S02E08 The Beyond Culture Episode

Check-In Question:

• Are you the kind of person to make the first step in love? Tell us all about it.

Big Ideas:

• 8 different dimensions of culture that show up in work:
  • Communication (low context or high context)
  • Evaluating (indirect negative or direct)
  • Persuading (why or how)
  • Leading (Egalitarian or Hierarchical
  • Deciding (Consensus or. Top Down)
  • Trust (Task-based or Relationship-based)
  • Disagreeing (Confrontational or Avoidant)
  • Scheduling (Flexible or Linear)
• Is seeing person by culture stereotyping?
• Talking to the person versus talking to the country they come from
• The culture sets a range
• We need to look at culture and personality
• Crossing legs so people see the bottom of your shoe is a faux pas in Japan
• Difference between cultural sensitivity and using culture as predictors
• Stereotyping and prototyping
• Assume you will do "stupid stuff" in new cultures and apologize in advance
• Humility of saying "I don't really know."
• Learning a few words in the language
• One of the best ways to ingratiating yourself in a new culture is to be a bit self-deprecating in your own culture
• What we think is "normal" in the new culture
• The US being more task-based than European culture
• Trust always start as task-based, then moves to relationship based once people finish the tasks
• Task based is more controlling and has more cost
• Differences in perception of "wasting time"
• Making assumptions and using the book to check assumptions
• Creating hypothesis about people and then test it, not using stereotypes as the ultimate truth
• How historical context affects cultural communication
• How religion affects culture
• One-on-one meetings focus more on the person and really listen
• Sandwich style feedback taught in the US
• Downplaying negative feedback - "Maybe you should"
• Not wanting to hurt people's feelings
• When people tell you what you are doing well, and don't mention what you aren't doing well. 
•  Creating mentor schemes
• Peach cultures (soft on the outside, hard in the middle) versus Coconut cultures (hard on the outside, soft)
• Different cultures within the same country
• How are we stereotyping people and is that the best way of building relationship?
• Intent versus impact when feedback - managing the gaps
• Not hearing feedback and not being receptive to it (in denial)
• Living and experiencing different cultures can help us be better humans, even within our own culture
• Incorrect assumptions about our own cultures
• Clarifying intentions
• Traveling and being mindful of others cultures - being an ethnographer/anthropologist
• Culture being a test bed of human differences and to be a better person
• How much we believe that what we do is normal
• Continually exposing ourselves to other cultures and not get entrenched

Resources Mentioned:

• The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
• INSEAD Business School
• No Rules Rules by Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings
• Hofstede Culture Research

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