by Erin Meyer
If you take this approach, you are likely to find your e-mails answered rapidly.
Furthermore, whether using phone, e-mail, or working face-to-face, think carefully about the amount of time you will devote to social talk before getting down to business.
In just about every culture, when you make a phone call, you are likely to start with a period of social talk. What differs from culture to culture is how many minutes you spend chatting before moving to business. As a general rule, the more relationship-based the society, the more social conversation surrounds the task. While an Australian may invest a minute or so in personal talk with a colleague, a Mexican is much more likely to spend several long minutes on the social preliminaries before getting down to business.
In strongly relationship-based societies, such as many African and Middle Eastern cultures, the balance of social talk to business talk may tip heavily to the former. Sheldon Blake learned this well after years of working among Saudis in Jeddah:
If I need to discuss business with a Saudi Arabian client or contact who I haven’t spoken to in a while, I will make a call today just to reestablish the social connection. It would be embarrassing, and my counterpart would likely feel it abrupt or inappropriate, for me to call to discuss business, given that we haven’t spoken in a while. After we have had a good chat and have reestablished a social connection, then I can call again a few days later and this time introduce the business task. This is considered a respectful approach in the Saudi culture.
When in doubt, the best strategy may be to simply let the other person lead. Relax, put your feet up, and start the call with the idea that you might spend several long minutes just catching up before the business talk starts. And then let the other person decide when enough is enough. Initiate the social, ignore your gut reaction, and listen for their cues.
As with phone calls, the standard amount of social content included in an e-mail also differs from one culture to another. If you come from a culture where a lot of social content is the norm, your task-based colleagues may feel as if you are hemming and hawing down the page. If you come from a culture where people jump right to business content, your e-mails can come across as rude or even aggressive. Just as when you are on the phone, follow the other person’s lead. Research suggests that the more you mimic the other person’s e-mail style, the more likely your collaborator is to respond positively to you.4
Jaroslav Bokowski, a Polish manager who worked in the IT department of the French multinational Saint Gobain, gave me this simple and effective example as to how to follow this rule:
When I went to present at a conference in India, I noticed that, when the Indian organizers e-mailed me, there was always a short and friendly yet formal preamble, such as, “Greetings of the day. I hope this mail finds you in best of health and spirits.” Well, in Poland, we certainly wouldn’t begin an e-mail in this manner, but I thought “Why not?” and responded in kind.
When you are working face-to-face, socializing before getting down to business may come more naturally then when communication via phone or e-mail. But when you are busy and trying to figure out how to spend your precious moments, understanding when to invest in a long, friendly discussion and when to get right down to business is key. You might think you are saving a few minutes by cutting out the chitchat, only to find out later that a lot of time has been wasted because you didn’t establish the appropriate social connection up front.
I had one entertaining example of this while running the first of many sessions for a group of senior executives from the New York Stock Exchange Euronext. When I described the Trusting scale, Sarah Teebone, one of the most senior women in the company, began loudly calling out, “Ding, ding, ding!” I turned to Teebone, and she explained in a strong New York accent:
Bells are ringing in my head. I just now understood something that has happened several times over the last two years. On several occasions, managers from our French and Portuguese offices have requested one-on-one meetings with me while they are in New York. But then, when they arrive in my office, they don’t have anything specific they need to talk about. After a minute or two of social talk, I start to wonder why they wanted to meet with me, and on several occasions I have asked, “What can I do for you?” To which they’ve replied, “I just wanted to say hello and get to know you, as we will be working together in the future.”
I try to be cordial. But I admit that I am thinking, “Well, okay. Here I am. Feel free to let me know if you need something. Now if you don’t mind I have a few calls I need to make.”
Later, when e-mailing employees in Paris, I have often had the experience that people don’t respond to my e-mails. I hadn’t made the connection, but in considering it now, I realize that this happens only when I haven’t established a relationship with that person.
Teebone laughed: “The next time I take a trip to Europe I am going to set up a few ‘Just to get to know you’ meetings and see what happens.”
The chances are good that Teebone will discover that the time she devotes to “just saying hello” to her European colleagues will pay dividends the next time she has a business problem she needs help addressing. Trust is like insurance—it’s an investment you need to make up front, before the need arises.
7
The Needle, Not the Knife
Disagreeing Productively
One of my childhood memories is listening with my family to the popular American radio show, Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. Keillor’s deep baritone voice is still heard Saturday afternoons on hundreds of National Public Radio stations as he makes gentle fun of Minnesotans (and just about everyone else).
For years, one of the regular skits on Keillor’s show was about the French chef, Maurice, the proprietor of the mythical Café Boeuf, who sees any customer as a potential verbal sparring partner. My favorite sketch involves Keillor calling to make a reservation at the Café Boeuf, only to be questioned vigorously by Maurice (in a ridiculously fake French accent, of course). What will Keillor be wearing? How can Maurice be sure that Keillor’s tie will work with the restaurant’s wallpaper? The more Keillor explains his sartorial choices, the more passionately Maurice questions and challenges him. It was through these sketches that I was first introduced to the image of the French as inveterate debaters.
