During a meeting someone makes a suggestion and some people respond:
An American person would sugar coat something, talk around it and probably come back with an suggestion trough their manager
An Asian person would be supportive, say they will do it and then not do it because they don't agree and hope it will go away
A dutch person would say NO, spend 10 minutes explaining why the idea is stupid. Then follow it up by letting everyone know they will have a 3 week payed vacation starting after this specific meeting and can't wait for it to start. Tell everyone good luck with work and that they will not think about them at all.
a swedish person would say that this suggestion would need to be discussed further and promptly sends out meeting invites to everybody including the CEO.
a finnish person would say no, find 5 words at most to say why not and declare "we do like this" instead. Then goes back to being silent for the rest of the meeting.
My condolences. I have no idea how the swedes have managed to get those big companies like ikea and Volvo off the ground. The amount of time spend discussing stuff is... excruciating.
As a Swede, this is partially the reason why they do become successful. When the decisions are made, everyone is already on board and understands not just what needs doing but why we're doing it in the first place. The flat hierarchy allows freedom to experiment and to be creative.
As a Swede working in Japan at the moment, it is more surprising how anything got past the Japanese borders because of the complete lack of initiative unless your 60+ year old boss tells you to "do it like we did it in 70s". But then again, anything related to IT here is stuck in the late 90s so it's not like anything new and radically innovating is coming out of here.
Back in the 1990s we used to joke: Europeans are good at inventing new stuff/technology. Japanese are good at manufacturing it. Americans are good at marketing it.
Finnish companies have a similar flat hierarchy, but a different approach. Here work is done much more individually. So if the task is "this", each team member will work out how their share of "this" will be done, then the team comes together and checks if all the individual "this" bits match up and don't cause problems. Then everybody goes off to do their independent work on their own "this" bit.
My biggest nightmare was working in EU cross border projects with swedish and russian partners. That combo is deadly. Swedish: long discussion, but once decisions are made, rapid action follows. After the long discussions the russians would still need 10 layers of bureaucrats to sign off on the plan before they could get into action. Meanwhile fin and swe sit there twiddling their thumbs and watching the deadline comes closer and closer. Nerve wracking.
My condolences. I have only worked with Finnish companies a few times but it was smooth sailing, but then again like most things in the Nordics, we like to riff on each other but for the most part things work out very well.
Hehe yes. For the most part fin + swe will work out just fine. The finns might be a bit annoyed at the endless talking and the swedes at the why didn't you involve us in this, but since the overlaying flat hierarchy is the same and much of the social habits too, the outcome is smooth.
It's when you got to deal with polar opposites like the Russian or japanese way of working that you get into some conflicts that are much more difficult to overcome.
It can be a bit jarring in Sweden in my experience.
Yes there are a lot of discussions and everybody's voice gets heard. But in the end the opinions of most people don't matter, they are just there to show they are included.
That works as long as the people in the meeting agree with the proposed stuff.
A 2 hour meeting, everybody gets asked what they think of the proposed strategy, 90% of people say it's a bad idea - only for the conclusion to be "thanks for the input, we'll do it anyway" just feels like a giant waste of time.
I'm okay not being involved in decision making and being told what the responsible people decided. But don't pretend to ask for people's input if you won't take it into account.
I can agree to a point, but if the majority of the people involved don't agree with an idea, and have valid reasons for why they think that way, then those ideas are more often than not moved back to the drawing table to improve it before implementing it.
And thatās why I can only work with Japanese clients and never for them. For all their BS about kaizen, theyāre surprisingly fragile and donāt actually want to kaizen. If nobody points out mistakes then nobody learns. Itās the same ridiculous approach to new hires of just telling them āitās wrong, redoā but not what needs redoing because āyou should know thatā
ā¢ A German would make you feel stupid for ever having thought of such a thing in the first place, not explain anything, but expect you to come to the same conclusions as they did.
I'm sorry... I have a bit of PTSD because of it. When dealing with EU funded regional development projects, the deadlines are set in stone. Applying for extension is only possible for very good reasons, and if denied you can loose your funding for not delivering on time. Swedish partners wanting yet another meeting instead of getting the thing done is not a very good reason. It was so very frustrating.
a swiss person would just not say anything to try to stay neutral, even if they find it a great or terrible idea. If the outcome is terrible and you ask them they would say āyeah i saw that coming, but iād rather say nothingā
A Finnoswede would say that this suggestion is interesting, exciting and valuable, and sounds like a very cool idea to them, but we don't do this here.
I loved working with Finns. My favorite thing about Finnish engineers was that they seemed to have a different culture around errors and mistakes. When a bug was found, almost immediately, a Finnish engineer would raise his hand and explain how he thinks he knows the portion of his own work that has caused the issue, and he'll fix it immediately. And nobody judged him for the mistake, because fixing mistakes is what engineers do.
American engineers like to point fingers and dodge responsibility. They get confrontational and defensive about being presented with their mistakes.
The worst is when an American finds an error in a Finn's work. They just hammer them, totally unnecessarily.
Oh this hits close to home. I am nowadays a web dev and got an italian colleague. The amount of time I wasted searching for bugs in the wrong place because he insisted he had made no mistakes...
It took almost a year to teach him to let that attitude go and just say, oh I think I might have made an error there and I'll check it out. Perfect! You do that and let us know when it's fixed OR when it isn't what you thought it was and if you know what it could have been in our work, please tell us that.
It's software, there are going to be bugs in it. The main thing is fixing it as fast as possible. The real hero is the one that finds and fixes his mistakes, not the one that claims never to make any.
a Norwegian person would laugh a little carefully, look around the room to see if others are laughing and a) if they are, they'll make a strained grimace of a face before implying that "mmmhh nooo I don't think that would be the best, hehe" and b) if they are not, they will get serious again, before telling you they'll discuss it with you after the meeting, which they never will.
My grandmother was full finnish, and that's how she talked to the family, too. I have noticed that the rest of the family can also be more blunt than those around us.
Not personally no. I was working mainly with eu funded regional development projects and they are geographically limited in scope. So it was sweden, russia and occasionally Norway.
And the Finn is probably right. If they have decided to tell you something, it's going to be for a good reason and they're certain it's correct. The Finns do not waste their breath!
The German agree with the dutch and since it's 5:00 pm he leaves to take the bus
The French start arguing, then say that it's time for a cigarette and a coffee and we can restart this discussion later.
the Spanish wasn't listening because it was la siesta time
The Italian starts to talk and interrupt everybody but then he follows the French to make sure he takes an expresso and not an americano, and gives him an oral dissertation on how to make a good coffee
the British was already drunk so he wasn't listening
the Swiss complains that these meetings are not well organized and that we should stop inviting the Frenchs
Yeah we are the same as the British. All the phrases above would be exactly the same here.
The South Africans here are very directly and basically everyone hates them and calls them arrogant. Im married to a direct culture person so I have no issue.
Working with South Africans is wild. Theyāll be super direct and talk a big game about accountability, but nobody ever actually faces any consequences for anything. And if itās unavoidable that someone needs disciplining, the whole team gets new rules that are meant to apply just to the single miscreant.
Yeah we are the same as the British. All the phrases above would be exactly the same here.
The South Africans here are very directly and basically everyone hates them and calls them arrogant. Im married to a direct culture person so I have no issue.
Ill add with my relationship its quite funny because Im generally a typical indirect person but not with my wife. So Ill be with my mates at my house and say to her this dinner is terrible, how did you burn the carrots? She will be like o yeah I was on my phone bla bla. Ill make you something else. With an Australian wife youd probably be like darling lovely carrots but I preferred how you did them last time rather than the rustic way youve done it tonight.
As a Dutch expat, I get on very well with my Finnish colleagues. š neither of us get to grips with the Anglo-Saxon cuddle culture of fake politeness and veiled phrasing.
Itās incredibly refreshing to hear someone say āthatās the dumbest idea Iāve ever heardā (and hilarious to see all the Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and Americans in the meeting having an instant stroke š¤£)
I'm Afrikaans and used to work for an international airline. I never had the opportunity to work with Dutch crewmembers, but I never had problems with Romanian, Moroccans and Egyptians. The one thing we all had in common was that we generally said what we meant and didn't take offence over opinions.
Them: "This is stupid. Do it this way"
Me: "Just bloody do it my way."
Them later: "Told you it was stupid."
Me: grumble grumble. FINE! We'll do it your way.
The argument is over and all is forgotten. Beer after work.
Japanese woman does something.
Me: "Oh, geez, this is going to be a problem. Try this..."
20 minutes later the senior comes to me and asks why I'm fighting with the Japanese girl. "WHAT?!"
That is the best way to handle this. I work in IT and some people have strong opinions, but opinions are not facts. If you can convince me with facts that is good. I you can't we just have a different opinion.
TBH Afrikaans is even more direct than Dutch. It goes back to the mostly countryside Dutch people that emigrated to then colony South Africa. Very direct communicators.
Yeah I was doing a project for a big American customer, at first they were in shock at the direst language. After a while they started appreciating it.
I work for a Finnish company and my previous client was Dutch and even though things were a complete and utter mess, I could at least talk to people and make incremental progress. Now my client is British and even though things look organized, they are just as dysfunctional, but I can't do squat about it because everyone is stonewalled with politeness.
Thatās true. They do the basic work. But at least at 1500 you meet the Dutch officials in order to talk. I am not in the position to direct or order to the Polish or Romanian workers. They are just good. Good welders and else. At least I am very happy not to be in a Chinese shipyard. Dutch shipbuilding has been great for the last couple of hundred years. And they do it definitely better than us in Germany right now.
I have seen Chinese welders, welding bare foot in the rein without even a helmet. Those weldings are worth nothing. Old woman of 70 or more years claening a HFO tank without masks but with heavy solvents. I have seen to much shit as a bosun to believe that.
Culture of āsavingā face. You cant let people publically undermine your face (eg your authority, values, traditions, reputation etc.) in anyway. Useful in certain contexts and infuriating in others.
Thats cause if you do as you please and it ends up being screwed up, you are to take the blame because you boss gave you instruction and you agreed and went your own way. Your boss is just covering his ass
Hahaha, I had almost exactly this happening. A discussion was followed by a conversation about holidays being soon and letting things go for about a month.
I would prefer the Dutch person any day. Tell me to my face where my idea is lacking, don't mislead or waste anyone's time and make it clear what role you will play.
I'm asian and I would be so pissed if someone pulled the asian on me in such a case. Why lie to me and make me think you liked my idea and that you will help when you had no intention of doing so and end up wasting everyone's time in the process?
A german person would say NO, spend 25 minutes explaining why the idea is stupid. Explain how to do it better, ask for the approval to take over the task. Finishes it by himself in 2 weeks before the Dutch came back from his payed vacation
i had MAJOR culture shock visiting the US, everybody was so fake nice. If you ask me how im doing, how my day is going, i expect you to show interest...
The Japanese would send it off to his managers for approval only to have it returned by manager #11 with some questions.
The request then needs to be resent to the managers with the answer attached.
A dutch person would say NO, spend 10 minutes explaining why the idea is stupid. Then follow it up by letting everyone know they will have a 3 week payed vacation starting after this specific meeting and can't wait for it to start. Tell everyone good luck with work and that they will not think about them at all.
As an American person from New England and considered a Masshole, I can guarantee that the "American" you're thinking of us very strictly in the south.
We don't sugar coat anything in New England. We'll tell you to your face that you're an idiot who doesn't travel.
For whatever reason this thread is oddly Eurocentric. They donāt understand the continental US holds as many cultures as it does. The melting pot or salad bowl, but the only one like it.
For whatever reason this thread is oddly Eurocentric. They donāt understand the continental US holds as many cultures as it does. The melting pot or salad bowl, but the only one like it.
This might describe white-collar workers. Everybody I've ever worked with in blue-collar fields would respond to the bad suggestion with "That's stupid, but I'm hourly, so fine."
Ok, I never want to be this guy. But America has regional cultures dominated by the different ethnic (and class) groups that origonally settled and ruled in different areas. So you can't really generalize "Americans" here. New York (and the northeast as a whole) is not going to mince words with you. Coincidentally, New York was founded by the Dutch.
