2024-05-25
I'm currently working for a global business where there's constant interaction with people from other cultures. The company CTO, who has to do even more multi-cultural interactions than me, recommended this book on a Slack chat and I thought that it would be great to give it a go.
Getting to know a little bit more about how to interact with people from cultures one is not familiarised with is rarely a bad idea.
This book is a light read for before-bed time. Be warned that it isn't a careful science-based analysis of how different cultures compare to each other.
The book is based on the single observations of Erin Meyer, the book author, who has worked with business executives from many companies around the world and built a career on that. This doesn't make it less insightful, but it is something to consider because this book is getting famous, and many people are swearing by it, so proceed with caution.
There aren't many countries (and thus cultures) covered by the book, but the main nations in terms of size and economic power are there.
Here are a few quotes from the book that I thought were interesting:
In a French setting, positive feedback is often given implicitly, while negative feedback is given more directly. In the US, it's just the opposite. American managers usually give positive feedback directly while trying to couch negative messages in positive, encouraging language.
In the United States and other Anglo-Saxon cultures, people are trained (mostly subconsciously) to communicate as literally and explicitly as possible. Good communication is all about clarity and explicitness, and accountability for accurate transmission of the message is placed firmly on the communicator: "If you don't understand, it's my fault". By contrast, in many Asian cultures, including India, China, Japan, and Indonesia, messages are often conveyed implicitly, requiring the listener to read between the lines. Good communication is subtle, layered, and may depend on copious subtext, with responsibility for transmission of the message shared between both sender and receiver.
I learned the traditional American rule for successfully transferring a powerful message to an audience: "Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you've told them.".
If you're from a low-context culture, you may perceive a high-context communicator as secretive, lacking transparency, or unable to communicate effectively (...) On the other hand, if you're from a high-context culture, you might perceive a low-context communicator as inappropriately stating the obvious, or even as condescending and patronising. (...) The moral of the story is clear: You may be considered a top-flight communicator in your home culture, but what works at home may not work so well with people from other cultures.
(...) the room knows that she is not truly, honestly thrilled. Thrilled to win the lottery -- yes. Thrilled to find out you have won a free trip to the Caribbean -- yes. Thrilled to be the leader of a conference call -- highly doubtful. When my American colleagues begin a communication with all of their "excellents" and "greats", it feels so exaggerated that I find it demeaning. We are adults, we don't need our colleagues to be cheerleaders.
Politeness is in the eye of the beholder. Giving feedback is a sensitive business at the best of times. It can be made a lot worse if the person receiving the feedback believes he or she has been spoken to rudely. Precisely what constitutes rudeness, however, varies enormously from place to place.
In the UK, the learning was all about concept. Only after we struggled through the theoretical did we get to the practical application. The US was exactly the opposite. Even before I attended a course I was already given a case study as pre-work -- an example of practical application. In the classroom it was all about the three Ls of leadership or the six Cs of customer satisfaction. From moment one, we were immersed in practical solutions and examples of how to apply the solutions.
In Spain, we have had it drilled into us since we were young that every situation is different and you can't assume that what happens in one situation will happen in another. So, when we are supposed to review the situation of one specific protagonist and extract general learning points, it may feel not just weird but even a bit dumb."