Page 131 - Harnessing the Strengths

114 ■ Servant-Leadership in the Intercultural Practice

Text Versus Context

A number of years ago, Motorola introduced an interesting
process called Individual Dignity Entitlement to stimulate
dialogue between bosses and their subordinates. A couple of
times per year, a discussion took place, revolving around six
important questions such as: “Is the work that you do mean-
ingful?” and “Do you have enough resources to do your job
properly?” “Yes” and “no” were the only possible answers. If
you answered “yes,” there was no dialogue and you moved on
to the next question. If you answered “no,” a discussion ensued
around what you needed in order to be in a state to answer
“yes” next time.
This system, which had been launched by Motorola’s
CEO in Chicago, has worked fantastically in the United
States, where transparency and measurability have a posi-
tive effect on motivation. When they applied the system to
Korea they encountered something strange and unexpected.
They could not explain why in this region 98 percent of the
time people answered “yes,” particularly as the local chip
production was anything but successful!
After a number of interviews with the Koreans, it quickly
became apparent that when faced with the system instigated
by headquarters, although they appreciated the content,
they had no idea how to deal with the American specifi city.
They had great diffi culty making a choice between yes and
no. In Korea, the answer to the boss is always yes, no mat-
ter what the question. Moreover, what was the reason for
measuring and publishing this information?
An astute HR colleague in Chicago, who had a natural
feel for servant-leadership, quickly spotted the diffi culty. His
suggestion was to slightly adapt the system for the Asians
by removing the yes/no option and replacing it with a scale