Growing up I was told the US culture and the Chinese culture are the polar opposites. The US and western cultures in general are individualistic cultures, where people value independence and are more likely to see themselves as individuals separate from others. Individualists tend to communicate in direct styles—they say what they mean, prioritizing that information is conveyed explicitly and unambiguously. By contrast, Asian cultures value personal interdependence. These are collectivist cultures where people are more likely to see themselves as connected to others and maintaining social harmony, getting along with others, and meeting social expectations are more important than expressing individual freedom. They tend to communicate in indirect styles—collectivists imply what they really mean, but might say otherwise to avoid conflict or embarrassment.
Having lived half of my life in China and the other half in the US, I’ve often felt this individualism vs. collectivism dichotomy is overly simplistic. While maintaining social harmony has been an important tradition in China, the Chinese people, especially the younger generations, do not hesitate to express their individuality. Similarly, the communication style in the US is not as direct as the Easterners perceive. In fact, you can easily get into trouble in the corporate world if you express your thoughts too directly – wordsmithing is an art you have to master to excel in the US.
Luckily I came across Erin Meyer’s book “The Culture Map”, which examines cross cultural differences through eight dimensions rather than the duality of individualism vs. collectivism. While still a gross generalization, which discussing behaviors at a cultural level inherently is, the eight dimensions do a much better job in capturing the nuanced differences between various cultures and therefore can be a much more effective tool providing guidance for those who have to navigate between cultures. Indeed, Netflix has used this book to train its employees on how to work with cross culture teams.
Each of the eight dimensions is described as a continuum between the two ends which are diametric opposite or at least competing positions as follows:
1. Communicating – Are they low-context (simple, verbose and clear), or high-context (rich deep meaning in interactions)?
2. Persuading – Do they like to hear specific cases and examples, or prefer holistic explanations?
3. Evaluating – When giving negative feedback does one give it directly, or prefer being indirect and discreet?
4. Disagreeing – Are disagreements tackled directly, or do people prefer to avoid confrontations?
5. Leading – Are people in groups egalitarian, or do they prefer hierarchy?
6. Deciding – Are decisions made in consensus, or made top-down?
7. Trusting – Do people base trust on how well they know each other, or how well they do tasks together?
8. Scheduling – Do they perceive time as absolute linear points, or consider it a flexible range?
Out of the eight dimensions, the US and China end up at the opposite end of the scale only for the first two. On the communicating scale, the US is a very low context culture whereas China is a high context culture. I find this dimension highly correlated to the history and diversity of the culture. With its long history and a relatively homogeneous population, China is rich in cultural norms and traditions. Many messages are passed implicitly without having to spell out the details. Many European countries which enjoy long histories, such as Italy and France, are more similar to China on this dimension. What is valued in these cultures is the unspoken rather than the spoken. In fact, the more educated you are in these cultures, the more likely you would layer your communication so it may mean one thing on the surface but those “in the know” may detect a different meaning underneath. By contrast, the US is an immigrant country with little shared history. In order to communicate effectively between immigrants who came from diverse cultures, Americans have learned to not make assumptions, but rather state every assumption explicitly, check and recheck to make sure everyone is on the same page. The highly educated American is one who can communicate in an explicit and lucid way, articulating even the most subtle differences.
The second dimension is somewhat related to the 1st dimension in that the goal of effective communication is oftentimes persuasion. In a low context culture like the US where communication is about being explicit and precise, the most effective tool of persuasion is case studies. In fact, the MBA education is all about case studies. The logic of using one example to derive general rules is highly flawed of course. That’s why the Asian cultures tend to focus on the big picture, holistic explanations. The most dramatic example that illustrates this philosophical difference between the East and the West is our approach to medicine. The Western medicine tends to treat the specific area where the symptom arises whereas the Eastern medicine sees the human body as an interconnected system and aims to treat the underlying causes that may or may not be overtly visible.
It is these two dimensions that usually cause the most misunderstanding and frustrations doing business between the US and China. Americans, even those who have learned the language and lived in China for years, inevitably fail to understand the rich subtext of Chinese communications, whereas the Chinese see the American way of always having to spell every detail out not only exhausting but also a sign of mistrust. But if we can look past or learn to appreciate these two differences, we may realize there is a whole lot more in common between the American and Chinese cultures, for they both fall somewhere in the middle of the other six scales.
#3 and #4 can be lumped together, as they both have to do with how we deal with disagreements, conflicts and negative feedback. It may surprise many Chinese readers that the US is generally not a confrontational culture. Yes, you will see heated debates on TV or on social media, but those are curated medium whose business model is built on catching eyeballs and creating controversy. The behaviors you see there are more like a performance and by no means represent how people interact in real world situations. Direct confrontation is highly frowned upon in companies or schools. People are encouraged to freely express what they think, but only in a way that does not hurt other people’s feelings. In fact, the US culture has shifted, especially in the last twenty years, to be one that is hyper sensitive to “political correctness”, a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. People who make insensitive remarks (many times unintentionally) can be canceled, banned from social media or even losing their jobs.
This is an area where I find immigrants from China tend to suffer a disadvantage in the corporate world. Learning English as a second language, we tend to adopt the language in a more literal sense. If we disagree, we may simply say “we disagree”, which can be perceived as being blunt. More skilled native speakers might say something like “May I play the devil’s advocate?” or “Could we think about the possibility…”, suggesting an alternative without claiming disagreement. In essence, this is similar to “saving face” in the Chinese culture, to disagree in a way that does not embarrass the person you are disagreeing with. Cleverly, these types of “disclaimers” also disassociate yourself from the suggested alternative, so if the other person comes back with an argument that you cannot dispute, you can easily extricate yourself from the counterpoint you just posed a moment ago by saying “I agree. I just wanted us to think through all perspectives.”
I learned this the hard way. When I first became a manager in the US, I drank the Kool-Aid that managers should give direct feedback to employees to help them grow, only to learn that did not go so well. I was accused of being “too harsh” and my manager had to coach me on “not everybody could adhere to the same stringent standard you hold for yourself.” (See? Even that negative feedback to me was couched in positivity – look, you have high standard for yourself.) Since then, I’ve learned to frame my reviews with mostly positive reinforcements and optionally sneak in a couple of comments that are positioned as “growth opportunities” as opposed to “negative feedback”. Believe it or not, that is the American culture, as Erin Meyer gave an example in her book of how one American boss gave feedback to a French employee. He was so positive in most of the feedback session that she was over the moon and by the time he came to his “negative” feedback, she did not process that at all. She was dumbfounded when he did not give her a raise, as she thought that was the most positive review she ever heard in her life! So lesson learned for the Chinese – when Americans give you rave reviews, never take that at face value!
#5 and #6 are related to leadership style and decision making. Again, this may come as a shock to many Chinese readers, that the American society is much more hierarchical than you think. Yes, the American culture touts an easy going lifestyle and a rebellious spirit against authority, but the corporate culture is generally hierarchical. The big bosses may advocate open door policies that encourage lower level employees to have skip level sessions, but rest assured if you do that without the knowledge of your direct supervisor, that kind of betrayal won’t go unnoticed, not only by your direct supervisor, but also by his or her supervisor. It is an unwritten rule that reporting structures have to be respected and people who violate that rule are not to be trusted.
Similarly, decision making powers are generally centralized in the corporate world (not in the US political system due to the constitutional mandate of divided power between the legislative, executive and legal branches of the government). Successful companies tend to have charismatic leaders who have unquestionable authority. That does not necessarily have to mean authoritarian, although some of them are, but at least in the sense that the leader sets the direction and the rest of the company follows suit. This is probably a necessity for US companies, because consensus building (Japan and Sweden are examples of consensus building cultures) will simply be too inefficient and almost impossible in a US company with employees coming from very diverse backgrounds.
The 7th dimension is how you build trust. It is well known that China is a relationship culture – Guanxi, an intricate web of relationships will determine your success in business and personal life. The US, on the other hand, is usually perceived to be a task oriented society where many relationships are transactional. My personal experiences in the US have taught me this is far from the truth. If you look at the founding members of a startup, they typically have worked together in the past or have known each other for a long time (e.g., childhood friends). Hollywood and the Wall Street are notoriously hard for outsiders to break in. You have to know someone who knows someone to get your foot in the door. How well you get along with your colleagues (soft skills) in the corporate world is frequently more valued than your competency (hard skills). Even in the education system which is supposed to be merit based, the ivy league schools all have legacy systems, quotas reserved for children of the alumni. It’s all about who you know, true in China and true in the US. The only difference lies in how you build relationships – in China, it may be banquets and gifts. In the US, it could be the golf club membership, the schools you went to or your kids go to, or sports.
Finally, the time/scheduling dimension, I find there is very little difference between the US and China in business settings: being on time is equally important in both cultures. The only difference is Americans tend to plan meetings way ahead of time because they tend to have more control over their schedule whereas the Chinese corporate culture is less structured and therefore people have a hard time committing to a meeting 3 months in advance.
In summary, there are many cultural differences between the US and China, but I find there are more commonalities than we realize. The US is in fact full of contradictions: with its European roots, its ideology is egalitarian, but as an immigrant country dealing with the challenges of a “melting pot”, it has favored (at least in the corporate world) efficiency over consensus, harmony over conflict, relationship over competence. As Chinese Americans, we sometimes overcompensate our “Chineseness” by trying to follow what we believe are more “American” behaviors. Little do we realize Americans are more Chinese than they lead us to believe!
