Culture Map PDF: Why Versus How (Persuasion)

3 Why Versus How The art of persuasion in a Multicultural World T he art of persuasion is one of the most crucial business skills. Without the ability to persuade others to support your ideas, you won’t be able to attract the support you need to turn those ideas into realities. And though most pe...

3 Why Versus How The art of persuasion in a Multicultural World T he art of persuasion is one of the most crucial business skills. Without the ability to persuade others to support your ideas, you won’t be able to attract the support you need to turn those ideas into realities. And though most people are unaware of it, the ways you seek to persuade others and the kinds of arguments you find persuasive are deeply rooted in your culture’s philosophical, religious, and educational assumptions and attitudes. Far from be- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. ing universal, then, the art of persuasion is one that is profoundly culture-based. That was the hard lesson learned by Kara Williams, an American engineer newly working as a research manager for a German firm in the automotive industry. As one of the leading experts in her field Williams had extensive experience presenting recommendations and influencing her American colleagues to follow her ideas. But when Williams began working in a German environment she didn’t realize that being persuasive would require a different approach. “When I think back to my first presentation to my new German bosses, I wish I had understood the difference and hadn’t let their 89 Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 89 3/11/14 9:26 AM 90 erin Meyer feedback get under my skin. If I had held my cool I might have been able to salvage the situation.” Williams has faced many challenges in her career. Before taking the job with the German firm, she worked for an Australian company from her home office in Boston, traveling frequently to the Sydney headquarters to give presentations and offer advice. “A lot of my job relies on my ability to sell my ideas and influence my internal clients to take the best path,” she explains. “I’m good at what I do, but I hate constant long-distance travel. When offered a similar position working for a German auto supplier, I jumped at the opportunity for shorter travel distances.” Williams’s first project was providing technical advice on how to reduce carbon emissions from one of the group’s “green” car models. After visiting several automotive plants, observing the systems and processes there, and meeting with dozens of experts and end users, Williams developed a set of recommendations that she felt would meet the company’s strategic and budgetary goals. She traveled to Munich to give a one-hour presentation to the decision makers—a group of German directors. “It was my first internal presentation, and its success would Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. be important for my reputation,” Williams recalls. In preparation for the meeting Williams thought carefully about how to give the most persuasive presentation, practicing her arguments, anticipating questions that might arise, and preparing responses to those questions. Williams delivered her presentation in a small auditorium with the directors seated in rows of upholstered chairs. She began by getting right to the point, explaining the strategies she would recommend based on her findings. But before she had finished with the first slide, one of the directors raised his hand and protested, “How did you get to these conclusions? You are giving us your Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 90 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 91 recommendations, but I don’t understand how you got here. How many people did you interview? What questions did you ask?” Then another director jumped in: “Please explain what methodology you used for analyzing your data and how that led you to come to these findings.” “I was taken aback,” Williams remembers. “I assured them that the methodology behind my recommendations was sound, but the questions and challenges continued. The more they questioned me, the more I got the feeling that they were attacking my credibility, which puzzled and annoyed me. I have a Ph.D. in engineering and expertise that is widely acknowledged. Their effort to test my conclusions, I felt, showed a real lack of respect. What arrogance to think that they would be better able to judge than I am!” Williams reacted defensively, and the presentation went downhill from there. “I kick myself now for having allowed their approach to derail my point,” she says. “Needless to say, they did not approve my recommendations, and three months of research time went down the drain.” The stone wall Williams ran into illustrates the hard truth that our ability to persuade others depends not simply on the strength Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. of our message but on how we build our arguments and the persuasive techniques we employ. Jens Hupert is a German director at the company Williams worked for. Having lived in the United States for many years, he had experienced similar failures at persuading others, though the cultural disconnect ran in the opposite direction. Hupert recalled the problems he’d had the first few times he tried to make a persuasive argument before a group of his American colleagues. He’d carefully launched his presentation by laying the foundation for his conclusions, setting the parameters, outlining his data and his methodology, and explaining the premise of his argument. He was Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 91 3/11/14 9:26 AM 92 erin Meyer taken aback when his American boss told him, “In your next presentation, get right to the point. You lost their attention before you even got to the important part.” Hupert was unsure. “These are intelligent people,” he thought. “Why would they swallow my argument if I haven’t built