The Culture Key Between Asia and the West

By Zsuzsanna Tungli

Do you want to execute your international strategy successfully, fully realize your market opportunities and lead your multinational teams effectively?
The Culture Key between Asia and the West helps you explore how to bridge the main cultural differences you cannot afford to ignore:
1. Direct and indirect communication styles;
2. The different approaches to hierarchy;
3. The role of silence in communication; and
4. Priority: task or relationship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zsuzsanna Tungli
• Release date: Jan 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9789811152535

Zsuzsanna Tungli

Zsuzsanna is an expert and a passionate advocate of global and inclusive leadership, gender equality and cultural intelligence. Her work over the past 30 years has spanned Asia, US and Europe, in consulting as well as executive education. She has designed and run most of her programs on behalf of Developing Global Leaders but also as an invited faculty at the following business schools: INSEAD, IMD, National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University in the APAC region.She is author of the books Culture Key between Asia and the West, Getting your Message Across: Email Communication in Global Business and The Roadmap to Gender Equality in Organisations, and a regular speaker and facilitator at international conferences and company events. Zsuzsanna earned a Ph.D. in international business at London Business School, UK, and an MBA at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. In her first degree she graduated as an economist from the Corvinus University in Budapest, Hungary.

Book preview

THE CULTURE KEY

CULTURAL AWARENESS FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

BETWEEN ASIA AND THE WEST

"The single biggest problem in communication

is the illusion that it has taken place."

EXACT ORIGIN UNKNOWN

DR. ZSUZSANNA TUNGLI

First Edition 2019

First published in Singapore by Developing Global Leaders Asia Pte Ltd.

© Copyright Zsuzsanna Tungli

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying recording or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN: 978-981-11-5253-5

To my grandmother who almost emigrated to America, my mum who put me on a plane at the age of 12 – which was a big deal in those days in Hungary – my husband who has (almost) the same passion for travel as I do and finally my two beautiful children who grew up internationally as third culture kids and to whom it doesn’t matter where you are from.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all, a big thank you to all the people from around the world who shared their life and work stories with me over the past 30 years. It’s been a fantastic experience and a great privilege to be in touch with such wonderful and diverse people from all walks of life.

I cannot possibly do justice and thank everyone who contributed to my cultural journey and the way I think about cultures and cultural competence today, therefore here I will limit my special thanks to the friends and colleagues who have read and given comments to various drafts of this book: Amanda White, Mario Ferraro, Risa Heywood, Kathrin Krause-Harder, Andy Holley, Jo Parfitt, Nicola Maher, Rita Shah, Alex von Behr, Dr. Maury Peiperl, Kristen Borsetti, my sister Marta and my dear husband, Mike Hughes.

Thank you very much for your encouragement, feedback and continuous support!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The Top Three Intercultural Areas You Cannot Afford To Ignore

1: DEVELOPING CROSS-CULTURAL COMPETENCE

1.1 Prerequisite: An Open And Respectful Mindset

1.2 Step One: Assessing And Developing Self-Awareness

1.3 Step Two: Learning About And Understanding Other Cultures

1.4 Step Three: Building Bridges Between Cultures

1a Main Ideas In Brief – Developing Cross-Cultural Competence

2: BRIDGING THE BIG THREE CULTURAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ASIA AND THE WEST

2.1 It All Depends On The Context

2.2 Cultural Dimensions

2.3 Generalization And Stereotype

2.4 Our Ideals And Behavior

2.5 Essential Cultural Dimensions For Interactions Between Asia And The West

1a Main Ideas In Brief – Bridging The Big Three Cultural Differences Between Asia And The West

