It’s a very valid question and an obvious one from someone working in an international environment. We want simple and short answers and solutions to the problems we face.

However… Do’s and Dont’s questions are the most difficult one’s to answer.

Here is Why

Do’s and Dont’s are very contextual. Meaning that one particular Do will be very effective in one situation (with the same “cultural players” present), while it can turn into a complete Don’t in an other situation (with the same “cultural players” present). The same holds true for a Don’t turning into a Do when the context changes.

An Example

Imagine the following setting: A European learns “how to do Business with Japanese”. Amongst the things he/she learns is how to greet his/her Japanese counter part in the traditional Japanese way and how to accept his business card. He/she learns that a deep bow is the “Do” to do and accepting the Japanese business card the traditional Japanese way. He/she also learns how to present a business card “Japanese style”: presenting it in a way that it can be read immediately without flipping it around (yet an other Do).

On the other side, “our” Japanese counter part goes to a course on how to deal with Europeans. He learns that bowing is not the way to greet someone, but shaking hands is (the European Do). In addition he’s told that dealing with business cards is not a big thing in Europe, and that business card function more as a piece of information for future reference.

They Meet

When our Japanese and European finally meet, simultaneously the Japanese sticks out his hand whilest the European bows forward. The result: the European gets a hand in his/her face while bowing.

Exaggerated

Of course this is an exaggerated example, but hopefully you understand what I mean with Do’s and Dont’s changing in different contexts and circumstances.

Within a Japanese context bowing is a Do. In a European context shaking hands is a Do. But since the context has changed (a mix of European and Japanese Do’s and Dont’s) it is not always clear what to Do or to Don’t.

My advice is to not always go with the Do’s and Dont’s that you might have learned from an other culture, but to take a more adaptive approach. And if there are things you’re not sure about or do not understand, it never hurts to ask the other party if he/she can explain what is happening or what needs to be done.

Do you have any Universal Do’s and Dont’s that you would like to share? Please leave a comment here below!

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Seems pretty efficient doesn’t it? That’s what I thought too, until I got this story from one of the people working there.

It turns out that there was a problem with receiving email for this particular person (can’t reveal the name). Not much of a problem and technically easily solved. The technical part is and was not the problem. What turned out to be the case is that the Managing Directors were receiving emails in blind copy Cc of everything that everybody either received or sent. So much for (the right?) for privacy.

Ok, from a cultural point of view.

What’s the cultural make-up of Belgium according to Professor Geert Hofstede? I’ll list the first four dimensions:

1. Power Distance: 65
2. Individualism: 75
3. Masculinity: 54
4. Uncertainty Avoidance: 89

Which dimensions make the most sense in explaining this behavior by the 2 bosses (the reading of all emails sent and received by their employees)?

My best pick would be Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance.

Why Power Distance?

Belgium scores culturally relatively high on dimension 1 and 2. The consequence is that most Belgians will do what their boss tell them to do. In other words they will accept (not necessarily respect) their boss. In addition, Belgians are quite Individualistic. Meaning in this case that they also have an “agenda” of their own. The combination of the two (dimensions 1 & 2) make that when a Belgian subordinate accepts the assignment of their boss, ánd their own “agenda” doesn’t “support” this, they might follow their own agenda in the case the boss is not paying attention (or “inspecting” what they do). So, as a boss you’re better off knowing what your people are doing all the time. Hence the screening of all the emails by the two bosses in this company.

Why Uncertainty Avoidance?

Simply put, in order to (in this case almost literally) avoid the uncertainty of not knowing what “others” are doing it is  best to always know everything. In countries that score high on this dimension, people will pick up their mobile phone and answer any and all calls even when they’re in meetings. In the above mentioned company reading all sent and received emails was an easy way to “know” what others were doing.

Do you have a simlar experience? Please put your comments here below!

It’s election year in the US. The first primaries have been held in Iowa for the bid of the republican candidate who will contest President Obama in November this year. The winner there: Mitt Romney. For now.

