Extracts from The World's Business Cultures

‘Smile? You must be crazy!’

Even smiling carries social meaning. The French, Russians and

Japanese are amazed at the American and British habit of smiling for the sake of it. They smile when there’s something to smile about or,

in the case of people from the Far East, to hide embarrassment. In a

famous case, when McDonalds opened in Moscow in the 1980s, they

trained staff to greet the customer cheerfully with a nice smile.

“What?” was the unanimous protest from the employees, “They’ll

think we’re idiots!”

Truth versus politeness in Indian business

India is known as a ‘never say no’ culture. One reason for the Indians’ approach is simply politeness. Another is that there is always

someone else who can do the job. A third is pure competitive desire

to get the business. So in India they say ‘yes’ first and worry about

the details later.

Leave a beat when you speak

The British used to be told that that if a foreigner asked you to repeat

something, you should say it slowly. If they still don’t understand, say

it slowly and loudly. But this is incredibly patronizing and misses the

problem: what confuses foreigners is the lack of mini-pauses that

allows their translating skills to catch up. By using slight breaks –

you needn’t make them obvious – between expressions, you can

help your partner to understand you better. This is absolutely vital in

teleconferences and video conferences.

Rude Brits in meetings

Britons often become aggressive in meetings with foreigners, and mutter jokes and insults among themselves. This is extremely dangerous: someone always overhears you and they just know you’re talking about them. The trick is to stand back, observe, and don’t get involved in your own emotional turmoil.

Doing business in France

Increasing your cultural sensitivity

To understand another culture, you first have to understand your own

personal cultural style. That’s the only way that you can compare the

way you approach life and how other people do, and see where you

need to adapt. You can also evaluate your company and your country

in the same way. It’s not complicated: a number of cultural indicators

will help you to understand the process.

(see the Cultural Profiles page)

Never lose your cool

Ian, an international sales manager, just slips into the cultural style of the country he’s in. If unpunctuality is the thing, he relaxes and carries a good book or a laptop. “Never show frustration or anger,” he says. “It suggests you’ve lost control.”

Show your emotions

In societies such as India, Italy, Spain or Latin America, people are less interested in what you say (any fool knows that words can be manipulated) than in who you are. Therefore, containing your emotions and sticking strictly to the business in hand is not the way to progress. If I’m Italian, I want to know if you have family, what they are like, how the kids are doing at school…I want to know that you have a beating heart.

Chinese business and negotiating

Be aware of the danger of flattery in China. An ‘old friend’ is expected to offer better terms. Also, be wary of introducing lawyers too early – it may be seen as a sign of mistrust. Never lose your temper – although the Chinese may sometimes use anger as a pressure tactic.

China: Conversation topics

Courting in Chinese business

In China, spend time building the relationship. Respect Chinese

authority by not criticizing it, praise Chinese culture and understand

that the way to change Chinese behaviour is by persuasion from a

position of loyalty, not opposition Allow for meetings to start and finish

late, and for people to leave during the proceedings. Finally, you will

realize that the Chinese, although hard in negotiations, expect you to

preserve the niceties of the social relationship.

The person versus the task

For relationship-minded people, the establishment of warm personal feelings is the gateway to business, and they invest time in getting to

know their clients through hospitality. This is good fun, but it can be

heavy on the travel and expenses budget. China and much of the

Asia-Pacific region conform to this model. But task-minded people

rely on task completion or systems: sign the agreement, do the job

as specified, pay on time – that’s all you ask.

‘Feel’ the people

Peter is a Finnish businessman working in IT. ‘In Finland,’ he says,

‘you do three minutes small talk and then get down to business. In

other countries you have to feel the people.’

Sometimes we just want to cut to the chase and say, ‘I haven’t got

time for all this.’ Well, make time. In international business, feeling

the people is what it’s about, and the pay-off is often long- term loyalty and rewards.

