Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Cultural Adaptation & Global Dexterity

© Diane Cramer | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Cross-Cultural Adaptation has become a hot topic in this global business world.  From the Internet, Skype and overseas travel,  it is important to be able to adapt and communicate with a variety of varying cultures.

Andy Molinsky, who is an associate professor at Brandeis University’s International Business School and author, has broached the topic of global dexterity.

Forbes  comments on Molinsky’s topic and how important it is to not only be able to work in a global economy but be able to work well in a culturally infused workforce.

“People doing  work in today’s global economy must be capable of moving smoothly and seamlessly across cultures. That’s true for simple cases of etiquette, like learning how and when to bow or shake hands, but it’s especially critical when performing core professional tasks such as giving or receiving performance feedback, pitching an idea to your boss, getting heard at a meeting, networking, or motivating others. These are situations that make or break your ability to be an effective global manager and leader.”

So how does one try to adapt to a different culture?  The key is to Really learn the culture really well.  This means more than just reading a book or two on the people/country you are working with.

One of the most challenging aspects of varying cultures is the differences between that culture and your own. That is the behaviors you need to learn are different from what your used to and might even require that you act in a way that conflicts with your intuition.

An example, from the article:   A Korean employee in the US having to learn how to deliver constructive feedback to an American boss, when in Korea, you would never interact with a boss in that manner.

Molinsky points out that it’s not just knowledge that’s important its the ability to take what you know and put it into action.

Humintell has a Great Cultural Adaptation Tool that improves a person’s global skill set and teaches them how to interact more effectively with people from different cultures and achieve their goals !

Purchase IntelliCulture and interact more effectively with people from different cultures to achieve your goals

Security Awareness Content: Challenges of Using Reinforcement

Imagine that you are the head of security awareness at an organization (not a stretch for some) and have been charged with getting people to report issues to the help desk. You decide, in your infinite wisdom, to encourage them to report issues to the help desk by giving them $1 each time they report a valid problem. The week after implementing the new reward program the number of issues reported to the help desk has increased 100 fold. You program is getting great results. Not only are 99% of phishing attacks getting reported but shoulder surfing is down, you know when devices are lost, and compromised computers are being reported to the help desk rather than being discovered by them. Things are coming up roses.

See any problems here?money

Of course you do! The budget for this program is going to be INSANE! No practical business will support paying $1 for each ticket at the help desk for any longer than 6 months- MAX. This leads into the second, and biggest problem with using reinforcement. If the only reason that users are reporting issues is because of a reward, the minute that the reward is removed the desired behavior plummets. Unless you can replace the reward with something of equal subjective value their incentive is gone and the trained behavior is lost.

*Finding something of equal subjective value to cash on a large scale is damn near impossible. I only say ‘damn near’ because I’m sure there is some magical place out there that can do it but I’ve never come across it. *

Finally, lets say that instead of $1 you gave them a free lunch- because your users really like lunch. How long will that be an effective reward? My guess is that after about a month of free lunches have been accrued the value of the reward will go down dramatically and so will your behavior. Suddenly, you have to switch the reward to something else – of equal subjective value- to keep them responding.

Vicious cycle anyone?

How to Use Reinforcement to Your Advantage

As you can see, reinforcement is a tricky thing but when can we use it to change behavior.

Lets go back to the help desk problem. Instead of paying for each help desk ticket, indefinitely, you make it a charity fundraiser for the holiday.

“Every time you call the help desk, $1 will be donated to buy gifts for families in need. Weekly progress will be reported!”

Some of you might look at this and say “even if we had the budget for that, we still have the same problem of removing the reward and loosing the behavior once the fund raiser was over” but consider two very important differences.

1-    The reinforcement has a clearly defined ‘end point’ that has nothing to do with the user, the company, or their behavior but is a product of the reward. The gifts have to be bought at some point otherwise the fundraiser was pointless. Essentially you are isolating the reinforcement contingency and increasing your chances of the behavior persisting after.

-Not to mention periodic fundraisers to increase behavior –if needed- are MUCH more sustainable to the budget than constant reinforcement.

2-    The second and most important is how closely the reinforcement (e.g., $1) and behavior are paired. In our first example the employee saw the DIRECT effect of calling the help desk on their pay check therefore it was very closely paired to their behavior

Just like if Pavlov’s dogs were fed EVERY time the research assistant came in.

The minute that the user realized the reinforcement was removed, the behavior that followed stopped (i.e., calling the help desk).

Back to Pavloc: The dogs would eventually stop salivating once they knew that the assistants were never going to feed them.

In our second example, the users see the money increase but it is NOT directly related to each time they call the help desk. Instead it goes into an anonymous pool that may jump $100 a week even if they just called the help desk once. Since the reinforcement is not closely tied to each behavior they perform, the chances of the behavior persisting after the reinforcement is removed increases significantly.

*For a more detailed look at this process see my previous blog on Pavlov and his dogs.

Based on all of this, be careful when using reinforcement. While it may provide an immediate result, it’s something that needs budget and time to maintain. If used wrong, you will just be setting yourself up for an uphill battle.