Today, working across international teams isn’t just for multinational corporations; start-ups and small and medium-sized businesses increasingly hire employees from a global talent pool. Though it’s common these days for employees to conduct their work activities in a second or third language, plenty of minor cultural cues can get lost in translation and ultimately lead to conflict or impact business performance.
But how do you know when a misunderstanding is cultural or personal? In Erin Meyer’s 2014 book The Culture Map, Meyer identifies eight scales where an individual’s cultural frame of reference can influence how their colleagues and bosses should behave. These scales include communication style, evaluation delivery, persuasion techniques, leadership style, decision-making, confrontation, time management, and trust. How each nation falls on these scales is individual and based on the over-arching behaviors associated with that culture. For example, some cultures may share similarities on specific scales and be opposites on others. That’s why particular interactions with clients or employees from different cultural backgrounds may sometimes seem puzzling.
Though no behavior is better or worse than the other, our cultural frame of reference informs us whether we find the trait agreeable or not. Is your French colleague rude, or is it just because French culture dictates that providing direct negative feedback is preferable to praising positive qualities first? Do your German colleagues always arrive early to a meeting because they are uptight or because, socially, they operate on a linear-based time system rooted in part to the Industrial Revolution?
In the first article of this series, we’ll discuss three of the eight scales and how they might emerge and provide tactics for overcoming these invisible global barriers in business.
The way you communicate might not be as obvious to people from other cultures.
1. High-Context vs. Low-Context Cultures
Do your colleagues consider you to be a strong communicator? The answer may depend on their cultural background.
There are two dominant cultural schemas in communication: high-context cultures and low-context cultures. Low-context cultures seek to avoid misunderstandings by communicating directly and explicitly. These cultures are ‘low-context’ in that an individual doesn’t need a high level of cultural context to extract the message’s intended meaning.
Cultures like the Netherlands and the United States are well-known for being low-context communicators, especially in business. For example, suppose an American colleague were to invite you to their house on Saturday to enjoy a summer barbecue, culturally. In that case, the meaning is precisely that: come over for a barbecue on Saturday.
High-context cultures, on the other hand, like China or Brazil, require greater cultural context to decode the intended meaning behind particular messages. For example, in a high-context culture, if someone comes to visit you and you offer them tea, at first, they might decline. A host from a low-context culture might take this refusal at face value. In contrast, a host from a high-context culture might continue to offer one, two, maybe three more times, knowing that the cultural context suggests that the first refusal is considered a polite response rather than the communicator’s intended meaning.
Problems:
- Low-context cultures, like the U.S. and Netherlands, don’t always understand the cultural context hidden in a high-context message.
- A high-context communicator, like Japan, may search for meaning that doesn’t exist in low-context communication.
- Two high-context communicators from different cultures, like Brazil and Saudi Arabia, may not understand the underpinnings behind the others’ meanings.
Solutions:
- High and low-context collaborators (Japan and the US) should discuss the most effective communication styles and agree to utilize a shared communication framework.
- Two high-context cultures (Brazil and Saudi Arabia) should adopt a low-context communication style to avoid misunderstanding.
Think there’s a right and wrong way to give feedback? Well, it might actually be cultural.
2. Giving and Receiving Negative Feedback Across Cultures
Let’s say you have an underperforming employee. Is it your instinct to deliver this negative feedback directly (e.g., you’re not hitting your benchmarks because x, y, z), or are you looking for ways to soften the blow?
How individuals like to give and receive feedback typically falls across cultural lines. But suppose you’ve ever had colleagues or employees get offended by your bluntness, or conversely, they missed the message entirely. In that case, you may be communicating with someone from a different side of the evaluation scale than you.
High-context cultures like Israel, France, and Russia offer direct negative feedback, while low-context Americans offer indirect negative feedback. Though you might assume that because low-context cultures are known for being direct, they would use direct negative feedback, you’d be incorrect. Americans often highlight positive attributes before using downgraders to avoid being perceived as rude or aggressive.
If you’ve ever heard someone use downgraders like “maybe you should do this” or “trying doing that, if it makes sense,” beware: that feedback is not a suggestion and should be taken with the same gravity as direct negative feedback.
Problem:
Your employee isn’t responding to your feedback. Either they don’t seem to take it seriously, or they’re noticeably demoralized.
Solution:
Ask your employees how they like to receive feedback. As a manager, tailor your messaging to your audience. This way, you each understand what negative feedback means and how it should be perceived (i.e., the feedback is on the output, not on the individual).
