"El Que No Transa ..."
One of NAFTA's positive effects on Mexico has been the renewed attention given to an old problem: corruption. As Mexico attempts to attract more foreign investment, mounting pressure has been placed on...
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Culture Shock
In previous columns, I have argued that cultural diversity in organizations should be welcomed, rather than viewed as a problem to be avoided. Multinational companies in Mexico often have teams made up...
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Customer (lip) Service
One of the oldest clichés in business is "the customer is always right." And while this catchphrase might be repeated in every company training program, the reality is that most businesses fall short ...
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My Boss Is A Jerk!
There is an old movie starring Jack Lemmon in which a father (Lemmon) is frustrated that his less-than-motivated son has quit his job after one day. When he asks his son why, his son simply replies, "M...
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Train Of Thought
When it comes to professional training, Mexican managers and companies seem fascinated with anything that comes from more developed countries, especially the United States. From leadership courses (so ...
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Spotty Training
Most of my activities in the area of consulting involve training managers from the United States and Mexico. The people I generally work with to organize and prepare these kinds of activities are Human...
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Email Inundation
Over the last two years, working with different companies in both the United States and Mexico, I have heard time and again about a relatively new nagging problem for managers: handling their email. Ac...
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You Owe Me One! Or the Concept of Favors in Mexico and in the U.S.A.
Favors are done in every culture, but how favors are given and received differs among cultures. Comparing the mainstream U.S. culture and Mexico regarding this issue, we find striking differences, whic...
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Pulling Together
These days it seems every company is adopting a team approach to doing business. While the concept is relatively new in the Western world, it is an old practice in Japan. But team-building, which requi...
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Between The Lines
When I ask managers what they hate most about their jobs, writing and reading reports is usually on the top of their lists. Managers who have to write reports are often inadequately prepared: They were...
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Communication: The Asian Factor
I always tell my students and seminar participants that Mexico is a complex culture. In some ways is much like the rest of Latin America. Yet in other ways it is more similar to South and East Asian cu...
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Meetings Halfway
A reality of any manager's life is attending and calling staff meetings. Another reality is that most managers complain staff meetings are a "waste of time."
When meetings involve Mexican and Ang...
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Nothing Personal
Perhaps the single largest cultural gap between Latin Americans and North Americans in the realm of business practices is the "personal" dimension. As I have explained in earlier articles, Latin Americ...
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In The Dark
Anyone who has ever worked in Mexico realizes that one of the biggest differences between doing business in this country and its two Nafta partners concerns information. Whereas in the U.S. and Canada ...
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Double Standard
I received various emails on my recent column dealing with management standardization. Many people were concerned that my column suggested that standard procedures are not necessarily the best way to m...
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Double Standards
The topic of business ethics is one that too often ends up on the back burner, unless you happen to be a social activist. In business circles, the topic arouses as much interest as a turtle race.
...
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Creative Thinking
There is no doubt that being a manager today is a different and more demanding challenge than it has been in the past. The much-talked-about globalization of business operations has forced managers to ...
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Eye Of The Beholder
More often than not, when foreigners simply refuse to engage in the human aspects of the working world, they tend to see the more negative aspect of the Mexican experience.
When I talk wit...
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Standard Procedure
In the early part of the 20th Century, American industrial engineer Fredrick Taylor revolutionized management practices through his famous concept of Scientific Management. His basic premise was that f...
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Family Affair
Both friends and enemies of Nafta predicted the treaty would bring increased investment crossing national borders, and in the case of Mexico, a significant new presence of U.S and Canadian firms. This ...
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New And Unimproved
"The problem in Mexico is that workers, and generally speaking all people, resist change." This was the opinion expressed to me recently by a successful (at least, rich) entrepreneur in Mexico City. Be...
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Under Scrutiny
The experience of going through a job interview is, for most people, exhausting and stressful. You seek advice from others, read books about it, and prepare yourself to talk and behave in ways that fee...
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Stuck In The Middle
In the
previous Column, I discussed the difficult cultural challenge facing U.S. executives on Mexican assignments. But dealing with Mexican realities is not the only challenge faced by these ex...
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Home Work
More and more people are holding jobs that do not require commuting. Various positions in the publishing industry, such as writers, for example, do their work at home (or wherever they wish) and simply...
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For The Sake Of Clarity
When U.S. executives are sent to Mexico, they soon hear that Mexicans are "indirect" and "will not give you a straight answer, "especially if what needs to be communicated is unpleasant. Thus, the gene...
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