it carefully for them from the ground up?” The opposing reactions that Williams and Hupert received reflect the cultural differences between German and American styles of persuasion. The approach taken by the Germans is based on a specific style of reasoning that is deeply ingrained in the cultural psyche. Hupert explains: In Germany, we try to understand the theoretical concept before adapting it to the practical situation. To understand something, we first want to analyze all of the conceptual data before coming to a conclusion. When colleagues from cultures like the U.S. or the U.K. make presentations to us, we don’t realize that they were taught to think differently from us. So when they begin by presenting conclusions and recommendations without setting up the parameters and how Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. they got to those conclusions, it can actually shock us. We may feel insulted. Do they think we are stupid—that we will just swallow anything? Or we may question whether their decision was well thought out. This reaction is based on our deepseated belief that you cannot come to a conclusion without first defining the parameters. Hupert’s time in the United States taught him that Americans have a very different approach. They focus on practicalities rather than theory, so they are much more likely to begin with their recommendations. Unfortunately, this reasoning method can backfire Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 92 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 93 when making presentations to an audience whose method of thinking is the opposite—as Kara Williams discovered. 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 Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. 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 Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 93 3/11/14 9:26 AM 94 erin Meyer is heavily influenced by the kind of thinking emphasized in your culture’s educational 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 pi as a class before we used pi in a formula.” In this kind of math class, you may spend 80 percent of your time focusing on the concepts or theories underpinning the general mathematical principles and Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. only 20 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. I felt the full force of the applications-first method when I studied Russian in my American high school. We walked into Mr. Tarasov’s class on the first day of school, and he immediately fired questions at us in Russian. We didn’t understand a thing. But gradually we started to understand, and, after a few lessons, we began to speak, putting words together any which way we Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 94 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 95 could. Then, with Mr. Tarasov’s guidance, we began using sentences whose structure we did not understand to create a conceptual grammatical framework. By contrast, in a principles-first language class, learning starts with understanding the grammatical principles underpinning the language structure. Once you have a solid initial grasp of the grammar and vocabulary, you begin to practice using the language. This is the way my husband learned English in his French school, and ironically, his knowledge of English grammar is far superior to that of many Americans. The disadvantage is that students spend less time practicing the language, which may mean they write it better than they speak it. In business, as in school, people from principles-first cultures generally want to understand the 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 Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. 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. counTry posITIons on The persuadIng scale In general, Anglo-Saxon cultures like the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand tend to fall to the far right on the Persuading scale (see Figure 3.1), where applications-first cultures are clustered. As we move across the scale there’s a Nordic cluster, where we find Scandinavia and the Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 95 3/11/14 9:26 AM 96 erin Meyer FIGURE 3.1. Russia Italy France Spain Germany PERSUADING Argentina Sweden Netherlands Brazil Mexico Denmark UK Principles-first Principlesfirst Australia Canada US Applications-first Individuals are trained to begin with a fact, statement, or opinion and later add concepts to back up or explain the conclusion as necessary. The preference is to begin a message or report with an executive summary or bullet points. Discussions are approached in a practical, concrete manner. Theoretical or philosophical discussions are avoided in a business environment. Applications- Individuals have been trained to first develop the theory or complex concept before presenting a fact, statement, or opinion. The preference is to begin a message or first report by building up a theoretical argument before moving on to a conclusion. The conceptual principles underlying each situation are valued. Netherlands. Latin American and Germanic cultures are considerably more principles-first than the United States but much less so than their Latin European cousins, so we put them around the middle of the scale. France, Russia, and Belgium appear on the principles-first side of the scale. Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. As always, remember the importance of cultural relativity. Where a given country falls on the scale matters less than where two cultures fall relative to one another. The British tilt rather far toward the applications-first end of the scale. But Yasser Tawfik, an Egyptian manager for Merck Pharmaceuticals, has this to say about his experience of studying in both the United Kingdom and the United States: In the U.K., the learning was all about concept. Only after we struggled through the theoretical did we get to the practical application. The U.S. was exactly the opposite. Even before I Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 96 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 97 attended a course I was already given a case study as pre-work— an example of practical application. In the classroom it was all about the three Ls of leadership or the six Cs of customer satisfaction. From moment one, we were immersed in practical solutions and examples of how to apply the solutions. Compared with other European cultures, the United Kingdom is quite applications-first. But when the United Kingdom is measured against the United States, it appears strongly principles-first—a vivid illustration of the power of cultural relativity to shape our perceptions. (You may be wondering where the Asian cultures fall on the Persuading scale, since they don’t appear in the diagram. Actually, the view of the world most common in Asian cultures is so different from that of European-influenced cultures that an entirely different frame of reference, unrelated to the Persuading scale, comes into play. We’ll discuss that uniquely Asian perspective later in this chapter.) Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. When phIlosophy MeeTs busIness Different cultures have different systems for learning in part because of the philosophers who influenced the approach to intellectual life in general and science in particular. Although Aristotle, a Greek, is credited with articulating applications-first thinking (induction), it was British thinkers, including Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century and Francis Bacon in the sixteenth century, who popularized these methodologies among modern scholars and scientists. Later, Americans, with their pioneer mentality and disinclination toward theoretical learning, came to be even more applications-first than the British. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 97 3/11/14 9:26 AM 98 erin Meyer By contrast, philosophy on the European continent has been largely driven by principles-first approaches. In the seventeenth century, Frenchman René Descartes spelled out a method of principles-first reasoning in which the scientist first formulates a hypothesis, then seeks evidence to prove or disprove it. Descartes was deeply skeptical of data based on mere observation and sought a deeper understanding of underlying principles. In the nineteenth century, the German Friedrich Hegel introduced the dialectic model of deduction, which reigns supreme in schools in Latin and Germanic countries. The Hegelian dialectic begins with a thesis, or foundational argument; this is opposed by an antithesis, or conflicting argument; and the two are then reconciled in a synthesis. Clear examples of applications-first and principles-first reasoning styles can also be found in the legal systems of different societies. The British and American systems are based on common law, in which a judgment in one case sets a precedent for future cases—a clear example of applications-first thinking. By contrast, most European Union states use the civil law system that originated in Roman law and the Napoleonic Code, in which a general statute or principle is applied on a case-by- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. case basis, mirroring the principles-first approach. Interestingly, Scandinavia uses a hybrid legal system that does not fall neatly into either camp. Note the middle position of the Nordic countries on the Persuading scale. As we’ve seen, the way different societies analyze the world depends on their philosophical roots. These, in turn, define how we learn in school and how we behave as adults at work. It’s what Frenchman Stéphane Baron realized when he found his highly persuasive writing was not having much effect on his British colleagues. A graduate of the prestigious Polytechnique engineering school, now on the fast track at a large French industrial company, Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 98 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 99 Baron was working for Michelin in Clermont Ferrand, France, as part of a global team whose other members were located mainly in the United Kingdom. Baron recalls: My British colleagues were not reading many of my e-mails, especially the most important ones. It was starting to annoy me. I liked my British colleagues a lot, and when we were face-to-face we had a great connection. But I had multiple indications that, when I sent e-mails to my team, they simply didn’t read them. And I knew the British were big e-mail writers themselves, so I didn’t think it could be cultural. For example, Baron recalls carefully crafting a persuasive e-mail written to propose a number of key changes to company processes. The structure of his message looked something like this: Paragraph 1: introduced the topic. Paragraph 2: built up his argument, appealing to his teammates’ sense of logic and developing the general principle. Paragraph 3: addressed the most obvious potential concerns Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. with Baron’s argument. Paragraph 4: explained Baron’s conclusion and asked for his teammates’ support. Well educated in one of the most principles-first cultures in the world, Baron instinctively followed the dialectic method so carefully taught in the French school system. Notice how his second, third, and fourth paragraphs neatly present the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis Baron developed after much pondering of his topic. On reflection, however, it’s pretty obvious why Baron’s British colleagues did not read this e-mail. Raised on the applications-first Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 99 3/11/14 9:26 AM 100 erin Meyer principle of Get to the point quickly and stick to it, they got through paragraph one and, seeing no clear point up front, moved the e-mail message to their “read at some undefined date in the future” file. If Kara