Episode 154: How to Build Trust and Navigate Culture in the Global Biotech Business

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Serving the entire Gulf South, but recorded in the heart of New Orleans. Welcome back to Bio from the Bayou. I'm your host, Dr. Elaine Hamm, the executive in residence at Tulane School of medicine. And with me today, we have a previous guest, Rod Beeler, and we might have hinted a little bit about what we might be talking about today, and that is doing business internationally and being able to navigate different cultures as part of dealmaking, business development, and networking. We touched a little bit on this in, um, some previous podcasts as we talked about networking as an introvert, and James and I talked a little bit about the challenges of even just handing out the business card in the right way and not shoving it in your back pocket, and that kind of hinted a little bit because there is a lot of different skill sets that come into doing business across different cultures. And I think no better person than Rod to talk about these things. So, Rod, love to have you go through your background a little bit of the different cultures. You touched upon it a little bit on our previous podcast, but you've gone across the gamut, not just one culture, but many different countries and all at the same time. So, let's talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, okay. Well, I was lucky. And as we talked before, I worked for Caterpillar. It's a global company. And so I worked in addition to in the United States, my family and I moved to Perth, Australia. We were there for a while and then we moved to Sydney, Australia and worked there. And yes, it's the same country, but it's very different culture and different attitudes of the people. So that's when you're starting to learn. And even if I go back in my first part of my US assignment, I'd grown up in the Midwest. I was out on the West Coast in San Francisco. Well, that was different. than the Midwest. So, you know, you're starting to learn different experiences and dealing with different people and different cultures. Yeah. After Australia, we were in the US for a short time and then we went to Geneva, Switzerland. Oh, very different. And in Geneva, one, that's one of the most international communities in the world. You've got all these nationalities there. Yeah. Our kids went to a school with, I can't even remember how many different nationalities were in their school. That they were going to. But my responsibility at that time was sales development across all of Europe, all of the Middle East, and all of Africa. So you can just think through the different cultures there. And even in the office in Geneva, we had almost every European culture or European nationality. We had Africans, we had Middle Eastern people, we had Indians, we had all these different cultures.

Yeah.

So having to work with them to be effective was an important lesson to learn. And then later in my career, we moved to Singapore and there I had responsibility for Korea, China, Southeast Asia, all of Australia again, and New Zealand. So about a third of the globe there. And I think I might explain this before, if I think about China and India in particular, The different cultures within that country are amazing. I remember one time I was in China and I was at the airport, one of the airports, and it was a— I can't remember which Chinese holiday it was, but I looked around and there must have been 40 or 50 different native costumes, dress codes that people were wearing as they were going through an airport for this holiday that was going on then. And you could see it very visually.

Yeah.

See the difference.

Yeah.

I think what a lot of people don't realize about China is that very, very few people can speak all the dialects that are within China. Okay. There's not a Chinese language per se. In India, one of the people I got to know and work with very, very closely, he and his wife are from different areas of India. The only common language they had was English. English.

Yeah. I've heard that before.

They couldn't speak each other's language. So yeah, dealing with all these cultures and languages was a fascinating experience and opportunity?

Well, in my first experience with this is that when I was first right out of grad school, I was a chemist for a company that was a partner of Astellas. And one of the— within the first month of working there, they made all of the scientists— it was a recent deal, so they made all of the company go through a boot camp of sorts, a 2-day workshop of cultural training. And it was Incredibly eye-opening. You think, I mean, as a scientist, we work— it's a pretty diverse group as we go through grad school. It's not all lily white, and thank goodness. But they— I thought it was really interesting in just rethinking how we talk, even of how often Americans are, one, incredibly direct, and two, we use metaphors and very colorful language that might be confusing. And so it was really, really interesting to take a step back and learn how we can work with our counterparts.

Right.

in a completely different culture. And I thought that was such an important lesson, and I had used it even beyond being a scientist when I moved on to being an executive, because we're biotech, it's an international business, so—

Sure.

It can be very complicated. And so, when did you first realize that being effective in one business culture didn't automatically mean that you were effective in another?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. One time I can remember very clearly, we were getting ready to move to Australia and someone told me, I don't even remember who it was now. They said, remember, just because they speak English doesn't mean it's the same. And there are so, to your point earlier, there are so many words that are different in everyday life.

Yeah.

You know, we call it a shopping cart. They call it a trolley.

Yep.

So someone says, where's the shopping cart? They have no idea what you're talking about.

Yep.

Something as simple at the grocery store, when you finally point, oh, you want a trolley. Oh, well, okay. And you're learning this stuff and it's in a whole different environment. You know, there are a number of words that Americans use every day that you don't use in Australia.

Yeah.

And vice versa. So I think that was the first time, and it was probably a relatively simple transition because there was a lot of English and you could understand it and you could probably get through most of it by listening and figuring it out, as opposed to going to an Asian country that you have no idea what's being said.

Mm-hmm.

