British, French, German, US Cultural Differences

60% of all international joint ventures fail with lost revenue, poor working relations…it can be a very high price.

Culture as the Problem

Some traits are strange, offensive, maddening, or possible.  Why do the British bother the Americans so much.  Why do certain US behaviors irritate the French and the Germans.

People from different cultures have different values and beliefs-deeply ingrained ideas about what is right, good, normal, and natural-these values and beliefs determine how these individuals behave and what they are supposed to say and do, as well as not say and not do in various situations.  As children we all learn and internalize the values and behaviors of our culture, what we might call the conduct in that society, until it becomes entirely natural and instinctive for us to behave in certain ways and to never behave in others.

People who have learned two different codes of conduct—they are bound to say and do things that will confuse, frustrate, and offend each other…the more people from one country offend or frustrate people from another country the harder it will be for them to live and work together.

“our culture is best we all think (ethnocentrism), and our way of doing things is normal, the right way.  When we see something different in another culture, we are liable to view it as abnormal and inferior.”  David Hickson

The so called offensive behavior of people from the “other side” is neither intended to offend nor considered offensive in that person’s own culture.

One people realize the other person does not mean to offend, they can usually get along.

What is a Dialogue

In some of the dialogues, the readers realize there has been a misunderstanding, but in most-just as in real-life cross-cultural encounters-they do not!

Natasha:  Excuse me, but the elevator is out of order.

Sharon:  Really!  Whom should we talk to?

Natasha:  Talk to?

Sharon:  To report it.

Natasha: I have no idea.

Sharon: Oh, I’m sorry; I thought you lived in this building, too.

Natasha: But I do.

Activist, take-charge attitude of the American Sharon.  The fatalistic, wait and see attitude of the Russian, Natasha.  Sharon has been raised to believe that individual action can make a difference, that personal intervention of some sort on her part culd actually lead to getting this elevator fixed.  Natasha has been raised to believe that while individual action can sometimes bring results, there are many cases where it cannot-situations, that is, that are beyond the individual’s ability to control or influence.

Each person is likely to go away from the conversation confused, perhaps even annoyed, by te attitude of the other speaker.  Sharon goes away thinking that Natasha is somewhat passive and defeatist, giving up too easily, and Natasha goes away thinking Sharon is rather naïve and unrealistic to presume she can solve all the world’s problems.

While each person has responded to the situation very differently, each has also responded quite normally.  The problem, of course, is that what is normal in their respective cultures isw not the same.

If Natasha and Sharon were to repeatedly surprise each other with odd or frustrating behavior (they would probably call it “wrong” behavior), they would soon have serious doubts about each other.

You may feel the cultural misunderstandings in the dialogue are not obvious…you are right and this is deliberate…the cultural mistake one or both speakers make is not readily apparent and may not become so until we turn to the analysis.  The dialogue is a puzzle which the reader is then challenged to figure out, but the invisible nature of the mistake also accurately reflects real-life cross-cultural encounters, where the players are often not aware that a cultural difference has caused a misunderstanding.  If the two speakers were aware of their cultural differences, they would not be likely to misinterpret each other in the first place.

Why Dialogues

Understanding cultural differences in the abstract is quite different from recognizing and dealing with specific instances “in the flesh.”  It’s one thing to realize tat Americans and British are different, and even to understand the nature of the differences, but it’s quite another to appreciate the specific problems those differences can cause.  You need dialogues (or something like tem) to bring such differences to life.

People from two different countries who are in fact having a genuine cultural misunderstanding almost invariably assume that the problem is in fact something else-they usually think it’s personal-because they don’t know enough about culture to identify it as a problem.

Culture is Relative

The British are in fact indirect compared with many Americans but the Japanese would probably not find them so.  While Americans may be blunt compared with the British, the Germans wouldn’t necessarily agree (and Israelis most certainly would not).  An American may want to be more understated around the British but should speak more candidly to the Germans.

Generalizations

They contain some truth; they are part of the story; but never the whole story.  It’s about how people may behave in a given situation but not necessarily how they will behave or how they will always behave.  It depends on culture and circumstances.  A person’s culture is one of the circumstances that will influence his or her behavior in any given situation.

“But I’m only Going to London”

Cultures that are only somewhat different from one’s own may in fact pose more problems for the culture crosser than those that are wholly different.  Both sides may assume or project similarities that most assuredly do not exist.  Surface similarities can fool the unsuspecting into presuming beneath-the-surface sameness that is nowhere to be found.

“it is always a jolt for veteran US travelers to find that culture shock in France is more severe than in Saudi Arabia or Bolivia.  Elsewhere things look and sound different, so you expect them to be different.  But France looks like home.  Surprise!

A New World

Americans left and Europeans did not.  Life in Europe made those who chose to emigrate unhappy or dissatisfied, things they wanted to get away from.  Americans did not recreate or tolerate what they got away from.

