The Cultural Shock Most Engineers Never See Coming – and what you can do about it

In this article I will talk about cultural shocks and how to handle them. But I am going to talk more about one that few expect. After reading it, you will be better able to manage transitions between roles and, if you are a manager, help other better manage the transition.
First of all, let’s consider some of the different things that can affect engineering practice and culture. The main ones are:

Economic development
Depending upon how developed or wealthy an economy is, people (and engineers) will also value customisation over cost effectiveness; and this can change how adventurous engineers will be with ideas and how they frame problems.
Attitude toward knowledge
Some cultures value the innate knowledge of a person in authority (management, parents, government, ancestors etc.) over any other, and engineers are thus less likely to rely on first principles.
National/environmental
Some countries have different laws, environmental concerns (extreme, heat, cold, wet, dry and so on), attitudes to risk, political stability and so on from your own country; and this can result in engineers from those countries making different assessments of factors that influence and engineering decision.
Management sophistication
This correlates with economic development where managers from less developed economies will be less likely to create independent cross functional teams; engineers accustomed to such management will be less inclined to think systemically.

You can probably understand from the above how you could experience significant differences in how engineers go about engineering as you move from one country to another. Especially when those two countries have very different cultures.
However, when the differences are that large, we are often fore warned (and thus prepared) about those differences.
It is the cases where you expect there to be fewer differences that you are more likely to suffer. The cultural consultant and author The Culture Map, Erin Meyer noted that the case where there is the greatest failure in professional transfer is between the U.S. and the U.K. People assume that the cultures are sufficiently similar enough that they do not need to mind those differences – this complacency then causes issues.
In my experience and from my research though, there is an even greater (and less noticed) factor that can cause issues for engineers: typical budget sizes.
This can have a tremendous effect upon how engineers go about their jobs.

• Do you take larger risks on each step of a program so that you spend less on each step?
• Do you have the time and other resources to optimise every aspect?
• Should you be leveraging of the shelf components and system or using custom designs and services?
• Do you conduct hand calculations or do you utilise a dedicated simulation team?
• Do you rework parts or just scrap them and move on?
• Do you try to make it work with run of the mill materials or can you start trying exotic materials from the onset?
• Are independent test laboratories given the final system so only one test needs to be done, or do you send them a full system after you come up with each new feature?

These are just a handful of examples of the things that can be dependent upon how well funded your engineering project is. But, the list still shows how you could tend to take certain courses of action if you have become accustomed to a certain budget size in the engineering roles you have had in the past.
An example from some of my research.
This was some time ago when I spoke with engineers in the automotive industry. It was noticed that Australian and Chinese engineers were better able to work with each other than either could with American engineers. Why was this, given the greater cultural similarities between Australian and Americans? At that time, the Chinese automotive industry was not the juggernaut that it is today – few had heard of BYD, and Great Wall was only just starting to be associated with cars. Instead, it was an industry that ran on much tighter developmental budgets. Much like the Australian industry also was at that time. Today, while the Chinese industry has grown, the Australian industry is essentially dead – so obviously the trends were in opposite directions while at that time there was an intersection.
What does this mean for you?

1. If you are an engineer changing companies, then really focus on how this aspect of the new company is different (if at all) from what you are used to. Then, each time you are thinking about your strategy for an engineering endeavour, double check if you have made any erroneous assumptions based unconsciously on what you think the budget would be.
2. If you are a manager who has new people coming in, then a good way to help them become accustomed to the new company is to talk to them about how they progressed such projects in the past. Do this within the context of budgets so you can be explicit with them if things are different from what they are used to.
3. If you work across global teams, make budget assumptions explicit early. It prevents mismatched expectations and helps align design philosophy from day one.

Budgets can be more of an issue than cultural differences (or even a cause of those differences). Noting the above will help you be more of a global engineer and let better managing this rarely considered issue. ​

---