World Café

Andreas Sigl grew up in a small town in western Germany and dreamed of becoming a landscape architect. Those plans changed abruptly 20 years ago after a trip to Japan that Sigl took through an exchange program. “Once you’ve tasted the world beyond your home, it’s difficult to go back,” Sigl said. “My countryside in Germany became too small, and I wanted to go out and explore.”

Sigl’s explorations led him to Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz., and then to a career filled with cross-cultural negotiations. Today he is head of marketing communications for Infiniti Europe, where he is helping the Japanese automaker launch its brand in the world’s toughest performance car market.

Sigl said his parents thought he was crazy when he told them in the 1980s that he wanted to stay in Tokyo and study Japanese at a local university. But they consoled themselves with the knowledge that Japan was an emerging economic powerhouse.

Sigl said he learned Japanese and then started thinking about business school. “After awhile,” he said, “you realize the language is great, but you need something to talk about.”

Several people in Tokyo told him about Thunderbird, and he enrolled after touring the campus. He graduated from the school in 1995 and took his first job with Intel.

Style switching

Since then, Sigl has lived and worked in Munich, San Francisco, Detroit, Tokyo and finally Geneva. He also has helped Infiniti launch its brand in places such as Korea, Russia, China, Poland and the Ukraine.

Over the years Sigl has learned that the same negotiation styles that work in one culture don’t always work in another. He said examples of this can be seen in Geneva.

“Some people say the Swiss are even more German than the Germans,” he said. “If you come here with the typical American way of starting a meeting with a joke, they might just sit there and look at you and not smile.”

He said people in some cultures like to get down to business right away, while people in other cultures like to chat first about friends and family.

“There are certain things that you take from home, and you take for granted,” Sigl said. “But they don’t necessarily travel well.”

Respect in developing markets

Sigl said he also has learned over the years not to underestimate his counterparts in developing markets during cross-cultural negotiations.

“Sometimes you go to a developing market or a place that is not known for a certain subject matter expertise,” Sigl said. “But you should not underestimate the people there.”

He said skilled negotiators and business managers can be found in every corner of the world, and the difficult conditions in developing markets often produce resourceful and highly motivated leaders.

“In many cases,” Sigl said, “for them to be in those positions, they have worked even harder than others.”

Beyond language

One thing Sigl works hard to achieve is fluency in multiple languages. Besides his native German, he is fluent in Japanese and English and “decent” in French.

He said he started taking private French lessons after moving to Geneva a couple years ago to help Infiniti launch its brand in Europe. His goal is simply to keep up with his two young boys, who speak English and German at home and French at school.

Despite his gift for languages, Sigl said other things are even more important in cross-cultural negotiations.

“There are certain things that travel around the world,” he said. “Like courtesy and being friendly and understanding.”

Sigl said some people try so hard to compensate for cultural and language barriers that they overlook these simple things.

“You don’t have to overdo it or try too hard,” he said. “Many things are the same no matter where you go.”

Posted: 01|9|09 at 12:45 am.
Filed under: Cross-cultural profiles.
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