For Caspiano

The Evaluating scale provides a bird’s eye view of just how direct people in different cultutes are with negative criticism. You can see that most European countries fall to the direct side of the scale, with the Russians, Dutch, and Germans as particularly prone to offering frank criticism.

American Culture in in the middle of the scale; nearby are the British, who are slightly less direct with negative feedback than Americans. Latin Americans and South Americans fall to the middle right, with Argentina as one of the most direct of this cluster. Further right on the scal fall most Asian countries, with the Indians as the most direct with their criticism and the Thai, Cambodians, Indonesians, and Japanese as the least direct.

Don’t forget cultural relativity when you look at the scale. For example, the Chinese are to the right of the world scale, but they are much more direct than the Japanese, who may take offense at their forthright feedback. The continental European cultures to the left or middle often experience Americans as strikingly indirect, while Latin Americans perceive the same Americans as blunt and brutally frank in their criticism style.

Note, too, that several countries have different positions on the Evaluating scale from those they occupy on the Communicating scale. For this reason, you may be surprised by the gap between our stereotyped assumptions about certain countries and their placement on the Evaluating scale. Thus, the French, Spanish, and Russians are generally stereotyped as being indirect communicators because of their high-context, implicit communication style, despite the fact that they give negative feedback they are less direct than many European cultures.

One high-context country on the direct side of the Evaluating scale is Israel, where people may speak with copious subtext, yet give some of the most direct negative feedback in the world.

P. 93-94

TWO STYLES OF REASONING: PRINCIPLES-FIRST VERSUS APPLICATIONS-FIRST

Principles-first reasoning (sometimes referred to as deductive reasoning) derives conclusions or facts from general principles or concepts. For example, we may start with a general principle like “All men are mortal.” Then we move to a more specific example: “Justin Bieber is a man.” This leads us to the conclusion, “Justin Bieber will eventually die.” Similarly, we may start with the general principle “Everything made of copper conducts electricity.” Then we show that the old statue of a leprechaun your grandmother left you is 100 percent copper. Based on these points, we can arrive at the conclusion, “Your grandmother’s statue will conduct electricity.” In both examples, we started with the general principle and moved from it to a practical conclusion.

On the other hand, with applications-first reasoning (sometimes called inductive reasoning), general conclusions are reached based on a pattern of factual observations from the real world. For example, if you travel to my hometown in Minnesota one hundred 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 (and that a winter visit to Minnesota calls for a warm coat as well as a scarf, wool hat, gloves and ear warmers). In this case, you observe data from the real world, and, based on these empirical observations, you draw broader conclusions.

Most people are capable of practicing both principles-first and applications-first reasoning. But your habitual pattern of reasoning is heavily influenced by the kind of thinking emphasized in your culture’s education structure. As a result, you can quickly run into problems when working with people who are most accustomed to other modes of reasoning.

Take math class as an example. In a course using the applications-first method, you first learn the formula and practice applying it. After seeing how this formula leads to the right answer again and again, you then move on to understand the concept or principle underpinning it. This means you may spend 80 percent of your time focusing on the concrete tool and how to apply it and only 20 percent of your time considering its conceptual or theoretical explanation. School systems in Anglo-Saxon countries tend to emphasize this method of teaching.

By contrast, in a principles-first math class, you first prove the general principle, and only then use it to develop a concrete formula that can be applied to various problems. As a French manager once told me, “We had to calculate the value of pie as a class, you may spend 80 percent of your time applying those principles to concrete problems. School systems in Latin Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal), the Germanic countries (Germany, Austria), and Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina) tend to emphasize this method of teaching.

P. 95

In business, as in school, people from principles-first cultures generally want to understand why behind their boss’s request before they move to action. Meanwhile, applications-first learners tend to focus less on the why and more on the how. One of the most common frustrations among French employees with American bosses is that the American tells them what to do without explaining why they need to do it. From the French perspective, this can feel demotivating, even disrespectful. By contrast, American bosses may feel that French workers are uncooperative because, instead of acting quickly, they always ask “Why?” and are not ready to act until they have received a suitable response.

P. 110-112

Chinese religions and philosophies, by contrast, have traditionally emphasized interdependencies and interconnectedness. Ancient Chinese thought was holistic, meaning that the Chinese attended to the field in which an object was located, believing that action always occurs in a field of forces that influence the action. Taoism, which influenced Buddhism and Confucianism, proposes that the universe works harmoniously, its various elements dependent upon one another. The terms yin and yang (literally “dark” and “light”) describe how seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent.

