How to Manage Cultural Differences in the Workplace and Job Search 🗺📍

Why Culture will be increasingly relevant

Thanks to the internet, we live in an increasingly global and borderless world.

In 2022 when you work in a company or apply for a job, it's you vs someone in India, Germany, the US and so on.Percentage of cultures mixing are much higher today and there's no reason in sight to why it should stop increasing.

For the job market, while on one hand it increases opportunities for those who usually were in 'outsider' markets (and that includes me, in Italy), it obviously means much fiercer competition (it's now basically limitless).

During my career, when I was applying for roles at companies in other countries, or when I eventually joined the team, I concentrated on the hard skills I thought were needed.

Later I realized, that both the thinking, and the communication (verbal, non-verbal) differences between mine and the other cultures I had in front of me, had a much deeper impact.

Here are just a few examples:

💼 Competition in Job Search/Hiring - You usually have a short time to make an impression. This means you have to be more efficient in every type of communication. Get the wrong approach, and it won't matter how good you are.

🤝 Influencing Stakeholders - You need to get work done across different teams. Here you have more time to work on influencing/understanding others, but more complex situations to tackle.

👥 Managing Teams - Trust is at the basis of team management. But it means completely different things in some cultures.

🏷 Sales & Marketing - Acquiring customers is about communication and storytelling. Every culture has different things that resonate.

💰Investor Relations / Fundraising - Raising money = Asking for trust. Same as above.

🌐 Networking - Building and maintaining connections can be done in radically differently ways.

Different types of Cultural Dimensions

Now that we understand the implications, I think it's worth to see a couple examples of risks you encounter if you don't start working on cultural mapping in your relationships.

🙊 1.Communication - You may be considered a top-flight communicator in your home culture, but what works at home may not work so well with people from other cultures. If you’re from a 'low-context' 'culture, you may perceive a 'high-context' communicator as secretive, lacking transparency, or unable to communicate effectively.

Low Context: Good communication is precise, simple and clear. Messages are expressed and understood at face value. Repetition is appreciated if it helps clarify the communication.High Context: Good communication is sophisticated, nuanced, and layered. Messages are both spoken and read between the lines. Messages are often implied but not plainly expressed.

⚖️ 2. Evaluation - Evaluation is all about giving feedback. It's essential to improve, but delicate and can go very wrong. There are two ways to do this:

Direct Negative Feedback - Direct negative feedback to a colleague is provided frankly, bluntly, honestly. Negative messages stand alone, not softened by positive ones. Absolute descriptions are often used when criticizing. May be given to an individual in front of a group.

Indirect Negative Feedback - Provided softly, subtly, diplomatically. Positive messages are used to wrap negative ones. Qualifying descriptors are often used. Given only in private.

Quadrant A - Don't try to do it like them especially if your cultural dimension is on the opposite quadrant.Quadrant B - Increase their awareness of the context, describe the cultural differences so that they can know the impact of their feedback on others.

Quadrant C

• Be explicit and low-context with all types of feedback

• Try to be balanced about the positive and negative feedback you give

• Frame your behaviour in cultural terms. Discuss your cultural differences and about the impact the feedback has on your different culture peers.

• Use downgraders ('total disaster' > 'bit of a disaster')

Quadrant D

• Always give feedback in private. Include positive feedback.

• Blur the message, especially with people from many Asian cultures  Give feedback slowly over time

🦸‍♂️ 3. Leading - There's two main approaches that divide several leadership styles:

Egalitarian - Low distance between a boss and subordinate. Boss is a facilitator amongst equals. Flat organizational structures. Communication skips hierarchical lines.Hierarchical - High distance between boss and subordinate. Strong director who leads from the front. Status is important. Fixed organizational lines. Communication is hierarchical.

How to manage in these types of cultures?

Egalitarian: Go to the source directly. Skip levels, cut corners to make things more efficient and be proactive in trying ideas and saying what you think. Stimulate this to all levels.

Hierarchical: Look out for etiquette and cultural norms (how are people referring to each other, how are they interacting? Be proactive but respectful of levels and norms.

🗳 4. Deciding - How are decisions made? Are you doing things on your own (Top - Down) or looking for unanimous agreement in groups? Consensual)

In a Consensual culture, you need to be aware that the process usually takes longer, and therefore need to be patient, check more often what your colleagues think and remember that decisions will be difficult to change.In a Top-down culture, it's still important to follow the decision if you were not consulted or your idea rejected, and if you're in charge it will be expected for you to be quick in decisions.

🤨 5. Trusting - How do you decide whether to trust someone?