Another Republican contestant, Newt Gingrich, who was in the lead before, declared the elections to turn “ugly”. What else is new? They always turn ugly. Until… the day after the election. Then all Americans, like magic, swing to be in favor of the new President elect.

Why is this?

Why do US elections always end up in smear campaigns when they’re going on, but end up decently “clean” (okay, except the 2000 elections when there were mis-counts in Florida)?

Cultural Profile

The cultural profile (according to the cultural model of professor Geert Hofstede) of the US is the following:

• Power Distance: 40
• Individualism: 91 (the highest in the world)
• Masculinity: 62 (not so high right? but linked to a very high score on individualism makes the individual want to stand out as being a clear “winner”.
• Uncertainty avoidance: 46

The key to, from a cultural perspective, understand the US elections is the dimension Masculinity.

What is Masculinity?

Masculinity has nothing to do with Gender! It determines the expected role of individuals within society. Roughly speaking, men provide income, women change diapers (very roughly speaking, but you get the idea). Men don’t cry and are from Venus, men should be “first”, don’t cry and are from Mars.

This polarisation (Men are from Mars & Women are from Venus) is yet another characteristic of Masculinity. For instance, typical American Hollywood movies are very polarized. There is always a villain and a good guy. Or there’s good cop, bad cop. Or there is the good guy who looses it all (by his own doing or not), but turns around and ends up on top in the end.

The same polarization holds true for the upcoming US election process. Fundamentally the US has a two-party system. Republicans and Democrats. And yes, I know, there’s the Independent. But basically the Independent can only snoop voters away from the Democrats. Not from the Republicans.

This polarized political system (part of Masculinity) linked with the motivation to win (also part of Masculinity) at all cost, makes the whole election system such a tough fight.

The way the votes are counted comes roughly down to who has 50% of the votes + 1 vote. That gives the winner his/her majority.

But when finally the winner is declared, all ex-candidates congratulate the winner and ask/tell their electorate to side by the new President Elect.

This year the same?

That’s the way it has always been, and this year it won’t be any different. It will turn ugly. Candidates will drop out or are forced to stop because of the smear campaigns. But on the evening of November 3rd the country will unite again as one and continue business as usual.

I’m curious to hear/read your opinion. Please leave a comment here below.

Watch this short 2 minute video…

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Democratic elections in Pakistan, Russia, Afghanistan, Burma? The list is far from complete.

In the western world we seem to be obsessed by spreading our Democracy. We deploi peace missions and other diplomatic initiatives to spread our Western contemporary “religion“.
My point here is, that that will not work. Here’s why not.

What is (Western) Democracy?
Without trying to come up with a suitable definition or one pulled from Wikipedia, I’d like to keep it simple and view Democracy from a Cultural point of view.

In actual fact, Democracy boils down to this: The ability/possibility for One man to cast his/her One vote.
In addition what is important here is that this One man, is not coerced, forced or otherwise manipulated by anyone else in determining his/her One vote (in the broader sense of the word this is called Vote Rigging).

So fundamentally our (view and practice of) Western Democracy hinges on Individuals voting for themselves.
This word “Individuals” is important here. It emphasises, again, One man, One vote.

Prof. Hofstede came up with 5 dimensions defining national culture (describing general trends in societies). One of these dimensions is called Individualism (the others are Power-distance, Masculinity and Uncertainty avoidance).

This Individualism is crucial into making (Western) Democracy work. Because Hofstede’s dimension Individualism answers the question: “to whom are you loyal?”. On the two extremes of this dimension there are two answers possible: “my loyalty lies with me first” (= highly Individualistic) versus “my loyalty lies with the group first” (called Collectivistic). I do need to stress that individuals in Collectivistic societies do have an opinion of their own. It is just secondary to the opinion that the group holds.

High scoring cultures on the dimension Individualism use/have a Democracy that the Western world is trying to spread so bad.

Examples of high scoring Individualistic cultures are: North America, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe. That’s it! And… that’s all! All other countries in the World (!) are Collectivistic (with a score of less then 50 on Hofstede’s dimension).

