The Culture Map

Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them

The United States is the lowest-context culture in the world, and all Anglo-Saxon cultures fall on the left-hand side of the scale, with the United Kingdom as the highest-context culture of the Anglo-Saxon cluster. All the countries that speak Romance languages, including European countries like Italy, Spain, and France, and Latin American countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, fall to the middle right of the scale. Brazil is the lowest-context culture in this cluster. Many African and Asian countries fall even further right. Japan has the distinction of being the highest-context culture in the world.

In Hindi the word “kal” means both tomorrow and yesterday.

But emotional expressiveness is not the same thing as comfort in expressing open disagreement. In some emotionally expressive cultures, such as Spain and France, people also express disagreement openly.

you may recall from our chapter on persuading, students in the French school system are taught to reason via thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, first building up one side of the argument, then the opposite side of the argument, before coming to a conclusion. Consequently, French businesspeople intuitively conduct meetings in this fashion, viewing conflict and dissonance as bringing hidden contradictions to light and stimulating fresh thinking

concept that the Chinese call mianzi, or “face,” exists in all societies, but with varying levels of importance. When you present yourself to others, you offer a persona that reflects what you publicly claim to be. For example, when I address a group of international executives, I present myself as a professor specializing in cross-cultural management, implicitly claiming expertise and skill at leading large groups of executives. So if a participant publicly suggests that I don’t know what I am talking about—that my expertise is scanty and my leadership skills are weak—I “lose face,” experiencing a sort of public shame.

Later, when e-mailing employees in Paris, I have often had the experience that people don’t respond to my e-mails. I hadn’t made the connection, but in considering it now, I realize that this happens only when I haven’t established a relationship with that person.

When I went to present at a conference in India, I noticed that, when the Indian organizers e-mailed me, there was always a short and friendly yet formal preamble, such as, “Greetings of the day. I hope this mail finds you in best of health and spirits.” Well, in Poland, we certainly wouldn’t begin an e-mail in this manner, but I thought “Why not?” and responded in kind.

When in doubt, the best strategy may be to simply let the other person lead. Relax, put your feet up, and start the call with the idea that you might spend several long minutes just catching up before the business talk starts. And then let the other person decide when enough is enough. Initiate the social, ignore your gut reaction, and listen for their cues.

not show business counterparts who they really are. In either case, it makes it hard for us to trust them