With this background in mind, let’s reconsider my class of seventeen Chinese executives. Here’s a comment from one of the Chinese participants after we’d discussed the fish and photo research studies:

Chinese people think from macro to micro, whereas Western people think from micro to macro. For example, when writing an address, the Chinese write in sequence of province, city, district, block, gate number. The Westerners do just the opposite – they start with the nuber of a single house and gradually work their way up to the city and state. In the same way, Chinese put the surname first, whereas the Westerners do it the other way around. And Chinese put the year before month and date. Again, it’s the opposite in the West.

It’s easy to see how these differences in the characteristics sequence of thinking may cause difficulty or misunderstanding when people from Asian and Western cultures are involved in conversation. A typical example is that Westerners may think that the Chinese are going all around the key points without addressing them deliberately, while East Asians may experience Westerners as trying to make a decision by isolating a single factor and ignoring significant interdependencies.

This difference affects how business thinking is perceived in Western and Asian cultures. In the eyes of Asian business leaders, European and American executives tend to make decisions without taking much time to consider the broader implications of their actions. As Bae Pak from the Korean motor company Kia explains, “When we work with our Western Colleagues, we are often taken aback by their tendency to make decisions without considering how their decisions are impacting various business units, clients, and supplies. We feel their decisions are hasty and often ignore the surrounding impact.

P. 121-123

The Leading scale takes Hofstede’s idea of power distance and applies it specifically to business. Power distance relates to questions like:

· How much respect or deference is shown to an authority figure?

· How god-like is the boss?

· Is it acceptable to skip layers in your company? If you want to communicate a message to someone two levels above or below you, should you go through the hierarchical chain?

· When you are the boss, what gives you an aura of authority?

As the last question in this list suggests, power distance is related, in part, to the signals that are used to mark power within an organization or other social group. Such signals, of course, may be interpreted very differently in different parts of the world. Behavior that shouts “This man has the leadership skills to move mountains and motivate armies” in one society may squeak “This man has the leadership skills of a three-footed mouse” in another.

In an egalitarian culture, for example, an aura of authority is more likely to come from acting like one of the team, while in a hierarchical culture, an aura of authority is more likely to come from acting like one of the team, while in a hierarchical culture, an aura of authority tends to come from setting yourself clearly apart.

I met Anne-Helene Gutierres when she was the teaching assistant in my advanced French course at the University of Minnesota. I sat behind her in class, admired her long smooth brown hair and her lightly accented English, and tried to imagine what it would be like to leave the Parisian City of Lights for the long, cold winters of Midwestern America.

As luck would have it, I bumped into Gutierres again years later, when we both moved to Paris. She told me about some of the surprising things she had encountered while working at a small Minneapolis-based consulting firm – her first job outside of France.

One morning Gutierres arrived at work to find her computer wasn’t working. As she had an important presentation to finish, she turned to her American colleagues for advice. She recalls: “Imagine my surprise when they responded, ‘Pam isn’t here today, why don’t you user her computer? She won’t mind. She has an open door policy.’ Pam was the president of the company!”

Gutierres still remembers the feeling of opening up the big glass door to Pam’s office, approaching her desk, and touching the keyboard. “Even though Pam was out of the country, I could feel the power of her position hovering over that space. Later, when I told my French friends about the experience, we all laughed trying to imagine how our French bosses might react if they knew we had made ourselves comfortable sitting in their chairs and using their things.”

Gutierres’s story suggests the aura of authority that surrounds the material possessions of a boss in French culture. More broadly, it suggests the important role symbols play in defining power distance. Thus, if you are the boss, your behavior may be speaking volumes without your even recognizing it.

Take a simple action like riding a bike to work. In countries like Jepsen’s Denmark, when the boss rides a bike to work (which is common), it may symbolize to the egalitarian Danes a strong leadership voice: “Look, I’m one of you.” Something similar applies in Australia, as explained by Steve Henning, an executive in the textile industry.

P. 144

While Americans perceive German organizations as hierarchical because of the fixed nature of the hierarchical structure, the formal distance between the boss and subordinate, and the very formal titles used, Germans consider American companies hierarchical because of their approach to decision making. German culture places a higher value on building consensus as part of the decision-making process, while in the United States, decision making is largely invested in the individual.

P. 145-146

Lencioni’s disdain for group decision making reflects a common American sentiment – and this is what the Germans find incredible. Rejecting the need for group agreement, the American boss says to the group, “This is what we are going to do,” and most members of the team fall in line, regardless of their own opinions. “United we stand, divided we fall,” is a powerful American value, as possible leads to efficiency, which in turn leads to success.

In this respect, American culture is one of a few outliers on the world map. Most cultures that fall as egalitarian on the Leading scale also believe in consensual decision making. The Swedes, for example, are both extremely egalitarian and one of the most consensual societies in the world. The Dutch also put a strong emphasis on both egalitarian leadership style and consensual decision making. By contrast, cultures that fall as hierarchical on the Leading scale, from Morocco to Korea, are also top-down decision-making cultures. In a large majority of countries, being egalitarian correlates with valuing consensus. The United States breaks the mold by combining an egalitarian ethos with a more top-down approach to decision making, in which one person – generally the person in charge – makes decisions quickly on behalf of the entire group. Therefore, the United States is more top-down than hierarchical. In comparison to a country like Germany or Sweden, the value is placed on one individual making a decision quickly and everyone else following. And this person tends to be the boss.

