The Culture Map

by Erin Meyer

  In response, one of the Israeli doctors declared, “I don’t see what that has to do with it. Honesty and directness are a great virtues. The position is correct, and I am very proud of it.” Israel is one of several cultures that value both high-context communication and direct negative feedback.

  Mapping the Communicating scale against the Evaluating scale gives us four quadrants, as shown in Figure 2.3: low-context and direct with negative feedback; low-context and indirect with negative feedback; high-context and direct with negative feedback; and high-context and indirect with negative feedback. Particular cultures can be found in each of these quadrants, and there are differing strategies you’ll find effective for dealing with people from each.

  LOW-CONTEXT AND DIRECT NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

  Whether they’re considered blunt, rude, and offensive or honest, transparent, and frank, these cultures are perceived as direct by all other world populations. Cultures in this quadrant (the quadrant labeled A in Figure 2.3) value low-context, explicit communication as well as direct negative feedback. The natural coherence of these two positions makes communication from people in this quadrant fairly easy to decode. Take any messages they send literally and understand that it is not intended to be offensive but rather as a simple sign of honesty, transparency, and respect for your own professionalism.

  We already met Willem and Maarten who come from the Netherlands, a solidly quadrant A culture. Willem experienced Maarten’s explicit and direct negative feedback to be not just appropriate, but a real gift. What if Willem and Maarten were your colleagues? What is an appropriate way to respond to their direct style of offering criticism?

  FIGURE 2.3.

  One rule for working with cultures that are more direct than yours on the Evaluating scale: Don’t try to do it like them. Even in the countries farthest to the direct side of the Evaluating scale, it is still quite possible to be too direct. If you don’t understand the subtle rules that separate what’s appropriately frank from what is callously insensitive in Dutch culture, then leave it to someone from that culture to speak directly. If you try to do it like them, you run the risk of getting it wrong, going too far, and making unintended enemies.

  I witnessed this type of mistake when working with a Korean manager named Kwang Young-Su who had been living in the Netherlands for six years. A friendly, quiet man in his early forties, Kwang had a wide grin and soft laugh that we heard frequently. But Kwang’s colleagues had complained to me that they found him so aggressive and angry that they were practically unable to work with him. I wondered how this could be so, until Kwang himself explained the situation:

  The Dutch culture is very direct, and we Koreans do not like to give direct negative feedback. So when I first came to the Netherlands, I was shocked at how rude and arrogant the Dutch are with their criticism. When they don’t like something, they tell you bluntly to your face. I spoke to another Korean friend who has been in the Netherlands for a while, and he told me that the only way to handle this is to give it right back to them. Now I try to be just as blunt with them as they are with me.

  Unfortunately, not understanding the subtleties of what was appropriate and what was not, Kwang had gone too far, missing the mark entirely. He alienated his colleagues, sabotaged his relationships, and built up a reputation as an angry aggressor. So much for adaptability.

  Don’t make the same mistake as Kwang. When you are working with cultures from quadrant A, accept their direct criticism in a positive manner. It is not meant to offend you. But don’t take the risk of trying to do it like them. One small upgrader at a time may be all you can risk without tipping over to the side of being offensive or inappropriate.

  HIGH-CONTEXT AND DIRECT NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

  Quadrant B (see page 72) is populated with those puzzlingly complex cultures that have finessed the ability to speak and listen between the lines yet give negative feedback that is sharp and direct. Russians, for example, often pass messages between the lines, but when it comes to criticism they have a directness that can startle their international colleagues.

  The first time I traveled to Russia a Russian friend gave me a short little book that she referred to as “The Russian Handbook.”2 Paging through the book during my flight, I was amused to read:

  If you are walking through the street without a jacket, little old Russian ladies may stop and chastise you for poor judgment. . . . In Russia there is no reticence about expressing your negative criticism openly. For instance, if you are displeased with the service in a shop or restaurant you can tell the shop assistant or waiter exactly what you think of him, his relatives, his in-laws, his habits, and his sexual bias.

  I thought about this observation a few weeks later when I received a call from a British colleague, Sandi Carlson. She explained to me that a young Russian woman named Anna Golov had recently joined her team and was upsetting a lot of people whose help she needed to get her job done. “I’m calling you, Erin,” she said, “because I wondered if the problem might be cultural. This is the fourth Russian coordinator we have had in the group, and with three of them there were similar types of complaints about harsh criticism or what has been perceived as speaking to others inconsiderately.”

  A few days later, I had the opportunity to witness the problem in action. While I prepared to teach one morning, Golov herself was in the room with me setting up the classroom. I was going through stacks of handouts, counting pages to make sure we had enough photocopies, while Golov was carefully checking the IT equipment, which, to our annoyance, was not working properly. I appreciated the fact that she was handling the problem with such tenacity and that I did not have to get involved. The fact that she was humming quietly while she worked gave me an extra sense of relaxed assurance.

