Given the wholesale use of stereotypes in our cultural environment, what chance does the average headquarters-based HR manager have of being free of such bias?

Through categorising people we eliminate our need to understand them

We are surrounded by cultural stereotypes – every time we hear a racist or sexist joke, or read - largely negative - news reports that identify criminals, victims, or others as belonging to a particular group, we are being exposed to cultural stereotyping. The message can also be largely subliminal. Women's advocacy groups have argued for years that the absence of successful women role models, particularly in public life and education, perpetuates stereotypes of women's unsuitability for leadership positions.

A report from Catalyst, published in October 2005, shows that such stereotyping misrepresents the true talents of women leaders and contributes to the large gender gap in business leadership

Experts say that placing those around us who are different to ourselves into easily-understandable categories eliminates the necessity of trying to understand them, while serving to reinforce the superiority of our own way of thinking.

According to Ursula Brinkman, Managing Director of Intercultural Business Improvements in the Netherlands, managers deal exclusively in cultural stereotypes at considerable risk. "Behaviour based on stereotypes can have dramatic consequences for an organisation’s success across borders," she says.

One of the most pervasive cultural stereotypes in international HR continues to prevent women from being considered for international assignments (see related articles: The best man for the job). Researchers have determined that exclusively male networks may be responsible for developing stereotypes and nurturing negative attitudes and prejudices towards women managers. They have discovered that if corporate women had more access to networking groups then perhaps they could reach senior management positions and in turn partake in international management.

Stereotypes are very hard to circumvent because they are often unconscious and experienced as an emotional reaction to our own cultural programming, urban legends and popular myths, hearsay, labelling, and media misrepresentation.

Multinationals continue to automatically select employees who 'look Asian' for assignments in the Asia region without bothering to ascertain whether they indeed have the right competencies for the job. Often the cultural stereotypes they encounter locally put them at a distinct disadvantage; for instance, in many cases these third or fourth generation descendants of Asian immigrants do not speak the local language and host country nationals may think that the expat actually does understand, but for reasons of deception or superiority refuses to admit it. This can negatively impact the assignee's ability to carry out his/her duties.

According to Mary Beth Stanek, North America Process and Information Manager for General Motors Corporation (GMC), HR managers need to be able to identify critical talents from all regions and not view the placements as overwhelming tasks.

Charlene Marmer Solomon, international HR consultant and author of Capitalising on the global workforce: A strategic guide for expatriate management believes that the complexity issues associated with international HR administration cannot be placed above the need for global recruitment and critical fit.

In part due to cultural stereotyping, and a fear of the unknown, research indicates that a significant percentage of HR and group managers simply do not know how to or do not want to administer global recruitment programmes, teams and/or training.

Finding the solution

Many surveys link intercultural training with success on international assignments, but the stereotyping issue is more subtle, and harder to address. For HR managers and others involved in decision-making for international positions, diversity training, combined with intercultural awareness and use of personality assessment tools such as ITAP International's (www.itapintl.com) 'Culture in the workplace questionnaire', which is based on the work of Dutch interculturalist Geert Hofstede, or Alert's (www.alertmc.com) ALTI, based on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator would go a long way towards helping people to value difference, and 'think outside the box' when it comes to considering candidates for overseas positions.

Global mentoring may help HR managers to become more sensitive to and aware of other potential candidates and the skills sets necessary to help foster appropriate placement and corporate objectives.

Stereotyping issues are subtle and hard to address

"Cultural differences," points out GMC's Stanek, "Also require special attention and discussion during mentoring training. The training programmes also need to emphasize the importance of raising issues as they happen to avoid misinterpretations and potential resentments."

Such dialogue is at the heart of the 'Describe, Interpret, Evaluate' process devised by interculturalist Stella Ting-Toomey. Instinctively we skip straight to 'Evaluate' when we encounter difference, without bothering to see if there might be a different interpretation of our experience. By following the DIE sequence, we are more likely to ‘make sense’ of new, cross-cultural, situations.

First, Describe to yourself what has happened. It is very important at this stage to separate observation from interpretation. For instance 'she sent me a rude email' can be reduced to 'she sent me an email' to change an interpretation into an observation.

Once this has been done, try to analyse the actual basis of your Interpretation. Keep in mind that yours is only one possible interpretation of many that could be made of the situation. To get insight into other possibilities, you will have to discuss your interpretation with others, ideally with the other party(ies) involved in the cross-cultural encounter. Only then should you proceed to Evaluate what has taken place, and decide on action to be taken as a result.

Researchers and counsellors at www.allaboutcounseling.com have recognised that stereotypes prevent us from identifying the feelings that are really going on inside us. With stereotypes, the belief will remain that someone did something to us, rather than the problem, fear, or rigidity/closed thinking being within ourselves.

When we’re stereotyping we get caught up in the issue of 'that's what they do', 'that's how those people are', instead of being in touch with our actual feelings of hurt, confusion, being slighted, left-out, anger, etc. The DIE process forces us to examine where our feelings come from, and these are often linked to our own expectations, previous personal experience or learned response that are based on stereotypes.

November 2003 (updated November 2005)

Mary van der Boon, Managing Director of global tmc (www.globaltmc.com) in the Netherlands, is online faculty for the University of British Columbia's Certificate in Intercultural Studies, and a member of the European Institute for Managing Diversity.