When first asked to describe what makes a nation, you might talk about its geography, its history or even its language or religion. If you've spent any time there, you might be able to talk about the shared values and the common outlook of the people who live there. And if you really know the place, you will be able to talk of the 'culture' of that nation and the many ways in which 'they' differ from 'us'.
The way that parents raise their children, the structure of the education system and the curricula taught by schools all shaped the people you work with. Within your own culture, those factors are (by and large) the same, but if you work overseas you will see the difference a thousand times a day, and you may well need to change the way you organise, lead, reward and communicate with others. If you hope to do business in other countries or to lead multinational teams, or even to interact with the locals in all but the most superficial of ways, you need to understand how these cultural differences manifest.
If you travel 2000 miles in any direction from the geographic centre of the United States (Lebanon, Kansas) you will find that people, on the whole, look at things in the same way. They have the same aspirations and the same values. They are probably individualistic and self-reliant. They probably believe that hard work leads to personal success. But any European will tell you that if he drives 2000 miles in any direction he will pass through several societies that are vastly, almost incomprehensibly, different from his.
So I want to bust one particular myth straightaway. People are not 'all the same wherever you go' and they do not share a common set of values and perceptions. Attempting to attribute your value set to other people is futile.
Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore
Let's consider two prominent Western cultures to illustrate the differences: the Americans and the Dutch. People from these two cultures can usually communicate well, if only because the Dutch speak excellent English. Their political systems, rituals and home lives are reasonably similar. They are both mercantile nations and they've both, at some time in the past, run globally dominant trading empires. Yet the core values of these nations are very different, and this affects their business conduct considerably.
Remembering the side note about the dangers of describing individuals, can we for now agree that Americans tend to raise their children to be winners? Everyone, American children are taught, has an equal opportunity to excel and to be the best they can be. The school system encourages individual learning and a fairly high degree of competition between students. Those who are socially adept often lead peer groups, and these groups can treat misfits with extreme cruelty. The leaders make decisions in these groups, often after private consultation with those whose opinions they respect. Individual status and celebrity are important and flaunted.
Most Dutch children, on the other hand, are raised to be participants. Everyone, they are taught, has an equal opportunity to show kindness to others. Modesty, to the Dutch, is a duty - they underplay their talents and experience (which makes interviewing them very difficult). Their school system encourages group learning and collaboration, and what peer groups there are work hard to include everyone and to monitor their behaviour. The entire group makes, and is accountable for, decisions through a very public (and often very blunt) consultation process. Individual status is actively demolished and no premium is placed on individual excellence - a commonly used phrase in Holland used to reprimand selfish or attention-seeking behaviour is 'Doe maar gewoon, dan doe je al gek genoeg', which roughly translates as 'Be normal, because that's weird enough'.
Even the role models in the two nations are very different. Dutch role models (such as holocaust victim Anne Frank or naval hero Jan van Speijk) are normal people who showed courage and fortitude in difficult circumstances. The American ideal of the tough hombre (John Wayne, Superman) would seem alien to the Dutch, and the tortured loner who overthrows the system (Rambo) would be deeply disturbing to them. There are no Dutch superheroes.
Alert! Stereotypes ahead! Now imagine what would happen if a Dutch company took over an American one. The Americans, who see themselves as decisive and who achieve greatness through individual efforts, would see their Dutch masters as mediocre, indecisive, rude and prone to endless (and usually pointless) discussion. The Dutch, who do not need to be taught 'teamwork' or 'leadership', would see the Americans as brash, selfish, attention-seeking children who are prone to despotism. The groups would, in all likelihood, detest each other.
Yet companies like Shell - a seemingly doomed combination of American, British and Dutch cultures - make the mixture work and find profit from the diversity it brings. How? Through understanding each other's cultures and recognising that communication and management styles differ.
Measuring Culture
There is much more to this topic than can be dealt with in a series of short articles and I'm not going to cover all the differences that underlie cultures. Hofstede's huge survey identified four principal dimensions of culture (with a further one added later when a broader sample was taken in the Far East) and Trompenaars described seven dimensions.
Some of these differences are very relevant to the study of organisations: for example, Hofstede identified that gender roles are learned and can affect the degree of 'aggression' or 'nurturing' in the workplace, which tends to be the principal driver of female participation in employment.
