Lewis_When Cultures Collide: LEADING ACROSS CULTURES
How can one’s languaculture or communication style affect communication and
consequently relations with different culture representatives?
The whole question of people using different speech styles and wielding their language in the
national manner inevitably leads to misunderstandings not only of expression but also of intent. The
Japanese and English may distrust Italians because they wave their hands about, or Spaniards and
Arabs because they sound emotional and loud or prone to exaggeration. The French may appear
offensive because of their directness or frequent use of cynicism. No one may really know what the
Japanese and Finns are thinking or what they actually said, if they said anything at all. Germans
may take the English too literally and completely miss nuances of humor, understatement or irony.
Northern peoples may simply consider that Latins speak too fast to be relied on. Languages are
indeed spoken at different speeds. Hawaiian and some Polynesian languages barely get through 100
syllables per minute, while English has been measured at 200, German at 250, Japanese at 310 and
French at 350 syllables per minute.
Just as different cultures don’t use speech the same way, neither do they listen the same way. There
are good listeners (Germans, Swedes, Finns) and there are bad ones (French, Spaniards). Others,
such as the Americans, listen carefully or indifferently, depending on the nature of the conversation
or address.
Lewis_When Cultures Collide: LEADING ACROSS CULTURES
Japanese managers do not issue orders: they only hint at what has to be done. The language is
custom designed for this. “Complete September’s final report by 5:30 ..” comes out in Japanese as
“It’s October 10th today, isn’t it? Our controller hasn’t asked to see September’s report yet. I wonder
if he’ll come around tomorrow. You never know with him…
Lewis_When Cultures Collide: LEADING ACROSS CULTURES
The United States and Japan fail consistently to understand others because of isolation or insularity,
both geographical and mental. They wallow in powerful, all-encompassing “cultural black holes,” core
beliefs of such gravity that they cannot be questioned (Lewis 2003). These cultural black holes
prohibit intelligent or perceptive analysis of others’ cultures and agendas. If you swallow, hook, line
and sinker, the concept of the American Dream, no other agenda is really worthwhile contemplating.
If you devote your life to avoiding loss of face and affirm unswerving obedience to the Emperor, you
can hardly be a free agent in assessing others’ values and ways of advancing (this means no
disrespect to the Emperor of Japan, who happens to be far more enlightened and perceptive than
most of the world’s executives). With Germans, the problem is different again. On intercultural issues
they are in advance of the other members of the Big Five, but they are so honest, frank and,
consequently, tactless that they lack the delicacy to fully understand those who do not meet strict
German (ethical and organizational) standards. But at least they try. Smaller countries have no such
impasses. They learned long ago that to play the game with the Big Boys, you had to play by their
rules. The rules they learned differed from country to country, but they adapted to them, case by
case, which meant that they aspired to multiculturalism. Consequently, Dutch, Belgians, Finns,
Swedes, Danes and Swiss, and to a lesser extent Greeks, Hungarians, Czechs, the Baltic states and
Norwegians, have studied and achieved a certain degree of empathy with the cultures of more
powerful countries. Poles, Turks and Slovenians are beginning to go down the same track. In the
Americas, Canada is an outstanding example of a successful and consciously multicultural society.