Scan Magazine | Business | Column/Calendar
Task or relationship?
By Steve Flinders
Are you happy to walk into a meeting full of people you don’t know and get straight down to business, or do you feel the need to find out something about them first? Interculturalists distinguish between more task- and more relationship-orientated business cultures. This is important to bear in mind when dealing with people from an unfamiliar company or country. My urge when I meet you professionally might be to find out something about you and your background; your interest might be simply to get on with the job in hand. Your reflex might derive from where you come from or simply from who you are – an interpersonal rather than an intercultural phenomenon. I was once given an example of relationship orientation by a French hotelier who wanted to develop his Saudi clientele. His first visit to the country was a disaster. Although he had arranged a series of meetings beforehand, his timetable soon fell apart since no one was available when they had said they would be, and he wasted hours waiting for people who
never turned up. So he forgot about planning and simply started calling people once he had arrived: it worked. His contacts would invite him to join them for elaborate meals. During three or four trips, he did a lot of socialising with little mention of work. But once the relationships had been forged, the business started flowing in and the significant investment in time and money that he had made paid off. Whether working internationally or not, task-orientated people must recognise the need others may have to build relationships. Their impatience to get things done may lead them to trample roughshod over others’ feelings. Relationship-orientated people, on the other hand, can be so focused on achieving harmony that they lose focus of the essential objective of getting results. As often, it’s a question of awareness and getting the balance right.
Steve Flinders is a freelance trainer, writer and coach, based in Malta, who helps people develop their communication and leadership skills for working internationally: steveflind@aol.com
Business Calendar
By Jo Iivonen
Scandinavian business events you do not want to miss this month DKUK talking cultural diversity Cultural diversity is a poignant topic in post-Brexit Britain, but the debate will not stop there. What roles do faith, gender and ethnicity play in the modern workplace, and how should employers handle these issues? These questions and more are on the table this month as the UK-Nordic business community embraces change. Date: 25 February Venue: Gowling WLG, 4 More London Riverside, SE1 2AU, London, UK. www.dkuk.org
SHE Conference Europe’s leading gender diversity conference will gather executives, investors and politicians in Oslo this spring. Norway leads the way on many fronts when it comes to attempts to secure gender equality. But what’s in store for the future, and how can business 84 | Issue 133 | February 2020
operators benefit from supporting women in the workplace? Date: 5 March Venue: Sonja Henies plass 2, 0185 Oslo, Norway. www.sheconference.no
Polar Bear Pitching What better way to test the hotness factor of a business than to stick it into ice, founder and all? Tech entrepreneurs get to prove their bearings in icy water – literally – while schmoozing with potential partners during this event that coincides with Virtual Reality Nordic 2020. Non-icy networking opportunities are also on offer at the events, which all take place in the Finnish tech hub of Oulu. Date: 12 March Venue: Erkki Koiso-kanttilan katu 1, 90570 Oulu, Finland. polarbearpitching.com
Nordic Smart Cities Nordic cities have a solid track record when it comes to weaving in the community factor through planning. However, with ever more transient communities come ever more challenges. How to glue it all together to make cities that work better? It’s widely recognised that technology sits at the heart of the transition, but what about the human factor? Date: 19 March Venue: Radisson Blu Scandinavia Hotel, Amager Boulevard 70, Copenhagen 2300, Denmark. www.nordicsmartcities.com