The Culture Map: Listening to the Air (PDF)

1 Listening to the Air Communicating across Cultures W hen I arrived at my hotel in New Delhi, I was hot and, more important, hungry. Although I would spend that week conducting classes for a group of Indian executives at the swank five-star Oberoi hotel, the Indian business school hosting me put...

1 Listening to the Air Communicating across Cultures W hen I arrived at my hotel in New Delhi, I was hot and, more important, hungry. Although I would spend that week conducting classes for a group of Indian executives at the swank five-star Oberoi hotel, the Indian business school hosting me put me up in a more modest and much smaller residence several miles away. Though quiet and clean, it looked like a big concrete box with windows, set back from the road and surrounded by a wall with a locked gate. This will be fine, I thought as I dropped my bag Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. off in my room. Staying in a simple hotel just steps from the bustle of workaday New Delhi will make it that much easier for me to get the flavor of the city. Lunch was at the top of my agenda. The very friendly young man behind the concierge desk jumped to attention when he saw me approaching. I asked about a good place to eat. “There is a great restaurant just to the left of the hotel. I recommend it highly,” he told me. “It is called Swagat. You can’t miss it.” It sounded perfect. I walked out to the road and looked to the left. The street was a whirlwind of colors, smells, and activities. I saw a grocery store, a cloth vendor, a family of five all piled onto 29 Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 29 3/11/14 9:26 AM 30 erin Meyer one motor scooter, and a bunch of brown-speckled chickens pecking in the dust next to the sidewalk. No restaurant. “You didn’t find it?” the kind concierge asked in a puzzled tone as I re-entered the hotel. This time the young man explained, “Just walk out of the hotel, cross the street, and the restaurant will be on your left. It’s next to the market. There is a sign. You can’t miss it,” he said again. Well, apparently I could. I tried to do exactly as instructed, crossing the street immediately in front of the hotel and again looking to the left. As I saw no sign of the restaurant, I turned to the left and walked a while. It was a little confusing, as the street was jam-packed. After a minute or so, I came to a small side street full of people, food stalls, and women selling sandals and saris. Was this the market the concierge mentioned? But after careful examination of what I felt to be all possible interpretations of “on your left,” I began to wonder if I was being filmed as a stunt for some type of reality TV show. I headed back to the hotel. The concierge smiled kindly at me again, but I could tell he was thinking I really wasn’t very smart. Scratching his head in Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. bewilderment at my inability to find the obvious, he announced, “I will take you there.” So we left the hotel, crossed the street, turned to the left, and then walked for nearly ten minutes, weaving our way through traffic on the bustling sidewalk and passing several side streets and countless heads of cattle on the way. At last, just beyond a large bank, perched quietly over a fruit store on the second floor of a yellow stucco building, I spotted a small sign that read Swagat. As I thanked the concierge for his extreme kindness, I couldn’t help wondering why he hadn’t told me, “Cross the street, turn left, walk nine minutes, look for the big bank on the corner, and, when Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 30 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 31 you see the big fruit store, look up to the second floor of the yellow stucco building for a sign with the restaurant’s name.” And as this question floated through my mind, I could tell that the kindly concierge was wondering, “How will this poor, dim-witted woman possibly make it through the week?” As my search for lunch in New Delhi suggests, the skills involved in being an effective communicator vary dramatically from one culture to another. 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 the one sending the message and the one receiving it. The same applies to many African cultures, including those found in Kenya and Zimbabwe, Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. and to a lesser degree Latin American cultures (such as Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina) and Latin European cultures (such as Spain, Italy, Portugal) including France. The fact is that the hotel concierge provided all of the information necessary for someone from his own culture to find Swagat. An Indian living in the same Delhi cultural context would likely have figured out quickly where the restaurant was by the clues provided; she would have been eating her lunch while I was still wandering wearily around the streets. My quest for the Swagat restaurant illustrates that being a good listener is just as important for effective communication as being a Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 31 3/11/14 9:26 AM 32 erin Meyer good speaker. And both of these essential skills are equally variable from one culture to another. *** It was springtime in France, where I had been living several years, when I was asked to give a presentation at a human resource conference in Paris sponsored by Owens Corning. A leading global producer of residential building materials, Owens Corning is headquartered in Toledo, Ohio—a good eleven-hour drive from my home state of Minnesota, but still within the tribal boundaries of my native midwestern American culture. When I arrived at the conference, I found fifty human resource directors assembled in a typical Parisian hotel space with high ceilings and sunshine streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows. Thirty-eight of the participants were from Toledo; the rest were from Europe and Asia, but all had been working for Owens Corning for at least a decade. I took a seat in the back corner of the room just as the presentation preceding mine was beginning. The speaker would be David Brown, the company’s CEO. Relaxed and unimposing, wearing a blazer but no tie, David Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. strolled into the room wearing a warm smile and greeted several of the attendees by their first name. But from the hush that descended when he stepped to the podium, it was obvious that this group of HR directors considered him a celebrity. Brown spent sixty intense minutes describing his vision of the company’s future. He spoke in simple words, repeating key points and reinforcing his messages with bullet-pointed slides. The