If you struggle to persuade people from other cultures, consider your technique.
3. Getting Buy-In Across Cultures
What qualities come to mind when you think of persuasion?
If you’ve ever been to a meeting with colleagues going over the numbers and thinking to yourself, “get to the point,” you might come from an applications-first culture. On the other hand, if you listen to the presentation and think, “Where is the data to prove this approach?” you may come from a principles-first culture.
It’s not uncommon for people to switch between applications and principles-first thinking, but when it comes to persuasion, which approach you’re likely to use to get buy-in may be cultural. According to Meyer, principles-first thinking, or deductive reasoning, “derives from general principles or concepts” (Meyer 2014).
Applications-first thinking, on the other hand, takes a different approach. Sometimes called inductive reasoning, applications-first thinking uses factual observations from the real world to reach general conclusions (Meyer 2014).
Let’s look at some examples.
Principles-first Persuasion
If you want to argue that the company should address the gender wage gap, you can use principle-first thinking in your persuasion technique:
- Identify the core principle:
In this case, equality and fairness. - Establish common groundwork with the audience:
“We all agree that equality and fairness are fundamental values in our society and should be reflected in our workplace practices.” - Apply the principle to the situation:
“Ensuring gender pay equity directly applies to our commitment to equality. By compensating all employees fairly, regardless of gender, we uphold the principle of fairness.” - Provide concrete examples:
“Company A implemented rigorous pay audits to ensure gender pay equity, increasing employee satisfaction and retention. On the other hand, firms that have ignored pay disparities have faced legal challenges and reputational damage.” - Address counter-arguments:
“Some may argue that pay equity adjustments are costly, but studies show that the long-term benefits, such as higher employee morale and reduced turnover, far outweigh the initial investment. Moreover, adhering to fairness strengthens our brand and attracts top talent.” - Conclude with a call to action:
“Let’s commit to a comprehensive pay audit to identify and correct gender pay disparities in our organization. By doing so, we not only adhere to our principle of equality but also set a powerful example in our industry.”
If this approach looks familiar, you may come from a principle-first culture like Germany, France, Japan, India, Norway, Sweden or Denmark.
Applications-first Techniques
Using our same pay equity example, let’s apply applications-based thinking.
- Start with Specific Examples:
“In 2015, Company A conducted a company-wide audit of its employees’ salaries and found significant gender pay disparities and took immediate action to address it…””Company B faced public backlash and legal challenges after it revealed that women were paid less than men for the same work.” - Highlight Positive Outcomes:
“Once Company A corrected the disparity, it began to attract top talent and was awarded on the best places to work.” - Demonstrate Negative Consequences:
“On the other hand, Company B’s public image suffered because of the lawsuits, and its stock price plummeted.” - Draw a General Conclusion:
“These cases illustrate that companies who proactively address the gender pay gap avoid brand damage and benefit from improved talent morale and a stronger talent pool. Conversely, ignoring these issues can harm the company’s reputation.” - Make the Case for Action:
“Drawing on these examples, it’s clear that implementing pay equity policies is not just the right thing to do, it’s a smart business decision.”
Does this approach seem familiar? That’s because it is largely utilized by countries like Australia, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and Singapore.
Problem:
Your colleagues from other cultures don’t respond well to your presentations or persuasive arguments.
Solution:
If it’s a one-time presentation, adapt your messaging to fit your audience. Alternatively, if it’s a team you work with regularly, ask your colleagues to introduce their presentation or argument using the persuasion model they’ve utilized. That way, principle and applications-first thinkers can ‘switch’ thinking models to hear the presentation as intended.
Learn to Recognize When Culture Comes Into Play
Culture versus personal ability can be challenging to distinguish. It can be very easy to credit someone’s performance to their abilities, but often, culture plays a subtle or nuanced role. By understanding where these cultural breakdowns can occur, individuals and organizations can work to find common ground between colleagues, customers, partners, and employees.
Rather than approaching a professional sticking point as a failure of one culture or another, make it a moment to decide the best path forward. Often, this can invite new working methods not dictated by one culture’s preferences, creating new opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration to succeed.
Stay tuned for our next article in this series.
Interested in learning more ways you can bridge cultural gaps? Get in touch with us.
Sources:
Meyer, Erin. 2014. The Culture Map. May 27, 2014. New York: PublicAffairs.
