Fundamentals of Human Resource Management 6th Edition by Raymond Noe, John Hollenbeck, Barry Gerhart,Patrick Wright

Exercise 7

Cross-Cultural Management Mishaps
When Andrew Pickup left his home country of the United Kingdom to take a management position in Singapore, he did not expect to have to adjust his style of gathering performance information. As Pickup analyzed the situation, he was traveling to a former British colony, where people spoke English and had grown used to British ways of doing business. He assumed his direct style of getting and sharing information would work well. Instead, when he invited feedback, employees were startled and were quiet. In Singapore, people consider it polite to be subtle. Pickup learned to take his time and develop relationships, and eventually he was better able to get the information he needed.
Debbie Nicol, an Australian, has a job that involves training others. When she arrived in Dubai for a six-year assignment, she experienced an embarrassment in the middle of a training session. One of the attendees suddenly stood up and headed for the door, and she felt she had failed to hold his interest in the subject. She asked why he was leaving. He said he was going to pray. After that, Nicol learned to build prayer breaks into training schedules at the appropriate times of the day.
Pickup and Nicol quickly learned from their experiences. Managers and employees can succeed in cross-cultural situations if they are flexible. Like Nicol, they may change their practices to suit an important cultural norm. Or like Pickup, they may persevere in demonstrating their own practices when these are most beneficial. Either way, it is important to behave respectfully and with an effort at genuine understanding. Success also is more likely for a person who is aware of and honest about his or her own cultural norms and values.
Based on the information given, how respectfully and effectively did Andrew Pickup handle his mistake in seeking feedback