  But then I heard Golov on the phone with someone in the IT department. “I’ve called IT three times this week, and every time you are slow to get here and the solution doesn’t last,” she complained. “The solutions you have given me are entirely unacceptable.” Golov went on scolding the IT manager, each sentence a bit harsher than the one before. I held my breath. Was she going to tell him how she felt about his sexual bias? Thankfully not at that moment.

  Later, Carlson asked me, as the resident cross-cultural specialist, whether I would accompany her when she spoke with Golov about the problem. I was not thrilled at the request. I certainly did not look forward to witnessing Golov learn what her new colleagues were saying about her behind her back. But at Carlson’s insistence, I agreed.

  We met in Carlson’s office, and she tried to explain the reputation that Golov had unknowingly developed across the campus, citing specific complaints not just from the IT department but also from the photocopying staff. Golov shifted uncomfortably in her chair while Carlson explained that she had wondered whether the problem was cultural.

  At first Anna did not really understand the feedback. She protested, “But we Russians are very subtle communicators. We use irony and subtext. You British and Americans speak so transparently.”

  “Yes,” I interjected. “But if a Russian has negative feedback to give, it seems that often that feedback is perceived to be harsh or direct to people from other cultures. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes, well . . . that depends who we are speaking with, of course. One point is that we tend to be a very hierarchical culture. If you are a boss speaking to your subordinate, you may be very frank. And if you are a subordinate speaking to your boss, you had better be very diplomatic with criticism.” Carlson smiled, perhaps realizing why she had never personally experienced any of Golov’s frankness.

  Golov went on:

  If we are speaking with strangers, we often speak very forcefully. This is true. These IT guys, I don’t know them. They are the voices of strangers on the other end of the phone. Under Communism, the stranger was the enemy. We didn’t know who we could trust, who would turn us in to the authorities, who would betray us. So we kept strangers at a forceful distance. Maybe I brought a litt
le too much of my Russian-ness into the job without realizing it.

  I noticed that Golov was now beginning to laugh a little as she continued to consider the situation. “We are also very direct with people we are close to,” she conceded reflectively. “My British friends here complain that I voice my opinions so strongly, while I feel like I never know how they really feel about the situation. I am always saying: ‘But how do you feel about it?’ And they are always responding: ‘Why are you always judging everything?’!”

  “Now that I’m aware of this,” Golov concluded, “I’ll be more careful when I communicate dissatisfaction.”

  The French have a saying, “Quand on connait sa maladie, on est à moitié guéri”—“When you know your sickness, you are halfway cured.” It applies to most cross-cultural confusions. Just building your own awareness and the awareness of your team goes a long way to improving collaboration. Now that Carlson is aware of the cultural tendencies impacting the situation, she can talk to Golov and her team about it, and Golov can take steps to give less direct criticism and replace some of her upgraders with downgraders. When it comes to the Evaluating scale, a few simple words can make all the difference.

  LOW-CONTEXT AND INDIRECT NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

  Combining extreme low-context communication with a mid-indirect approach to giving negative feedback, the American evaluating style (quadrant C in Figure 2.3, page 72) is so specific, unique, and often baffling to the rest of the world that it deserves a few paragraphs to itself.

  An explicit, low-context communication style gives Americans the reputation of lacking subtlety. Leave it to the Americans to point out the elephant in the room when the rest of us were working through our interpersonal issues nicely without calling attention to it. This means that those in quadrants A and B are often surprised to find Americans softening negative criticism with positive messages. Before moving to France, having been raised, educated, and employed in the United States, I believed that giving three positives for every negative and beginning a feedback session with the words of explicit appreciation before discussing what needs to be improved were universally effective techniques. If they worked well in America, then surely they should work just as well in France, Brazil, China and, well, everywhere.

  But after living in Europe for a while I learned to see this style from a completely different perspective. To the French, Spanish, Russians, Dutch, and Germans, the American mode of giving feedback comes across as false and confusing. Willem, who we met at the beginning of the chapter and who works frequently with Americans, told me:

  To a Dutchman, it is all a lot of hogwash. All that positive feedback just strikes us as fake and not in the least bit motivating. I was on a conference call with an American group yesterday, and the organizer began, “I am absolutely thrilled to be with you this morning.” Only an American would begin a meeting like this. Let’s face it, everyone in the room knows that she is not truly, honestly thrilled. Thrilled to win the lottery—yes. Thrilled to find out that you have won a free trip to the Caribbean—yes. Thrilled to be the leader of a conference call—highly doubtful.

  When my American colleagues begin a communication with all of their “excellents” and “greats,” it feels so exaggerated that I find it demeaning. We are adults, here to do our jobs and to do them well. We don’t need our colleagues to be cheerleaders.

  Willem’s colleague Maarten added:

  The problem is that we can’t tell when the feedback is supposed to register to us as excellent, okay, or really poor. For a Dutchman, the word “excellent” is saved for a rare occasion and “okay” is . . . well, neutral. But with the Americans, the grid is different. “Excellent” is used all the time. “Okay” seems to mean “not okay.” “Good” is only a mild compliment. And when the message was intended to be bad, you can pretty much assume that, if an American is speaking and the listener is Dutch, the real meaning of the message will be lost all together.