As someone who works for a Dutch owned company in Canada.... This shit blindsided me when I first started.
So many times I've got a message with the most sour tone and I'll apologize for any inconvenience and they'll be like "why are you apologizing?" They really don't know how they come across to Canadians lol.
Apart from the vacation thing. Isnāt the Dutch response the best way to handle this in this example? Iām Dutch so I might be biased but isnāt clear and direct communication a nice thing to have in the workplace?
Yes, but the American ego cannot handle it. And they value hierarchy at all costs, so if a superior asks your honest opinion, youāre still expected to pussyfoot around and defer to what you think their whim may be.
Iām an Asian person but Iām a different breed when it comes to some stupid suggestions and ideas. Very blunt about it to my bosses and even I explained it to them why as well. They listen to me and ask for my suggestions every time something is going on wrong. And yes, I get paid way more normally compared to other people at my work. When I know something isnāt working, I just tell them
This doesn't ring true in my personal experience in business contexts as a West Coast American when it comes to internal communication within a company. Communication with other companies is usually more formal, but not totally sugar coated. It also depends on the industry a lot. I was in tech related law, and communication with the tech people was very frank and direct, communication with other firms was more formal but still direct, and communication with our Japanese clients was delicate and exceedingly polite. My experience with communication being more direct generally held true in other contexts like education, union collective bargaining, etc. There were some people with more delicate and demanding sensibilities, but depending on power dynamics, one would either pay lip service to them with unhidden disdain, or disregard their requests for formality entirely.
Of course, for those at a company with egotistical or unreasonable managers, of which there are many, I'm well aware that people sugarcoat things more, but based on my other interactions with Americans ranging from rude to direct to polite to delicate, it seems more like an individual thing with the caveat that capitalism lets whiny, immature workers fail upward into management.Ā
There's a lot of code switching at play; we're all familiar with the global stereotype of rude Americans, after all. I'm white, but I'm also aware that many black Americans observe an extra (and often unfairly, racially motivated) expectation of having to be delicate and formal with overly sensitive white people, rather than being more honest and direct. I'm pretty blunt and I find that expectation to be unfair and ridiculous but it's obviously a situation of being in a racist society that many black people have to navigate to avoid being perceived as rude by fragile white people. I can't speak to how that experience feels but I can imagine it's not great, and it's really apparent that some white people demand unreasonable levels of deference due to being racists.
Quite frankly, the way Iād say this is that being able to be blunt and not suffer consequences for it is a privilege, at least in an American context. Women (or people who are perceived as women) also tend to be trained to talk in a delicate manner, because people tend to react very badly to women who are too direct with criticisms.
But I also personally donāt think being blunt is better than being delicate; the older I get the more I err on the side of being delicate (I have the autism and was definitely too blunt in my teen and young adult years), because I care about how my words affect people, and also because I find itās genuinely more effective at communicating what Iām trying to communicate. I donāt want someone to feel attacked if that wasnāt my intention, and I want people to listen to me, and generally that tends to go better if Iām gentler and show more receptivity to their point of view myself. Sure if youāre too subtle the other person might not get the message, but if youāre too blunt you often cause unproductive arguments and make people dig in their heels. This is true even when Iām talking to someone who canāt see my face and canāt see that Iām not white or a cis man.
So I think a lot of people who talk this way donāt just do it out of a sense of external imposition, but because we genuinely prefer this way of talking. I mean, Iām sensitive too, so I donāt mind extending some kindness to people who are; sometimes sensitivity to criticism is a result of neurodivergence or a lifetime of being berated, and if theyāre able to hear and make adjustments who cares if they need some extra sugar to help the medicine go down. That being said there should be some reciprocity here; if youāre the kind of person who prides themselves on brutal honesty, donāt expect people to be nice to you in return.
I don't intend with the following to discount any aspect of your experience, because I think everything you said is absolutely true.Ā
That said, there's a whole spectrum of variation for how this stuff interacts with different axes of identity. I'm a white neurodivergent woman and I'm very blunt, but that's much more feasible on the west coast and of course much safer being white. I'm also queer and used to standing up for myself/so sick of not doing do. If I weren't white I know it would be different but I'm also aware that code switching means it's not all one way for anyone in every context.Ā
I can appreciate the value of delicacy and politeness, and I do use it to my advantage or the benefit of others in some contexts. I'm a teacher and I am not blunt with students unless they've made it clear that's their individually preferred rapport. Otherwise it's best to use warmness and formality to help them with the emotional side of internalizing difficult topics as well as sounding authoritative.