Williams and Stéphane Baron had a better understanding of the applications-first and principles-first cultural tendencies, they would each have had the chance to be a good deal more persuasive. If Williams had realized she was presenting to an audience of principles-first Germans, perhaps she would have begun by presenting the parameters of her study and explaining why she chose this specific study method. She might then have introduced specific data to show her reasoning before presenting conclusions and recommendations. She wouldn’t have needed to spend thirty minutes building her argument; five solid minutes describing her method before jumping to her results would probably have created a lot of buy-in. In addition, if Williams had recognized the crucial role of the antithesis—the counterargument—in the deductive process, she might have welcomed the challenges from her audience as a sign of interest instead of a lack of respect. Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. Similarly, if Baron had realized he was writing for a group raised on applications-first approaches, perhaps he would have started his e-mail with a few bullet points summarizing his proposal and explaining what he needed from the group. He might then have continued with a bit of background data, presented briskly with the recognition that “shorter is sweeter” for people with an applications-first orientation. Baron subsequently learned this lesson. “One British colleague told me that, if my e-mail doesn’t fit on the screen of an iPhone, it risks not getting read,” Baron laughs. “That’s the test I use now before I send out my e-mail.” Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 100 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 101 The moral is clear. Presenting to Londoners or New Yorkers? Get to the point and stick to it. Presenting to French, Spaniards, or Germans? Spend more time setting the parameters and explaining the background before jumping to your conclusion. sTraTegIes for persuadIng across culTures Effective leadership often relies on the ability to persuade others to change their systems, adopt new methods of working, or adjust to new trends in markets, technologies, or business models. So if you are a manager of a team whose members come from a culture different from your own, learning to adapt your persuasive technique to your audience can be crucial. Jorge Da Silva, a Brazilian engineer with a steel company headquartered in southern Brazil, explains how he learned to use a different approach when seeking to influence a new team of colleagues located in Houston, Texas: We had developed a new method for monitoring safety risks in our plants that was working beautifully and required less over- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. sight than the status quo. Our Latin American offices were in the process of adopting the new method, but our U.S. office was resisting. They felt the method they used worked fine. We kept trying to explain to them why the new process was so important. However, we didn’t seem to be persuading them. So we developed a very detailed presentation that explained, slide by slide, the key concepts addressed in the new method. But the more detailed we became, the less responsive our American teammates were. Finally, I called one of my colleagues in the U.S., Jake Kuderlee. I went to undergraduate school with Jake in São Paulo and have Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 101 3/11/14 9:26 AM 102 erin Meyer had a great relationship with him for years. Jake asked, “Have you tried showing the decision-makers in the American office an example of what could happen if the new process is well implemented?” Based on this discussion, we invited two of the American decision-makers to our Brazilian plant to witness how the new safety process worked. We took two days to show them around the plant, to have them interview the workers on the assembly lines, and to review the production reports. They got a really good look at the process in action, and they asked a lot of questions. And when they got back to the U.S., they got the ball rolling. Now we have the same safety process in the U.S. that we have in Brazil. I learned my lesson. What is persuasive in Brazil may not be persuasive in an American environment. As Da Silva learned, applications-first thinkers like to receive practical examples up front; they will extract learning from these examples. In the same vein, applications-first learners are used to the “case method,” whereby they first read a case study describing a real-life story about a business problem and its solution, and Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. then induce general lessons from it. Principles-first thinkers also like practical examples, but they prefer to understand the basis of the framework before they move to the application. And for anyone raised in a principles-first culture, the American case method may seem downright odd. One Spanish executive told me, “In Spain, we have had it drilled into us since we were young that every situation is different and you can’t assume that what happens in one situation will happen in another. So, when we are supposed to review the situation of one specific protagonist and extract general learning points, it may feel not just weird but even a bit dumb.” Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 102 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 103 Shifting your persuasive style to match the preferences of your audience can be a bit challenging. However, it is still more complicated to choose the best approach if you have Brazilians, Americans, Germans, and French all attending the same presentation. As Jens Hupert, the German manager working with Kara Williams in the automotive industry, says, “My reality today is no longer a neat group of American or Germans but a large mix of participants from around the world.” The best strategy for managers in Jens’s situation is to cycle back and forth between theoretical principles and practical examples. Provide practical examples to capture the interest of your applications-first listeners. The principles-first participants will enjoy them also. But you may find the latter asking theoretical questions, and, while you are answering them, the applications-first learners get bored. Try ignoring their boredom for a moment. Avoid the temptation to push away conceptual questions, as you risk sacrificing the interest and respect of your principles-first audience. Instead, take the time to answer the questions well and then quickly provide a couple of practical examples to recapture the waning attention of the applica- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. tions-first students. You may find that, no matter how well you shuttle back and forth, it will be difficult to satisfy all of your listeners all of the time. But if you are aware of the Persuading scale and the challenges it presents, you can read the cues from your audience more clearly and react accordingly. The same differences that make it hard to persuade a multicultural audience can also make it difficult to improve collaboration among members of a multicultural team. Such teams are often much slower to make decisions than monocultural ones, and, if you consider the Persuading scale for a moment, it is easy to see Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 103 3/11/14 9:26 AM 104 erin Meyer why. If some team members are using principles-first logic and others are using applications-first logic to reach a decision, this can lead to conflict and inefficiency from the beginning. To make matters worse, most people have little understanding about the logic pattern they use, which leads them to judge the logic patterns of others negatively. If the performance of your global team is suffering because its members are operating at different ends of the Persuading scale, consider the following strategies: • Build team awareness by explaining the scale. Have everybody read this chapter and discuss it during a team meeting. • A cultural bridge can help a lot. If you have team members who are bicultural or have significant experience living in different cultures, ask them to take responsibility for helping other team members. • Understand and adapt to one another’s behaviors. • Patience and flexibility are key. Cross-cultural effectiveness takes time. Developing your own ability to recognize Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. others’ reactions and adapt accordingly will help you to be increasingly persuasive (and therefore effective) when working internationally. holIsTIc ThInkIng: The asIan approach To persuasIon Across Western countries, we see strong differences between applications-first and principles-first patterns of thinking. But when considering the differences between Asian and Western thought patterns, we need to use a different lens. Asians have what we Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 104 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 105 refer to as holistic thought patterns, while Westerners tend to have what we will call a specific approach. I ran into the Chinese holistic pattern while teaching a course for a group of seventeen top-level Chinese executives, preparing them to work in Europe. They came from different Chinese companies and different regions of China. Four were women. Six lived in Poland, Hungary, and the Netherlands, and the rest in China. Although some spoke English, I taught the session through simultaneous translation into Mandarin. I started by covering the Communicating, Leading, and Trusting scales (the latter two of which we’ll discuss later in this book). The audience was so enthusiastic that they took photos of the classroom and my slides and even recorded video clips on their iPhones. I then asked them to break out into groups to discuss how they might handle different attitudes about confrontation on a global team consisting of French and Germans (who see confrontation as a key aspect of the decision-making process) and Chinese (who see confrontation as an affront to team relationships). They discussed the issue animatedly in their separate rooms and came back to the classroom for the debriefing. Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. We started by asking, “What steps should the team leader in this case take to manage different attitudes toward confrontation on the team?” Lilly Li, a bird-like woman with thick glasses and a pleasant smile who had been running operations in Hungary for two years, raised her hand: Let me give my thoughts. In Hungary, we have people from many different countries—from all over Europe, in fact. The Trusting scale has been a big challenge for us, as the Hungarians do not take the same time to build personal relationships as Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 105 3/11/14 9:26 AM 106 erin Meyer we do in China. Let me explain some of the negative impact of not having a trusting relationship in our organization. Now I was a little confused, because the question I’d asked was about confrontation, not about trusting—and there were no Hungarians in the case study we just read. I pushed the earpiece closer to my ear to make sure I was hearing the translator correctly. Lilly Li continued to talk for several minutes about trust, hierarchy, and her experiences in Hungary, and the Chinese participants listened carefully. After several long minutes of interesting comments that had—from my perspective—absolutely zero to do with the question I’d asked, Lilly Li came to the point: “In this case, if the team leader had spent more time helping the team build relationships outside of the office, that would have been very helpful during the meeting. The team would have been much more comfortable dealing with open debate and direct confrontation if the relationships on the team had been stronger.” Then another participant, Mr. Deng, raised his hand, I restated the specific question: “What steps should the team leader in this Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. case take to manage different attitudes toward confrontation on the team?” Mr. Deng began: Let me give my perspective. I have been working in the technology industry for many years. In my company, we have lots of young people who are very eager and hardworking. Yet hierarchy is still strong in our company. During a meeting, if a young person is asked a question, he will look to his boss first to see if the boss’s face indicates approval. If the boss approves, the younger employee will also express approval. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 106 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 107 By now I was thinking to myself, “Mr. Deng, please don’t forget the question!” After several long minutes’ worth of comments about the role of hierarchy in his own organization, Mr. Deng observed, “On a global team, such as in this case, Chinese employees may confront their colleagues, but they will certainly never confront the boss. The team leader could remove himself from the meetings in order to allow for more comfortable discussions amongst his team members.” All morning long, the students’ comments followed a similar pattern: After taking several minutes to discuss peripheral information, during which they would loop back to topics we had already discussed, they would then get to their point and come to a conclusion about the topic at hand. Gradually it became clear to me that this behavior did not reflect the idiosyncratic style of one person or even of one group, but rather a wider cultural norm— one that has been revealed by some of the most intriguing research in the cross-cultural field. Professors Richard Nisbett and Takahiko Masuda presented twenty-second animated video vignettes of underwater scenes to Japanese and American participants (see an illustration of one of Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. the vignettes in Figure 3.2 on page 108).1 Afterward, participants were asked what they had seen, and the first sentence of each response was categorized. The results of the study were remarkable. While the Americans mentioned larger, faster-moving, brightly colored objects in the foreground (such as the big fish visible in the illustration), the Japanese spoke more about what was going on in the background (for example, the plants or the small frog to the bottom left). In addition, the Japanese spoke twice as often as the Americans about the interdependencies between the objects up front and the objects Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 107 3/11/14 9:26 AM 108 erin Meyer Figure 3.2 in the background. As one Japanese woman explained, “I naturally look at all the items behind and around the large fish to determine what kind of fish they are.” Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. In a second study, Americans and Japanese were asked to “take a photo of a person.” The Americans most frequently took a close-up, showing all the features of the person’s face, while the Japanese showed the person in his or her environment instead, with the human figure quite small in relationship to the background (see Figure 3.3). In a third study, Nisbett and Masuda asked American and Taiwanese students to read narratives and watch videos of silent comedies—for example, a film about a day in the life of a woman, during which circumstances conspire to prevent her from getting to work—and then to summarize them. In their summaries, the Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 108 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map Figure 3.3. 109 left: american portrait. right: Japanese portrait Photos by melissa veronesi Americans made about 30 percent more statements referring to the central figures of the stories than their Taiwanese counterparts did.2 Notice the common pattern in all three studies. The Americans focus on individual figures separate from their environment, while the Asians give more attention to backgrounds and to the links between these backgrounds and the central figures. I have Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. found these tendencies to be borne out in my own interviews with groups of multicultural managers. While Western European and Anglo-Saxon managers generally follow the American tendencies of specific thinking patterns, East Asians respond as the Japanese and Taiwanese did in Nisbett’s research. In addition, I’ve often watched Westerners and Asians discuss these studies. Here’s a bit of dialogue taken directly from a classroom debate about the photo study: Western participant: But the instructions said to take a photo of a person, and the picture on the left is a photo of a person. The Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 109 3/11/14 9:26 AM 110 erin Meyer picture on the right is a photo of a room. Why would the Japanese take a photo of a room when they have been asked to take a photo of a person? Asian participant: The photo on the left is not a photo of the person. It is a close-up of a face. How can I determine anything about the person by looking at it? The photo on the right is a photo of the person, the entire person, including surrounding elements so you can determine something about that person. Why would the Americans take a close-up of a face, which leaves out all of the important details? Perhaps it’s not surprising that Westerners and Asians tend to display these different patterns of interpretation. A common tenet of Western philosophies and religions is that you can remove an item from its environment and analyze it separately. Aristotle, for example, emphasized focusing attention on a salient object. Its properties could then be assessed and the object assigned a category with the goal of finding rules that governed its behavior. For example, looking at a piece of wood floating in water, Aristotle said that it had the property of “levity,” while a Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. stone falling through air had the property of “gravity.” He referred to the wood and the rock as if each was a separate and isolated object in its own right. Cultural theorists call this specific thinking. 