Humor and culture in international business | Chris Smit | TEDxLeuven

“To Germans, humor is serious business”. In this compelling TEDxLeuven talk, Chris sheds his perspective on the differences amongst cultures and its impact on the way we do business.

Chris Smit was born in Amsterdam on March 3, 1963. Midway while attending high school, his family and he moved to the USA for one year, where he attended 8th grade high school in Boiceville, New York.

After returning to the Netherlands he finished school and went to the Free University in Amsterdam to study Industrial and Organisational Psychology.

He is an experienced consultant and coach in intercultural business, and has implemented and consulted projects and run many intercultural and communication seminars throughout the world.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

[MUSIC PLAYING]

CHRIS SMIT: I'm going
to talk to you about why

culture, cultural
difference actually,

are the management
of perception,

or to put it differently,
why culture matters when

we're working internationally.

First, a bit of an
introduction about myself.

Who am I?

As you can see,
my name is Chris.

My last name is Smit.

My nationality is Dutch.

And as they say, if you
ain't Dutch, you ain't much.

Or to put it's
somewhat different

is as a finishing touch,
God created the Dutch.

[LAUGHS]

I know one more, which is
more along the lines, more

in reality, and that
is the gods created

the universe and the Earth
and the Dutch created Holland.

Maybe that's somewhat
closer to the truth,

because 2/3 of the country
is actually below sea level.

Now if the country is below
sea level, and where do I live?

I live, of course,
in a windmill,

like all the Dutch do.

Where is my windmill located?

It is below sea level.

Like I said 2/3, of the
country is below sea level.

And what do I normally wear?

My wooden shoes and the
traditional Dutch dress.

But being in front of a
significant, civilized crowd,

I decided to wear
something different.

Now, you can look
at this introduction

and ask yourself,
what's the point?

I'll tell you what the point was
with this sort of introduction.

I was trying to sort of
border on stereotypes.

Stereotypes that you might
be missing about the Dutch

are maybe the color orange,
the fact that we never

win the World Cup football,
or soccer, for the Americans,

and maybe the Red Light District
in Amsterdam, stuff like that.

You can go to the Americans and
talk about stereotypes there as

well.

What comes to mind first?

Potentially, maybe, the word
"big," or the word "hamburger,"

or "trigger happy,"
stuff like that.

Then you could go back
to Europe and talk

about the Italian
stereotypes, or stereotypes

about the Italians.

What comes to mind?

Maybe the word
"mafia" comes to mind,

Mamma Mia, the hand gestures
that the Italians are

so fond of, stuff like that.

Are they all true, or not?

Are they all true, or not?

I think that stereotypes
sort of display

a general trend in society,
and that's maybe more or less

what culture is about.

But besides from talking
about stereotypes,

my introduction is
also based on humor,

or at least I was
trying to be funny.

I'm not sure if I succeeded.

I won't even ask you, as well.

I'm going to shoot
myself in the foot there.

But if I show you
this image here,

and I would ask
you, how would you

describe the typical
British sense of humor?

So not per se what he is doing,
but the typical British sense

of humor.

You might come up
with ironic, with

dry, self-deprecating humor.

A Brit can stumble
and fall and look back

and say, hey, that was funny
of me, stuff like that.

Contrast that with this person,
and for those of you who do not

know him, he's the
Dutch comedian,

singer, songwriter, presenter--
quite a talented guy.

And if you would characterize
the Dutch sense of humor,

as opposed to the
British sense of humor,

you might come up
with statements

like blunt, direct,
sexually connotated.

And the Dutch tend to
make fun of others,

rather than themselves.

Whether they're
here or not, that

doesn't make much
of a difference.

And then finally, if you
sort of wrap it all up.

[LAUGHS]

And if I would ask
you, how would you

characterize the
German sense of humor,

then it might come to mind--

and I see somebody
nodding already-- no,

they have no sense of humor.

Is that true, however?

Well, fundamentally,
of course not.

The Germans also have
a sense of humor.

But the contradiction,
in terms here,

is that humor for the
Germans is a serious thing.

Humor for the Germans
is a serious thing.

[LAUGHS]

In other words, you don't start
something serious with a joke.

