How does managing a team overseas in crisis change when directors have unique knowledge that the people on the ground simply don’t have access to?

Before reading this, it’s really vital that you engage the previous case study found here. https://www.culturerays.com/what-is-ecoaching-and-how-does-it-work/

In the previous case study from Indonesia when Suharto fell from power, confusion reigned.

When the US Embassy ordered American citizens in two major cities to evacuate the day before a mass march on the presidential palace, and US news outlets reported it as a blanket order for all Americans throughout the country–I was rattled. My family and colleagues did not live in either of the two cities where the order applied. But we lived a two hour drive from one of the airports. The vibe on the street seemed safe. Should we evacuate, or not?

I called the US Consulate, described my dilemma and asked for advice.

The diplomat said, “May I speak frankly?”

“Sure!”

Then angrily he exclaimed, “We here in the US Consulate have no idea why Secretary of State Albright ordered this evacuation. We didn’t see any need for it. The Embassy in Jakarta didn’t ask for it. We’re already on a skeleton staff with not enough people to do routine work, much less arrange a mass evacuation of every American in these two major cities. What’s she thinking?! We have no idea why she gave this order!”

“So, if you sense that you’re safer hunkering down in your home, and that it might actually be more dangerous exposing your friends and family on the road to the airport, then we in the Consulate are not going to tell you that you have to evacuate. We’re not telling you what to do either say–you’ve got to decide and the results are on you. But that’s the best we can tell you because we have no idea who someone at the top made this decision!”

My family stayed, hunkered down for a couple days in our home watching marathon movies, until it was clear that the crisis had passed, and we could go out and about again.

It seemed a classic example of high management overreach into things they didn’t know enough about. They should have just gone with what their diplomats on the ground were telling them–first hand, local knowledge.

But then, month later a piece came out on Stratfor.com. Something had happened that my colleagues and I–pretty embedded in the local culture, and even the US Embassy, could not possibly know. Madeline Albright had received NSA signal intelligence that cadres of Indonesian generals were laying concrete plans to make a full military takeover of the government. They were about to go to civil war–particularly in Jakarta and Surabaya. She knew that, couldn’t reveal her source without letting the Indonesian military know that she could evesdrop on their conversations. So she made the call.

Which all goes to encourage humility. No matter how well you embed yourself into a culture and are able to read its pulse on the street, and no matter how savvy you may think you are as a diplomat or other professional expert, there’s always the possibility that now and then someone far away in the “ivory tower” knows something you don’t know and just might be making a rational call.

So, even if you’re the high CQ professional in the field, check your assumptions, and still listen to others. They may just know something you don’t know.