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Joys and Frustrations of Cultural Diversity: May 2008, cultural diversity news
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Joys and Frustrations of Cultural Diversity
In 1963, 67 of the world’s largest corporations were based in the U.S. and only 5% of American businesses faced international competition.
In 1996, 33 years later, only 24 of the world’s top corporations were based in the U.S. with 29 of them based in Japan. And 75% of the American industries faced international competition.
Nowadays all major companies have established operations in foreign countries. Multimillion dollar international mergers and contracts have given corporations a cachet they never had before. Books on the New York Times bestseller list now feature new heroes, jet setting executives paid as much as a million dollars a day and their quest to score astronomical deals.
In the flurry of all this activity few heed the comment Doug Ivestor, former CEO of Coca Cola, made; “As economic borders come down, cultural barriers go up, presenting challenges and opportunities in business.”
When market research showed that the small country of Finland was home to the heaviest coffee drinkers in the world (160 liters of coffee per person per year), General Foods seized the opportunity. It developed a high quality coffee product with a universal message and launched a dazzling marketing campaign. Only to be soundly defeated by the Finnish decade old local brand, Paulig coffee.
The American mega-marketer underestimated the values, needs and expectations of the Fin and the fact that coffee symbolizes social graces, time spent together and a treat after work well done.
Karel Vuursteen, CEO of Heineken, the world’s second largest brewer, admits that it is impossible to standardize marketing, “We cannot communicate to all cultures in the same way. In the U.S. and Western Europe beer is a normal part of life, it’s thirst quenching. In Australia and New Zealand it’s macho. In most South East Asian countries it’s almost a “feminine product”, sophisticated. Thus we give our representatives a lot of freedom in sales and advertising.”
A product like coffee and beer may be quasi universal, people’s realities though are subjective and vary dramatically from country to country.
Globalization, combined with changes in migration patterns have brought unfamiliar cultures into daily contact, allowing us all to freely participate and contribute to the side effect of globalization, i.e. cultural misunderstandings.
Diversity has completely outpaced the delivery of skills to effectively cope with the challenges created by cultural diversity.
* Educators face multicultural classrooms where different cultural learning patterns and teaching styles inhibit students’ retention and absorption.
* Highly qualified university graduates fail to land promising jobs due to a lack of cross-cultural interview skills.
* Culture based expectations breed tension which often result in conflict and the inability to effectively function as a homogeneous team.
* The inability to comprehend cultural ambiguity routinely endangers multimillion dollar mergers and contracts.
Most of us enjoy working and living in close contact with people from diverse cultures and assume that with increased communication between cultures, differences, stereotypes and misunderstandings will disappear or at least diminish. Corporations, likewise, organize international food festivals for their multicultural workforce and wait for us to work out our differences.
Thereby, they ignore the fact, that to speak English is not always to think in English. To wear a three piece suit rather than a jalabayya is not the same as abandoning cherished cultural values, to know the ways of the West is not necessarily to wish to emulate them.
This is shockingly confirmed by a U.S. Department of Commerce report (2002) stating that fully 2/3 of contract negotiation between American and Japanese fail. The Department of Commerce admitted this was due to cultural misunderstandings not legal, economic, linguistic or political issues.
A global culture can only develop if cross-cultural awareness becomes its language. This capacity to establish rapport and trust with people in cross-cultural encounters is the factor that makes or breaks a deal, a relationship or your success trajectory. The most valuable side-product of cross-cultural awareness training is the understanding of one’s personal cultural identity which in turn allows us to grasp other people’s perception of reality.
Why is it that we can develop a taste for sushi but can’t just get along and acquire cultural awareness by osmosis?
The reason for this is that our cultural identity is mainly a non-verbal, unconscious phenomenon and the most enduring, powerful and invisible shaper of our identity.
When the French delegation approaches the negotiation table, their country’s past history of invasions and calamities makes them wary to rush into things. Americans “itch to act” and are chronically irritated by the French negotiators’ need for rigorous analysis. During a political summit in 2001, the pursuit of the “bottom line” earned the American delegation a Gaelic shrug by Hubert Vedrine, French foreign minister with the comment that their remarks were ‘simplistic’. This prompted Colin Powell to snap back that Vedrine had ‘the vapors’.
