
This in turn means that even on the domestic level, we need to be attentive to our own culture in order to recognize other cultures, respect and unite with them, right?
So in the end, the problem was not that my Swedish culture collided with the Tunisian, but simply that the two corporate cultures clashed. I am still Tunisian or Swedish, right? Or what happens now?