Summary

Erin Meyer explores how culture affects individual behavior by highlighting eight key scales of cultural variance, including communication, leadership, and trust. She contrasts low-context, explicit cultures like the US with high-context, implicit cultures like those in Asia, and examines different approaches to feedback and decision-making. Understanding these cultural differences is crucial for effective global communication and interaction.

Key Takeaways

• Individual behavior results from both personality and cultural traits
• 8 scales of cultural variance:
  • Communicating: low ↔ high context
  • Evaluating: direct ↔ indirect negative feedback
  • Persuading: principles ↔ applications first
  • Leading: egalitarian ↔ hierarchical
  • Deciding: consensual ↔ top-down
  • Trusting: task ↔ relationship-based (cognitive, affective trust)
  • Disagreeing: confrontational ↔ avoids confrontation
  • Scheduling: linear ↔ flexible time
• Peach vs coconut cultures describe friendliness vs deep friendship

Notes

Introduction

• Individual behavior is a result of both personality + cultural traits
• 8 scales of cultural variance:
  1. Communicating: low ↔ high context
  2. Evaluating: direct ↔ indirect negative feedback
  3. Persuading: principles ↔ applications first
  4. Leading: egalitarian ↔ hierarchical
  5. Deciding: consensual ↔ top-down
  6. Trusting: task ↔ relationship-based
  7. Disagreeing: confrontational ↔ avoids confrontation
  8. Scheduling: linear ↔ flexible time
• ↑ consider relative positioning
• Often invisible, eg. fish in water

1: Communicating

• US, Anglo Saxon: literal, explicit
• Asia: implicit, subtle, layered, subtext
• Low vs high-context cultures
• English has 7x more words than French
• Education moves people more towards the culture’s extreme dominant tendency
• Self-deprecate
• Defer to low-context operation

2: Evaluating

• Upgraders vs downgraders: “absolutely unacceptable” vs “not quite there yet”
• Honesty, directness as virtues vs rudeness
• Err on the side of being polite

3: Persuasion

• Principles-first: why, deductive reasoning
• Applications-first: how, inductive reasoning
  • Shorter emails, get to the point
  • Case studies
• Wholistic thinking: (Asia) macro → micro
  • Context-first
• Specific thinking: micro → macro
  • Isolated subject
• Mono-cultural = faster, multicultural = more creativity

4: Leading

• Low vs high power distance
• Hierarchical: all problems pushed up
• Egalitarian: initiative, opinions are equal
• How god-like is the boss?
• Know what your behaviors signify
• Protestant: egalitarian, catholic: hierarchical
• Confucian social order
• Responsibility to care, teach, protect
• Defer to hierarchical
• Hierarchical → egalitarian:
  • Meeting without the boss
  • Invite people to speak up
• Egalitarian → hierarchical:
  • Management by objectives
  • Dress as team members dress
• Clearly state your style

5: Decisions

• US: uniquely egalitarian + top-down

  • Dynamic, flexible, unilateral

• Japan: uniquely hierarchical + consensual

  • Proposals start at mid-level, move up management chain via consensus

  

6: Trusting

• Cognitive trust: (head) based on accomplishments, skill, reliability
• Effective trust: (heart) emotional closeness, empathy, friendship
• US: ↑ separate; China: ↑ connected
• Business is business vs personal
• Loyalty to individual vs company
• Global trend towards relationship-based
• Peach vs coconut cultures: friendliness vs friendship, depth of vulnerable self
• Build on common interests
  • Eg. music taste
• Be authentic
• Correlates with trust in legal system
• Drinking culture in Japan, China, etc.
• Mimic other person’s communication style

7: Disagreeing

• Group harmony: (Confucianism) saving face for everyone is paramount
• Correlated with nature of trust
  • Eg. disagree with individual vs idea
• Extreme: challenge because interested
• Depersonalize
• Gather thoughts before the meeting
• Err on the side of soft disagreement
• “Let me play devil’s advocate”

8: Scheduling

• Monochronic culture: (M) time as tangible, concrete, classification
• Polychronic culture: (P) time as flexible, approximate
• Based on perceived stability of environment
• Linear vs flexible time:
  • Sequential vs parallel task completion
  • Rigid vs flexible meeting agenda
• Flexibility → good at ad hoc

bk_hach_005509.pdf