In that case, another— I remember this experience even before I moved to Australia. This was a really good experience for me. I was in Japan on a meeting. It was a big product development meeting, and we had people from— I was the American, we had a European, We had an Asian, we had all these nationalities, someone from South America working with the Japanese counterparts. And I remember the Japanese all wore the same jacket and kind of a uniform thing. And we could never figure out who was in charge, who was the boss. So every night we'd be having dinner and we'd be, okay, who do you think's in charge? I think it's that guy. I think it's that person, whatever.

Yeah.

Never figured out. And then we kind of also, the other thing I remember was They kept shaking their head yes.

Saying yes.

That I finally found out at the end of the week when they didn't agree with us. That only meant they understood, not that they agreed. They understood.

It was not affirmation.

Yes. And that was early in my career. Okay, you need to be a little more careful about assumptions. And we all know the rule about assuming, right? But that was a very vivid lesson at a very early point in my career.

Yeah.

About understanding cultures and taking time and certainly not assuming anything.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and we, as Americans, I think there's probably a lot of different fair assumptions, to be honest. And we are pretty direct. We're willing to disagree in public also. And we see speed and directness as part of efficiency. And one is not always the most efficient to be incredibly direct. I, I have actually taken lessons I've learned from that, that workshop of just like the most In dealing with boards, for example, they asked us, you know, in the workshop that we'd have to go around to all of the different people and get their confirmation and their buy-in on a particular project before we presented it to the group. That was a perfect thing to do with a board as well, that I walked into a board meeting knowing what everyone thought about the project already.

Right.

And so, I kind of got to take that, that it wasn't more efficient to just be like, hey, here's our board meeting, here's what I think should happen. That would have ended in a disaster and not have been efficient. So, That directness and speed is what we view as efficiency can be pretty, I don't know what's the right word for it, depending on the culture, problematic, to be honest.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I remember even, especially in Perth, Australia, we'd go visit a customer and I learned very quickly there's going to be coffee or tea and biscuits, we call them cookies, before any discussion is going to occur.

Yeah.

And there's this, it might be just 5 or 6 minutes, but there is going to be a social interaction, not jump into the subject at hand. And how that goes sets the tone for the effectiveness of the business discussion. And then if I fast forward in my experience in China, I had some opportunities to deal with some government officials. The tea ceremony is a very big deal. And In a lot of those, it's a very formal setup in the room and their tea is served and you're sitting next to the government official. There is zero discussion about the business issue. That's not where that occurs. That may occur later with one of their people that works for them.

Yep.

And that's taken through channels. So it's really important. I was taught this real early. You can be right or you can be effective. On one hand, it's OK to say, we need to deal with this. I need an answer on this.

Yeah.

But that's not effective.

Yeah.

And I think in dealing with other cultures, it's very important to sit back and reflect on what is going to be the most effective way to get where we need to go.

Yep.

And a lot of times, I think more than a lot of Americans, they want to spend time developing a relationship. Of some kind.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think if you're not willing to do that, they're just not going to spend time with you. But if you are willing to invest time, then they're willing to do that as well. I felt very lucky one time, again, another Chinese government official. We'd been working on an opportunity for some time. And one time he said, next time you come to China, I'd like to take you to my hometown and show you this This particular, and that was a big deal. We had a, I had a wonderful day with him. It took a whole day. Yeah. But I understood that to get where I wanted to go, that he was willing to share, it was important for me to make that time available. And it worked out really well.

Well, on the flip side of that, I've worked with other countries, Germany in particular, and they are, you think Americans are blunt. They are more so.

Germans are very, very straightforward. Yeah.

Very straightforward. And that. took some, my own time of dealing with. I mean, that they weren't going to sugarcoat things for me. They weren't going to find the polite way to tell me that this is wrong or this isn't working. They were very blunt. So, it took all of my, okay, don't react, give it a minute, this isn't personal. And then it isn't, it isn't personal.

No, it's not.

And it was sort of the other side of it of just, we're seen as very blunt to some cultures, but there are other cultures that are sometimes a little bit more blunt than we are.

So yeah, I think the Germans are fabulous people. I mean, they're highly intelligent, really motivated.

Talk about efficient. Very efficient.

Very efficient. So I have amazing respect for them. But it did take me, when I lived in Europe in particular, a couple of lessons to learn how to be direct back without being offensive. And that's— they didn't, they didn't like my Americanism, I guess.

Yeah, of directness.

They wanted more directness. They were going to be direct with me. If they were going to respect me, They wanted me to be direct with them. And I remember one meeting in particular, there was a senior executive, German, really giving me a hard time about a particular issue. And doesn't matter what the issue was. And finally, I had enough, and I got very direct with him. And there was probably 30 or 40 people in the room.

Yeah.

And that changed the entire tone of the meeting. Because now, okay, now we're not just beating around the bush, to use an American phrase. We are going to deal with facts and here's my perspective on the facts and your perspective on the facts and we're going to deal with it. And that lesson made me more effective, but it took me a little while to learn that.

