Eastern versus Western ways of knowing in international teams

The opposite of a great truth is also true.

Zen Buddhist Dictum

If you are a Westerner interested in doing business or managing a team with the Chinese and not familiar with cultural differences, it is enormously useful to learn about differences in reasoning when presenting a business proposal or organizational change. As a Westerner being persuasive can be greatly enhanced by understanding some of the fundamental differences in Western and Eastern thought.

Eastern Dialecticism versus Western Formal Logic

The Chinese developed a system of thought, dialectical reasoning, which is opposed to formal logic from the Western tradition in many ways. Eastern dialecticism is at the foundation of Eastern thought and has the following characteristics:

1. The principle of relationships. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. Parts are meaningful only in relation to the whole.
2. The principle of change. Reality is a process of change (what is currently true will shortly be false;
3. The principle of contradiction. Contradiction is the dynamic underlying change;

Whereas at the foundation of the Western tradition of thought is formal logic.

Aristotle exemplified the foundation of formal logic such that:

1. A=A A is itself and not some other thing;
2. A and not A cannot be both the case. A proposition and its opposite cannot be both true.
3. Exclude everything in between. Everything must either be or not be.

Based upon various research of cultural difference, such as by the social psychologist, Richard Nisbett, people who grow up under the influence of Chinese traditions do not accept these propositions as being necessarily true for all kinds of problems. (Source: Richard E. Nisbett (2015) Mindware: Tools For Smart Thinking.)

While formal logic is broadly accepted in Western quarters, people influenced by Eastern thought may find the contradictions in certain contexts since, in Eastern thought, the principle of contradiction is the dynamic underlying change.

Dynamic of change in geographic context

I worked within a team within a global corporation where a senior manager displayed annoyance and complained about a deadline not being likely to be met by the end of the week by a Taiwanese team.   Little did he know that a typhoon had hit the capital and had all but taken the business district to a grinding halt. The Taiwanese team I was working with had understandably stayed at home for a couple of days in the interests of their own personal safety. This story highlights a cognitive blindness caused by concentrating on a specific problem (the need to meet a deadline for a project) without seeking to understand the broader situational context (an extreme weather event). An extreme weather event had not only disrupted the usual business momentum, but more importantly team members’ personal safety at was at stake. This is an example of not seeking to understand in a more holistic manner while failing to take into the geographical context.  Focussing on the brutal logic of a deadline makes no sense.  Relationships are important.  Parts are meaningful only in relation to the whole.  And where is the  humanity?

What to do?

If you are a Western educated manager leading a team of people from countries influenced by Eastern thought, you will have greater influence and illicit greater support if you explain things in terms of the big picture and a broad context. Rather than give directives to individual team members in isolation, you would be better if you provided an overview of how all the pieces fit together in the system, provide a macro-view, and provide insight into what other members of the team are doing.

Nisbett makes an insightful recommendation, which may be applicable to a Western educated manager attempting to influence a team from an Eastern educated audience:

“Sometimes it is helpful to try to dissolve contradictions, but sometimes it’s more productive to acknowledge them and see whether the truth might lie between the contradictory ideas, or whether it’s possible to transcend the contradictions and find some respect in which both are true.” 2

Effective cross-cultural collaboration with our Eastern educated friends and colleagues can be dramatically enhanced with a sensitivity to the cultural influence of Eastern thought. Try to embrace seemingly contradictory ideas and paradox and know that the parts are meaningful only in relation to the whole.

1 Richard E. Nisbett (2015) Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking

How can a manager create coherence in different cultural environments?

Effective communication for managers and leaders should be layered, sensitive to context, and the message needs to be relevant to the recipients of the communication. One way to become a more persuasive communicator is to understand whether a team member is from a high or low context culture. While everyone is different, there are some cultural norms that are useful to be aware of. This discussion will look at ways in which managers can create coherence in different cultural environments.

What is the difference between low and high context?

Some countries favor communication that is precise, simple and clear. This means a preference for low context communication. Countries on far end of the low context dimension include US, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Germany. On the other end of the scale are countries, where sophisticated, nuanced and layered communication is deemed to be good communication. Messages may be implied in speech and people tend to read between the lines. Countries on the high context end of the spectrum include Japan, China, Indonesia and Korea.

Source: The Culture Map: Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business by Erin Meyer

Influences of history and language

The history of a country has a significant impact on the position of the country on the context communication scale. Language is also relevant however notice in the table above that there is a considerable space between the United States and the United Kingdom, even though they are both English-speaking countries.

A high-context country such as Japan is collectivist rather than individualist. Shared meaning and context have been transmitted through a broad network of relationships from generation to generation in a long history of thousands of years. In this environment, the Japanese have become adept at reading between the lines and picking up nuances in communication. Whereas a country like Australia is a relatively young country with only several hundred years built on a foundation of immigration. Its cultural norms could be thought of as more eclectic spanning across its cultural diversity. In a census from 2011, the nominated ancestry comprised of English (36.1%), followed by Australian (35.4%),[218] Irish (10.4%), Scottish (8.9%), Italian (4.6%), German (4.5%), Chinese (4.3%), Indian (2.0%), Greek (1.9%), and Dutch (1.7%).

(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia)

Australia is characterized as a highly individualistic country, on the individualism versus collectivism index from the Hofstede cultural dimensions model .   Given these characteristics: its short history, cultural diversity and individualism, Australia is a country that generally favours low-context communication. Many people believe that good communication is precise, succinct, and simple.  While precise and simple communication, using the right language to appeal to people from different cultures, are important in defining expectations and goals, it necessary to set the right context.

