Understanding the motives, values, norms and perceptions of people from different cultures — coworkers, managers, customers or negotiation opponents — is crucial for building a successful career.
However, this is seldom practiced. “Millions of people work in global settings while viewing everything from their own cultural perspectives and assuming that all differences, controversy and misunderstanding are rooted in personality,” Erin Meyer said in her book “The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures.” “Many … don’t educate themselves about cultural differences because they believe that if they focus on individual differences, that will be enough.”
For those who want to avoid this pitfall, she outlined eight scales to “understand the most common business communication challenges that arise from cultural differences.”
Scale 1: Communication
The most evident cultural gap is found in communication, a result of the “interplay of language and history.” In Africa, South America and Asia, as well as France, Spain and Russia, people speak “high-context” languages, where “a relatively high percentage of words can be interpreted multiple ways based on how and when they are used.”
Accordingly, listeners must hear entire sentences to understand a speaker’s intentions. “Good communication is sophisticated, nuanced and layered,” the book says. “Messages are both spoken and read between the lines — often implied … not plainly expressed.” High-context cultures include Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Kenyan, Iranian, and Arab, among others.
“High-context cultures tend to have a long-shared history. Usually, they are relationship-oriented societies where networks of connections are passed on from generation to generation, generating more shared context among community members.”
Alternatively, in low-context cultures “good communication is precise, simple and clear,” the book says. “Messages are expressed and understood at face value; repetition is appreciated, as it helps clarify the communication.”
These are mostly Anglo-Saxon countries, such as the United States and most of Europe, which have relatively short shared histories. “The United States, a country with a mere few hundred years of shared history, has been shaped by enormous inflows of immigrants … with different histories, languages, and different backgrounds. Americans learned quickly that if they wanted to pass a message, they had to make it as explicit and clear as possible.”
In between (moderate low context to moderate high context) are Spain, Italy, Brazil and France.
Scale 2: Feedback maze
Feedback delivery is another culturally sensitive topic. “Cultures that are low-context and explicit may be cryptically indirect with negative criticism, while others that speak between the lines [high-context] may be explicit, straight talkers when telling you what you did wrong.”
Confusion is evident when high-context language employees receive what they perceive as positive feedback from a low-context language colleague.
The complication arises when the feedback recipient learns through colleagues that the person who gave him the feedback actually doesn’t like the work. The book says the employee probably won’t be very pleased. “You likely felt a deep sense of betrayal, leading to a lasting feeling of mistrust toward your colleague.”
On the feedback scale, Russia, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Norway, Italy, Australia, Denmark and Spain tend to give direct negative feedback. Those who provide indirect negative feedback include Central Asian countries, Mexico, Argentina and most African nations.
Scale 3: Keys to persuasion
According to Meyer, persuading someone from a different culture (without coercion) is “far from universal [practice]. “Most people are unaware … persuasion is deeply rooted in your culture’s philosophical, religious, and educational assumptions and attitudes.”
The book outlines two reasoning styles: principles-first and applications-first. The former, sometimes called “deductive reasoning,” derives conclusions from facts. For example, if copper conducts electricity, then it is reasonable to believe a copper statue would as well.
In applications-first reasoning (inductive reasoning), “general conclusions are reached based on a pattern of factual observations from the real world. For example, if you travel to … Minnesota 100 times during January and February, and you observe every visit that the temperature is considerably below zero, you will conclude that Minnesota winters are cold.”
She added, “Most people are capable of practicing both principles-first and applications-first reasoning.” However, the “habitual pattern of reasoning is heavily influenced by the kind of thinking emphasized in your culture’s educational structure.” The result: “You can quickly run into problems when working with people who are most accustomed to [opposite] modes of reasoning.”
In companies, employees with an applications-first mindset focus on completing tasks, not on why they are doing them. In principles-first cultures, the opposite is true.
On the persuasion spectrum, Italy, France, Russia and Spain adopt an extreme principles-first approach. Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK range from moderate principles-first to moderate applications-first approaches. Australia, Canada and the United States have an extreme applications-first approach.
Scale 4: Leadership, hierarchy and power
Significant cultural gaps also appear within multicultural teams. “When people begin managing internationally, their day-to-day work reveals quite different preferences — and these unexpected, unconscious differences can make leading across cultures surprisingly difficult,” the book says.
Meyer cites two cultures of authority and leadership. The first is egalitarian (everyone is equal). The second is hierarchical (the higher the position, the more revered the employee).
If an egalitarian manager is appointed to a team with a hierarchical culture, he (she) may perceive employees as lazy or unengaged because they do not speak up. In reality, they may believe the manager knows best.
Vice versa, a hierarchical manager might see an egalitarian team as disrespectful and undermining his position by treating him as an equal.
The book notes that Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Australia are extreme egalitarian systems. Canada, Finland, the United States, the UK, Germany, Brazil, France, Italy, and Spain range from moderate egalitarian to moderate hierarchical cultures. Meanwhile, countries with highly hierarchical cultures include Poland, Russia, Mexico, the Arab world, India, China, Japan, Korea and Nigeria.
