Professional cultures

I suppose I’ve been interested in the cultural differences between professions for quite a long time. Maybe it began with my father, who was a chemical engineer, and, much to the dismay of my mother, treated the family holiday like a project. He employed all the project management tools I now know and use but as a child was oblivious of: deadlines, milestones, roadmaps and key performance indicators.

As a university lecturer, I brought together students from different faculties to play intercultural simulation games like Ecotonos. It was fascinating to see how the students approached the case studies we worked on. While the business students favoured closing the uneconomic factory, the sociologists focused on the plight of the employees and the effect on the community.

In my present job as a senior consultant for intercultural business competence at Siemens AG in Munich, I see how important it is for project managers, salespeople, engineers and lawyers to work together effectively in complex engineering projects in which knowledge sharing and the ability to work across disciplines are key success factors.

If you want to find out more about this topic, you might be interested in our article in the Intercultural Communication section of Business Spotlight 4/2010. I’d love to hear about your experiences of different professional cultures.