This means that, to the majority of the world (about 80%), the Western concept of Democracy does not mean the same thing as in the minority of the world (the self proclaimed “first world”).

In collectivistic societies people are loyal to their group, more then to themselves. This means (in short) that One man, One vote, translates into “I’ll vote for the One my peers (in-group) votes for“. There is nothing good or bad about either Individualism nor Collectivism. It is just different.

The danger lies in the fact that the Western world thinks it can take the blue-print of its own Democracy and simply spread (or better force) it around other parts of the world. More often than not, much to the resentment of the local population.

To summarize: Democracy in Iraq is an illusion. It always will be.

Ending it here with the, not so surprising, historical quote from Winston Churchill: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

Don’t forget, Mr. Churchill was British, one of the most Individualistic countries in the World.

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And even if he would or does, it will not make any difference to the Italian situation. The situation of (government) corruption, the general chaos in the country and the overall debt Italy is currently in.

Why not?

From a practical standpoint the reason is that there is very little “better” alternative. As a good Roman friend of mine once told me, when I asked him why (on earth) he voted for Berlusconi, his answer was quite frank and direct “it does not make a difference whom you vote for, all the other candidates are as corrupt as he is…”. From a cultural standpoint we can explain this prediction using 2 dimensions of professor Geert Hofstede’s culture model: Powerdistance and Individualism.

First of all, power distance is closely linked to corruption in general. The yearly publication of the corruption perception index clearly shows a positive correlation to power distance and corruption. Italy has a score of around 50 on this dimension, versus for instance Sweden with a score of 30.

The second dimension involved here is Individualism. Now, most countries in the world that score high on power distance, score low on individualism (=collectivistic). There are a few exceptions, and Italy is one of them (score of around 71 on individualism; but… only in the North of the country. The south does indeed score collectivistic)

The consequence of the combination of high score on power distance and a high score on individualism is that people (in general) will accept (not per sé respect) their boss (=government in this case), but in addition hold a very strong personal agenda (=individualism). This means that when their boss (again the government) is paying attention, people will generally do what they need to do. But, if the government is not paying attention, people will let their own agenda prevail. Resulting in the current state of affairs in the country.

And since every Italian politician also has his own personal objective (usually getting rich fast), the future will remain bleak.

What’s your opinion about this?

Professor Geert Hofstede even wrote a whole book on it (see below). In more simple words it is explained in this short video below

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In certain countries people prefer to have a son over a daughter. In 2 of these countries, India & China, the men out-number the wonen by 12 to 15 percent. These figures come from the magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The autors are, Therese Hesketh (University College, Londen) and Zhu Wei Xing (Zhejiang University China). Selective abortion and negelect of young girls have led to these figures.
However, this is nothing new. Throughout the centuries boys have always been preffered over girls.

From a Cultural perspective, why is this?
When a daughter is to be married, the parents of the bride have to come up with the dauwery, and “pay” for the wedding ceremonies. So this can be a costly affair. Specifically if the daughter marries in a social class higher then her own (and of her parents, naturally). This is a combination of the Collective culture in both India & China (respectively the scores on the dimension Individualism are 48 & 20). Collectivism brings with it “in-groups” and “out-groups”. If you´re part of one social circle, you cannot be part of an other.

The second dimension which influences this behaviour is Masculinity.
Both India & China are so called Masculine societies (56 & 66). Aspects of Masculinity is the limited role overlap between sexes. A man works and earns money (for the whole family, so also the parents), and a woman… well, a woman should be at home, doing the household and raising babies. From that perspective, women are less of a source of income. And taken the first reason in mind, they can even be a source of cost.

The third explenation is the fact that (in traditional societies more so) only men can carry the blood line further. Women cannot. In addition, inheritances usually go from father to son.

In both India and China pre-birth sex determination is prohibited. The problem with these laws is that they are there, but no one inspects them.
And if you are “caught” you pull the strings of your “network” and can likley get away with it.
Yet another example of Collectivism. Relationships (with the one who controls you) are more important then the law itself!