Rule Makers, Rule Breakers summary

In Brazil, if you want your friend to be punctual, you’d be wise to let them know to arrive “com pontualidade britânica,” or “with British punctuality.” And this is more than just a figure of speech. Research shows that clocks in Brazil’s city centers are frequently late, while those in Germany are typically accurate.

But what causes a particular culture to be tight or loose?

OK, so we know that increased threat can lead to the formation of tighter cultures and social norms. But there are – surprise, surprise – a few exceptions to this rule.

If you know anything about Israel, for example, you might assume it has a tight culture. The country has 8.6 million people crammed into 8,000 square miles. On top of this, Israel has also experienced malaria, cholera, typhus, and numerous wars.

What’s more important than figuring out which culture is better or worse is the way in which we use our understanding of tightness and looseness to unravel complex socio-demographic patterns.

If we think back to Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election, for example, Trump symbolized just how divided Americans in the twenty-first century are. While Trump supporters attended rallies cheering for Clinton to be locked up, Clinton supporters vowed to leave the country if the former reality TV star became president.

Say you’re a business owner. If you’re looking to buy another company, you might find that company culture isn’t the first selling point you consider. After all, international mergers happen all the time.

But the reality is, failing to think about cultural differences across companies can cost you dearly.

Let’s look, for a moment, at Google's offices. There are bean bags for relaxing. Areas for minigolf brainstorming. The environment Google has created is essentially a playground for adults. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Google leans toward looseness in its company culture.

Of course, Google operates across the world – and in today’s globalized business landscape, avoiding culture clashes isn’t always possible. That’s why many companies are now working toward tight-loose ambidexterity. Ambidexterity – an idea that was proposed in a 2004 Harvard Business Review article by management scholars Michael Tushman and Charles O’Reilly. So, how does this work in practice?

Just like cultures and businesses, individuals’ mindsets can also be either tight or loose. So what about you? Is your mindset tight or loose? Drawing on lawyer and journalist Dahlia Lithwick’s metaphor, Gelfand asks: Are you an order Muppet or a chaos Muppet?

Perhaps you know instinctively. But if you’re not sure, here are a few questions to ask yourself.