Task Based: Built through business-related activities only. If you do good work, you are reliable - therefore I trust you. Tips: Communicate concisely, keep professional and personal separate.Relationship Based: Built through sharing meals, drinks, visits at the coffee machine. Work relationships usually build up slowly over time. I know others well who trust you, I trust you. Tips: Build on common interests, consider sharing meals, and getting intros to be connected.

😤 6. Disagreeing - What do you do when you see things differently?

Confrontational: Disagreement is positive for the team, and open confrontation is appropriate and will not negatively impact the relationship. Tip: Don't take it personally if there is disagreement.Avoids Confrontation: Disagreement is negative and open confrontation is inappropriate. Tips: Separate ideas from people, have preparatory meetings to share your idea and adjust language (learn about 'upgrader' and 'downgrader' terms that soften or harden the message)

🙏 7. Persuading - How do you persuade others?

Applications-first: Individuals are trained with a fact, statement and later add concepts to back up or explain the conclusion. Preference is to begin message with report or executive summary/bullet points. Theoretical discussions to be avoided.

Principles-first: Individuals are trained to develop the theory before presenting a fact or statement. Begin a message by building up the argument and then move on to the conclusion.

⏳8. Scheduling - How do you deal with time/deadlines?

Linear Time - Project steps approached in sequential fashion, completing one task before the beginning of the next. No interruptions. Focus on deadlines.

Flexible Time - Project steps approached in a fluid manner, changing tasks as opportunities arise. Many things dealt with at once and interruptions accepted. Focus on adaptability, and flexibility is valued over organzation.

The Cultural Map

And here's the Map of where each country stands for each of these dimensions:

Quote from The Culture Map (book by Erin Meyer):

Some curious examples:

Do this at home: Listening and Mapping

When examining how people from different cultures relate to one another, what matters is not the absolute position of either culture on the scale but rather the relative position of the two cultures. It is this relative positioning that determines how people view one another.

How can you make sure you are listening/mapping more?

📧 Email - When you live, work, or travel extensively in a foreign country, you pick up a lot of contextual cues that help you understand the culture of the people living there, and that helps you to better decode communication and adapt accordingly. By contrast, when you exchange e-mails with an international counterpart in a country you haven’t spent time in, it is much easier to miss the cultural subtleties impacting the communication. Try to see if there are any subtleties, or switch to verbal communication to understand the other person better.

👋 Non-verbal communication - Try to listen for cues of tone of voice and body language: do you see any patterns in how the other person is interacting?

🗣 Verbal communication - Languages reflect the communication styles of the cultures that use those languages. There are seven times more words in English than in French 500,000 versus 70,000, which suggests that French relies on contextual clues to resolve semantic ambiguities to a greater extent than English. Try and take notes of key phrases, words, that are being used.

Multi-cultural Teams: What's the best approach?

We live in a non binary-world. You will increasingly have to deal with situations where you don't have one or all stakeholders from the same culture. So how do you deal with this?

The best way is to:

• Build awareness - Start by mapping out the cultures of each team member, by noting down observations or even asking directly. This way you can have a starting point, which can then be shared amongst the group so that everyone is aware of their different styles.

• Move between examples of each approach - In a conversation with people from different cultures, it may be useful to try low-context and high-context communication for example, providing examples in both ways. This way you assure everyone receives the message, and you can be vocal about you doing it for this reason, which will loop back into the awareness of the team. Putting things in writing also helps.

• Change team structure -If your goal is innovation or creativity, the more cultural diversity the better, as long as the process is managed carefully. But if your goal is simple speed and efficiency, then monocultural is probably better than multicultural.

TL;DR - Key Takeaways & Useful Resources

Culture plays out a much bigger role in our lives, personal and professional, than we'd like to think.

In an increasingly more 'global' and 'diverse' world, learning, listening and adapting is a key excercise that can be hugely beneficial to make communication and influencing more efficient for anything: job searching, team management, fundraising and so on.

Here are some key takeaways I wish I had known and started to act upon at the beginning of my career:

🗺 Map out your own culture - Where do you stand for each of the cultural dimensions? Do you recognize yourself in these categories? Is there any time that you found this to be a problem?

🇩🇪 🇦🇺 Learn about cultures you're exposed to - When interacting with someone from another culture, try to watch more, listen more, and speak less. Listen before you speak and learn before you act. Travel and get to know as many people as you can from these cultures Ask people who you know, Read books, articles, media etc.

🧪️ Try out adapting / different approaches - If you're having trouble coming through, whether it is in an interview, or any other type of conversation - start thinking about the cultural component. Is the other person maybe used to a different approach?Then, try and mirror that approach, adapting your message to that specific style.

Useful Resources

📕The Culture Map - This is the must read book by Erin Mayer

📕When Cultures Collide - Another great book by Richard Lewis📰 Increase your Team Performance - Good write up on this topic, covering some of what I did in more detail