Yeah. Well, and that kind of goes to another lesson of that could be hard just even in our own culture of learning how to build trust. Trust is such an important piece of business. We've talked about a couple of different books in the area, The Speed of Trust, of like how you can establish trust with people. But it's going to be different with every culture. So how have you thought about that? How, as it relates to, okay, and are there some universal lessons of what you should do? I'm working with this new company, finding out ways and researching ways that you can better establish trust with your potential partner or maybe current partner.

Yeah, well, one, that's a great question. I think it's a very important question. When I was working, there were people within our company who dealt with all these cultures. So I would find somebody and say, okay, how do you do this? Because trust is the number one issue, right? If you don't have trust, now you're just a transaction at best.

Yeah.

You may have a transaction, but probably not if there's not trust in most of these other cultures. So I would ask a lot of questions about, okay, if I'm going to Japan for my first visit, what are the things I need to be thinking about and how do I honor that? Then in today's world, there's a tremendous amount of online resources that will give you that perspective. So I think for any individual, and I would say it's if you're going to the country or you're going to deal with someone from another country here, it's important to do your research because if you don't establish trust, it doesn't matter if you're an American company that's 10 times the size of theirs. They're just not going to do business with you.

Yeah.

So trust is a very, very important issue. I think I'm really glad you brought that up. How you establish that, take the time to do it.

Yeah.

Ask the questions, do the research, and then be open to that. You know, to the point earlier, having a cup of tea or a cup of coffee is really important for a lot of cultures. And spending a little bit of time getting to know each other is really important before you jump into the quote-unquote business, whatever that discussion needs to be. Yeah.

And reframing it as like, you think it's inefficient to spend time drinking tea when you want to get down, quote unquote, down to business.

Right. But, but if you don't do that, you won't.

Yeah.

You won't, you won't be effective.

It's inefficient. Yeah.

It's inefficient and you won't be effective.

And you'll either lose trust or you may never establish trust if you don't, don't bring in that respect and openness to be, I mean, honestly adaptable, being adaptable to the culture that you're working with and not forcing our Americanness on people per se. You talked a little bit about some resources and research. I know one book that, that our office has read, the, I think it's Digital Body Language. Is that right, Ian?

Yeah.

Yeah. That's the one.

It was really good. It, it went through even the email hierarchy within different cultures. And so there's, there's a lot of different resources out there. Is there any book in particular that you found to be helpful that you could recommend?

Oh boy. Let me think. That's a great question. I can't think of a book that would—

Cover so many bases?

Yeah. For me, it was more about talking to people, asking good questions, being interested. And in today's world, like I said a few minutes ago, there are so many resources online for us to gain a better understanding. And I think as much as anything, it's a willingness to be effective and listen to the other person. And I think if you move to, to try and be on their turf and their understanding, you will end up being more effective than if you simply try and bring them onto your way of doing things and understanding.

And it can be as simple as recognizing that there was recently a Japanese holiday that happens every August and being respectful of not expecting a response back to the email, or even just stating, I hope that you had a restful holiday. I mean, just Like little things can show that you're not just this American that's gonna force it.

Yes, that's a great example. I think to recognize their holidays periodically in an email, it doesn't have to be a big deal. Literally, it's a one line.

It's one line.

And you don't know, not even 10 seconds. But if you do know, it will show that you've done some research and you're being understanding and empathetic.

Well, and luckily most of our listeners are scientists and we're very good at research so that there should be no excuse for not doing some basic, basic homework. So is there one cross-cultural mistake that you still cringe about or that you actually had a really good experience with that you'd want to share with us?

I think, yeah, I'll give you one. I think that you touched upon it earlier with the Germans. That you can't take it personal.

Yeah.

And I remember I was with an Australian one time and we'd had a product problem.

Yeah.

And I still remember this was probably the largest, the most effective way of really getting chewed out by a customer.

Okay.

I mean, this went on for like 2 or 3 hours. I mean, he just laid it out, really was aggressive. in what he was talking, and he was right. He knew it. I knew it. Okay. And so we go through it and then we get to the kind of, get to the end of what he wanted to say. And okay, here's what I'll do to follow up. And of course I did all that. Yeah. But then he looks at me and he says, so we're having dinner, right? So it was such an important lesson on, I can have a disagreement with you, but we're going to be mates.

Yeah.

And I think that's the key that You've got to be careful not to take things personal from other cultures, because you don't have the complete understanding of where that culture is coming from. And almost all of them don't want to offend you on purpose. So be empathetic, take some time, ask good questions. And I think if you do that, it'll all work out just fine.

Perfect way to end it. Thank you so much, Rod, for your, your time, your wisdom. Super helpful. And I hope that Our listeners take away at least one lesson of what to do and, and if anything, to rely on research and doing your due diligence before you, before you get into a relationship.

And just try and understand the person as well as the issue.

Oh, that's a good— oh, even better. I love that. Perfect. Rod, thanks again. We appreciate you coming on.

Thank you. Good to see you. All right.

You too. Well, as always, we will have more information about Rod, about his role with Magellan Executive Partners, as well as his podcast, Latitude: Navigating Business Culture, On our show notes, please check them out and join us once again for Bio from the Bayou.

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This podcast was edited by Resonate Recordings.