group listened carefully, asked a few respectful questions, and gave Brown an appreciative round of applause before he departed. Now it was my turn. My job was to talk about the subject I know best—cross-cultural management. I worked with the group Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 32 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 33 for an hour, explaining in detail the Communicating scale and its value as a tool for understanding how various cultures convey messages. As if to reinforce my theme, Kenji Takaki, a Japanese HR executive who had lived for two years in Toledo, raised his hand and offered this observation: In Japan, we implicitly learn, as we are growing up, to communicate between the lines and to listen between the lines when others are speaking. Communicating messages without saying them directly is a deep part of our culture, so deep that we do it without even realizing it. To give an example, every year in Japan there is a vote for the most popular new word. A few years ago, the word of the year was “KY.” It stands for kuuki yomenai, which means “one who cannot read the air”—in other words, a person sorely lacking the ability to read between the lines. In Japan if you can’t read the air, you are not a good listener. At this point one of the Americans broke in, “What do you mean, ‘read the air’?” Takaki explained, “If I am in a meeting in Japan and one per- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. son is implicitly communicating disagreement or discomfort, we should be able to read the atmosphere to pick up on that discomfort. If someone else doesn’t pick up the message we say, ‘He is a KY guy!’” The American chuckled, “I guess that means we Americans are all KY guys!” Takaki offered no comment, which I read as an indication that he agreed. Then Takaki continued: When Mr. Brown was giving his presentation, I was working hard to listen with all of my senses—to make sure I was picking up all of the messages that he was trying to pass. But now as I am Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 33 3/11/14 9:26 AM 34 erin Meyer listening to Erin I am asking myself: Is it possible there was no meaning beyond Mr. Brown’s very simple words? And with all of you in this very room, whom I have worked with for so many years, when I read the air during our discussions, am I picking up messages you had not intended to pass? This was a very astute question—and a very disturbing one. The group fell silent, with a few jaws hanging slightly agape, as Takaki quietly read the air. *** The contrasting styles of communication represented by the managers from Toledo and their colleague from Japan are often referred to as low-context and high-context, respectively. In order to understand some of the implications, suppose you are having a discussion with Sally, a business colleague, and you both come from a culture that prefers low-context communication. People from such cultures are conditioned from childhood to assume a low level of shared context—that is, few shared reference points and comparatively little implicit knowledge linking speaker Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. and listener. Under these circumstances, it’s highly likely that, while speaking with Sally, you will explicitly spell out your ideas, providing all the background knowledge and details necessary to understand your message. In low-context cultures, effective communication must be simple, clear, and explicit in order to effectively pass the message, and most communicators will obey this requirement, usually without being fully conscious of it. The United States is the lowestcontext culture in the world, followed by Canada and Australia, the Netherlands and Germany, and the United Kingdom. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 34 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 35 Though cultural norms are transmitted from one generation to the next through means that are generally indirect and subliminal, you may remember receiving some deliberate lessons concerning appropriate ways to communicate. I certainly received such lessons as a child growing up in the United States. My third-grade teacher, Mary Jane, a tall, thin woman with tightly curled hair, used to coach us during our Monday morning circle meetings using the motto, “Say what you mean and mean what you say.” When I was sixteen, I took an elective class at Minneapolis South High School on giving effective presentations. This is where 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.” This is the philosophy of low-context communication in a nutshell. I received lessons in low-context communication at home, too. Like many siblings, my older brother and I argued constantly. In an effort to reduce our squabbling, Mom used to coach us in active listening: You speak to me as clearly and explicitly as possible. Then I’ll repeat what I understood you to say as clearly and explicitly as I can. The technique is designed to help people Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. quickly identify and correct misunderstandings, thereby reducing (if not eliminating) one common cause of needless, pointless debate. Childhood lessons like these imbued me with the assumption that being explicit is simply good communication. But, as Takaki explained, good communication in a high-context culture like Japan is very different. In Japan as in India, China, and many other countries, people learn a very different style of communication as children—one that depends on unconscious assumptions about common reference points and shared knowledge. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 35 3/11/14 9:26 AM 36 erin Meyer For example, let’s say that you and a business colleague named Maryam both come from a high-context culture like Iran. Imagine that Maryam has traveled to your home for a visit and arrived via a late-evening train at 10:00 p.m. If you ask Maryam whether she would like to eat something before going to bed, when Maryam responds with a polite “No, thank you,” your response will be to ask her two more times. Only if she responds “No, thank you” three times will you accept “No” as her real answer. The explanation lies in shared assumptions that every polite Iranian understands. Both you and Maryam know that a wellmannered person will not accept food the first time it is offered, no matter how hungry she may be. Thus, if you don’t ask her a second or third time, Maryam may go to bed suffering from hunger pains, while you feel sorry that she hasn’t tasted the chicken salad you’d prepared especially for her. In a high-context culture like Iran, it’s not necessary—indeed, it’s often inappropriate—to spell out certain messages too explicitly. If Maryam replied to your first offer of food, “Yes, please serve me a big portion of whatever you have, because I am dying of hunger!” this response would be considered inelegant and Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. perhaps quite rude. Fortunately, shared assumptions learned from childhood make such bluntness unnecessary. You and Maryam both know that “No, thank you” likely means, “Please ask me again because I am famished.” Remember my confusing encounter with the concierge in New Delhi? If I had been an Indian from Delhi with the shared cultural understanding of how to interpret implicit messages, I would have been better able to interpret the concierge’s directions. Lacking those assumptions left me bewildered and unable to find my way to the restaurant. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 36 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 37 The InTerplay of language and hIsTory Languages reflect the communication styles of the cultures that use those languages. For example, Japanese and Hindi (as spoken in New Delhi) are both high-context languages, in which a relatively high percentage of words can be interpreted multiple ways based on how and when they are used. In Japanese, for instance, the word “ashi” means both “leg” and “foot,” depending on context. Japanese also possesses countless homonyms, of which there are only a few in English (“dear” and “deer,” for example). In Hindi the word “kal” means both tomorrow and yesterday. You have to hear the whole sentence to understand in which context it has been used. For this reason, when speaking Japanese or Hindi, you really do have to “read the air” to understand the message. I work in English and also in French, a much higher-context language than English. For one thing, there are seven times more words in English than in French (500,000 versus 70,000), which suggests that French relies on contextual clues to resolve semantic ambiguities to a greater extent than English. Many words in French have multiple possible meanings—for example, ennuyé can Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. mean either “bored” or “bothered” depending on the context in which it’s used—which means that the listener is responsible for discerning the intention of the speaker. The French language contains a number of idioms that specifically refer to high-context communication. One is sous-entendu, literally meaning “under the heard.” To use a sous-entendu basically means to say something without saying it. For example, if a man says to his wife, “There are a lot of calories in that toffee ice cream you bought,” his sous-entendu may be “You have gained some weight, so don’t eat this ice cream.” He has not explicitly said that Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 37 3/11/14 9:26 AM 38 erin Meyer she is getting fat, but when he sees her reach down to throw a shoe at him, he will know that she picked up his sous-entendu. I once asked a French client, who was complaining about an incompetent team leader, whether he had described the problem to his boss. The client responded. “Well, yes, but it was a sous-entendu. I made it known so that he could see it if he wanted to see it.” The same expressions exist in Spanish (sobrentendido) and Portuguese (subentendido) and although less common, they are used in much the same way. A similar French expression refers to saying something at the deuxième degré (literally, “the second degree”). I may say one thing explicitly—my first-degree message—but the statement may have an unspoken subtext which is the second-degree meaning. The use of second-degree messages is a feature of French literature. Consider the seventeenth-century writer Jean de La Fontaine. At the first degree, he wrote simple children’s tales, but if you understand the contemporary context within which the stories were written, you may pick up his second degree of meaning—a political message for adults. For example, La Fontaine’s famous fable of the grasshopper and the ant conveys a straightforward moral that Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. most children understand: It’s important to economize to prepare for difficult times. But only sophisticated adult readers of his own day recognized La Fontaine’s second-degree message—that King Louis XIV should stop spending so much money on rerouting the Eure River to supply water to the Versailles fountains. In France, a good business communicator will use second-degree communication in everyday life. While giving a presentation, a manager may say one thing that has an explicit meaning everyone understands. But those who have some shared context may also receive a second-degree message that is the real intended meaning. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 38 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 39 English, then, is a lower-context language than the Romance languages descended from Latin (French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese), while the Romance languages are lower context than most Asian languages. However, a look at the Communicating scale and its ranking of cultures from most explicit to most implicit shows that language is not the whole story (see Figure 1.1). 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. As you can see, language only gives a partial indicator as to where a culture will fall on the Communicating scale. The gap Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. FIGURE 1.1. COMMUNICATING US Netherlands Finland Spain Italy Singapore Iran China Japan Australia Germany Denmark Poland Brazil Mexico France India Kenya Korea Canada UK Argentina Peru Russia Saudi Indonesia Arabia Low-Context High-Context Low-Context Good communication is precise, simple, and clear. Messages are expressed and understood at face falue. Repetition is appreciated if it helps clarify the communication. High-Context Good communication is sophisticated, nuanced, and layered. Messages are both spoken and read between the lines. Messages are often implied but not plainly expressed. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 39 3/11/14 9:26 AM 40 erin Meyer between the United States and the United Kingdom, both AngloSaxon countries, is quite large, as is the gap between Brazil and Peru, both Romance-language countries. Beyond language, the history of a country strongly impacts its position on the Communicating scale. For an example, just think for a minute about the histories of the two bookend countries on the scale, the United States and Japan. High-context cultures tend to have a long shared history. Usually they are relationship-oriented societies where networks of connections are passed on from generation to generation, generating more shared context among community members. Japan is an island society with a homogeneous population and thousands of years of shared history, during a significant portion of which Japan was closed off from the rest of the world. Over these thousands of years, people became particularly skilled at picking up each other’s messages—reading the air, as Takaki said. By contrast, the United States, a country with a mere few hundred years of shared history, has been shaped by enormous inflows of immigrants from various countries around the world, all with different histories, different languages, and different backgrounds. Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. Because they had little shared context, Americans learned quickly that if they wanted to pass a message, they had to make it as explicit and clear as possible, with little room for ambiguity and misunderstanding. So within each language cluster you may notice a pattern (see Figure 1.2). First, countries are clustered by language type. On the left, you see the Anglo-Saxon cluster, followed by the Romance language cluster, and finally, furthest to the right, is a cluster of countries speaking Asian languages. Then within each cluster, you might notice how length of history and level of homogeneity impact the Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 40 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map FIGURE 1.2. Netherlands US Finland COMMUNICATING Spain Italy Singapore Iran China Japan Australia Germany Denmark Poland Brazil Mexico France Canada UK 41 Argentina India Kenya Russia Low-context Saudi Arabia Korea Indonesia High-context communication style. For example, within the Anglo-Saxon cluster, the United States has the most linguistic and cultural diversity and the shortest shared history. This helps to explain why the United States is the lowest-context of the Anglo-Saxon cultures. In the Romance cluster, Brazil has the most diversity and is the lowest-context culture. The same pattern holds with Asia, where the lower-context countries like Singapore and India have the most linguistic and cultural diversity. The American anthropologist Edward Hall, who originally developed the concept of low- and high-context communication Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. while working on Native American reservations in the 1930s, often used the analogy of marriage to describe the differences between high- and low-context communication. Imagine what happens when two people are married for fifty or sixty years. Having shared the same context for so long, they can gather enormous amounts of information just by looking at each other’s faces or gestures. Newlyweds, however, need to state their messages explicitly and repeat them frequently to ensure they are received accurately.1 The comparison to countries with longer or shorter shared histories is obvious. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 41 3/11/14 9:26 AM 42 erin Meyer WhaT Makes a good coMMunIcaTor? In everyday life, we all communicate explicitly sometimes, while passing messages between the lines in other situations. But when you say someone is “a good communicator,” what exactly do you mean? The way you answer this question suggests where you fall on the scale. A Dutch executive in one of my classes noticed his country’s low-context positioning on the scale and protested, “We speak between the lines in the Netherlands, too.” But when asked whether a businessman who communicates between the lines frequently would be considered a good or a bad communicator, he didn’t have to think long. “Bad. That’s the difference between us and the French,” he said. “In the Netherlands, if you don’t say it straight, we don’t think you are trustworthy.” If you’re from a low-context culture, you may perceive a high-context communicator as secretive, lacking transparency, or unable to communicate effectively. Lou Edmondson, an American vice president for sales at Kraft who travels around the world negotiating deals with suppliers in Asia and Eastern Europe, put it Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. starkly: “I have always believed that people say what they mean and mean what they say—and if they don’t, well, then, they are lying.” On the other hand, if you’re from a high-context culture, you might perceive a low-context communicator as inappropriately stating the obvious (“You didn’t have to say it! We all understood!”), or even as condescending and patronizing (“You talk to us like we are children!”). Although I have lived and worked outside the United States for many years, low-context communication is still my natural style. I’m embarrassed to admit that I have Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 42 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 43 been subjected to both of these accusations more than once by my European colleagues. A few years ago, a New York–based financial institution that I’d worked with previously asked me to do a cultural audit of their organization. Since corporate culture is not my specialty and I lacked the time necessary to do this project justice, I approached an Italian colleague whom I’ll call Paolo about collaborating with me. Paolo greeted me cheerfully when we met in his office. Twentyfive years my senior, Paolo has a well-earned reputation as an exceptional researcher and writer. He gave me a copy of his newest book and listened with interest as I described the collaboration opportunity. I started by explaining that my work, family, and writing commitments provided very little time for this project. Paolo nodded, and then the two of us explored the opportunity in more depth, discussing the client company and the specific issues that needed to be addressed. Still feeling a bit anxious about my time limitations, I repeated that Paolo would need to do 80 percent of the work (and would of course receive 80 percent of the compensation). Then we returned to exploring the needs of the client and Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. possible approaches, but after a few more minutes, I once again slipped in my concern about time. Paolo laughed impatiently: “Erin, I am not a child. I was not born yesterday. I understand very well what your point is.” I felt myself blushing with embarrassment. Paolo is quite used to reading subtle messages; he had grasped my not-so-subtle point the first time. I apologized, wondering whether Paolo often reacted this way when speaking with the dozens of American faculty members at INSEAD who clarify and repeat themselves endlessly. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 43 3/11/14 9:26 AM 44 erin Meyer The moral of the story is clear: You may be considered a topflight communicator in your home culture, but what works at home may not work so well with people from other cultures. One interesting quirk is that in high-context cultures, the more educated and sophisticated you are, the greater your ability to both speak and listen with an understanding of implicit, layered messages. By contrast, in low-context cultures, the most educated and sophisticated business people are those who communicate in a clear, explicit way. The result is that the chairman of a French or Japanese company is likely to be a lot more high-context than those who work on the shop floor of the same company, while the chairman of an American or Australian organization is likely to be more low-context than those with entry-level jobs in the same organization. In this respect, education tends to move individuals toward a more extreme version of the dominant cultural tendency. IT’s all relaTIve As we’ve noted, when considering the impact of cultural differences on your dealings with other people, what matters is not so Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. much the absolute positioning of a person’s culture on a particular scale, but rather their relative positioning in comparison to you. The examples that follow illustrate how this principle applies to the Communicating scale. Both Americans and British fall toward the low-context end of the Communicating scale. But the British speak more between the lines than Americans do, a tendency particularly apparent with British high-context humor. Many British people are fond of delivering ironic or sarcastic jokes with a completely deadpan face. Unfortunately, this kind of humor is lost on many Americans; they Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 44 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 45 may suspect the British person is joking but they don’t dare laugh, just in case he is not. As a result, the British often say that Americans “don’t understand irony.” However, a more precise explanation is that Americans are simply more low-context than the British. So when Americans make a joke, especially in a professional setting, they are likely to indicate clearly through explicit verbal or physical cues, “This is a joke,” something totally unnecessary when one British person is speaking to another. In their higher-context culture, if you have to tell us it was a joke, then it wasn’t worth the breath you used to tell it. Alastair Murray, a British manager living in Dubai, offers this example: I was participating in a long-distance bike race across the UAE desert with hundreds of participants. In order to be collegial, I took a turn riding in front of another biker in order to break the headwind for him and help him save a little energy. A stranger had recently done the same for me. A little later the biker peddled up next to me and said in a Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. thick American accent, “Thanks very much for your help!” I replied, “Oh, sure! But I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known you were American.” To someone British it would have been clear that this was a joke, and even a sort of gentle reaching-out of friendliness. But as I delivered it straight-faced and with a serious voice, the American didn’t seem to get it. He rode next to me in silence, beginning to pull slightly to the side. So then I thought about how often Americans say “just kidding” after a joke. So I gave it a go. I told him, “Oh, hey, just kidding!” Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 45 3/11/14 9:26 AM 46 erin Meyer And he responded, “Oh! All right! Ha ha! That was a good one. Where are you from?” Oh, gosh, I thought. . . . these literal Americans! The British may be more high-context than Americans— particularly where humor is concerned—but in comparison with Latin Europeans such as Spain and Italy and including the French they are very low-context. I once worked with Stuart Shuttleworth, the CEO, owner, and founder of a small British investment firm that had grown over thirty years from a one-man shop into a company with one hundred employees. Two years earlier, he had begun expanding the business internationally. Shuttleworth explained to me the cultural quandaries this expansion had created for him: Every day, as I see how my new counterparts work in Spain, France, and Italy, I am asking myself if it is possible that what is obvious common sense to me may not be common sense in those environments. Take, for example, the simple process of recapping a meeting. In the U.K., it is common sense that at the end of a Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. meeting you should verbally recap what has been decided, which is most frequently followed by a written recap, including individual action items, which we send out to all meeting participants. Clarification, clarification, clarification—in the U.K. this is simply good business practice. I attended a meeting the other day in Paris with a group of my France-based employees and one of our Parisian clients. As the meeting was clearly winding down, I awaited the final “Here’s what we’ve decided” recap of the meeting. Instead, one of the clients announced dramatically “Et voilà!” [There it is!] as if everything had been made clear. The others all stood up patting Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 46 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 47 one another on the back and shaking hands, stating words of appreciation and future collaboration. I couldn’t help but wonder, “But voilà what?” It seems that my French colleagues simply know what has been decided and who should do what without going through all of the levels of clarification that we are used to in the U.K. Shuttleworth was also confused by the e-mail etiquette he encountered: In the U.K., as in the U.S., if you send someone an e-mail and that person doesn’t have the answer at their fingertips, both common sense and etiquette call for the receiver to respond within 24 hours saying something like, “I got your message and will get back to you on Wednesday.” In other words, even if you have nothing to say, you should spell out explicitly in a low-context way when you will have something to say. Lack of explicit communication signifies something negative. Now, I send an e-mail to our Spanish supplier—who I know does high-quality and on-time work and has a very good level Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. of English—and I may not hear back from him or any of his colleagues for three or four days. I am biting my nails assuming all sorts of problems with my request that prevent a speedy reply . . . either that or the entire staff has fallen ill or the building has burned down so that no one can read their e-mails. And then three days later, I receive an e-mail telling me that