CHRIS SMIT: I'm going to talk to you about why
culture, cultural difference actually, are the
management of perception, or to put it
differently, why culture matters when we're
working internationally.
First, a bit of an
introduction about myself.
Who am I? As you can see,
my name is Chris. My last name is Smit.
My nationality is Dutch. And as they say, if you
ain't Dutch, you ain't much. Or to put it's
somewhat different is as a finishing touch,
God created the Dutch. I know one more, which
is more along the lines, more in reality, and that
is the gods created the universe and the Earth
and the Dutch created Holland.
0:57 - 0:59
Maybe that's somewhat closer to the truth,
because 2/3 of the country is actually below sea
level.
1:03 - 1:06
Now if the country is below sea level, and
where do I live? I live, of course,
in a windmill, like all the Dutch do.
Where is my windmill located?
It is below sea level. Like I said 2/3, of the
country is below sea level. And what do I
normally wear? My wooden shoes and the
traditional Dutch dress. But being in front of a
significant, civilized crowd, I decided to wear
something different.
1:28 - 1:31
Now, you can look at this introduction
and ask yourself, what's the point? I'll tell you
what the point was with this sort of
introduction. I was trying to sort of
border on stereotypes. Stereotypes that you
might be missing about the Dutch are maybe
the color orange, the fact that we never
win the World Cup football, or soccer, for the
Americans, and maybe the Red Light District
in Amsterdam, stuff like that.
1:53 - 1:57
You can go to the Americans and talk about
stereotypes there as well. What comes to mind
first? Potentially, maybe, the word "big," or the
word "hamburger," or "trigger happy,"
stuff like that. Then you could go back
to Europe and talk about the Italian
stereotypes, or stereotypes about the Italians.
What comes to mind? Maybe the word
"mafia" comes to mind, Mamma Mia, the hand
gestures that the Italians are so fond of, stuff
like that. Are they all true, or not? Are they all
true, or not? I think that stereotypes sort of
display a general trend in society, and that's
maybe more or less what culture is about.
But besides from talking about stereotypes,
my introduction is also based on humor,
or at least I was trying to be funny.
I'm not sure if I succeeded.
I won't even ask you, as well. I'm going to shoot
myself in the foot there. But if I show you
this image here, and I would ask you, how
would you describe the typical British sense of
humor? So not per se what he is doing, but the
typical British sense of humor. You might come
up with ironic, with dry, self-deprecating
humor. A Brit can stumble and fall and look
back and say, hey, that was funny of me, stuff
like that.
3:07 - 3:10
Contrast that with this person, and for those of
you who do not know him, he's the Dutch
comedian, singer, songwriter, presenter-- quite
a talented guy. And if you would characterize
the Dutch sense of humor, as opposed to the
British sense of humor, you might come up with
statements like blunt, direct, sexually
connotated. And the Dutch tend to make fun of
others, rather than themselves. Whether
they're here or not, that doesn't make much of
a difference. And then finally, if you sort of
wrap it all up. And if I would ask you, how
would you characterize the German sense of
humor, then it might come to mind-- and I see
somebody nodding already-- no, they have no
sense of humor. Is that true, however? Well,
fundamentally, of course not.
4:17 - 4:19
according to the Germans. Three countries, the
UK, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Geographically relatively close to each other,
and still, they have a different sense of humor. I
believe that jokes don't translate in language,
and also that they don't translate in culture. So
if humor is already not culturally neutral,
4:38 - 4:43
my question to you to ponder on is, what is
culturally neutral? I've done this work for about
18 years and I haven't found anything that is
culturally neutral. It touches us everyday, and
very often, we don't really see it. But first of all,
before I continue, there is really nothing good
or bad about culture. There are only
differences,
it's important to realize,
and understanding the
cultural differences
are often the determining
factor, typically,
when you're doing
business internationally.