When I moved to France, this stereotype was echoed in the daily news. Strikes and demonstrations seemed to be part of the social fabric, triggered by everything from an increase in college tuition to a proposed change in pension plans. But I really didn’t experience the French love of debate on a personal level until one evening when I was invited with my (French) husband Eric to a dinner party at the home of Hélène Durand, a friend from Eric’s school days.
Hélène and her husband lived near a golf course west of Paris. There were four couples around the table. All were French, except for me. As the dinner progressed, the group was laughing and getting along beautifully, with Hélène and her best friend Juliette entertaining everyone with funny tales about their mishaps on the golf course that afternoon.
But then, halfway into the meal, something unfortunate happened—or so I thought, from my American perspective. Juliette and Hélène got into a big argument over whether the town’s annual golf event, which occurs every spring practically in Hélène’s backyard, was a good thing or a bad one. Hélène declared fervently that she was “totalement contre” (completely against) the golf tournament. Juliette interrupted: “Hélène, tu dis ça parce que tu es égoïste. Moi, je suis pour!” (“You say that because you are selfish. I am all for it!”). The other guests began to take sides. Voices were rising and hands were waving.
Now, in my own American culture, this type of debate at the dinner table is a very bad sign. It would likely result in someone—perhaps several someones—leaving the room in a huff, slamming the door, and not returning. So I was growing increasingly uncomfortable when Juliette looked directly at me and said, “Well, Erin, what do you th
ink?”
Having absolutely no desire to become embroiled in the debate and offend at least one of my new friends, I found my answer very quickly: “I have no opinion.” And to my utter surprise, within a few minutes, the topic changed to who was going where for the upcoming holidays—with no hard feelings whatsoever. I watched in bafflement as Juliette and Hélène went arm in arm to the kitchen to get coffee, their laughter ringing through the apartment, best friends as always.
Of course, a disagreement at the dinner table can happen in just about any culture. But the fact that Hélène and Juliette could engage in such spirited public battle with no apparent impact on their friendship marks the episode as distinctly cultural.
Now think for a moment how a scene like this might play out in a business setting. Imagine the confusion that might arise among a team of people from varying cultures with dramatically different attitudes toward open disagreement. Uncomfortable? Unsettling? To say the least.
CONFRONTATION: LOSS OF FACE OR SPIRITED DEBATE?
Li Shen, a young Chinese manager, eagerly accepted a job as a marketing manager for French multinational L’Oréal after earning her MBA at a prestigious European institution. Working at L’Oréal’s Shanghai office, Shen’s excellent English and acceptable French gave her a feeling of confidence when working with her European colleagues. Shen recalls, “I hadn’t actually registered the cultural gap between myself and my French colleagues. After all, I studied for several years abroad, and I am much more international than most people in China. I like to feel I am able to easily move from one cultural arena to another.”
After a few months, Shen was invited to come to Paris and present her ideas about how to tailor a marketing campaign to the Chinese market. “The company invested a lot in bringing me to the meeting, so I prepared my presentation tirelessly,” she recalls. “I spent all thirteen hours of the plane ride from Shanghai rehearsing each slide so that my points would be polished and convincing.”
There were twelve people in the meeting, and Shen was the only non-European in the group. Shen’s ideas were clear and her preparation had been meticulous. But she was taken aback by the challenges thrown at her by her French colleagues. “It started with a question about why I had chosen to change a specific color in a print ad. As I explained my rationale, various members of the group began to challenge and question my decisions.” Shen felt attacked and humiliated. “But mostly I felt upset with myself,” she says. “They obviously did not feel that I was the marketing expert that I claimed to be.” Shen did her best to keep her voice steady through the presentation, but she admits, “In truth, I was almost in tears.”
When the meeting finally ended, Shen gathered her things quickly and made a dash for the door. But before she could escape, she had a surprise. “Several of the participants, the very ones who had just challenged me in front of the group, came up to congratulate me,” she says. “They commented on how polished and interesting my presentation was. And at that moment, I realized I was much more Chinese than I had thought.”
The concept that the Chinese call mianzi, or “face,” exists in all societies, but with varying levels of importance. When you present yourself to others, you offer a persona that reflects what you publicly claim to be. For example, when I address a group of international executives, I present myself as a professor specializing in cross-cultural management, implicitly claiming expertise and skill at leading large groups of executives. So if a participant publicly suggests that I don’t know what I am talking about—that my expertise is scanty and my leadership skills are weak—I “lose face,” experiencing a sort of public shame.