Situational Context Matters

Effective communication needs to be supplemented with creating the right context in the work environment. If an organisation creates clear communication but an environment with an expectation that employees should put in extreme work hours, then this context in the environment is unlikely to create strong morale and productivity:

“…many of the companies in Silicon Valley and Alley areas pride themselves on having 20-hour days for employees and untold sacrifices of family life.  To hold an employee’s family in utter disregard is unlikely to create a context of respect and trust, both of which are prerequisites of coherence.”

(Source: The Next Common Sense: The e-Manager’s Guide to Mastering Complexity by Michael Lissack and Johan Roos) 

However what about if you are functioning within a complex system of thousands of geographically dispersed employees in a national or global organisation?  Precise communication of project goals should not come at the expense of understanding the context of a particular geographic region.

Geographical and historical context matters

I have had experience in an international organisation in which senior managers planned for the role out of a global technology solution but did not initially take into account of the unique geographical and historical contexts of the agreement with a major client within a particular region.  The specific contractual agreement with this major client had clauses that did not conform to the global standardisation of technological solution.   Furthermore there were particular privacy clauses in the agreement which made the implementation of the technology as having unique, tailored conformance requirements.  Sometime local, situational context needs to be taken into consideration rather than relying on oversimplifying with a global mental model.  The parts of the system (eg. a specific historical and geographic context) need to sometimes be redefined and recombined to form a new whole.

Steps managers can take to create team coherence

 Promoting coherence within an organization can be difficult and sufficient effort needs to be made to create it. The following steps outline an overall approach devised by Michael Lissack and Johan Roos in The Next Common Sense:

         1. Clarify your purpose and objectives within the organization

Be accountable for your actions which are in alignment to your goals. Articulate your goals clearly and precisely, but don’t forget that face to face talks, teleconferences are more effective forms of communication than emails.

2. Use the right language

Selecting the right language means understanding the various contexts: the social, political contexts, attitudes of executive teams, existing norms of the organization. With this type of awareness and knowledge, the right language can be crafted to articulate your goals.

3. Create the right context

Determine what components in the environment are available to fulfill your corporate objectives. Conduct a gap analysis to ascertain what elements in your environment (cultural, technical, financial, people) are missing to meet your goals.   What are the heuristics and environmental factors required to meet your organizational objectives?

4. Turn people loose and get out of the way

Put your energy into your principles, purpose, motivation and conduct rather than micromanaging people in your team.   A great way to inhibit people is to hover which can impede people from taking the initiative to take ownership of their work and apply their own creativity. Get out of the way, but provide a supportive emotional environment, the technology and information required, and give team members a sense of making progress.

(Source: The Progress Principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work by Terese Amabile & Steven Kramer)

5. Use communication that works

 Convey meaning through stories. Relate stories that are communicated from the heart. Somehow relate your stories to the basic values shared in the organization. Engage the imagination of the listeners. Open up a discussion to explore the stories, their relevance and ramifications.

Sources:

The Next Common Sense: The E-Manager’s Guide to Mastering Complexity by Michael Lissack and Johan Roos

An excellent guide to managing complexity in organisations

The Culture Map: Breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business by Erin Meyer

A comprehensive examination and advice relating to cross-cultural communication in business.

The Progress Principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work by Terese Amabile & Steven Kramer

A definite guide to getting the best out of your team through cultivating a positive inner work life

The art of persuasion in cross-cultural teams

The art of persuasion in cross-cultural teams is a crucial business skill. Leaders and managers need to effectively attract support and develop rapport in cross-cultural contexts. Leading people requires motivating teams to adopt a new approach, cooperate and collectively to achieve an organisatonal objective. I have found that it is critical to seek to understand other’s mental models and cultural perspectives to gain wide support across cultural and organizational boundaries.

Beliefs embedded in cultural assumptions

Individual belief systems are deeply rooted in their culture’s philosophical, educational and religious assumptions. A leader cannot expect to persuade all the members of cross-cultural teams without having developed a degree of cultural sensitivity driven by curiosity about other’s perspectives.

There is one take home skill for the art of persuading in cross-cultural management. Understand how people are persuaded from different cultures.

Two Types of Reasoning

In the art of persuasion, there are two types of reasoning, which have different degrees of impact across cultures: principle-first (deductive) reasoning and applications-first (inductive) reasoning. Principle-first reasoning derives conclusions from general principles. For example, if we were to use a famous example of deductive reasoning:

1. The general principle: All men are mortal;
2. Socrates is a man;
3. Therefore Socrates is mortal.

Whereas with application-first (inductive) reasoning, general conclusions are derived from factual observations in the real world. For example, if it is noted that recorded readings of weather patterns from various sites around the world are hotter than average over the last 50 years, then climate scientists make various conclusions based upon those facts.

Most people are more accustomed to one of the two methods of reasoning which is influenced by the particular culture’s educational system. However depending upon where education took place there is a greater emphasis on one style of reasoning over another.

Anglo-Saxon cultures like Australia, United States, UK, Canada and New Zealand are on the application-first side of the persuasion scale.  Whereas countries such as Italy, France, Russia and Spain are on the principles-first side of the persuasive scale.

So how does a manager adapt her persuasive technique when attempting to persuade a team from various nationalities around the world to adopt a new method of working in an organization?

Take home message: alternate between these approaches

The most effective technique is to use a combination of theoretical explanations and practical examples. Theoretical explanations will appeal to the preferences of members of the team who have a preference for principle-first reasoning.

While those people who are more inclined to application-first reasoning are more likely to immediately respond to practical examples. In business schools, the case study method is an example of how application-first reasoning is applied in an MBA program. The art of persuasion for leaders and managers is best achieved through alternating between these two approaches.