they have done exactly as requested and everything is under control. Why couldn’t they have said that in the first place?! French, Spanish, and Italian are markedly more high-context than Anglo-Saxon cultures. But the cultures of Asia are even Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 47 3/11/14 9:26 AM 48 erin Meyer more high-context than any in Europe. As the center of the business world tilts towards China, understanding the communication patterns typical of Chinese culture becomes increasingly critical. Elisabeth Shen is a consultant who splits her time between Shanghai and Paris, helping Europeans work effectively with the Chinese. This can be quite challenging, since, as Shen observes, “China is a huge country with strong regional differences. In many ways it is difficult to categorize Chinese business culture, given its wide generational gaps and differences between private and public sectors.” However, it’s safe to say that Chinese culture in general is very high-context in comparison with the cultures of the West. Shen explains: When Chinese vaguely express an idea or an opinion, the real message is often just implied. They expect their conversational partner to be highly involved and to take an active role in deciphering messages, as well as in mutually creating meaning. In Chinese culture, pang qiao ce ji [beating around the bush] is a style that nurtures an implicit understanding. In Chinese cul- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. ture, children are taught not to just hear the explicit words but also to focus on how something is said, and on what is not said. I collaborated with Shen to conduct interviews with dozens of European managers from various business sectors who had spent significant portions of their careers in different regions of China. They had varying opinions on how to succeed in a Chinese environment. In one of these interviews, Pablo Díaz, a Spanish executive who worked in China for a Chinese textile company for fifteen years, remarked, “In China, the message up front is not necessarily the real message. My Chinese colleagues would drop hints, and I wouldn’t pick them up. Later, when thinking it over, I Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 48 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 49 would realize I had missed something important.” Díaz recounts a discussion he had with a Chinese employee which went something like this: M r . D íaz : It looks like some of us are going to have to be here on Sunday to host the client visit. M r . c hen : I see. M r . D íaz : Can you join us on Sunday? M r . c hen : Yes, I think so. M r . D íaz : That would be a great help. M r . c hen : Yes, Sunday is an important day. M r . D íaz : In what way? M r . c hen : It’s my daughter’s birthday. M r . D íaz : How nice. I hope you all enjoy it. M r . c hen : Thank you. I appreciate your understanding.2 Díaz laughs about the situation now. “I was quite certain he had said he was coming,” Díaz says. “And Mr. Chen was quite certain he had communicated that he absolutely could not come because he was going to be celebrating his daughter’s birthday with Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. his family.” Díaz has learned from experience how to avoid falling into these communication snafus: If I’m not 100 percent sure what I heard, shrugging my shoulders and leaving with the message that I sort of think I heard is not a good strategy. If I am not sure, I have to take the responsibility to ask for clarification. Sometimes I have to ask three or four times, and although that can be a little embarrassing for both me and my colleague, it is not as embarrassing as having a production line set and ready and waiting for Mr. Chen, who is contentedly singing happy birthday somewhere else. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 49 3/11/14 9:26 AM 50 erin Meyer sTraTegIes for WorkIng WITh people froM hIgher-conTexT culTures As you can see, communicating across cultures can be fraught with invisible difficulties. Whether you consider yourself a low-context or high-context communicator, it’s quite likely you will one day find yourself working with a colleague, client, or partner positioned further to the right on the scale. So being an agile communicator, able to move adroitly in either direction, is a valuable skill for anyone in business. When considering strategies for improving your effectiveness, one crucial principle to remember is that communicating is not just about speaking but also listening. Pablo Díaz has learned this from experience. “It isn’t just that my Chinese employees speak between the lines,” he says. “They are also always trying to find out what is behind a comment. This type of listening is not natural for Westerners, who take everything at face value.” So when you work with higher-context colleagues, practice listening more carefully. “The best advice I can give,” Díaz says, “is to learn to listen to what is meant instead of what is said. This Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. means reflecting more, asking more clarifying questions, and making an effort to be more receptive to body language cues.” By searching for implicit cues, you can begin to “read the air” a little more accurately. Think back to the dialogue between Mr. Chen and Mr. Díaz above. In this dialogue, Mr. Chen says “yes,” but he simultaneously indicates that the real answer is “no.” Saying “no” between the lines is common throughout Asia, including China, Japan, and Korea, and especially when speaking to a boss or a client. If you work with a supplier or a team member from one of these countries, you’ll discover that “no” can come in many guises. A question like “Can Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 50 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 51 you complete this project by next week?” may be greeted by a sharp sucking-in of breath or a noncommittal answer: “It will be very difficult, but I’ll do my best,” “We’ll think about it,” or “It will be hard for these reasons, but let me consider it.” With practice, you can learn to read the “no” between the lines. For verification, ask open-ended questions rather than backing the person into a corner that requires a yes or no response. For example, Mr. Díaz could have asked an open-ended clarifying question such as, “How difficult would it be for you to get away from the party to come to work for a few hours?” With persistence, more information will emerge. “It is important not to form opinions too quickly,” Díaz suggests, “to listen more, speak less, and then clarify when you are not sure if you understood. You might need to work through another local person in order to get the message deciphered. But if you feel confused, work to get all the information you need to pick up the intended message.” One of the biggest mistakes lower-context managers make is assuming that the other individual is purposely omitting information or unable to communicate explicitly. Most often, the higher-context person is simply commu- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. nicating in the style to which he is accustomed, with no thought of confusing or misleading you. Simply asking for clarification can work wonders. After a while, you may find you don’t have to ask so many times for clarity, as your counterpart also learns to adapt to you. If you are the one sending the message, you may find there is less need to repeat yourself endlessly when speaking with high-context colleagues who listen between the lines. Before repeating yourself, stop talking. Wait to learn whether saying it once is enough. You can always come back to the topic later if you’re not sure whether the message got through. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 51 3/11/14 9:26 AM 52 erin Meyer When you find yourself stymied or frustrated by misunderstanding, self-deprecation, laughing at yourself, and using positive words to describe the other culture are always good options. For example, when I was searching for the Swagat restaurant in New Delhi, I could have mentioned to the concierge that I come from a country with small towns, few people, and lots of signposts: “Indian people have a knack for finding things that I do not have. Please be so kind as to draw me a map marking every landmark or street I will see on the way to the restaurant.” Or I might have said, “I am really bad at finding things, and this city is totally new to me. Could you please make me a simple drawing that a young child could read, marking exactly what I will see on each step of my way and each road I will cross? If you could include exactly how many minutes it will take me to walk for each part of the journey, that will help, as I do have a poor sense of direction.” Self-deprecation allows you to accept the blame for being unable to get the message and then ask for assistance. sTraTegIes for WorkIng WITh people froM Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. loWer-conTexT culTures Having consulted frequently with Western companies outsourcing to India, I was quite used to hearing the comments, “When I explained what needed to be done to my Indian team, there were no questions. Later, I realized they hadn’t understood my instructions. Why didn’t they ask for clarification?” Later, when the Indian Institute of Planning and Management organized a multiple-city tour where I was to work with executives in four Indian cities, I experienced more of this high-context communication. As I prepared for the trip, I frequently found myself Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 52 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 53 communicating by both phone and e-mail with the university organizers, asking questions like, “Who exactly will be attending my sessions? What kinds of international experience do they have? Why are they interested in hearing from me? What sorts of questions should I anticipate?” Unfortunately, the responses I received were so high-context that I often felt more confused than before I asked. The names, backgrounds, and specific business needs of the attendees remained vague and unknown to me until I arrived in the classroom. These experiences prepared me well for a question that one of the class participants asked me during a lunch break. “Madam,” he said politely, “what you have taught us this morning is very important to my daily job. I have never traveled outside India, but I work every day by phone and e-mail with American, Australian, and British clients. What is the best way to build trust with these colleagues and customers?” Thinking back to my difficulties of a few weeks earlier as well as previous experience working with Western companies outsourcing to India, I had a ready response: Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. Be as transparent, clear, and specific as possible. Explain exactly why you are calling. Assert your opinions transparently. Show all of your cards up front. At the end of the phone call, recap all the key points again, or send an e-mail repeating these points straight afterwards. If you are ever not 100 percent sure what you have been asked to do, don’t read between the lines but state clearly that you don’t understand and ask for clarification. And sometimes it would be better to not be quite so polite, as it gives the impression of vagueness or uncertainty. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 53 3/11/14 9:26 AM 54 erin Meyer With a little effort and practice, someone from a higher-context environment can learn to work and communicate in a lowercontext way. Focus on recognizing when you are expecting the other person to read your intended message between the lines and get in the habit of conveying it more explicitly. Start the conversation by stating the main idea, make your points clearly, and at the end of the discussion recap what has been decided and what will happen next. If you’re not sure whether your ideas have been absorbed, then feel free to ask, “Am I clear enough?” Follow up with an e-mail clarifying anything that might still be a bit vague and stating the main conclusions in writing. I’ve come across people from high-context cultures who have gotten so good at switching their styles that they become as low-context as the American on the other end of the phone line. sTraTegIes for MulTIculTural collaboraTIons What if you have a blend of many cultures all on one team— Americans who recap incessantly and nail everything down in writing, Japanese who read the air, French who speak at the sec- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. ond degree, British who love to use deadpan irony as a form of humor, and Chinese who learn as young children to beat around the bush? Where do you suppose the greatest likelihood of misunderstanding will arise? Consider three options: A. One low-context person communicating with someone from another low-context culture (for example, a Dutchman communicating with a Canadian) B. A high-context person communicating with a low-context person (for example, a Spaniard communicating with a Dutchman) Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 54 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 55 C. One high-context person communicating with someone from another high-context culture (for example. a person from China communicating with a Brazilian). Many people assume that the answer is choice B—a lowcontext/high-context conversation. The correct answer is choice C. On a multicultural team, most