Meyer says hierarchical cultures appear in countries whose histories and cultures revolved around “rulers sent from god,” such as the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, egalitarian systems are influenced by tribal history, as seen in the Vikings.
“If you aren’t sure about where the culture you’re working with falls on this scale, follow the hierarchical recommendations,” says Meyer. “If you are leading a global team with members from various cultures with different positions on the leading scale, define team protocols upfront.”
Scale 5: Decision-makers
Another cultural gap involves how decisions are made, whether through consensus (or majority approval) or from the top down. “Most cultures that fall as egalitarian on the [leadership scale] believe in consensual decision making,” the book says. “Swedes, for example, are both extremely egalitarian and one of the most consensual societies in the world.”
The United States is an exception, “combining an egalitarian ethos with a more top-down approach to decision making, in which one person — usually the person in charge — makes decisions quickly on behalf of the entire group.”
Germany is the opposite: “A consensual style of decision making, where more time is spent soliciting group feedback and coming to a group agreement, is combined with a hierarchical system.”
Consensus and top-down decision-making have their pros and cons. In the former, deciding what to do takes a long time to reach majority approval, but execution is fast because everyone knows what they are doing.
Top-down decision-making is fast, as one person or a small team decides what to do. However, during implementation, the execution teams’ input adds new perspectives. “So plans are subject to continual revision, which means that implementation can take quite a long time,” the book says.
“Either of these systems can work, as long as everyone understands and follows the rules of the game,” says Meyer. “But when the two systems collide, misunderstandings, inefficiency, and frustration can occur.”
Scale 6: Trust issues
Building trust between two different cultures is another cultural issue. One example Meyer gives is when a U.S. negotiation team (low-context language, direct communication) traveled to Brazil (high-context language, nuanced messaging) to close a deal. On the last day, the hosts treated their guests to a long lunch and dinner.
Those events caused the cultural misunderstanding — Americans believed the two meals, plus their misunderstanding of the true intent behind the Brazilians’ veiled messages, were celebrating a win.
The Brazilians’ real message was, “Dear colleagues, who have come such a long distance to work with us, we would like to show you that we respect you—and even if nothing else happens during these two days besides getting to know each other at a deeper level and developing a personal connection and trust, we will have made very good use of our time together.”
Ultimately, such confusion hinders trust-building, “a critical element of business in every country in the world.” The book notes two types of trust. The first is “cognitive trust,” based on the other person’s accomplishments, skills and reliability. The second type is “affective trust,” arising from feelings of emotional closeness, empathy, or friendship.
The United States, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Australia and Finland are on the extreme end of cognitive trust (task-based). The U.K., Poland, Austria, France, Italy and Spain are in the middle. Finally, Asian, Arab and some African nations lie on the extreme relationship-based (affectionate trust) spectrum.
Scale 7: Constructive disagreements
Meyer identifies two types of cultures where disagreements occur: confrontational and non-confrontational. The former is common in nearly all European countries, which tend to be on the extreme to moderate end of the confrontational disagreement spectrum.
The United States and the UK are closer to the middle of the spectrum. Meanwhile, Sweden, parts of Asia and the Arab world are on the moderate to extreme end of avoiding confrontation.
Another cultural factor influencing how disagreements unfold is the expressiveness of each side. “Emotional expressiveness is not the same thing as comfort in expressing open disagreement. In some emotionally expressive cultures, such as Spain and France, people openly express disagreement. But in others, like Peru and the Philippines, people tend to strongly avoid open disagreement since it can lead to relationship breakdown.”
Scale 8: A question of time
The likelihood of keeping appointments and calling ahead if late is another cultural issue. People are either monochronic (M-time) or polychronic (P-time). The former schedules everything and “rules apply to everything except death,” Meyer says. P-time cultures “take a flexible approach to time, involvement of people and completion of transactions. Appointments are not taken seriously and, as a consequence, are frequently broken.”
The book says the most evident example of a P-time culture is the Arab world. People would say, “I will see you before one hour or I will see you after two days … without nailing down the exact moment that meeting will take place.” It is also apparent in middle- and low-income developing nations, as well as in several Southern European countries.
Northern Europe and other wealthy nations are linear-time (M-time). Countries including Poland, the Czech Republic and France fall in the middle.
Skipping queues is another cultural divide. In countries like Sweden and Japan, cutting lines isn’t culturally permitted. “[It’s] a natural outgrowth of the linear-time belief in managing items one at a time, and in proper order.”
In India, if lines get too long, some queuers shyly create another line beside the main one. The nearer they get to the destination, the longer the lines (like a wide-branching tree) as they hope to finish before the rest.
P-time individuals can also hijack meetings by discussing off-agenda topics, starting side conversations and playing with their phones when others are speaking. Lastly, P-time cultures often don’t stick to the meeting schedule.