In Confucian societies like China, Korea, and Japan, preserving group harmony by saving face for all members of the team is of utmost importance. Confucius preached a model of five constant relationships governing how the parent should behave to the child, the older sibling to the younger, the older friend to the younger friend, the husband to the wife, and the ruler to the subject. Under this model, group harmony exists when everyone plays his prescribed role and reinforces the roles of others. To suggest that others in the group are not living up to the expectations of their role leads to a loss of face and a disturbance of societal order.
Raised in this cultural setting, Shen was shocked by the willingness of her French colleagues to challenge her ideas in a public forum. As she puts it, “In China, protecting another person’s face is more important than stating what you believe is correct.”
Other Asian cultures—especially those of Japan, Indonesia and Thailand—are even more uncomfortable with direct disagreement than the Chinese. Once, when conducting a program with Toshiba Westinghouse, I asked the Japanese participants why their culture made such strong efforts to avoid confrontation. I received the following response from Hirotake Tokunaga a few days later:
Pick up a Japanese 10,000-yen and you will see the face of Prince Shotuku, who developed the first Japanese written constitution. Prince Shotuku’s Seventeen-Article Constitution begins, “Harmony should be valued and quarrels should be avoided.” This sentence is deeply etched in Japanese people’s minds. Therefore, in Japan we strive to create harmony with others, and we believe disagreement is a clear path to breaking harmony. It is considered deeply impolite to challenge or refute another person’s point of view openly or publicly. Even the slightest deviation from the other person’s perspective must be made by the subtlest hint rather than boldly or argumentatively.
In Western countries, everyone is expected to have a different idea from everyone else. In Japan, it is considered more important to avoid saying anything that might offend or disturb the harmony of those involved in the discussion and to always defer to the person of highest rank or status.
After returning to China, Shen spoke to several European colleagues about what had happened at her presentation in Paris. “One of my French teammates explained that students in the French school system are taught to disagree openly.” As you may recall from our chapter on persuading, students in the French school system are taught to reason via thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, first building up one side of the argument, then the opposite side of the argument, before coming to a conclusion. Consequently, French businesspeople intuitively conduct meetings in this fashion, viewing conflict and dissonance as bringing hidden contradictions to light and stimulating fresh thinking. As Shen’s colleague explained to her, “We make our points passionately. We like to disagree openly. We like to say things that shock. With confrontation, you reach excellence, you have more creativity, and you eliminate risk.”
Based on the examples we’ve seen so far, you won’t be surprised to learn that France falls on the confrontational side of the Disagreeing scale and that Japan is on the side that favors avoiding confrontation (Figure 7.1). The United States (and other Anglo-Saxon speaking countries) fall somewhere between these two extremes.
To begin to assess where your own culture falls on this scale, ask yourself the question, “If someone in my culture disagrees strongly with my idea, does that suggest they are disapproving of me or just of the idea?” In more confrontational cultures, it seems quite natural to attack someone’s opinion without attacking that person. In avoid-confrontation societies, these two things are tightly interconnected.
FIGURE 7.1. DISAGREEING
CONFRONTATION VERSUS EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIVENESS
Some who have experience working with people from the Netherlands, Denmark, or Germany may be surprised to find these cultures positioned so close to the French on the left-hand side of the Disagreeing scale. After all, people from these northern European cultures are generally considered to be reserved in their expression of emotions. By the same token, a Mexican or Saudi Arabian might be surprised to see the right-hand positions of her culture on the scale. As one Mexican participant in one of my programs remarked, “When a Mexican is angry, that anger will pour out of him. We can’t hide how we feel.” Isn’t it logical that a cultural readiness to express emotions openly w
ould be correlated with a similar willingness to express disagreement?
There’s no doubt that some cultures are more emotionally expressive than others. In a study conducted by researchers Shahid, Krahmer, and Swerts at the University of Tilberg in the Netherlands, Dutch and Pakistani children were photographed while playing a card game. The photos were then shown to a group of seventy-two Dutch adults, who had to decide whether each pair of children in a given photo had won or lost the card game.1
The Dutch judges did a far better job of sorting winners from losers when looking at photos of Pakistani children than with Dutch children. A glance at some sample photos shows why (see Figure 7.2). Although all the children are emotionally expressive, the Pakistani children are far more demonstrative in their facial expressions and body language than the Dutch children. Other studies have found similar differences among other world cultures.
But emotional expressiveness is not the same thing as comfort in expressing open disagreement. In some emotionally expressive cultures, such as Spain and France, people also express disagreement openly. But in other emotionally expressive cultures, such as Peru and the Philippines, people strongly avoid open disagreement since there is a good chance it will lead to a break in the relationship.
To understand how these two cultural patterns interact with one another, it’s necessary to map the Disagreeing scale against a second scale that measures how emotionally expressive a culture is. The result is a four-quadrant matrix (Figure 7.3).