With the increasingly global economy, executives are moving to new countries at an unprecedented rate to further their careers and to support corporate growth and expansion. At some point many of these global execs end up moving home and find an unexpected challenge. The truth is; repatriation – moving back to your original homeland - is much more difficult than expatriation, much to the surprise of many who experience both. This very fact makes the experience challenging from the start, since the expectation is that the transition will be easy and it rarely is.
Depending on how long an expat lives abroad, there comes a time when they don’t fit in any more at home (Americans returning home are considered too European, for example) but they never fully fit in their adopted country (they’ll always be a foreigner, no matter how well they assimilate). This means the person is never fully “in”, always an outsider to a certain degree, always a foreigner even in their original homeland. Some people are ok with this and even welcome it – others struggle with it. The key is to identify where you stand and find ways to deal with it either way.
When I did a short stint at repatriation 100 years ago (!), I realized that I failed the “test” miserably. My cultural references were totally lacking – I didn’t know most of the latest jokes, TV shows, gadgets, celebrities. It’s hard to keep up in a conversation when you keep asking “what”? “who”? And that was just the beginning.
I’ve since counselled many senior executives in cross-cultural communication and awareness to help then navigate the pitfalls that come with this process and help them find their most effective voice when chartering this surprisingly unknown territory. A company’s spokesperson needs to be clear on corporate talking points while at the same time being comfortable in their cultural environment – and when your birth country suddenly becomes a foreign one, there’s a lot to re-learn.
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