Introduction to Richard Gesteland’s Patterns of Cross-Cultural Business Behavior

Patterns/ ’The Toolbox’

Five key variables create serious differences between the 7,000 or so world cultures. Based on Richard’s own experience plus his extensive examination of management literature, he has identified the cultural variables that most often cause problems for international negotiators and managers: Deal-focused vs. Relationship-focused, Direct vs. Indirect Communication Style, Egalitarian vs. Hierarchical Business Behavior, Monochronic vs. Polychronic Time Behavior and Reserved vs. Expressive Communication Style.

Deal-focused or Relationship-focused

Almost all business cultures worldwide can be classified as relationship-focused (RF). Only a handful of cultures in Northern Europe, North America and Australasia are deal-focused (DF).
DF businesspeople – Danes, for example – normally make direct contact with potential customers or business partners. They tend to put less emphasis on relationships and more on getting the job done. People from RF cultures often expect to be approached via third-party introductions or referrals; they tend to be suspicious of the direct approach and will, therefore, often reject them. RF people, such as most Asians, expect to socialize before getting down to business. In contrast, Danes and their DF cousins usually expect to discuss business after just a few minutes of small talk and on the first meeting.

Direct or Indirect Communication Style

Variations in verbal directness cause serious misunderstandings in the interactions between people from RF and DF business cultures. That’s because DF people prefer direct, straight-forward language (’Low Context’), whereas their RF counterparts are accustomed to indirect, ’polite’ language (’High Context’). The RF indirectness regularly confuses people from Northern Europe and North America. For example, at workshops in Scandinavia about China or India, participants often ask: ”When does our partner’s ’yes’ really mean yes?” DF businesspeople are often puzzled and frustrated with the indirect communication style from their RF counterparts.

Egalitarian or Hierarchical Business Behavior

The vast majority of cultures around the world have hierarchical values, which produce formal business behavior. Only a handful of cultures – and mostly those in the Nordic region – have egalitarian values, which have instead lead to informal business behavior.
Here, the problem is that Danish informality in forms of address and dress, for example, can unintentionally offend customers from formal, hierarchical cultures. This cultural difference is demonstrated by German formality versus Danish informality. Even though these two North European countries share many cultural characteristics, German formality and hierarchies continue to cause misunderstandings for Danish businesspeople.

Monochronic (Rigid) or Polychronic (Fluid) Time Behavior

People in some of the world’s business cultures worship the clock while others are relaxed about deadlines and schedules. Negotiators from monochronic cultures like Denmark, Germany and Switzerland are frequently frustrated when faced with the polychronic attitudes common in most countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. In polychronic countries people do not mind being interrupted in meetings or by ringing mobile phones, as they are used to do several things at the same time. Monochronic people prefer to do one thing at a time and to follow an agenda. Therefore, it is a challenge for monochronic people to work in or do business with polychronic countries.Emotional or Reserved Communication

In face-to-face negotiations, differences in nonverbal language frequently cause miscommunication. That’s because body language sends a much stronger signal than verbal language. Eye contact, interpersonal distance, touch behavior and physical gestures often have different meanings across cultures. In our workshops we spend time exploring these differences to help participants avoid culture clashes in their international business dealings.

Customized, Practical and Interactive Workshops

We all learn best by doing things ourselves. Of course, we prefer to learn from the mistakes of others rather than make our own. Our workshops feature lively, small-group discussions about short, one-page cases taken from the real world of global business. Also included are analyses of the business cultures that participants have chosen to target during the workshops. China and India are popular choices today, but all of the 43 profiles found in Richard’s book, Cross-Cultural Business Behavior (CBS Press, 5th Edition 2012), are offered.