CROSS-CULTURAL MANAGEMENT

3 Ways to Identify Cultural

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In almost any business these days, you are guaranteed to interact with people whose cultural
background is quite different from your own. In a global organization, you may have colleagues that
come from a different country. You may partner with organizations whose employees come from
another part of the country. There may also be cultural differences between you and some of the
customers and clients you serve.

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 You may be tempted to follow the golden rule — and treat everyone exactly the way you would want
to be treated. But that’s not the most effective way to navigate cultural differences. You want to
accord people the same respect you expect from them, but how you interact with them will depend a
lot on their expectations about what particular interactions should look like. This is why it’s helpful
to know what specific cultural differences are.

It can be difficult to spot these cultural differences, though, because you are often unaware of your
own cultural assumptions. A primary purpose of culture is to provide you with an orientation for
understanding and navigating the world, because human beings come pre-programmed by evolution
with very little specific knowledge about how to survive and succeed. Thus, the assumptions you
make about the world based on your culture form your ability to evaluate everything you encounter.

To identify cultural differences, there are a few things you can do.

Learn
If you know that you are going to a specific region of the world, then it is worth doing your research
about that area ahead of time. Even little things can be helpful. For example, before going to Bulgaria
for the first time, someone told me that Bulgarians typically shake their head to mean “yes” rather
than nodding as they do in the U.S. This information was valuable when having conversations with
people so I didn’t assume people were disagreeing with me when in fact they were agreeing.

In addition, there are general aspects of culture that are useful for anyone to study. For example, the
Dutch social psychologist, Geert Hofstede outlined a number of dimensions that highlight ways that
cultures differ. For example, American and Western European cultures tend to be individualist,
meaning that they tend to value the action and freedom of individuals. East Asian cultures tend to be
collectivist meaning that they value the needs of the group over the needs of the individual. American
culture tends to be fairly flat — meaning that there is not a rigid status hierarchy, while Japanese
culture is much more hierarchical, and so the relative status of everyone in the room determines the
way people interact with each other.

Knowing about these dimensions can help you to notice behaviors that might otherwise be invisible
to you when working with people from other cultures. They can also help you better understand any
assumptions you make about what behaviors mean so that you’re more likely to interpret your
colleagues’ actions with an open mind.

Listen
Your brain is a prediction engine, constantly trying to predict a variety of aspects about what is going
to happen in the future — including the reactions you will get from others. When dealing with people
from other cultures, pay careful attention to the failures of your predictions.

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 If the people you are working with are normally affable and they treat you frostily at the start of a
meeting, that’s a sign that something has gone wrong. Similarly, if you expect that a proposal will be
met with excitement, and the reaction is more tepid, that’s something you need to follow up on.

One thing that gets in the way of listening is that you may not give people an opportunity to create an
expectation failure. That is, you may not allow opportunities for people to take actions that are
different from the ones you predict, which might give you a sense that their interpretation of a
situation is different from yours. For example, you might ask whether anyone has any questions,
while the people you are dealing with are uncomfortable asking questions in a public setting. In this
case, they will keep quiet out of respect, not because they don’t have any questions. And because you
come from a culture where asking questions is appropriate, you may misinterpret their silence. You
haven’t given them an opportunity to do something that would surprise you.

Instead, when first getting to know a group from another culture, do not give them an option to say
or do nothing. For example, rather than ending an interaction with “Do you have any questions?”
you can say, “Many people new to projects like this one have a number of questions, what are some
of the issues you want to know about?” Now, you are explicitly giving permission to ask a question
and making it clear that asking questions is the norm you expect.

Finally, recognize that language barriers can also make it hard to notice prediction failures. When
talking to a native speaker of English, you can listen for subtle changes in tone of voice or word
choice that may signal displeasure. Non-native speakers have a harder time using cues like this, and
so you are going to have to work extra hard to detect violations of your expectations. One thing that
can be useful is to have them write out a quick meeting summary afterward and send it around to
make sure everyone is in agreement. You might also send summaries around occasionally to ensure
that everyone agrees with your interpretation of where a project stands.

Ask
It’s generally difficult to know what someone else wants — even when you know them well. This
problem is compounded when the people you are working with look at things through a different
cultural lens.

Luckily, there is often a simple solution to understanding how people are reacting to their
interactions with you — ask. At the start of a new relationship with individuals or groups from
another culture, let everyone know that you want things to go smoothly and that you know that
cultural differences can cause some unintended slights. Assure them that you will not be offended if
they point out another way to handle a discussion.

Having established that you are open to learning, follow up by being explicit about the goals of a
particular interaction. You can start a meeting or conversation by saying, “My intention here is to
gather input from you so that I can make a decision.” Try to find an ally in a group you are working

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 with who can let you know when you may have said something that elicited a different interaction
than you intended.

You are pretty much guaranteed to make some mistakes when working with people from a new
culture. If you set up a routine of communicating about issues that may arise, though, you can
minimize the damage of the mistakes you make.

Art Markman, PhD, is the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of
Texas at Austin and founding director of the program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations. He has written over 150
scholarly papers on topics including reasoning, decision making, and motivation. He is the author of several books
including Smart Thinking, Smart Change, and Habits of Leadership.

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