  The same difference is reflected in the ways children are treated in schools. My children are in the French school system during the academic year and spend the summer in American academic programs in the Minneapolis area. In the United States, my eight-year-old son, Ethan, gets his homework assignments back covered with gold stars and comments like “Keep it up!” “Excellent work!” and, at worst, “Almost there . . . give it another try!” But studying in Madame Durand’s class requires thicker skin. After a recent Monday morning spelling test, Ethan’s notebook page was covered sorrowfully in red lines and fat Xs, along with seven simple words from Madame Durand: “8 errors. Skills not acquired. Apply yourself!”

  Ooooof! That hurts a mom from Minnesota. What about “Nice effort!” or “Don’t give up!” or “You’ll get it next time”? And I should note that Madame Durand is known as the least “sévère,” that is, the softest of the teachers at Ethan’s school.

  At first, I worried that Ethan might begin to hate school, dislike his teacher, become discouraged, or just plain stop trying. But to the surprise of his American mom, he is coming to interpret negative feedback as the French would. The scathing comments strike him as routine, while a rare “TB” (très bien—very good) leaves a deeply positive impression on his young psyche.

  However, adapting to quadrant C can be quite challenging for those from other cultures. Frenchwoman Sabine Dulac recalls an experience that happened soon after her move to Chicago:

  Along with a group of American colleagues, I was on a committee which was organizing a big conference to market our new product line to current clients. The conference was a disaster. There was a horrible icy rainstorm that morning, which meant low attendance. The keynote speaker was a bore. The food was horrible.

  Afterward the committee met to debrief the conference. Everyone knew the conference had been a disastrous failure, but when the team leader asked for feedback, each committee member started by mentioning something good about the conference: the booths had been well organized, the buses to the restaurant were on time, . . . before moving on to the calamities. I was stunned. I actually had to hold my jaw closed while I watched my colleagues detailing positive example after positive example in describing a situation that was so clearly anything but.

  When it was my turn, I couldn’t take it anymore—I just launched right in. “It was one disappointment after another,” I began. “The keynote was uninspiring, the food was almost inedible, the breakout sessions were boring . . . ,” but as I spoke I saw the Americans around me staring at me saucer-eyed and silent. Did I have food on my face, I wondered?

  People in Dulac’s position can follow a few simple strategies to work more effectively with people from quadrant C (that is, Americans, British, and Canadians).

  First, when providing an evaluation, be explicit and low-context with both positive and negative feedback. But don’t launch into the negatives until you have also explicitly stated something that you appreciate about the person or the situation. The positive comments should be honest and stated in a detailed, explicit manner.

  When I gave Dulac this suggestion, her first reaction was to feel that I was asking her to lie. “If I thought the conference was a total disaster, isn’t it dishonest to not say what I think?”

  But I pressed her: Wasn’t there anything honest and positive that she could say about the conference? Dulac considered the question and came up with a couple of ideas. After I explained the differing attitudes of Americans toward the “proper” way of delivering feedback, Dulac understood the kind of adjustment she needed to make:

  If I were in that situation again, I might start by talking about how much we learned from the event about what to do differently next time. I might also mention how impressed I was that there were no IT snafus, thanks to the logistical staff led by the always tenacious and hardworking Marion. And then, when I get to the disaster part, I might use a downgrader. “It was a bit of a disaster” might go over better than “a total disaster” the next time around.

  Second, try, over ti
me, to be balanced in the amount of positive and negative feedback you give. For example, if you notice something positive your colleague has done on Monday, say it there and then with explicit, open appreciation. Then, on Tuesday, when you need to severely criticize the same colleague’s disappointing proposal before it is sent to the client, your comments will be more likely to be heard and considered rather than rejected out of hand.

  Third, frame your behavior in cultural terms. Talk about the cultural differences that explain your communication style. If possible, show appreciation for the other culture while laughing humbly at your own. Someone in Dulac’s position might say, “In the U.S., you are so good at openly appreciating one another. In France, we aren’t in the habit of voicing positive feedback. We might think it, but we don’t say it!”

  To those she works with frequently, Dulac might also explain her natural feedback style: “When I say ‘okay,’ you should hear ‘very good.’ And when I say ‘good,’ you should hear ‘excellent.’”

  Framing comments like these builds awareness among people on both sides of the table and may lead to useful discussions about other cultural misunderstandings.

  HIGH-CONTEXT AND INDIRECT NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

  Among people from cultures in quadrant D as shown on page 72, negative feedback is generally soft, subtle, and implicit. Turn your head too quickly and you might miss the negative message altogether. Whereas in American culture you might give negative feedback in public by veiling it in a joking or friendly manner, in quadrant D this would be unacceptable; any negative feedback should be given in private, regardless of how much humor or good-natured ribbing you wrap around it.

  Charlie Hammer, an American manager in the textile industry living and working in Mexico City, offers this example: