By William R. Dodson
8 March 2002
An Arab saying goes, “As long as I listen, I have the advantage; when I talk I lose the advantage.” Many cultures around the world listen during meetings to varying degrees. The Japanese and Finns tend to be amongst the quietest in meetings, deferring to seniors to do most of the talking. Even then, during international negotiations, foreign counterparts tend to pull out their hair trying to get senior Japanese and Finnish representatives to say something – anything – to indicate their positions.
Meetings must serve multiple purposes, including sharing information, forming relationships, helping people attain a common understanding of the issues at hand, and problem solving. The cultural conditioning of a participant will struggle against other orientations to pull a meeting into its own orbit of intent.
Americans are problem-solvers. American business is at the opposite end of the listening spectrum from the Japanese. Consistently Americans eschew relationship-building for problem-solving through incessant, competitive talk. The Chinese, Thai, Italians, Turks, Russians, Germans, and South Americans I’ve talked with all agree: the people who steer the greatest economic engine in the world also talk the most in meetings.
Americans also interrupt one another all the time during meetings. Indeed, one Thai associate told me, “It’s considered rude in our culture to interrupt while someone is speaking. It’s so difficult for me to throw myself into the conversation like the Americans seem to. Then, I get so frustrated because there is something I want to say, but can’t find the place to say it.”
British meetings are reserved compared to American meetings, though not stiff. British meetings have a greater degree of levity than American committees.
Mary O'Hara-Deveraux & Robert Johansen make the point in their book Globalwork that "... Some cultures see the most important function of meetings as building or reaffirming personal relationships, not getting work done."
Turkish business meetings – and I would add to that Mexican ones as well – tend to be drawn-out affairs in which relationship development is paramount. One American project manager with whom I was sitting in a Mexican meeting bluntly asked if his presence was still required in the marathon session, and promptly stalked out of the room. His Mexican counterparts sat in shock at the American's rudeness.
In general, the more senior participants in Latin American and Middle Eastern meetings do most of the talking, while the juniors are there to fill in the gaps of detail. Meetings in both cultures – and I would add to this the Italian meeting – can devolve into a shouting match, in which senior managers become absolutely apoplectic their honor is being questioned or besmirched. (One Mexican senior manager wasn’t able to show up at a number of meetings because he had nearly had a heart attack – literally – shouting during an earlier session.)
Richard Lewis in his book When Cultures Collide makes the point that "when the issues are non-controversial and the agenda smooth, few obstacles [to communication] arise. When misunderstanding arises, our language abandons its neutrality and swings back into culture-bound mode." Misunderstanding can occur because of a careless remark, a gesture taken out of context, inappropriate observance to rank and a myriad other reasons. Hence, it is important for meeting hosts to realize that the knee-jerk response of cultural conditioning lurks behind every issue presented at a session.
Sessions planned to take into account the cultural conditioning of participants are the most productive. A facilitative approach to conducting meetings works better across borders than does a command-and-control style. Hierarchical meeting structures are seldom able to take in or to digest or to adapt to changing conditions as nimbly as they must in tense situations. Also, it's important to know the cultural orientations of participants so that strong culture-based reactions can be coaxed back to some communication norm. Build meeting structures that foster input and build in pauses for participation. Meeting facilitators need to listen hard to what's being said, and to encourage communications that help attendees feel safe, so cultural rip-tides do not occur. A facilitative approach helps everyone feel more productive than a session in which everyone talks over one another; or one in which everyone is silent.
No matter the corner of the globe in which we meet, we’re all looking for a way to contribute to the world.
William R. Dodson is Managing Director of Silk Road Advisors, L.L.C., a management consultancy that builds and improves working relationships across cultures. He is the international business editor of the American Management Association’s (AMA) MWorld Journal of Management, and writes the weekly column “The Cultured Business”, found at www.silkrc.com and at the Global Perspectives section of the AMA’s member website. He can be reached at sradvisors@gmail.com or +1 (847)722-7817.