3: INDIRECT AND DIRECT COMMUNICATION

3.1 Generalization

3.2 Definition

3.3 Case Study

3.4 Self-Awareness Exercise

3.5 Perception Of Others

3.6 Business Applications

1. Partnerships – Trust and Credibility

2. Negotiations

3. Recruitment

4. Providing Positive and Constructive (Negative) Feedback

3.7 Building Bridges – Tips For Effective And Enjoyable Cross-Cultural Interactions

1a Main Ideas In Brief – Indirect And Direct Communication

4: HIERARCHY AND EQUALITY

4.1 Generalization

4.2 Definition

4.3 Case Study

4.4 Self-Awareness Exercise

4.5 Perception Of Others

4.6 Business Applications

1. Decision Making

2. Challenging Superiors

3. Leading through Empowerment

4. Coaching

4.7 Building Bridges – Tips For Effective And Enjoyable Cross-Cultural Interactions

1a Main Ideas In Brief – Hierarchy And Equality

5: SILENCE IN COMMUNICATION

5.1 Generalization

5.2 Definition

5.3 Case Study

5.4 Self-Awareness Exercise

5.5 Perception Of Others

5.6 Business Applications

1. Meetings and Phone Calls

2. Training

3. Performance Evaluation

4. Promotion

5.7 Building Bridges – Tips For Effective And Enjoyable Cross-Cultural Interactions

1a Main Ideas In Brief – Silence In Communication

6: SUMMARY

6.1 The Teleconference

6.2 Summary Advice For Better Global Communication

1. General Advice for Working Across Cultures

2. The Three Big Cultural Differences…Plus Two: Face and Building Relationships

3. Advice for Asian and Western Business Interactions

4. How far can or should you shift your style? Should you change your personality?

6.3 Summarizing Action Points

APPENDICES

Appendix A – How To Develop Cross-Cultural Competence

Appendix B – Cultural Considerations For Effective Virtual Meetings

Appendix C – Notes And Resources

Appendix D – Developing Global Leaders Asia, Cultural Training Asia

Index

Book Reviews

About The Author – Dr Zsuzsanna Tungli

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig 1.1 Developing cross-cultural competence

Fig 1.2 Cultural lenses and our subconscious bias

Fig 1.3 The impact of culture on business

Fig 2.1 Message sent, and message received

Fig 2.2 Cultural dimensions: bridging the gap

Fig 2.3 Three levels determining our ideals and behavior

Fig 2.4 The three most important dimension scales in Asian and Western interactions

Fig 3.1 Indirect and direct communication

Fig 3.2 Different value priorities: harmony and face or honesty and truth

Fig 3.3 Saying ‘no’ without using the word ‘no’

Fig 3.4 The many meanings of ‘yes’

Fig 4.1 Hierarchy and equality

Fig 4.2 Augmented hierarchy in Asia

Fig 5.1 Comfort with silence

Fig 5.2 Silence patterns in communication

Fig 5.3 The Chinese character for ‘listen’

A PERSONAL NOTE

I am passionate about raising cultural awareness and competence around the world. Over the past 30 years I’ve experienced how even a small amount of cultural awareness can make a huge difference. It achieves better business results, leads to more successful strategy execution; mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures, more effective marketing and advertising campaigns, better workforce engagement, talent management and more.

This workbook identifies the most important cultural differences between Asia and the West and concentrates on practical applications. Although the primary target audiences are Westerners working with Asians and Asians working with Westerners, the content is useful for anyone working with different nationalities in any part of the world.

My hope is that this book reaches a wide audience, helps people understand each other better and, as a result, allows people from different cultures to work together more effectively and happily. Cultures are far more complex than described in this book, but The Culture Key outlines the important first steps towards building cross-cultural competence.

INTRODUCTION

Westerners are rude and arrogant and Asians lack self-confidence and leadership competence. (Typical perceptions and judgments based on lack of cultural awareness)

THESE ARE THE MOST important negative preconceptions this book sets out to challenge and change. A lack of cultural awareness usually results in these judgments. While personality assessment tools are common in today’s business practices, research and accumulated practical knowledge regarding differing business behaviors across cultures is less known. As a result, even experienced international travelers may attribute misunderstandings to personality differences. Our behavior is influenced not only by the personality we were born with, but also by the cultural norms and expectations with which we were brought up (see Figure 2.3 , Chapter 2 ).

The easy-to-use models, tools, case studies,