THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE
The best response for business across cultures is openness to what may be learned about another culture and drawn from it in order to communicate more effectively with its members. The same openness needs to be applied to one's self and one's own culture. Know thyself; know thine enemies: One hundred battles; one hundred victories. SunTzu, Chinese martial philosopher "Know thyself” is advice handed down from ancient philosophers of many cultures. In order to understand the other person you have to understand yourself. This isn't as easy to do as it may seem at first; most of what makes up a culture is absorbed unconsciously in the growing-up process of socialization. How do we get at it? How do we distinguish what we take for granted as universal human experience from what is culturally determined? We need to be able to examine the operating environment of the mind that enables us to run various mental programs. The transparent nature of the culture windows is the basic difficulty in coming to terms with one's own culture. The more deeply embedded cultural values and attitudes are, the less conscious they are and the harder they are to examine. Or as Hall says in describing a man in a foreign environment, "The more that lies behind his actions..., the less he can tell you." For example, take an accountant. She operates with mental processes and parameters that she learned through accounting courses and through practice—they constitute her mental software about accounting. But she uses a set of values and ideas about how to act that are not only part of the accountancy software in her mind, but also part of the larger operating environment of unconsciously held values, attitudes, and behaviors from her society. It's easier for her to look at what makes up her view of accounting than what makes up her view of life. Most people assume that what they take for granted as natural is what everyone on this planet also considers natural. Most people only discover when they come into contact with something different that the ideas they hold as absolute truths are actually culture-based positions. It can be a disorienting experience, like encountering people who seriously tell you that two and two make five-and-one-quarter, or that the world will end precisely on June 29, 2021. When basic assumptions about life are challenged, one typical response is to find the other culture's assumptions irrational. They seem to be crazy. Rationality is, of course, culturally defined. What is "normal" business attire? In Indonesia, a businessman wears a loose cotton shirt over pants. A male proprietor of a small firm might not wear pants at all, but a skirt-like wrap. In Saudi Arabia a businessman wears a long robe over his trousers and shirt. In Japan, a businessman wears a dark suit with a white shirt. In each of these countries, expectations are that a serious, responsible businessman in that culture will dress like that. Businessmen from the United States often dress informally, in sweaters and slacks, or in short-sleeved shirts without jackets. When they are in very warm countries they may wear shorts for leisure. This attire can be acceptable in certain situations, but it can also appear disrespectful toward the other culture's attitudes. Recently a United States automobile parts manufacturer was shown on television trying to make a sale to some Japanese automobile firms. He was dressed in a boldly patterned cardigan sweater; his hosts were all in dark suits and white shirts. The camera caught one of the host party, a woman, repeatedly looking at his sweater with something like alarm in her eyes, and looking away again. The sweater could indeed have been a factor in his reported failure to get a single sale. The salesman in this episode was acting according to ideas about dress that seemed appropriate to him, from his cultural windows. He may have considered the informality of his dress as signaling a willingness to put aside rigid rules of behavior and be friendly. He may have been cold and enjoyed the warmth of a large sweater. He may have spent the previous 20 hours on a plane and, without a chance to change his clothes, may have gone straight to the trade show, because, to him, being there was more important than being dressed a certain way. If a salesman's priority is to fulfill the expectations of his company in sending him to a Japanese trade show, he will be less concerned with his appearance and more concerned with being successful. His employer wants him to promote the company's products and to make contacts. He has a mental image of what a good employee does in foreign trade shows. We all behave according to representations in our minds.
|