Conversely, there are a few cultures that break the mold in a different way. In countries like Germany, 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. The fact that Germany and the United States are both exceptions to the global pattern – but in opposite directions – helps to explain the consternation among managers from these two cultures when they are thrown together in a decision-making situation.

P. 167-169

TRUST FROM THE HEAD, TRUST FROM THE HEART

Make a quick mental list of five or six people you trust – people from different areas of your life. The list may include personal connections like your mother or your spouse, but may also include a business partner, a client, or a supplier. Then consider for a moment how the trust you feel for each person was built. What events led you to trust them?

You might notice that the type of trust you feel for one person is very different from the type of trust you feel for another. The differences can be complex, but one simple distinction is between two forms of trust: cognitive trust and affective trust.

Cognitive trust is based on the confidence you feel in another person’s accomplishments, skills, and reliability. This is trust that comes from the head. It is often built through business interactions: We work together, you do your work well, and you demonstrate through the work that you are reliable, pleasant, consistent, intelligent, and transparent. Result: I trust you.

Affective trust, on the other hand, arises from feelings of emotional closeness, empathy, or friendship. This type of trust comes from the heart. We laugh together, relax together, and see each other at a personal level, so that I feel affection or empathy for you and sense that you feel the same for me. Result: I trust you.

Throughout the world, friendships and personal relationships are built on affective trust. If you were to consider why you trust your mother or your spouse, you would likely use descriptive explanations linked to affective trust. But the source of trust in business relationships is a little more complicated.

Roy Chua, a professor at Harvard Business School, surveyed Chinese and American executives from a wide range of industries, asking them to list up to twenty-four important members of their professional networks, from both inside and outside their own workplaces. Then participants were asked to indicate the extent to which they felt comfortable going to each of these contacts to share their personal problems and difficulties as well as their hopes and dreams. “These items showed an affective-based willingness to depend on and be vulnerable to the other person.” Chua explains. Finally, participants were asked to indicate the extent to which the contact could be relied on to complete a task that he or she has agreed to do as well as to have the knowledge and competence needed to get tasks done. These items captured a more cognitive-based willingness to depend on the other person.

The survey revealed marked differences between the American respondents and the Chinese. Chua found that Americans, in business, draw a sharp dividing line between cognitive trust and affective trust. “This finding makes sense given culture and history,” Chua explains. The United States has “a long tradition of separating the practical and emotional. Mixing the two is perceived as unprofessional and risks conflict of interest.”

Chinese managers, on the other hand, connect the two forms of trust. As Chua puts it, “Among Chinese executives, there is a stronger interplay between affective and cognitive trust. Unlike Americans, Chinese managers are quite likely to develop personal ties and affective bonds hen there is also a business or financial tie.” One consequence is that, for a Chinese manager working with Americans, the culturally based preference to separate cognitive trust and personal trust can indicate a lack of sincerity or loyalty.

P. 170-172

TASK-BASED VERSUS RELATIONSHIP-BASED CULTURES

Of course, China and Brazil are not the only cultures where affective and cognitive trust are mixed together in business relationships. On the Trusting scale, countries are rated from high task-based to high relationship-based. The further a culture falls toward the task-based end of the scale, the more people from that culture tend to separate affective and cognitive trust, and to rely mainly on cognitive trust for work relationships. The further a culture falls toward the relationship-based end of the scale, the more cognitive and effective trust are woven together in business.

As you look to the Trusting scale you see the United States positioned far to the left while all BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) fall far to the right. When it comes to building trust, the center of gravity in the global business world has fundamentally shifted over the past fifteen years. Previously, managers working in global business may have felt themselves pulled toward working in a more American manner, because the United States dominated most world markets. Building trust in a task-based fashion was therefore one of the keys to international success. But in today’s business environment, the BRIC cultures are rising and expanding their reach. At the same time, countries in the southern hemisphere such as Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are growing in global weight. All of these countries lie markedly toward the relationship-based end of the Trusting scale. Today if you are a manager aiming for success at an international level and your work brings you to the BRIC cultures or really anywhere in the Southern hemisphere, you must learn how to build relationship-based trust with your clients and colleagues in order to be successful.

On the other hand, for those who work frequently in North America, you may be skeptical about the accuracy of the United States on the left-hand side of the Trusting scale. Are Americans really so task-based? What about the client breakfasts, the golf outings, and the team-building activities and icebreaker exercises featured at so many American-style training programs or conferences? Don’t these suggest that Americans are just as relationship-based as the Brazilians or Chinese?