So if you have a meeting,
you don't start a meeting

with a joke, because
why would you

undermine the seriousness
of the meeting

by starting it with a joke?

There's a time and
a place to be funny,

according to the Germans.

Three countries, the UK, the
Netherlands, and Germany.

Geographically relatively
close to each other, and still,

they have a different
sense of humor.

I believe that jokes don't
translate in language,

and also that they don't
translate in culture.

So if humor is already
not culturally neutral,

my question to you to ponder on
is, what is culturally neutral?

I've done this work
for about 18 years

and I haven't found anything
that is culturally neutral.

It touches us everyday, and very
often, we don't really see it.

But first of all,
before I continue,

there is really nothing
good or bad about culture.

There are only differences,
it's important to realize,

and understanding the
cultural differences

are often the determining
factor, typically,

when you're doing
business internationally.

The word "culture" has been
mentioned a couple of times,

but to put a frame around
this and a definition,

the "collective programming
of the human mind."

In that definition, the
two words are important.

One is "collective" and the
other one is "programming."

When we're talking about
culture or cultural differences,

we talk about groups
of people and not

about isolated individuals.

And the second word
that's important to

realize in this definition--

the word "programming" is
there because you're not

born with your culture.

Culture is so-called
taught behavior.

So collective programming
of the human mind.

I'm showing you an image here.

My question to you
is, what do you see?

If you're like most people,
you would see a face

with the glasses, the
nose, and the mouth,

and a part of the chin
and the neck, right?

But if you read it diagonal, and
pause and wait a little longer,

you would see that
you can also read

the word "liar," the L,
the i with a dot on the i,

the a, and the r.

So pausing and waiting,
and maybe looking

a second time at a
different culture

might actually teach
you a lot more.

As I said, culture is about
the management of perception.

If you read the following quote,
"It's important for a manager

to know the exact answers
to most of the questions

that his subordinates may
raise about their work."

I give you two countries and two
percentages, the United States

and France.

Match up the countries
to the percentages.

All right, the answer is
80% for the United States

and 53% for France.

What this means is is that if
an American worker, if you want,

goes to his manager, asks
him a question to which

he doesn't know the answer.

The American worker is quite
OK with an "I don't know,"

while in a country like
France, for instance,

the answer "I don't
know" from management

doesn't give him a
lot of credibility.

So the expectation
of a French manager

is that he or she is much more
knowledgeable about the content

or stuff that he is
actually managing.

To explain this, we need
two cultural dimensions

from Professor Georf
Hofstade's model of culture,

one being power distance, or
hierarchy, and the other one

being uncertainty avoidance.

Let's start with the first one.

Dealing with hierarchy.

You could argue that all
societies are unequal,

but some are more
unequal than others.

Or to put it differently, all
animals are created equally,

but some are more
equal than others.

I've given you here a list of
countries, the Netherlands,

Belgium, the UK,
Norway, and China.

Quickly make up in your mind
which country you actually

think scores highest
and which country

would actually score lowest.

The answer to that question is
you might be right about China.

You might have guessed maybe
the Netherlands being the lowest

one.

But in this case, it is Norway.

Quick word about these numbers,
is that anything more than 10

points difference is
something that you

would experience
internally when you would

go to that specific country.

So if a Dutchman
would go to Belgium,

the Dutchman would
experience that there

is a stronger hierarchy
in this country

than in his own country.

If the Belgian
would go to China,

the Belgian would
actually experience

that there is a stronger
hierarchy in China

than in his own country.

Now, how does this
work in reality?

You see two triangles, and
on your left-hand side,

you see weak hierarchy,
or flat and egalitarian.

On the right-hand
side of the slide,

you see there the
strong hierarchy

and it's called steep, and
it's sort of hierarchical.

Notice that the
circles are equally

in size on the left-hand side,
and the top dog, if you want,

on the right-hand side is
bigger than lower at the bottom.

Suppose you have this situation
whereby peer to peer workers,

say somebody from
the Netherlands,

asks a question to his
co-worker in China,

can you give me an update
on this in this process?

What do you think
is going to happen?

It's highly likely that it
will go up the hierarchy.

This will take time.

