I was working with a team where I had just British and Dutch on the team and
the British person wrote a report and he sent it to his Dutch colleague for
feedback the Dutch person thought the report was horrible he thought about how
to improve it. The next day he called up his British colleague, he had the value
system of the importance of honesty that was driving the way he gave the feedback.
So he said, I read through your report we can't send this to the client like this.
The introduction is weak, here are some things we could do to improve the
introduction. There's a lack of logic flow in the middle of the report, here
are some ways we could improve the logic flow. There are a number of grammatical
errors that I circled here. As he went through that feedback the British person
was taking this feedback very emotionally, personally. He was thinking
you know this guy is arrogant, he doesn't seem to like me, I don't think I like him.
He thought, this is the last time that I'm gonna ask this person for feedback.
Now the next week the tables turned and in the second situation, exactly the
opposite, the Dutch person wrote the report he sent it to the British person
who thought it was horrible, who thought about how to improve it, who called up
the Dutch person the next day. But when the British person called up the Dutch
person, he gave the feedback in a different way. He said, I read through
your report and there were a number of things about the report that I liked,
for example, this portion I thought was well-written, this section I thought was
well researched, now, if you wanted to make some changes I have just a few
small suggestions for you. So I was thinking that the introduction to this
report could be even stronger with just some small modifications, here are my
thoughts, very small grammatical errors that I just cleaned up for you, and in
the middle of the report I think we could be very powerful, there's some
minor adaptations. Now when the Dutch person got this feedback he thought, okay
reports good, right? He made a few minor changes, he sent it off to his
client, a week later he learned from someone else that that British guy
didn't like the report. Now he thought, you know, this guy lied to me he's a
hypocrite, you can't trust him, that's the last time I'm gonna ask him for feedback.
Now when you look at the country positions, you may notice that some of
the countries have shifted from being more high context on the last scale to
be more direct with negative feedback. Okay, that means that these are cultures
where we speak between the lines a lot, we read the air a lot, but when it comes
to giving negative feedback we're more likely to use upgraders which are words
that make the negative message stronger, feel stronger, like, this is totally
unacceptable, or this is absolutely inappropriate. In more indirect cultures
we use more down graders, like, you might possibly think about doing this a little
differently, maybe. Maybe in the future maybe you'll notice a little more when
you're using up graders and down graders and you start making some slight
adjustments. Now you also might notice that some cultures have shifted from
being more low context on the last scale to be more middle on this scale. So the
US I think is kind of an interesting one, the lowest context culture in the world,
people are taught you know to be very transparent at all moments except when
it comes to providing negative feedback. And when it comes to criticism Americans
have been taught to give three positives with every negative, to catch people
doing things right, to do what I call positive anchoring, which means if I have
to tell you your work was not acceptable I should first tell you what was
acceptable, which shows respect. And I think that we can see now what happened
to poor Sabine. Do you remember Sabine? That you know in
France positive feedback is given less frequently and less strongly than in the
US and negative feedback is given more frequently and more strongly, so when her
American boss started by telling her all of the things she was doing well,
Sabine thought this is the best performance review I've ever received.
By the time John got to the real message she wasn't even listening anymore and I
just thought I would give a very quick, again, example about children. So okay so
I told you how these two boys--and my boys were born in France and they have
always lived in France and they've always gone to the French school around
the corner from our house--but I took them last summer to Minnesota so that
they could learn to write better in English. And I saw the way they were
bathed differently in the US. So, Ethan comes home from school in the
evening in Minnesota he shows me his paper, his teacher has written things
like, you know, fantastic work exclamation mark, or wonderful job smiley face. When
he doesn't do well she writes things like, you're almost there, you know, a
little more effort you are on your way. I can tell you it is not like this in
France. So even takes a dictation test every Monday, he works
really hard he goes he takes the test he brings at home no matter what there are
red marks all over it, right, I mean the teacher will have written things like
"applique toi" exclamation mark, which means, apply yourself, or maybe she will
have written N/A which means skills not acquired and when I see this feedback it
hurts me, you know, I think, oh, he's gonna lose his
self-esteem he's gonna start hating school but I've seen that I am the one
that's having culture shock, you know, my my kids, they understand it, Mom, what's
the big deal, I have the fifth best paper in the class. So I just think it's
interesting that already at age seven that one child is developing a more
sensitive skin, right? And another child a tougher skin, and to some degree that then
may stay with us as we grow up and go into business. Okay so let's just wrap up
this by saying with the first two dimensions that we've looked at so far
if you come from a culture that has consistent positions on the first two
scales this is not so difficult, so Dutch, low-context direct, they know they're
direct, others stereotype them as direct, you have a Dutch person who speaks
really directly people know it's cultural. But if you're working with people who
switch positions on the scale it's more complicated. Russians don't think of
themselves as direct because they're high context. Others don't stereotype
them as direct, they're high context. So if you have a Russian person who gives
really direct negative feedback people are much more likely to think that
individual is inappropriate instead of recognizing that there's a cultural
component to it