Going Places

Navigating Across Cultures

For the first 19 years of her career with Shell, Elsenhans was happily ensconced in Houston. If anything, she figured that any international assignment would send her to London or The Hague—the international corporate centers for Shell. But then, in 1999, she was made president and CEO of Shell Oil Products East in Singapore.

It ended up being a real turning point and a great training ground for the work she recently has begun. “It was really one of the highlights of my career. I had a big job, the refining and marketing job for Shell in Asia Pacific and the Middle East—37 countries, 11 time zones,” she notes. “It was an incredible opportunity to travel and experience other cultures.”

Elsenhans’s travel wasn’t as a tourist, though; she needed to learn how to relate to employees and other managers from across the region in order for the company to succeed. What she discovered is that people want the same thing, be they from Houston, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, or anywhere else. “Most people want the hope that tomorrow is going to be better than today,” she says. “They want to be part of something bigger than themselves, they want to know their role, and they want to reach their potential and be recognized for what they do.”

Within that framework, she says, leaders have to understand the cultural cues that allow people to achieve their goals. It involves learning what respect looks like in different cultures and how to show people you care to hear their opinions. For instance, she says, in Asia it’s vital for someone not to lose face. “In Western cultures, respectfully disagreeing can be a sign of respect. What it says is, I respect your opinion enough to engage and disagree with it,” she explains. “In some of the eastern cultures you have to be careful how you do that. You can disagree, but it always has to be oblique, so that somebody does not lose face.”

While her work will continue to take her all over the world, Elsenhans is delighted to be based in Houston after four years overseas. It always has been home for her, but perhaps never more so than now. Her parents live in the city, as do her brother and numerous friends from Rice. Her husband, an energy consultant, is the director of Energy Programs for Executive Education at Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management. Being in Texas allows her to stay involved with Rice as well, most notably as a member of the board of trustees and as a member of the board of overseers for the Jones School, and that’s something she appreciates. “It’s good to be home,” she says.