Imagine…
…that you are a businessman, chatting with a female acquaintance at a conference, and you notice that she is not meeting your eye. Instead, she keeps her eyes fixed downwards and responds to you in a quiet, measured voice. She is also reacting to your relaxed, jovial tone and enthusiastic body language in a guarded way, leaning away from you. You give her a friendly pat on the shoulder and she flinches slightly. What would you think?
Well, if you are a Western male, you might conclude that this person doesn’t like you and is sending you ‘back off’ signals- and you might feel affronted that she had misread your friendly gestures. Or you might not even notice, since you act like this with everyone and don’t tend to notice negative responses. If you were a more sensitive person, you might wonder if something was wrong- maybe this person had bad news today, or maybe they are generally nervous or shy. You might even question how they feel about you and start to worry that you had said something to upset them.
However, if you are from a non-Western background- East Asian, or Arab, perhaps- the above description of how a woman might behave in conversation with a man might not strike you as odd at all. In fact, it might be exactly what you would expect. If the woman had met your eye confidently, or made a friendly gesture of her own, you might have been taken aback or even offended. What does this tell us? Clearly, that interpreting someone else’s behaviour and words according to your own values can lead you to mistaken conclusions and possibly mistaken offense; and in a business context, could lead to serious misunderstandings.
The Iceberg
A helpful metaphor to explain the effects of culture, beliefs and values on human behaviour is the iceberg. Typically, icebergs are something like seven-eighths below the surface. That’s how it is with human behaviour. When you watch two people having a conversation, what you see and hear- their gestures, their posture and stance, the triggers for laughter and for frowns in the conversation, and the way they greet and say goodbye (kisses? handshakes?) is the surface manifestation of a whole lot of shaping influences you can’t see.
Graphic designed by Derek Watson, Mowgli MME Facilitator
Influences on human behaviour are made up of:
- Just below the surface: attitudes, motivations, and emotions.
- Deeper down still: values, cultural norms, physiology and gender, religion, beliefs.
The influencers just below the surface can be changed to some extent by interacting with other people, depending on the level of extroversion of the person. For example; education, socialising, or external events (a new job, a family crisis) could potentially change your emotional state in one day, and in the long term, affect the way you plan your career; have relationships; or shape your political activities. Your attitudes to xyz can be influenced by positive education about xyz from another person or organisation who you have learned to trust.
What lies deeper is very difficult to change; and this is what sensitive managers and mentors need to be most aware of when trying to understand and influence the motivations and behaviours of others. A lifelong atheist, for example, is unlikely to convert to religion after an hour’s chat with a person who is Buddhist or a Jehovah’s Witness. For their beliefs to change, the need for change has to be realised at a much deeper level- unlikely to result from ‘chips’ to the the surface ‘ice’. As a rule of thumb, the deeper down the influence, the less easy it is to change it through self-training or coaching, socialising, or education.You can’t change where you were born, what your parents taught you about religion, or the gender role you were psychologically shaped into from babyhood onwards. You also can’t change the formative experiences that shaped your childhood, whether they were positive or negative. And- most importantly to realise- neither can anyone else.
So, the woman we described at the beginning may have been acting according to ethno-cultural cues; but on top of that, she may also have been an only child in a repressive household and be very shy about talking with strangers; or she may have been raised by a very traditional, religious father who discouraged her from interacting with men; or she may even have a strong emotional reaction to your perfume or aftershave which triggered an unpleasant memory. You have (unfortunately) absolutely no way of knowing. So how can you use the iceberg concept to make positive changes to how you interact with others?
Cultural Intelligence
In a famous article in the Harvard Business Review by Earley and Mosakowski, the authors discussed the concept of Cultural Intelligence or ‘CQ’. In this, they remark that self-awareness (knowing how you are embedded within your own cultural settings) is important; those who fit right in and are socially successful within their own natural habitat are also quite likely to embody strong cultural traits and therefore to appear most out of place when within a radically different culture (this could be a workplace culture too, such as when moving from new media to traditional journalism, or from a charity setting to a corporate one). They also discuss strategies for intelligently considering and analysing your own reactions to others’ behaviour, before you respond. This is conscious relationship management and can only come from being both socially aware and self-aware (see our section on Self Awareness for more on this; the HBR article is linked to below).
The way to manage interactions with others is to cultivate empathy. This is a choice that one can make- to learn, observe, analyse and increase your understanding of what triggers others’ behaviour. By being aware of the many levels- deep and shallow- of influences on your own actions, you can train yourself to be more empathetic to others’ behaviour and respond intelligently to shape the situation.
Thinking about triggers can help; what makes you laugh? What makes you furious? What motivates you to drop everything and pay attention? What motivates you to work an 80 hour week? Realising that these triggers are different for everyone- even for your best friend or spouse- can help you become more open to different behaviours and attitudes.
As an example, you may be infuriated by lateness. When someone shows up 15 minutes late to a meeting, you may consider them disrespectful and find yourself being negative and irritable about this person afterwards. So why do you feel this way? It could be your workplace culture- maybe you’ve had punctuality drilled into you by management since your induction day, and lateness reminds you of your first awkward mishaps as a junior. Or maybe you’re from a highly punctual culture; British or German, perhaps. In this case, your response to lateness has been unconsciously conditioned from early social interactions. Once you’ve unravelled the source of your irritation, it helps you to manage your relationship with the other person. If they’re from your home-town and you’ve worked with them before with no issues, maybe you need to communicate the impact of their lateness in a constructive way; and be aware that there may be another reason for it. (Find out more about giving constructive feedback here.) If they are from another cultural background, maybe you need to learn more about their culture and how to manage your expectations so that your emotions don’t affect your working relationship. There are many other possibilities, and the more important this person is to you, the more time you should devote to consciously analysing how you will manage your different expectations of punctuality. Of course, in this regard, practice makes perfect- the more culturally aware you become, the more adept and rapid you will become at managing communications with those whose ‘iceberg’ is a radically different ‘shape’ to yours, and not being thrown by it when you visit a different culture. Remember, lateness – or any other behaviour- is just the tip of the iceberg; and so is your response to it. If you’re going to be truly effective and empathetic, you need to be conscious of the other 7/8ths of the ice- all the time.
Additional Mowgli Resources
- For more about cross-cultural understanding and effective working, including more about gender differences, visit the Mowgli Skills section on this topic here.
- For Mowgli Mentors: the Johari Window is a helpful tool (and good next step from this article) to learn to think about what’s known only to you; in order to think about others, how they perceive you, and how your behaviour affects them.
- A common test used in Western corporate organisations to assess your motivations and behavioural style is the Myers Briggs assessment. Learn more here.
External Resources:
- P. C. Earley & E. Mosakowski (2004) ‘Cultural Intelligence’, Harvard Business Review, Oct 01, 2004. To buy a copy of the Earley and Mosakowski article from Harvard Business Review, visit their online shop here. You can also view it (hosted by University of Sandiego) online here,but it cannot be copied.
- A helpful and in-depth description of the layers which make up the ‘iceberg’ of human communication and behaviour can be found on pages 6-9 of E. Tuleja (2009), Module 4: Intercultural Communication for Business, in O’Rourke IV (Ed) Managerial Communications Series (2nd Edition): South Western Cengage Learning, Mason, Ohio. (Amazon)
- If you want to think more about the culture of your workplace or organisation, try this fascinating article from Mindtools, discussing ‘Johnson and Scholes’ Cultural Web’.