Scheduled v flexible cultures

A scheduled culture does things by the clock: examples are Germany, the USA and Japan. It’s important to have a detailed plan for everything, to keep to it and adhere to strict timetables. This involves a complicated system of business cases, revenue projection, agendas, memos, milestones, benchmarking and minutes. This is the armoury of a scheduled business community: decisions are based on facts and figures rather than instinct and intuition.

Flexible cultures are almost diametrically opposed. They substitute vision for planning. They know where they want to go, but are flexible about how they get there. Meetings may or may not start on time, and will never finish on time: punctuality is not seen as a virtue. A flexible society is quick to find unexpected solutions and can deal with crises faster than a scheduled culture. The majority of the world conforms to this pattern, including the Mediterranean countries, France, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America and most of Asia-Pacific, including India.

Taboo to talk about…

Indians often ask what Britons consider to be intrusive questions about family, income and health. They think they’re building a relationship: we feel they’re doing the opposite. But Westerners often fall into the ‘free speech’ trap: they assume that any question about politics or society is acceptable. An innocent question to a Chinese about what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989 could open up huge scars.

Making a presentation

  Before you present to a foreign group, ask these four questions:

  1   How long are they prepared to listen?

  2   How much detail do they need?

  3   What are they looking for – facts and figures, a soft sell, or do they just want to feel what kind of person you are?

  4   What feedback should you expect – questions at the end, comments in the middle, no response at all, hand-clapping, table-drumming

  (as the Germans do) or complete silence (common in Asia)?

Who does what?

In India, organigrams are a useful indication of who used to do what: they’re not always reliable guides to who will be doing what when you visit. One of the first things you should do with an Indian organigram is to sit down with a senior manager and update it. And be aware that it may change again before your next visit.

Decision-making in Japan

In Japan nemawashi describes the process of collective negotiation. It means that before a decision is made, everyone in the management loop must be consulted. And ringi-sho means that everyone must agree. This condemns Japanese management to a lengthy process of decision-making. British and US business people often worry that opportunities might be lost in this way, but the Japanese say: “It is better to be second now and first later.”

' I'm not eating this foreign muck '

It’s not a joke: we’ve heard British executives faced with dubious-looking dishes use this phrase, with a look of disgust on their face. They forget the key cultural advice: you don’t have to eat everything you’re offered. If you don’t like the look of it, taste a little, pronounce it excellent and move on to something more palatable. Your foreign hosts may have gone to a lot of trouble to give you the opportunity to taste national dishes. Don’t insult them by refusing.

‘Loose’ versus ‘tight’ cultures

Nothing in international business makes people angrier than the conflict between ‘loose’ and ‘tight’ timekeeping. ‘Loose’ means that schedules are not maintained and appointments are elastic. ‘Tight’ means that times are rigidly adhered to. There is almost a desperation to the American feeling that time is important and urgent. In France, meetings normally begin on schedule but never end on time; in Germany and Scandinavia, meetings start and end exactly when they say they will. In Britain, ten minutes spent in small talk at the start of a meeting is not uncommon, but in Finland and Sweden the same will be accomplished in three minutes.

On agendas

British and US meetings tend to run on agendas. Even in an informal meeting someone will ask, “What do we want to cover?” and a rough order of business will be drawn up. But some business communities see an agenda as more of a wish list, rather than a detailed order of business. We once got a surprise when we circulated a British-style agenda before an international gathering, with the usual Any Other Business line tacked on the end. It caused an eruption: colleagues from some countries saw it as an invitation to potential chaos.

What, how and why cultures?

  What -  But more cautious cultures believe that once you have identified the difficulty, the solution becomes clear. These – Germany is a

  prime example – we call what cultures.

  How -  American and British teams usually recognize difficulties quickly, and then search for solutions: these we call how cultures.

  Why -  The French speculate on why the problem occurred in the first place, which means that meetings can become longer and tempers

  may get frayed: we call them why cultures.

So imagine a multinational team leader in a European Union committee, faced with why, what and how cultures all jostling to establish their methodology…

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