3:52 - 3:55
5:07 - 5:10
The Germans also have a sense of humor. But
the contradiction, in terms here, is that humor The word "culture" has been
for the Germans is a serious thing. Humor for
mentioned a couple of times,
the Germans is a serious thing. In other words,
you don't start something serious with a joke. but to put a frame around
So if you have a meeting, you don't start a
this and a definition,
meeting with a joke, because why would you
undermine the seriousness of the meeting by the "collective programming
starting it with a joke? There's a time and a
place to be funny, of the human mind."
In that definition, the
two words are important.
One is "collective" and the
other one is "programming."
When we're talking about
culture or cultural differences,
we talk about groups
of people and not
about isolated individuals.
And the second word
that's important to
realize in this definition--
the word "programming" is
there because you're not
born with your culture.
5:39 - 5:42
Culture is so-called
taught behavior.
So collective programming
of the human mind.
I'm showing you an image here.
My question to you
is, what do you see?
If you're like most people,
you would see a face
with the glasses, the
nose, and the mouth,
and a part of the chin
and the neck, right?
But if you read it diagonal, and
pause and wait a little longer,
you would see that
you can also read
the word "liar," the L,
the i with a dot on the i,
the a, and the r.
So pausing and waiting,
and maybe looking
a second time at a
different culture
might actually teach
you a lot more.
6:19 - 6:21
As I said, culture is about
the management of perception.
If you read the following quote,
"It's important for a manager
to know the exact answers
to most of the questions
that his subordinates may
raise about their work."
6:30 - 6:33
I give you two countries and two
percentages, the United States
and France.
Match up the countries
to the percentages.

All right, the answer is
80% for the United States
and 53% for France.
6:42 - 6:47
What this means is is that if
an American worker, if you want,
goes to his manager, asks
him a question to which
he doesn't know the answer.
The American worker is quite
OK with an "I don't know,"
while in a country like
France, for instance,
the answer "I don't
know" from management
doesn't give him a
lot of credibility.
So the expectation
of a French manager
is that he or she is much more
knowledgeable about the content
or stuff that he is
actually managing.
7:14 - 7:17
To explain this, we need
two cultural dimensions
from Professor Georf
Hofstade's model of culture,
one being power distance, or
hierarchy, and the other one
being uncertainty avoidance.
7:25 - 7:27
Let's start with the first one.
Dealing with hierarchy.
You could argue that all
societies are unequal,
but some are more
unequal than others.
Or to put it differently, all
animals are created equally,
but some are more
equal than others.
7:41 - 7:43
I've given you here a list of
countries, the Netherlands,
Belgium, the UK,
Norway, and China.
Quickly make up in your mind
which country you actually
think scores highest
and which country
would actually score lowest.
The answer to that question is
you might be right about China.
You might have guessed maybe
the Netherlands being the lowest
one.
But in this case, it is Norway.
Quick word about these numbers,
is that anything more than 10
points difference is
something that you
would experience
internally when you would
go to that specific country.
So if a Dutchman
would go to Belgium,
the Dutchman would
experience that there
is a stronger hierarchy
in this country
than in his own country.
If the Belgian
would go to China,
the Belgian would
actually experience
that there is a stronger
hierarchy in China
than in his own country.
8:32 - 8:35
Now, how does this
work in reality?
You see two triangles, and
on your left-hand side,
you see weak hierarchy,
or flat and egalitarian.
On the right-hand
side of the slide,
44 - 8:46
you see there the
strong hierarchy
and it's called steep, and
it's sort of hierarchical.
8:50 - 8:52
Notice that the
circles are equally
in size on the left-hand side,
and the top dog, if you want,
on the right-hand side is
bigger than lower at the bottom.
8:59 - 9:02
Suppose you have this situation
whereby peer to peer workers,
say somebody from
the Netherlands,
asks a question to his
co-worker in China,
can you give me an update
on this in this process?
What do you think
is going to happen?
It's highly likely that it
will go up the hierarchy.
This will take time.
9:18 - 9:21
The perception that the
Dutchman on the left-hand side
might have of his
Chinese colleague
is that he might
be lazy, he doesn't
know what he's talking about,
why is this taking so long?
Right?
Eventually, the answer will
come, but it just takes time,
and perceptions
are already shaped.
Now turn the situation
around, where
you tried to get the
Chinese to ask the Dutchman,
can you give me an update
on this and this project?
What do you think will happen?
The Dutch, having a
relatively low hierarchy,
has the tendency to answer
directly and with a result
that the Chinese
colleague will actually
wonder, how did you come up
with that answer so fast?
You're probably trying
to cut some corners
and you didn't give me
the right, correct answer.
I'm going to ask you
again, hence the blue line
going back that way.
10:10 - 10:13
The second dimension to
explain the difference
between the United
States and France
is uncertainty avoidance.
As they say in
Germany, everything
is forbidden,
unless it's allowed.
10:22 - 10:24
If you can continue
like that within the UK,
everything is allowed,
unless it's forbidden,
the total opposite there.
And in France,
everything is allowed,
even if it is forbidden.
And mind you, there is
a fourth one as well, the lowest of this list, not