misunderstanding takes place between people who come from two high-context cultures with entirely different roots, such as the Brazilians communicating with the Chinese. High-context communication works beautifully when we are from the same culture and interpret cultural cues the same way. When two Japanese people communicate, the shared contextual understanding makes it easy for them to read the air. Time is saved (no need to repeat an idea three times), relationships are maintained (no need to tell you a direct “no” when I can hint at it and you can pick up the message), and group harmony is preserved. But when team members come from different cultures, high-context communication breaks down. The speaker may be passing a message between the lines, and the listener may be actively focused on scanning for Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. meaning. But because the two individuals come from completely different cultural contexts, the message received is different from the message sent, and the likelihood of misunderstanding multiplies. Fortunately, if you are leading a multicultural team, there’s no need to count the number of team members from the left and right hand of the scale and multiply by the number of members to figure out what to do. There is just one easy strategy to remember: Multicultural teams need low-context processes. Pedro Galvez, a Mexican manager at Johnson and Johnson, attended my weeklong program on managing global virtual teams. He found himself managing a team that included both Mexicans Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 55 3/11/14 9:26 AM 56 erin Meyer and Saudi Arabians—representatives of two very different high-context cultures. Galvez recalls: The Saudis had a different way of passing and interpreting messages from the Mexicans, and we quickly began misunderstanding one another. Following a miscommunication between one of my Mexican team members and his Saudi colleague, I spoke with each of them about what had happened. The Mexican told me, “I made it known, so he could see it if he wanted to see it.” I could see that with this kind of misunderstanding occurring, we might be headed for serious trouble. After that incident, I brought the team together and we set ground rules. I spoke about the likelihood of misunderstanding given our different languages, our different cultural backgrounds, and the fact that both of our cultures have a tendency to communicate implicitly and pass messages between the lines. I asked the group to come up with solutions for minimizing misunderstanding, and in small groups they developed a process for how we would work together. Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. The list of ground rules developed by Galvez’s group was simple but effective. Three levels of verification would take place at the end of any meeting: • One person would recap the key points orally, with the task rotating from one team member to another. • Each person would summarize orally what he would do next. • One person would send out a written recap, again on a rotating basis. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 56 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 57 A similar system of explicit recaps and summaries would be used after one-on-one conversations or phone calls. The purpose— to catch and correct any misunderstandings or confusions. If you have members from more than one high-context culture on your team, lay out the issue and have the team develop their own solutions, as Pedro did. Don’t wait until problems arise. The best moment to develop the processes is when the team is forming, before miscommunication takes place. And one more point. Galvez’s team added to their list of rules the following statement: “This is our team culture, which we have explicitly agreed on and all feel comfortable with.” Galvez knew that making everyone comfortable with the explicit, written agreement was both important and challenging. Putting things in writing may signify a lack of trust in some high-context cultures. So when he asked the group to begin putting things in writing, he made sure to lay some groundwork. When should you puT IT In WrITIng? The more low-context the culture, the more people have a ten- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. dency to put everything in writing. “That was a fine meeting—I’ll send out a written recap.” “Thanks for the phone call—I’ll send you an e-mail listing the next steps.” “You’re hired—here’s your written job description and a formal offer letter.” This explains why, compared with European and Asian companies, American businesses tend to have more: • Organizational charts (showing on paper who works for whom) • Titles (describing exactly who is at what level) Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 57 3/11/14 9:26 AM 58 erin Meyer • Written objectives (explaining who is responsible for accomplishing what) • Performance appraisals (stating in writing how each person is doing) By contrast, many high-context cultures—particularly those of Asia and Africa—have a strong oral tradition in which written documentation is considered less necessary. The tendency to put everything in writing, which is a mark of professionalism and transparency in a low-context culture, may suggest to high-context colleagues that you don’t trust them to follow through on their verbal commitments. “This happened to me!” Bethari Syamsudin, an Indonesian manager working for the multinational automotive supplier Valeo, told me. “My boss is German, but my team is all Indonesian. In my culture, if we have a strong relationship and come to a spoken agreement, that is enough for me. So if you get off the phone and send me an e-mail recapping in writing everything we have just decided, that would be a clear sign to me that you don’t trust me.” Bethari was willing to adapt her style in deference to the wishes Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. of her German superior. She recalls: My boss asked me to do what I could to make the communication more transparent in our office. He complained that he often didn’t know what decisions had been made and wanted a higher level of clarity. So he asked me to send a written recap of our weekly Bangkok team meeting to him and all participants in order to boost the clarity. I will never forget the reaction of my Indonesian team when I sent out the first recap putting all of them on copy. My good friend and colleague called two minutes after the recap was sent Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-03 23:56:10. 9781610392501-text.indd 58 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 59 out and said, “Don’t you trust me, Bethari? I told you I would do it in the meeting. You know I am g