The Culture Map summary

If you’ve ever worked with people from other cultures, you may have had the misfortune of accidentally offending someone when you just wanted to offer them some feedback. To gain some understanding of why this happens, let’s look at the evaluating scale.

When we give negative feedback, it can be direct or indirect. Direct cultures like Russia or Israel are forthright in feedback to their colleagues. They also often use absolute descriptions known as upgraders, such as “totally” or “strongly” to emphasize their point.  For example, they might say “I totally disagree with your opinion. It is absolutely unprofessional.“ In addition, it is not unusual to criticize in front of a group.

How do different cultural backgrounds affect the way we perceive persuasion?

Let’s use the persuading scale, which consists of principles-first reasoning and applications-first reasoning.

How can acknowledging cultural styles help your workflow and leadership? To find out, let’s examine the leading scale which involves egalitarian and hierarchical cultures.

Egalitarian cultures, like Denmark or the Netherlands, have a narrow gap between employees and managers, where managerial roles often focus on mediation between equals. Their organizational structures are flat, so a marketing director may work directly with a copywriter, and both parties are comfortable using each other’s first names.

Being egalitarian at work doesn’t mean that decisions are automatically made by consensus. The same applies to hierarchical cultures. Actually, decision-making has its own cultural scale.

The deciding scale consists of consensual at one end and top-down at the other. 

As the Russian proverb goes, “Trust, but verify.” Many cultures have established rules in place to make sure businesses don’t just lean on trust alone. Even so, trust is central to business negotiations and can be split into cognitive trust and affective trust. 

Cognitive trust occurs when we have worked with someone for a long time and have established them to be reliable.

In some cultures, disagreements are welcome. Bear in mind, though, are you disagreeing with somebody personally or with her idea? The disagreeing scale allows us to see how confrontation is appreciated or evaded.

Cultures with confrontational disagreeing patterns, like Israel or France, differentiate between the person and the idea they disagree with and open confrontations don’t negatively impact relationships. So in Paris, for example, if you see two people arguing openly with one another, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t good friends.

How is it that being late in Germany could indicate punctuality in France? Well, time perception differs between cultures and can range from linear to flexible on the final scale we will look at, the scheduling scale. 

Countries like Germany and Switzerland approach tasks in a linear way, finishing one task before they begin the next. More value is placed on adhering to deadlines and schedules than being adaptable or flexible in business. It’s also considered impolite to behave in a way that’s not related to the task at hand. So answering your cell phone or chatting to your colleague during a meeting would give a negative impression.