which is the Dutch version. and that Uruguay

10:37 - 10:39 has a score of 100.

In the Netherlands, Again, 10 points difference is

everything is tolerated, something that is significant.

even if it is forbidden. The UK, a country that doesn't

There you go. have a written constitution

This talks about the amount but goes with common

of rules and structure law, for instance.

that cultures and people And for the Belgians present

within these cultures here at this presentation,

appreciate and the score of 95

would like to have. explains, to some extent,

Again, which countries from this 11:37 - 11:41

list, the Netherlands, Uruguay, why all Belgians are born

Belgium, the UK, with a brick in their stomach.

and Germany, do you Does that sound familiar?

think needs them, or For a lot of you, it might be.

has or needs, the most OK, if we put that in a graph

structure and detail. and in a practical example,

And which country do what does that mean?

you think has the least 11:52 - 11:55

amount of structure and detail? When we look at project

11:03 - 11:06 management and doing business,

This is a very different cultures deal

difficult dimension with project management

to actually understand. in different ways.

And the answer to this So on the horizontal

puzzle is that the UK scores axis, there's Time,

and on the vertical axis, there And the Americans go, well,

is Action and Implementation what good is that for?

as a function of time. Because the Americans have more

12:07 - 12:09 of a just to do it approach,

The line that you a trial and error

currently see there approach, and get going.

is just for reference there. And if you don't

Germany, first Germany. understand it at first,

How do you think the only then you start

line of Germany will run? reading the manual.

Well, Germans get Continuing like this,

their act together. take the country France--

12:17 - 12:21 which could also substitute

They form a group of people, here Spain, Italy, Iran, China,

of highly specialized people, India, countries like that--

around the table. the line is somewhat different.

They sort out all And I know it usually

procedures, and eventually, generates a laugh,

will come up with a relatively but it needs a little

rapid implementation, something note in the margin here,

like this. is that what the

12:31 - 12:36 line should actually

Now, when the Americans and look like is pretty

the Brits come to the table, much at the beginning

asking the Germans, here, like a small tremor

what are you doing? around the German line.

The Germans look up, annoyed So not with a big

at the Americans, and say, earthquake, but that's just

we're planning. a shortcoming of PowerPoint.

13:25 - 13:28 And the line sort

My apologies for that. of takes this shape.

S what you see in a And what you see

country like France going back in time

is that there is a preference is not really

for doing things organized, going back in time.

but sometimes it 14:12 - 14:16

just doesn't work. It is more that it is

and that is because of the doing project management

elbow work and the hierarchy with growing insights.

and in the corridor, So what we have

backstabbing decided yesterday

political games going on. could change today because

of new gained information.

That's what the tremor is about. 14:25 - 14:28

13:45 - 13:49 All right, wrapping it

Now, finalizing this up, this presentation,

slide with the Dutch line. with a quote from Carl

Not that the Dutch Jung, is that "everything

are so important, that irritates us about

it is just that the others can actually

line is so significantly 14:33 - 14

different from the rest lead us to a better
of the countries here. understanding of ourselves."
And the Dutch are known Thank you.
for their [SPEAKING DUTCH]

or [SPEAKING DUTCH],, the

Dutch word, or the consensus

building.