Not really. Think back to those icebreaker activities – those two-to-three minute exchanges designed to “build a relationship” between complete strangers. What happens when the exercise is completed? Once the relationship is built, the participants check it off the list and get down to business – and at the end of the program, the relationships that were so quickly built are usually just as quickly dropped.

P. 198-199

In Confucian societies like China, Korea, and Japan, preserving group harmony by saving face for all members of the team is of utmost importance. Confucius preached a model of five constant relationships governing how the parent should behave to the child, the older sibling to the younger, the older friend to the younger friend, the husband to the wife, and the ruler to the subject. Under this model, group harmony exists when everyone plays his prescribed role and reinforces the roles of others. To suggest that others in the group are not living up to the expectations of their role leads to a loss of face and a disturbance of societal order.

Raised in this cultural setting, Shen was shocked by the willingness of her French colleagues to challenge her ideas in a public forum. As she puts it, “In China, protecting another person’s face is more important that stating what you believe is correct.”

Other Asian cultures – especially those of Japan, Indonesia and Thailand – are even more uncomfortable with direct disagreement than the Chinese. Once, when conducting a program with Toshiba Westinghouse, I asked the Japanese participants why their culture made such strong efforts to avoid confrontation. I received the following response from Hirotake Tokunaga a few days later.

P. 201

Some who have experience working with people from the Netherlands, Denmark, or Germany may be surprised to find these cultures positioned so close to the French on the left-hand side of the Disagreeing scale. After all, people from these northern European cultures are generally considered to be reserved in their expression of emotions. By the same token, a Mexican or Saudi Arabian might be surprised to see the right-hand positions of her culture on the scale. As one Mexican participant in one of my programs remarked, “When a Mexican is angry, that anger will pour out of him. We can’t hide how we feel.” Isn’t it logical that a cultural readiness to express emotions openly would be correlated with a similar willingness to express disagreement?

P. 225-228

RELATIONSHIPS: A KEY TO UNDERSTANDING THE SCHEDULING SCALE

As with the other cultural scales we’ve examined in this book, the Scheduling scale is profoundly affected by a number of historic factors that shape the ways people live, work, think, and interact with one another. Positions on the Scheduling scale are partially affected by how fixed and reliable, versus dynamic and unpredictable, daily life is in a particular country.

If you live in Germany, you probably find that things pretty much go according to plan. Trains are reliable; traffic is manageable; systems are dependable; government rules are clear and enforced more or less consistently. You can probably schedule your entire year on the assumption that your environment is not likely to interfere greatly with your plans.

There’s a link between this cultural pattern and Germany’s place in history as one of the first countries in the world to become heavily industrialized. Imagine being a factory worker in the German automotive industry. If you arrive at work four minutes late, the machine for which you are responsible gets started late, which exacts a real, measurable financial cost. To this day, the perception of time in Germany is partially rooted in the early impact of the industrial revolution, where factory work required the labor force to be on hand and in place at a precisely appointed moment.

In other societies – particularly in the developing world – life centers around the fact of constant change. As political systems shift and financial systems alter, as traffic surges and wanes, as monsoons or water shortages raise unforeseeable challenges, the successful managers are those who have developed the ability to ride out the changes with ease and flexibility. Scheduling things in advance is fine – but only if the time horizon if forty-eight hours or less.

For example, if you are a farmer in the Nigerian countryside, most of the farm work is done by people, and you likely have few machines. In this environment, it doesn’t matter much if you start work at 7:00 or 7:12 or even 7:32. What matters is that your work structure is flexible enough to adapt with changes in the natural environment, and that you have invested in the critical relationships needed to keep your workers loyal in times of drought or flooding, erosion or insect infestation. In this environment, productivity and profit are directly linked to the flexibility and the relationships of the person in charge.

Indeed, the importance of relationships seems to be a key to understanding the Scheduling scale. It’s only logical that if relationships are a priority, you will put them before the clock. Thus it’s natural that cultures that put a premium on relationship building tend, with a few exceptions, to fall on the flexible-time side of the Scheduling scale.

As usual, all positions on the scale should be considered in relative terms. Germans may complain bitterly about the British lack of punctuality, and Indians often feel the French are rigid with their scheduling. However, Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, and Northern European countries generally fall on the linear-time side of the scale. Latin cultures (both Latin European and Latin American) tend to fall on the flexible-time side, with Middle Eastern and many African cultures on the far right. Asian cultures are scattered on this scale. Japan is linear-time, but China and (especially) India practice flexible-time.

When you work with people from varying cultures, you find that the scheduling dimension impacts a remarkable number of aspects of daily life, from how meetings are run to how people wait in line.