At the summer’s start, I was placed
in the “Cultural Dynamics” intern project.
Basically, before the end of the summer, we’ll present on our respective
topic to the rest of the company. Our
project aims to give associates a better understanding of how to interact with
people from the other countries where Dwellworks operates. Maybe, at the end of it, we’ll actually
accomplish this.
The project is centered on a widely
accepted (though deeply flawed) cultural behavior model invented by a man named
Geert Hofstede in the 1960s. Through a
long process of surveys and relativity, he developed 5 (now 6) “dimensions”
that are supposed to inform outsiders how a certain culture operates. My portion of the project examines the
findings for Canada.
It was not long into the project though, that
I completely jettisoned Hofstede’s model as anything but a rough and mostly
useless starting point. The most
striking feature I've found about Canada is its deep diversity and respect for
cultural differences: interpreting Canada via sweeping generalization as
Hofstede would have us do, is to
profoundly misunderstand Canada altogether.
Perhaps it was the crass pop-modernism of mainstream culture in the
‘60s, but Hofstede’s models are a practice in monocultural reductionism and
shaded personal ethnocentrism. There
might be some value in the models, if you can take them with a healthy dose of
the realization that they’re relative and a tool, not normative and
definite. But that also means they
rapidly approach total uselessness the more you find out about the intricacies
of a country and the culture of the people who live there. That, and the models are based on surveys
from high-ranking business people in a given country. To say they speak for the culture as a whole
is an abject fallacy. They are, at best,
a picture of what business people want to see themselves as- not an imprint of
the culture itself.
All
of this though is nothing in light of the cultural dimension’s worst
facet: one of the dimensions is defined
as “masculinity-feminity.” Let me say in
no uncertain terms, that such a classification with those words and the
suggestions they make is offensive, illusive, and dangerous. There are no such things as m**culinity or
f**ininity: just contrived concepts the patriarchy has perpetuated to remain
empowered and denigrate women. To define
cultures as more one or the other is an intrepid route to misogynistic racism.
But the project is not doomed by its
flawed starting point. Thankfully, we've mostly focused on more practical tips for doing business in our respective
countries. We've talked about
differences in lingo in other English speaking countries (Canadians call corn
dogs "pogos" and electric bills “hydro”). We've talked about greeting Luxembourgish people in Luxembourgish
instead of French or German. We've discussed how hard it can be for outsiders to operate in Brazil, and Mexican
telephone etiquette (best tip: don’t expect a call back). I’m glad that’s where we've ended up. I've glad we’ll be talking about history and
shared cultural values more than we’ll be examining the boxes Hofstede
arbitrarily flung people into based on incomplete and unsubstantial surveys of
non-representative groups. I’m thankful
that, as a group, we had the intelligence and class to find out what mattered
and what could be instructive, instead of sticking to the tools we were given
that weren't doing anything for us.
I have learned a lot about Canada
through this project. I could list it
all and satisfy the prompt for this post.
But I've learned much more about what it means to respect a country and
its culture, and I’ve done that in the context of my research on Canada. Truthfully, we can’t expect to understand a
whole group of people without actually meeting them. That’s my biggest takeaway from all of this. But even attempting to understand a culture
fully without that opportunity provides an excellent chance to put yourself and
your own culture in context. So often,
we think of Canada as a proto-American nation-state, not quite British, not
quite American, somehow sorta French, but not defined as anything in and of itself. We’re dead wrong though. There is real culture; real, unique, and
extraordinary Canadian culture. That’s
true of every country in the world.
Dwellworks is blessed with relationships all over the globe. The best way to understand the people we work
with is through honest conversation and honestly valuing other people’s
contribution. Canadian culture is
diverse, respectful, and welcoming- we’d do well to take a page out of their
book.
We’ll
never approach other cultures perfectly.
Indeed, we’ll always do much better to approach other cultures from a
learning posture, assuming we know next to nothing, and following the lead of
our hosts and friends in other cultures.
I hope something useful comes out of our project, but if we end up
giving Dwellworks a false sense of security, we’ll have been better off doing
nothing. It’s American arrogance that
causes culture blunders (and senseless wars, death, diseases, and poverty);
losing that arrogance is trillions of times more important and useful than
simply knowing what non-representative Canadian businessmen thought about
“power distance” in the 1970s. Not only
was that nigh on 50 years ago, but it was flawed then too.
If you
want to interact well in other cultures, admit your mistakes, ask for help, and
realize that you don’t know anything.
That’s what I've learned from the intern group project, and what I’ll
strive to take with me everywhere I go.
-Zack
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