Trompenaars and Michael Bond identified that the value of time and the length of planning horizons varies by culture, which of course determines the length of the economic cycle that businesses use. Another interesting difference is in the way people approach problems: analytical thinkers break the problem into pieces while holistic thinkers try to grasp the big picture. Holistic thinkers are said to be better at social situations requiring sensitivity, intuition and tact (required in a collectivist society), and to exhibit marked differences in the way they assimilate information and build mental models. As a broad generalisation, Westerners use analytic thinking while East Asians tent to think holistically. Nisbett et al. (2001) attribute this to the rise of largely individualistic Greek philosophy in the West and the connected thinking of Confucianism in the East.
However, since this site is about the practical applications of memetic, I want to concentrate on four dimensions that I think most affect the way organisations are run across the world. These dimensions are:
- Power - how much power and privilege is granted by the weak to the strong, and why
- Loyalty -whether your primary loyalty is to yourself or to the group
- Ambiguity - whether uncertainty is regarded as useful flexibility or undesirable risk
- Duty - whether your primary duty is to your friends or to the rules.
It might not be obvious that a lot of the concepts I have talked about so far (privilege, loyalty, gender roles, risk, duty, planning) are memetic in nature, but remember that they fail the test of universality - they are common within a society but not common between societies.
Hofstede defines culture as 'collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one group of people from another', and I couldn't think of a more useful description of a set of memes if I tried!
Power
Whether you like it or not, in every society some people have power and privilege, and some do not. Power seeking is common to all humans, to a greater or lesser extent, and is therefore genetic in origin, probably bred into the genome by the apes who were better at getting food and mates. However, the extent to which genetically similar societies allow differences in power, and how they handle these, varies considerably, and these factors are purely memetic in origin.
According to Hofstede, in societies such as the Middle East and Far East, Latin America and Africa, hierarchies are seen to result from 'natural' inequalities. Power, in these societies, entitles privilege and a degree of remoteness. If you asked a citizen of these countries to describe their 'ideal' organisation structure, they would probably draw a steep-sided pyramid, as might people from France and southern Italy. At the other extreme, people from Scandinavian and German-speaking countries and the Anglo-Saxon world tend to believe that inequalities in society should be minimised and that hierarchies are established for convenience rather than being part of the natural order of things. Their natural pyramid would be much flatter, with fewer levels and higher spans of control, and you see that reflected in (for example) American organisation structures.
Hofstede believes that our attitudes to power arise in the home and in our schools (although some commentators have identified that societies in which Roman Catholicism is dominant tend to accept greater differences in power). Societies that tolerate hierarchies tend to be those in which parents demand obedience and respect rather than experimentation and self-reliance. Teaching methods in these countries tend to involve lectures rather than interactive tutorials, and the content of the lesson and the authority of the teacher are rarely questioned by the students. Children are often taught to stand when a teacher enters the class and to listen attentively: if they become teachers, they in turn will use dominance to ensure that all their pupils have a chance to learn. On the other hand, students in Anglo-Saxon cultures attend schools where they are encouraged to question and challenge teachers. If they then become teachers, they too will use teaching mechanisms that encourage challenge from their students.
Trompenaars explains that there are also differences as to whether power is ascribed or achieved. People in 'achievement' cultures (which also tend to be those who prefer flatter structures) are taught to respect recent performance, while those from 'ascription' cultures tend to believe that power and respect belongs to individuals because of what they are rather than what they have done. Achievement cultures value results while ascription cultures tend to value integrity and reputation. Of course, ascription cultures still discriminate between the best and the rest, but in a different way. There is intense competition to get into the best corporations in Japan or the best schools in France but once you are in, success is pretty much guaranteed because your ability has been discovered and certified.
These differences certainly affect business relationships. Managing somebody from a 'flatter' society than yours can be tedious - they will demand access when they want it, they will not respect your natural authority, and they will treat your instructions as the opening shot of a debate rather than a straightforward order. On the other hand, if you are working with people with a much higher tolerance of power difference, you may also have difficulty getting accurate information from them if they are your subordinates, or you may encounter friction in the relationship when you start asking your boss for explanations.
Self or group?
There is in all of us a conflict between what we want as an individual and the interests of the group(s) we belong to. Hofstede identified that, as individuals, we reach a 'balance of selfishness' that reflects the right mix of loyalty and self-determination. That balance differs from society to society and is thus learned rather than inbuilt - as it is consistent within a culture, it is carried by a meme.
The majority of readers of the English language sire are likely to be from cultures that we can call individualist, in which the preference is for loosely knit social frameworks, with people taking care of their personal needs and those of their immediate family. These individualist cultures are generally found in English-speaking countries and quite a bit of Western Europe. The rest of the world, however, is pretty much composed of cultures where individuals can expect care in return for loyalty, and where the parent organisation (the family, village, or employer) is expected to look after their interests in return for duty and diligence. They will often prefer to work in groups to provide mutual support and build consensus, rather than to work individually to establish dominance. People from these societies do not share the Western view that organisations are machines in which people are merely cogs - for them, the people are the machine.
There is often a match between how group centred a culture is and how different gender roles are. In strongly individualist cultures, you often see differences in roles, status and pay between men and women (despite the presence of laws trying to force equality), whereas these differences are less acute in group-centred cultures. A Swedish woman once said to me, 'Men are from Earth, women are from Earth as well, now deal with it!' One side-effect of this is that individualist cultures tend to be more polarised over issues like protection of the environment or ensuring that the weak do not suffer, whereas these will generally be givens in group-centred societies. There are exceptions: Venezuela, Mexico and Japan are group centred but highly 'macho'.
There is no mystery as to how these different memes are spread. Individualist societies tend to be formed of small 'nuclear' families or one-parent families, as opposed to extended structures where a child is raised by aunts, uncles, grandparents and sometimes any adult in the village. These family ties extend into other spheres: in the Far East and Africa, employing family members is practical and natural whereas it would be seen as highly inappropriate in a European corporation.
The nature of employment in highly individualist societies is strictly transactional - we provide labour in return for money, for as long as it suits both parties - and communities form out of self-interest rather than a sense of duty. Individualists would tend to agree with the statement that an organisation is a 'system' rather than a 'group of people', and therefore less deserving of unswerving loyalty. One of the best-known handbooks of economic thinking, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, was strongly individualist in tone. He described markets as sets of individuals each working towards their own selfish ends, but together creating a transfer of goods and wealth that benefited all parties according to their wishes. Through individual actions, the invisible hand of the market created an end that was not part of anyone's express intention. If Adam Smith had been Scandinavian, he would probably have talked about the way that individuals help each other as well as themselves.
Before we move on, think what it's like for an individualist to negotiate a deal with a company from the Far East. Because he is a powerful man, he will be empowered to negotiate on behalf of his corporation, so he travels on his own or perhaps with a small team of lawyers. The other side will turn up in droves, and it will not be immediately apparent to him who the decision maker is. Now turn the situation round, and see it from the host's collectivist viewpoint: because the individual has arrived without an entourage, they will assume that he either has no power base within the organisation or that it has rejected him because of some wrongdoing….why, the lawyers may even be there to restrain him, rather than to assist him!
So, how do you think that negotiation is going to go?
Opportunity or risk?
I'm particularly interested in another of Hofstede's dimensions - the way societies feel about ambiguity. Do they try to control the future, or just let it happen? And if rules cannot be kept, should they be changed?
Apparently, the cultures with the most tolerance of ambiguity are Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and the UK, and here Hofstede sees 'an emotional horror' of rules In these cultures, stepping into the unknown is natural and enjoyable, and there is a willingness to change direction if circumstances require it. Citizens of these nations see conflict and dissent as constructive acts providing they lead to a better answer, and it is OK to fail if you learn from it. While true emotions are private things and rarely shown, a cruel and anarchic sense of humour is often a strong release valve.
Northern Europe, the USA and India also tend towards these traits, albeit diluted, but most of the rest of the world likes a lot more structure. In Portugal, Greece, Japan and the French- and Spanish-speaking world, rules are most definitely there to be followed. Failures are to be avoided at all costs, and conflict and dissent are seen as unproductive. Anxiety levels tend to be higher, but it is perfectly normal to show emotion in the family or the workplace.
Again, it is safe to assume that these differences are memetic and transferred via the education system. Hofstede makes an interesting comparison between Germany and the UK, which are otherwise very similar in terms of core values. German educational assignments tend to be highly structured, with precise objectives, timetables and preferably one right answer. British educational assignments are open-ended, with vague objectives, no timetables and usually no defined answer (and sometimes, no possible answer). From my own observations in the workplace, I know that Germans tend to value rigour and accuracy far more than Brits, who are said to be the only nation in the world that accords low social status to engineers and scientists. We will see elsewhere how these differences manifest in leadership styles.
Rules or relationships?
One of the best-known cultural questions was asked by Stouffer and Jackson in 1951: "You are riding in a car driven by a close friend. He hits a pedestrian in an area of the city where the maximum speed is 20 miles per hour. You know he was going at least 35 miles per hour. There are no other witnesses. His lawyer says that if you testify under oath that he was only driving 20 m.p.h it may save him from serious consequences. What right does your friend have to expect you to protect him?"
Most of you reading this would reply something like 'No, of course I wouldn't lie to protect him' while some might say, 'Well, I might lie if the pedestrian was not badly hurt.'