The perception that the
Dutchman on the left-hand side

might have of his
Chinese colleague

is that he might
be lazy, he doesn't

know what he's talking about,
why is this taking so long?

Right?

Eventually, the answer will
come, but it just takes time,

and perceptions
are already shaped.

Now turn the situation
around, where

you tried to get the
Chinese to ask the Dutchman,

can you give me an update
on this and this project?

What do you think will happen?

The Dutch, having a
relatively low hierarchy,

has the tendency to answer
directly and with a result

that the Chinese
colleague will actually

wonder, how did you come up
with that answer so fast?

You're probably trying
to cut some corners

and you didn't give me
the right, correct answer.

I'm going to ask you
again, hence the blue line

going back that way.

The second dimension to
explain the difference

between the United
States and France

is uncertainty avoidance.

As they say in
Germany, everything

is forbidden,
unless it's allowed.

If you can continue
like that within the UK,

everything is allowed,
unless it's forbidden,

the total opposite there.

And in France,
everything is allowed,

even if it is forbidden.

[LAUGHS]

And mind you, there is
a fourth one as well,

which is the Dutch version.

In the Netherlands,
everything is tolerated,

even if it is forbidden.

There you go.

This talks about the amount
of rules and structure

that cultures and people
within these cultures

appreciate and
would like to have.

Again, which countries from this
list, the Netherlands, Uruguay,

Belgium, the UK,
and Germany, do you

think needs them, or
has or needs, the most

structure and detail.

And which country do
you think has the least

amount of structure and detail?

This is a very
difficult dimension

to actually understand.

And the answer to this
puzzle is that the UK scores

the lowest of this list, not
in the whole list of countries,

and that Uruguay
has a score of 100.

Again, 10 points difference is
something that is significant.

The UK, a country that doesn't
have a written constitution

but goes with common
law, for instance.

And for the Belgians present
here at this presentation,

the score of 95
explains, to some extent,

why all Belgians are born
with a brick in their stomach.

Does that sound familiar?

For a lot of you, it might be.

OK, if we put that in a graph
and in a practical example,

what does that mean?

When we look at project
management and doing business,

different cultures deal
with project management

in different ways.

So on the horizontal
axis, there's Time,

and on the vertical axis, there
is Action and Implementation

as a function of time.

The line that you
currently see there

is just for reference there.

Germany, first Germany.

How do you think the
line of Germany will run?

Well, Germans get
their act together.

They form a group of people,
of highly specialized people,

around the table.

They sort out all
procedures, and eventually,

will come up with a relatively
rapid implementation, something

like this.

Now, when the Americans and
the Brits come to the table,

asking the Germans,
what are you doing?

The Germans look up, annoyed
at the Americans, and say,

we're planning.

And the Americans go, well,
what good is that for?

Because the Americans have more
of a just to do it approach,

a trial and error
approach, and get going.

And if you don't
understand it at first,

only then you start
reading the manual.

Continuing like this,
take the country France--

which could also substitute
here Spain, Italy, Iran, China,

India, countries like that--

the line is somewhat different.

[LAUGHS]

And I know it usually
generates a laugh,

but it needs a little
note in the margin here,

is that what the
line should actually

look like is pretty
much at the beginning

here, like a small tremor
around the German line.

So not with a big
earthquake, but that's just

a shortcoming of PowerPoint.

My apologies for that.

S what you see in a
country like France

is that there is a preference
for doing things organized,

but sometimes it
just doesn't work.

and that is because of the
elbow work and the hierarchy

and in the corridor,
backstabbing

political games going on.

That's what the tremor is about.

Now, finalizing this
slide with the Dutch line.

Not that the Dutch
are so important,

it is just that the
line is so significantly

different from the rest
of the countries here.

And the Dutch are known
for their [SPEAKING DUTCH]

or [SPEAKING DUTCH],, the
Dutch word, or the consensus

building.

And the line sort
of takes this shape.

[LAUGHS]

Right?

And what you see
going back in time

is not really
going back in time.

It is more that it is
doing project management

with growing insights.

So what we have
decided yesterday

could change today because
of new gained information.

All right, wrapping it
up, this presentation,

with a quote from Carl
Jung, is that "everything

that irritates us about
others can actually

lead us to a better
understanding of ourselves."

Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]