Many US values are in reaction to what made Europe European.  Religious intolerance versus religious tolerance.  Rigid and oppressive class system versus a culture free of inherited rank and privilege.

Plus, the endless, physical landscape of the US made a difference.  The US was a chance to design from scratch a new paradigm, a noble experiment to build on the lessons of history-the false starts of their predecessors as well as their achievements-and establish a new world.

“America seemed indecently optimistic…a country that believed itself to be immune from most human ills and to have conquered most human problems.” Richard Pells

“The US was a gigantic political and economic lab in which the libertarian and egalitarian ideals of the 18^th century revolutions could be tested, modified, improved, and implemented.”

A Race of Races

A great variety of nationalities among the early immigrants…England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Holland, Finland, and Sweden.

“By the mid-18^th century, the European ancestry of most Americans was so mixed that they were no longer Englishmen or people of any race..” McElroy

They had become what Walt Whitman called “a race of races.”

Suddenly in the new world they were surrounded  by foreigners, by people un like themselves, with different customs, traditions, values, beliefs, and behaviors, and often languages.  But they had to clear the land together (or not at all).  In the daily collision of cultural traditions, values, and customs, there had to be give and take, compromise and tolerance.  They had to overlook the frustrating,

Shocking and “wrong” behavior of their neighbors.  This is how the sharpest edges of each nationality slowly wore down and rubbed smooth, un til before long the only word left to accurately describe these people-and their hybrid culture-was American.

Americans and the British

You may assume the US and British are the closest…they call each other cousins and speak the same language.  Note:  the Germans and French are not called cousins by the US.

This is debated but many British and non-British feel that social class still plays a prominent role in British culture.  We use mostly the upper and upper-middle class British as an example…it would not necessarily be true of the lower-middle and working-class sectors of the population.

In some ways, the gulf between the British working class and the British upper class is nearly as wide as that between the British and the Americans!

Dialogue 1

Susan:  Poor Nigel.

Arabella:  What happened?

Susan:  The meeting was a bust.  We didn’t get the new funding.

Arabella:  Did Nigel say anything?

Susan:  He didn’t have to.  It was written all over his face.

Arabella:  Oh, dear.

Analysis Dialogue 1:

·       Stiff upper lip.

·       Cultural proscription against displaying one’s emotions in public

·       Unflappability

·       Unchecked emotions are thought to lead too easily to chaos, or at he very least to unpleasantness, which is much the same thing.

·       The hotter the water one is in-the greater the necessity to stay calm.

·       What matters above all is keeping one’s dignity.

·       If you’re British you must never crack.

·       British reputation for reserve.

·       Public displays of emotion would be frowned upon, if frowning itself wasn’t a display of emotion.

Arabella is concerned to find out just how obvious Nigel was about his feelings, fearing he may have lost his cool in front of his colleagues and superiors.  She hopes he kept it all to himself.

Her “oh dear” is a lament that Nigel lost control over his emotions in public, thereby embarrassing himself and perhaps even the division they work for. 

·       Self control is the key to civility.

·       Civility is the cornerstone of British life.

·       “Scenes” are the ultimate British nightmare.

·       The desire not to cause any trouble is a very powerful motivating force in British life-one which sometimes threatens to be more important than life itself.

·       Emotional control among British is called “good manners” which has very little to do with knowing how to use a knife and fork.

·       Having good manners is the primary requisite of a gentleman, and the gentleman and gentlewoman are supposed to be models for the less fortunate.

There is a great British tradition of stoicism, of suffering in silence, and cheerfully coping with adversity.  The British believe life is a struggle and we have to be tough.  Emotional restraint may also have been the consequence of the class system, where you learned to hide your true feelings (especially negative ones) for fear of offending your betters upon whom you depended for your well-being.

Why does Susan miss most of what happens in the dialogue?  Why doesn’t she see the embarrassment that Nigel has brought on himself and feel sorry for him?  Why will she be surprised when Nigel upbraids her for telling Arabella about his unfortunate behavior?

The reason is because in Susan’s culture Nigel hasn’t done anything wrong and therefore has nothing to worry about.  He didn’t “lose it.”

Americans believe that civility purchased at the price of concealment and dishonesty, which is how the Americans view the British attempt to suppress emotions, is a dubious achievement.  Americans don’t trust people who don’t show any emotions.  They especially criticize people who feel one emotion and show another, finding such behavior wily and calculating.

Americans see emotional self-control as a check on their independence, an infringement on their God-given right of self-expression.

Susan has no idea she is delivering disappointing news to Arabella.

Americans dealing with British should know that whenever they think they have stayed within the bounds of decorum as far as displays of emotion are concerned, the British may think they have crossed the line.  Behavior that feels like self-control to an American, for example, may strike the British as rather emotional.

For their part, the Arbella’s of the world should realize that what constitutes good manners and reserve in their culture may come across to Americans as coldness and even as dissembling.

From Old World New World by Craig Storti, Intercultural Press, 2001.