However, if you did say that you might be surprised to hear that a pretty large majority of the world's population would lie to protect the driver, because the importance of the relationship transcends any ethical dimension. Indeed, they might be more likely to lie if the pedestrian was badly hurt.
What matters here is not the fate of the poor pedestrian or the driver, but the degree of surprise you felt when you read the previous paragraph. If you are feeling mild outrage at the unethical behaviour the 'majority of the world's population' exhibits, then you probably come from a society that Trompenaars would describe as 'universalist', whereby there is an underlying search for similarity and an assumption that common laws and frameworks apply to all.
It may not come as much of a surprise to hear that, according to Trompenaars, the societies that exhibit universalism most strongly include Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, Australia and the USA. The societies that exhibit the least universalism are South Korea, Russia, Venezuela, China and India.
It may seem a bit of a stretch to extrapolate from traffic accidents to international business, but in many parts of the world it is commonplace to award contracts only to friends even if the deal is not the best that can be got. This is because you can assume that friends will not cheat each other, and any problems can be sorted out by a quiet talk over tea or a beer. In contrast, universalist societies, according to Trompenaars, tend to prioritise rules over relationships and breed large numbers of lawyers to whom they afford high status.
In America, it's natural to have a thick contract that codifies what the parties to an agreement have chosen to do. In China or Korea or the Middle East, turning up with a draft contract with strict requirements and penalty clauses will be interpreted as implying that one party will seek to cheat the other unless legally restrained from doing so.
The myth of a universal truth
In the section on democracy we considered the opening section of the American Declaration of Independence and the degree to which it would be compatible in a society based on Confucian ethics. Power differences, individualism and tolerance of ambiguity (or the lack of them) explain why the majority of the world's population would not agree that any truths are self-evident and universal, yet alone the ones proposed.
Let me go further: the belief that there is a single set of rules, a single business model or a single political system that is right, god-given or self-evidently true is simply idiotic.
I'm ramming home this myth of a universal truth for two reasons. The first is the economic dominance of the USA and its particular importance as the source of the majority of modern management thinking. As we will see later, even assumptions about 'right' organisation structures are far from universal.
The second reason is that people from universalist societies usually struggle when they try to do business overseas because they believe that everybody is, deep down, the same. They will try to use a management meme that is alien to the team they are managing. The result is that the meme, and the person, will be comprehensively rejected. What works in Peoria will just not work in Penang.
The management techniques that you learned as part of your MBA and polished in your corporate life may not work when you move overseas. A few years ago, an energy company hired me to advise a large multinational leadership team on how to do business overseas. The group consisted of a number of Americans and Brits, some Dutch, some people from Middle Eastern nations and a handful from the Far East. I find the best way of teaching these topics is to put participants into mixed cultural groups and let them discover the differences themselves before introducing the theory, but I sometimes start by dividing them into groups based on the culture they were educated in and then asking each group the following question:
"Sarah, a 30-year-old American, has performed wonderfully as deputy refinery manager in Texas. She's ready to run her own plant, and a vacancy has just become available in Saudi Arabia. When you tried to talk to her about the difficulties of being a woman manager in this culture, and a young woman at that, she replied that her team in Houston had respected her and followed her orders, and threatened to call her lawyer if you did not give her the promotion. What are you going to do?"
Without fail, the American groups would tell us that the Saudis 'would just have to change their attitudes', invariably leading to groans and head-holding from the other groups. I report this not in a spirit of America-bashing but to point out that this is the kind of mistake that businessmen from universalist societies make all too often: they believe there is some deep, underlying code that everybody will follow given the chance. There isn't.
I want to repeat the message that, if you try to impose your memes on an alien culture, then your memes - and you - will be rejected by it. And if you don't understand why this has happened, you will be left feeling impotent, resentful and powerless.
So what should the oil company do with Sarah? This is a difficult case (which is, of course, why I chose it) but careful selection of her subordinates will avoid a lot of problems. Perhaps the most sensible answer I heard, from a Middle Eastern delegate of course, would be to choose an elderly and well-respected local man as refinery manager and make it very clear to him that he should follow Sarah's orders once behind closed doors. Once Sarah becomes accepted by her staff, she can be quietly promoted. This may seem deceitful and tolerant of bigotry, but - just to hammer this home for the final time - you can change the mental programming of an individual (sometimes) but you can't change an entire society.
Later on, in the section on Memetic Organisations, I'll take a look at how these different dimensions of culture affect organisation structures and the tools you need to use to manage overseas.