People who share the same culture are literally programmed to play the social game by the same rules.
According to these rules, Japanese executives will nod, smile and say yes during an American executive’s presentation. Leading the straightforward American to believe that he has informed, helped and pleased his Japanese counterparts and that negotiations are proceeding just fine. It is likely however, that the Japanese misunderstood some of the verbal and most of the non-verbal content of the presentation Often they will be polite and pretend to understand so as to save the embarrassment of asking questions. The meeting may also confirm the Japanese stereotype that Americans are insensitive, superficial and ethnocentric.
As far as the American is concerned, the Japanese’s constant smile brings forth the label ‘inscrutable’ or leads him to assume that the Japanese is hiding the truth.
When operating within our culture of origin we have a feel of what is going on. Down deep, we assume that under normal circumstances we all think about and perceive the world in basically the same way and, therefore, that whatever I say and do, will mean the same to you as it does to me.
Fair assumption? Of course not.
We misperceive, misinterpret and misunderstand each other all the time, even when we share the same values and beliefs. This is magnified in cross-cultural encounters and is accompanied by a feeling of rejection and let down due to being misunderstood.
During a cultural communication workshop in a NYC college a young American woman asked an Arab student how he would signify non-verbally that he liked her. His response was to smooth his hair which, for her, was a common gesture signifying nothing. She repeated her question three times. He smoothed his hair twice, the third time realizing that she did not recognize his gesture he ducked his head and licked his lips in embarrassment. This behavior was noticed by the young woman, and she interpreted it as his reply to her original question.
In order to make sense of this cultural merry-go-round, Edward Hall, an American social anthropologist, organized cultures into “high context” or “low context cultures”. With this in mind, we will look at the concept of time which Peace Corps volunteers admit is their greatest challenge when dealing with different cultures.
Low context cultures, most of the Germanic and English-speaking cultures, mainly of Northern and Protestant background, are explicit, direct, linear and verbal. Channels of communication are clear. What matters is getting the job done, going forward and making money. Consequently, time becomes a valuable commodity that has to be invested, valued, saved, kept track of, as opposed to wasted or killed. Swiss and Germans are known for their ability to ‘make trains run on time”.
In contrast, high context cultures value affiliations. Personal interactions are indirect, coded. The message is in subtle body language cues and voice intonations. In Portuguese, the verbs “to wait for”, “to hope for” and “to expect” are all translated as “esperar”. Life is obviously to be taken as it is and hopefully enjoyed. The Italians explain it with a story: An Italian fisherman is lying on the beach with his wife and a few friends in the shade of his overturned boat. An Englishman passing by says: ”You shouldn’t be lying in the shade, you should be out catching more fish.” “Why”, the Italian asks. “Well, if you worked hard and caught lots of fish, you could have a string of boats, hire fishermen to fish for you and become very rich.” “OK and then what would I do?” “You would put your feet up and relax.” The fisherman burst out laughing. “My friend, that’s just what I am doing – without all the fuss.”
For Americans time is money. In Japan time is power, trust and confidence. In France time flows or speeds up, according to what is happening. Beauty, charm, flirtation have time requirements of their own.
While high-context cultures still treasure social etiquette and their time in the shade, the speed of a computerized world has noticeably accelerated the pace of professional interaction. According to a study published in 2000 by Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) Finland has almost 90 websites per 1,000 inhabitants, compared to 60 per 1,000 inhabitants in the U.S., France has 8, Spain and Italy 5, indicating that different cultures join the wired world at a different pace.
Not surprisingly, low-context cultures, the U.S. being the most notable among them, embrace the wired world with its anonymity and speed of communication.
Computer aficionados are hoping that the world will become one vast, digitally linked space. And that the World Wide Web will finally establish a global culture and supersede 2000 years of cultural idiosyncrasies.
This reminds me of Lernier’s quote: “When a man thinks himself clever, he is but a temptation to God’s sense of humor.”
In conclusion, I am pleased to say that major New York universities are considering opening Departments of Cross-Cultural Communication to teach a curriculum of cultural communication skills. On their part Fortune 500 companies are establishing whole departments of cross-culture to train their executives in effective negotiation and conflict resolution techniques.
Written by: Angela Cassel
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