Never take culture for granted

Ever since I was born, I have always been quite curious about how people get along and at times reach consensus, despite the endless cultural differences that are unique to each region on the planet.

As a Brazilian born and raised in a huge cosmopolitan town like Sao Paulo, I was the typical representative of a multi-ethnical society in a heterogenous and huge country like Brazil. With Japanese background from my mother’s side and Eastern European from my father’s, I navigated in two quite distinct cultures by mixing up the strong Japanese discipline and highly entrepreneurial bent of 19th century merchants that lived for years in what is currently Ukraine, Russia, and Romania.

Afterwards as an early adult, I had the opportunity of living for one year in the US to improve my English and have gone through many situations of observing behaviors that seemed quite natural to some nationalities but rather rude to others.

The best example that pops up in my mind is related to the extremely informal and quite humorous behavior of Latin Americans singing loudly on bus excursions and laughing all the time. The Asian students on the bus felt extremely offended by the noise and spontaneous environment provided by the Latinos.

As we join corporate life, we go through many cultural shocks if we decide to work either in multinational companies or in local family-owned organizations that require special observation on how the entrepreneurial founders act and lead their teams.

With almost 30 years in executive search and having witnessed many situations of both Brazilians and foreigners relocating abroad; as well as making sure that the cultural fit between the executive and the organization would work out, I realized that culture is what mostly makes the difference between success and failure.

I have recently read “The Culture Map” by Erin Meyer and highly recommend her book to everyone interested in making a difference while doing business everywhere in the world. Human beings are quite complex in their perceived behavior and if you investigate further and give it more thought to how different cultures do business, you will be many steps ahead of those who are not so sensitive to the issue.

Erin accurately describes in an accessible language with real-life examples of how the culture map acts when different people aim the same goal but, for some, they act like they do not. Erin’s culture map is composed of 8 features: Communicating, Evaluating, Persuading, Leading, Deciding, Trusting, Disagreeing and Scheduling.

The idea is not to provide a spoiler on the book but rather stimulate that you read it (I never met Erin Meyer and will not benefit financially at all by recommending her book). In each chapter, she describes on how some nationalities focus their behaviors on situations that have everything to do with our daily challenges like influencing others and leading teams.

She mentions how some societies tend be very egalitarian while others are quite hierarchical, how some nationalities stimulate confrontation and others avoid it and how some people are more likely to be consensual opposed to those who adopt a top-down style.

If you really aim to be successful in your career, pay close attention to how details make a huge difference in very ordinary things in corporate life like making a presentation, sending an e-mail, or learning to manage in a highly hierarchical society if you are originally from an egalitarian culture.

I have met many smart professionals; however their careers took a while to take off since they took for granted the “cultural mindset” and did a poor job of previously researching and investigating their potential future employer's values and culture.

As an executive search professional, I always try to be crystal clear when describing the company’s culture, mandate and personality of its stakeholders to a potential candidate. But as an interested part, the candidate must also do her/his part by making a thorough cultural due diligence to mitigate the risk of a career move. How to make it? Is there a way? Yes, there are many! Maybe food for thought for another article.

Wish you all a wonderful Q3!