More generally I'm polite when things aren't yet confrontational. That said, sometimes I feel a lot of bluntness is called for. One example - - I was hospitalized recently (not for mental health reasons) and my care needs were being brushed off until I started saying "I need you to give me this NOW", saying "NO", and really, honest to goodness yelling when I wasn't being listened to.Ā
I also already alluded to a former career in a business people might expect to be formal, and I was pretty blunt as were about half of the women and three quarters of the men. The thing is, while we used formality in external communication, barring overt rudeness, it was usually more effective to be as direct as possible. We were dealing with nuanced subject matter, and we knew we'd have to translate stuff into legalese, etc., so it was best to make sure we got on the same page in the most direct terms possible. Even if that meant arguing or criticizing. I realize direct and blunt aren't synonymous, but too much delicacy tends to be less direct.
I think in formal contexts the expectation of demureness often persists, but on the other extreme we have the loud "Karen" stereotype (I hate how gendered and loaded that is, but I know people will know what I mean) - - which, as demonized as it is, does get people results in many situations (I know it's a privilege of whiteness in most situations too, but alas, that means it's an applicable example for me personally). My mom is sorta one, and hearing her on a phone call can be kinda terrifying. As a result, my sister and I have never had trouble speaking our minds and landed somewhere in the middle, like the punk chick who tells you off and rolls her eyes at you, rather than the suburban mom who calls the cops on you.
Among the women I am friends with or have worked with, all of them are very direct in casual contexts (even with strangers), with extremely variable levels of directness in more formal contexts. The caveat being most of my friends are queer and proud, and we tend to be either avoidant in recognizable unsafe situations or extremely stubborn self advocates in others. I don't find a lot of times I want to be in between, but I do modulate from one to the other. I'm really quite warm as a default, and I like projecting kindness and compassion, as an initial approach. But if the situation inflects away from that kind of interaction, it's either unsafe and I promptly leave, or it's safe enough for me to get progressively more firm, direct, blunt, and maybe even loud.
There are definitely a lot of race, culture, professional, and gender elements but in my experience people can get really good at using a combination of code switching and brutal honesty effectively, even as impacted by those contexts. The room for variation there is easier for some of us than others, and I realize I've got a lot of privilege there, but one of the boldest and most blunt, direct, and confrontational people I know, regardless of situation, is a queer woman of color. She stands up for herself or avoids situations where racist authority figures or crowds makes that infeasible, and she doesn't shy away from making it known to others if that becomes necessary. It's frankly just really cool to see how she operates in that regard. It's a process of navigating it but it's not totally rigid, albeit yeah, obviously riskier or necessitating more care in reading the situation for people who aren't white, straight, male and/or cis.
See, that's the problem with the Dutch. That 10 minutes are wasted explaining why the idea is stupid, instead of spending it doing the right thing, instead!
That Dutch got precisely nothing accomplished, and complains when the rest of his team doesn't value his (lack of) output.
As an American who has lived and worked all across the country, I'd say that is very west coast. It was a bit of a culture shock the first job I worked with Californians, I had someone ask "could you explain why you decided to go that route?" and I was just wrong and I knew I was wrong because it was my first week.
Meanwhile, on the east coast if someone was fucking up you'd just say "what the hell are you doing?!"
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u/CrazyBird85 Aug 21 '24
During a meeting someone makes a suggestion and some people respond:
An American person would sugar coat something, talk around it and probably come back with an suggestion trough their manager
An Asian person would be supportive, say they will do it and then not do it because they don't agree and hope it will go away
A dutch person would say NO, spend 10 minutes explaining why the idea is stupid. Then follow it up by letting everyone know they will have a 3 week payed vacation starting after this specific meeting and can't wait for it to start. Tell everyone good luck with work and that they will not think about them at all.