The stranger sees only what he knows
– African Proverb
A while ago I received some suggestions from Audible and as an anthropology aficionado, I picked-up Customs of the World, by David Livermore.
I soon realised that it is much more than a weekend read. I have teams and customers distributed around the world and this proved to be a fountain on knowledge that helped me understand people better
What does culture mean?
First of all, we should understand what culture stands here for.
I will touch upon the anthropological aspect, since this is the one that would support us in our study below.
In anthropology, it stands for a set of social behaviours that can be found in a community. The community can be seen as a smaller cell, such as an ethnic group, a certain area in a country, or at a larger level, such as a country.
How can we analyse the culture?
In order to better understand the cultural print we are dealing with in a situation, we can have an analysis done based on cultural dimensions.
These cultural dimensions actually refer to how the culture influences the values of society.
*Note: The idea of using cultural dimensions goes back to Geert Hofsteede while at IBM
The dimensions described are:
- Identity
- Authority
- Risk
- Achievement
- Time
- Communication
- Lifestyle
- Rules
- Expresiveness
- Social Norms
Let us have a short exploration of each dimension.
Cultural Dimensions
Identity
Identity represents who we are, who see see ourselves as. What are our characteristics.
In the context of the dimension, we can think of it as how see ourselves in comparison to the ones around us, to the people that surround us.
What to look for: How they place themselves in discussions
| Collectivism | Individualism |
|---|---|
| How something is influencing the ones around us | How something influences the individual |
Authority
When we talk about authority, we should think of how we place ourselves while interacting with others that have a different levels of power.
Since we are being taught how to behave around others since we are small, depending on how we were socialized, we can see and react to authority differently than others.
What to look for:
– Forms of addressing each other
– Seating
– How people participate in discussions
| High-Power Distance | Low-Power Distance |
|---|---|
| – Clear differentiations when it comes to authority – Limited social interactions between groups | – Behaviour does not show clear authority – Disagreement with authority is accepted – Socialisations with figures of authority is endorsed |
Risk
The risk dimension captures our tolerance to risk, how much we accept risks in our life and how in depth of a contingency plan do we have when it comes to risks.
What to look for:
– How the communicate and the details they go into
| High-Uncertainty Avoidance | Low-Uncertainty Avoidance |
|---|---|
| – A lowered tolerance towards the unknown – Structures created for predictability – Punctuality | – Open-Ended Instructions – Loose deadlines |
Achievement
The easiest way we can think of this dimension in the context of work, more specifically on how much value we have on collaboration in contrast to individual achievement.
What to look for: How they communicate in a group, especially when there is disagreement
| Cooperative | Competitive |
|---|---|
| – Nurture collaboration – Respect others’ opinions | – Nurture competitiveness – Inclination towards debates |
Time
Time – this is a particularly interesting topic for me, or was for a few months now, but I will detail this later on.
The time dimension represents our understanding of time in general, how do we perceive it and how others perceive it and understand what happens when we have different priorities and focus when it comes to time.
What to look for:
– How fast they take decisions
– Punctuality
| Long-Term | Short-Term |
|---|---|
| – Benefit at a later time from a current investment | – Quick Benefit |
| Monochronic | Polychronic |
|---|---|
| – Coordinated and focused activities – The task is the priority | – Multiple activities – Gets distracted – Puts social interactions above anything else – The relationship is the priority |
Communication
When we participare in discussions, we can see that different people communicate differently: some are quite specific in the message they want to transmit, take care that the message is clear, while for others we have to really understand how their mind works to really see what is being said.
What to look for: How people give directions and how easy it is to visit around
| Indirect | Direct |
|---|---|
| – Understanding what is being communicated requires an understanding of that society’s rules | – Leaves little to interpretation |
Lifestyle
Lifestyle describes best the way we live: how much we take care of ourselves and how much we want to invest in producing more.
It can also be seen on how much importance we place in just being with family, friends, community, nature and how being at work is prioritized in relation to that.
What to look for:
– What their approach to work is
– How much they separate their work from their personal life
| Being | Doing |
|---|---|
| – Works to live | – Lives to work |
Rules
The rules dimension can be imagined as following: how do we think about rules in general?
While some people can see rules as black and white, some people will understand them in different shades of gray, so we can either accept them and treat everyone similarly, or on the contrary, have different way of treating different people.
What to look for: If there is a bribe system
| Particularist | Universalist |
|---|---|
| – The individual’s obligations stands to their close ones | – The same rules apply to everyone, regardless of our relationship with them |
Expresiveness
Expresiveness ca be understood on how we expresive we are: do we show emotion when we are happy, angry, etc. or quite the opossite, we keep it neutral.
What to look for:
– How much vocal feedback people give
– How people interact in groups
| Affective | Neutral |
|---|---|
| – Show of great expressiveness, through verbal and non-verbal channels | – Show of little expressiveness – Monotone way of speaking |
Social Norms
Social norms are surrounding us on a daily basis in the community we live in.
However, while some societies are comfortable to accept deviations from the standard acceptable, others are not as accepting.
What to look for: How similar people are dressing up
| Tight | Loose |
|---|---|
| – Agreement on rules – Isolated cultures | – Accept multiculturalism – Very few rules – Free speech |
Why are we different?
When we begin to analyse those around us, especially when it comes to the cultural differences, we tend to generalise.
We might have the inclination to place everyone from a particular area or ethnic background in the same category, because it is much simpler.
As humans, we are creatures of habit and are very apt in finding patterns (it was, after all, essential to our ancestor’s survival), and as such it is easier to seek and find a pattern to apply afterwards to everyone.
What we need to keep in mind is that although there are certain patterns, even among people of the same ethnic group or specific area there are differences.
In order for us to be prepared to understand the people we are interacting with and to not be fixed into our ideas of the patters and miss certain differences from the standard, we should be prepared to do our own analysis.
So, why are we different?
Anthropologists believe that one of the factors is how the population of an area has survived has an impact on how we perceive the world.
An example would be: were those people mainly hunters, or were they focusing more on farming? This could represent their tendency to be more independent or have a more collective mentality.
Why should we invest in CQ?
Regardless if it is in our professional or personal lives, nowadays, with globalisation, we will meet constantly people from different cultural backgrounds.
We need to be able understand and be prepared for these interactions.
There will be times in which some behaviours go against everything we consider as our values, or on the contrary, our own values contradict what our colleagues or clients believe in. We cannot avoid such situations and we need to understand what some things are about, why some people take certain decisions in a way, or why approaches are different from what makes sense to you. Even a simple delay at a meeting, or lack of decision-making during from certain people can be explained and understood if we only take a bit to analyse.
I did some separate posts on how different cultures behave and react that you can find linked with this post.
Also, if you want to have more in depth understanding, I suggest you take a look at the course that David Livermore has on amazon or on The Teaching Company
silvana comanici-stoianov 