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 Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 110 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 111 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 number 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 characteristic se- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. quence 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 Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 111 3/11/14 9:26 AM 112 erin Meyer 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 suppliers. We feel their decisions are hasty and often ignore the surrounding impact.” IncreasIng your effecTIveness In a specific culture when managing a supplier or team member, people usually respond well to receiving very detailed and segmented information about what you expect of each of them. If you need to give instructions to a team member from a specific culture, focus on what that person needs to accomplish when. If you explain clearly what you need each person to work on, that allows them to home in effectively on their specific task. In holistic cultures if you need to motivate, manage, or persuade someone, you will be more influential if you take the time to explain the big picture and show how all the pieces fit together. Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. When I interviewed Jacek Malecki, an unusually big man with a friendly round face and quiet voice, he was working for Toshiba Westinghouse. He provided this example of how he had learned to manage his staff in a more holistic manner. I had recently been promoted and for the first time I was managing not just Europeans and Americans but also Japanese. I have managed teams for sixteen years, and I’ve learned over the years to do it well. When I took my first trip to meet with my Japanese staff, I managed the objective-setting process like I always had. I called each person on the team into my office for a meeting. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 112 3/11/14 9:26 AM The CulTure Map 113 During the meeting we discussed what each individual on the team should accomplish. I outlined each person’s short-term and long-term goals and the individual bonus plan for meeting and exceeding expectations. But as Malecki later realized, his approach had not worked well for his Japanese team. “If they don’t understand what others are working on and how the pieces fit together, they don’t feel comfortable or persuaded to move to action. Although I noticed they asked a lot of peripheral questions during the meetings, none of them actually explained to me that my approach was not ideal for them so I went back to Poland with a false sense of comfort.” When Malecki returned to Tokyo several weeks later he saw that the way he had divided up the tasks and set individual incentives didn’t match the way his team was working. The team had spent a lot of time consulting with one another about what each person had been asked to do and how their individual objectives fit together to create a big picture. The team was now making good progress but not in the way I had seg- Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. mented the project. I learned that the type of specific division of tasks as well as individual incentive plans don’t work well in a Japanese environment. The lesson Malecki learned is a good one for anyone who needs to manage or influence holistic thinkers. If you need to explain a project or set objectives or sell an idea to a holistic audience, begin by explaining the big picture in detail. Outline not just the overall project but also how the parts are connected before drilling down what specifically needs to be accomplished and when. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 113 3/11/14 9:26 AM 114 erin Meyer avoIdIng The pITfalls, reapIng The benefITs With words like “diversity” and “global” all the rage, many companies are seeking to create multinational, multicultural teams in an effort to reap benefits in the form of added creativity and greater understanding of global markets. However, as we’ve seen, cultural differences can be fraught with challenges. Effective cross-cultural collaboration can take more time than monocultural collaboration and often needs to be managed more closely. Here are two simple tips that can help you realize the benefits of such collaboration while avoiding the dangers. First, on a multicultural team, you can save time by having as few people in the group work across cultures as possible. For example, if you are building a global team that includes small groups of participants from four countries, choose one or two people from each country—the most internationally experienced of the bunch—to do most of the cross-cultural collaborating. Meanwhile, you can leave the others to work in the local way that is most natural to them. That way, you can have the innovation from the combination of cultures, while avoiding the inefficiency that comes Copyright © 2014. PublicAffairs. All rights reserved. with the clash of cultures. Second, think carefully about your larger objectives before you mix cultures up. If your goal is innovation or creativity, the more cultural diversity the better, as long as the process is managed carefully. But if your goal is simple speed and efficiency, then monocultural is probably better than multicultural. Sometimes, it is simply better to leave Rome to the Romans. Meyer, E. (2014). The culture map : Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business. PublicAffairs. Created from eastcarolina on 2023-08-04 18:58:17. 9781610392501-text.indd 114 3/11/14 9:26 AM