We recently interviewed Professor Sunita Malhotra, who teaches this course, and CEMS student Ophélie Thomas, to understand what made this course so successful.
In a class composed of 25 students with 18 nationalities in her Cross Cultural Competence and Management course in the CEMS MIM programme at LSM, Professor Malhotra has a unique challenge. How do you bridge cross-cultural theory into practice with such a cosmopolitan mix of students?
Thankfully, Professor Malhotra has the ability to leverage many different resources. First, it helps that she has experienced firsthand living and working across multiple cultural landscapes. Professor Malhotra was born in New York City and has lived in India, Washington DC, Switzerland and Belgium. With over 25 years of experience across several industries: retail, consulting, hospitality, FMCG, pharmaceutical and consumer durables as well as functions: Sales, Marketing, and HR, she also has a wide range of industrial perspectives and experiences to share. What she has learned personally from this journey is that we are all humans and we need to keep our own biases in check when interacting with people from new cultures, offering this bit of advice: “Find out as much as you can, do what you can to integrate, but most importantly keep a sense of humor.”
By being mindful of potential biases, Professor Malhotra hopes to help students communicate and negotiate more effectively within a multicultural environment. She illustrates these points by cross-pollinating theories like those of Geert Hofstede and others with case studies showing how cross-cultural understanding can have a real impact on the bottom line. Professor Malhotra also enriches the experience by leveraging the diverse composition of this unique mix of students and having them share their own experiences and participate in exercises to draw that out. “The theory provides a frame for analyzing cultural interactions and for understanding the ways cultures manage time, space, context, values and actions; whereas the cases and interactions help to put all of this into the context of the real world,” she says.
One example was given by her student, Ophélie Thomas: “Professor Malhotra had us simulate an international corporate meeting, where each of us was given an objective to reach by the end of the meeting, except that one's goal could enter in conflict with another's goal. Obviously, some tensions appeared due to the conflictual goals of the participants. This exercise showed me how one is tempted to jump into a quick interpretation without taking the time to understand the behavior of his/her peer. Professor Malhotra concluded the exercise with this sentence that I keep in mind: 'always assume positive intent'. Since then, I keep this takeaway as a precious tool that reminds me to take time before drawing quick conclusions about someone else's behavior.”
The course is offered between April and May, when students are working in multicultural teams on consulting missions for multinational companies. “The Business Projects are often used as examples in my class,” she says. “Students feel that they are more ready for real life in this course because it’s so practical. Each and every student gets the chance to talk. What I’ve heard my students say is that ‘in some cases it’s the first time we hear our colleagues. We feel we can be ourselves and we are engaged because we are treated like human beings’,” says Malhotra. Which is a great lesson for aspiring managers everywhere.
To further inspire students, Professor Malhotra invites a senior executive within a global organization to her course every year. She chooses the individual based on student backgrounds/experiences to make it even more personal. The executive will share their story and some of the mistakes they’ve made as a leader in cross-cultural context. Professor Malhotra’s hope is that through this exercise her students will be more mindful global leaders as they embark on their future careers.
Her inspiration for the course structure was to ensure to prepare students for real life and always tie theory to practice. “People learn in different ways and a large part of my class (70%) includes perspectives from the students themselves, learning from each other. I also try not to teach one theory in isolation as it’s all intermixed. Cross-cultural management is much broader than just culture, you have to look at the business, the organization, the family, and individual styles, for example, introverts vs. extroverts.”
This approach has worked very well for her students. "My WOW moment was to realize how important is to LISTEN, not in order to reply but to understand. Listening as key factor of communication, relations, business. And Sunita taught me this paramount insight just by relentlessly being herself. She has delivered the class by capitalizing on students' personalities and beliefs, collecting them and creating a real osmosis of ideas and perspectives. She championed the idea of a "subjective world", where different interpretations of reality won't hinder but enrich," says CEMS student Benedetta Giungi.
Thomas agrees. “The course not only enabled me to meet a wonderful professor with rich experience, but also as it enabled me to become a better 'future manager' prepared to deal with cultural diversity with respect and tolerance. Professor Malhotra herself is one of the reasons her class is of such high quality. She is an empathic person, tolerant and self-driven with a broad experience in international management that she is keen to share. I also valued a lot her coaching competencies as it was reflected in the way she triggers her students to reach their highest potential,” says Thomas.
This sentiment is also shared by Professor Malhotra towards her students: “I love the CEMS students and I’m still in touch with many of them even 7 years after they graduate,” says Malhotra. “The mixture of nationalities I’ve never seen that anywhere in the 3 different universities I teach at. Often the EQ and IQ is more highly developed in CEMS students, and they are very proactive and participative.”