Culture: “That’s Just How We Roll”
The first time I met my future wife’s family I found them to be rude. The reason for that perception was a spirited conversation between her parents and their five children. I don’t remember the topic but I do remember the loud volume and how multiple people spoke simultaneously. The loudest speaker got finish their thought. In my family growing up, one person talked at a time. If it was not your turn to speak, you waited your turn. Raised volume meant elevated anger. As I shared my experience that day, my future wife shrugged her shoulders and said, “That’s just how our family rolls.” I have come to love my wife’s family and that first exposure now causes us to laugh. What is true on a micro level, such as the family, is also true on a macro level, such as corporations and nations. Culture exists and like the air we breathe, it cannot be seen but allows for life to flourish in that context. In Dr. Karen Ann Tremper’s “Intercultural Competency” lecture, she gives this definition of culture: “Culture is a learned set of shared interpretations about beliefs, values, norms, and social practices, which affect the behaviors of a relatively large group of people.”[1]
Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map, a management book with an industrial psychology emphasis, examines how norms across various cultures can be decoded to positively impact international business dynamics. Dr. Tremper states that “culture is neutral.”[2] Culture is not right or wrong, just different. International business brings people with diverse cultures together with differing cultural understanding and cues. In that context, the opportunity exists to see right and wrong, good and bad through one’s cultural lens. Meyer’s premise seeks more than awareness of cultural differences, aiming at how cultures can engage in respectful and productive ways despite cultural variances. She terms that kind of positive engagement “cultural relativity:”
“So cultural relativity is the key to understanding the impact of culture on human interactions. If an executive wants to build and manage global teams that can work together successfully, he needs to understand not just how people from his own culture experience people from various international cultures, but also how those international cultures perceive one another.”[3]
Meyer’s book explores eight cultural characteristics and plots various national cultures on a scale for each characteristic. The eight characteristics include Communicating (low context vs. high context), Evaluating (direct negative feedback vs. indirect negative feedback), Persuading (principles-first vs. applications-first), Leading (egalitarian vs. hierarchical), Deciding (consensual vs. top-down), Trusting (task-based vs. relationship-based), Disagreeing (confrontational vs. avoids confrontation), and Scheduling (linear-time vs. flexible-time).[4] A chapter is dedicated to each dimension and scale, illustrated with anecdotal stories that bring the principles to life. Meyer seeks to move individuals or teams beyond the cognitive, relational, and behavioral complexities of cultural dissimilarities. While it seems evident that significant research supports the findings, I found myself wanting to understand how the cultures were plotted on the scales. I believe the research data exists on erinmeyer.com for a fee.
Meyer’s work reminded me often of Pragya Agarwal’s Sway, which helps to understand the unconscious bias all people carry. Both authors stress the value of understanding our context and moving past barriers of ignorance, disrespect, or a simple misunderstanding of personal or cultural biases. I also thought about the stark contrast between the Afrikaner and tribal cultures portrayed in Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom. How much prejudice gets fueled by differences that should be neutral? Meyer’s book contains insight and application helpful to those working in an intercultural situation of any kind.
I also see applicability of Meyer’s work to a ministry context. Whether one serves in a local church, non-profit, or Christian school, a certain culture exists by design or by default. Over the three decades of pastoral work, recognizing the need to influence and shape church culture serves as one of my greatest areas of growth. “That’s just how this church rolls” could describe the cultural cues of any local congregation. Early on, I failed to take key moments to define culture and that mistake cost me personally and the church corporately. I believe there are certain times when a senior leader needs to say in one way or another, “This is who we are” or, negatively, “This is not who we are.” One low-level example of when this principle began to become clear took place shortly after I became a Lead Pastor. On Sundays, some people tossed their cigarette butts into the grass before or after the services. One of the Board members said at a meeting, “We should put up a ‘No Smoking’ sign.” A discussion ensued but the ultimate decision I made was to put ashtrays by the front doors. That’s just how this family would roll.
At present, the recent addition of new staff members calls for ensuring alignment among the team. I discovered a personal, team, and corporate tool on Meyer’s website that makes her work very specific to one’s environment. I plan to use the “Team Mapping Tool” on an upcoming staff retreat. I believe the results will enable our staff to work together with great understanding. Experience taught me that someone will influence culture, whether staff or corporate. If it is not you as the senior leader, it will be someone else. Meyer states in the epilogue, “It is only when you start to identify what makes your culture different from others that you can begin to open a dialogue of sharing, learning, and ultimately, understanding.”[5] May that describe staffs of diverse gifts, skills, backgrounds, and temperaments as they seek to fulfill their calling.
[1] Dr. Karen Ann Tremper, “Intercultural Competency” PowerPoint Lecture, August 9, 2022, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mZkK02xvL8. This remark begins at 5:50.
[2] Ibid. This statement is made at 9:05.
[3] Erin Meyer, The Culture Map, Decoding How People Think, Lead, And Get Things Done Across Cultures (New York: Public Affairs, 2015), 23.
[4] Ibid., 16.
[5] Ibid., 244.
About the Author
Roy Gruber
Husband, father, pastor, student, and sojourner in Babylon11 responses to “Culture: “That’s Just How We Roll””
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Roy,
You’ve become the world traveler in our cohort. I wonder how this book describes your experience in the numerous contexts you’ve visited in the last 6 months.
Andy, yes my many travels make me long for a season at home! I’ve been to a European, Latino, and African culture this year. The traits I observed in each location matched Meyer’s respective plotting on her scales. I wish she had given us a sense of how the locations were determined. I also wonder if American culture has more diversity than many others due to the many immigrant cultures that combine through the years.
Roy, I chuckled when I read your story of meeting your wife’s family and the energetic conversation they had. Her family sounds so much like mine. I know my husband can resonate with your reaction…he didn’t know what to even think.
What would happen if you combined Agarwal’s biases with Kahnemans System 1 thinking with Friedmans anxious system in the context of trying to process cultural relativity?
Nicole, if those three elements were combined, there might be a new black hole in the universe! Haha – I believe Agarwal and Kahneman alert us to the unconscious biases we all carry. I believe a good amount of prejudice springs from ignorance about ourselves much less others. I think Friedman alerts us to the tendency of maintaining our fearful defenses. Putting all three together creates the environment in which all forms of dysfunction can thrive.
Roy,
Thank you for your perspective on Meyer’s book. Your opening example reminded me of something my counseling professor said. He said that all marriages are multi-cultural. I think our ever-increasing global society is becoming more difficult to identify our unique cultures. I am very interested to hear how your retreat goes and what you learn.
I am also curious about if you see any potential value in using this type of tool with your short-term mission teams?
Denise, thanks for you suggestion of using the Meyer’s tool for our missions teams. I will evaluate how the tool works with our staff in October. Our Missions Pastor is part of our team taking that, so we should be able to assess that together.
Roy:
I will just say yes & amen to your question of “How much prejudice gets fueled by differences that should be neutral?”
In my training of individual students and teams, I teach them a phrase: “That’s different, but it’s okay.” The goal is to hopefully allow them to take a step back when they see something different than what they know or are used to and hopefully limit their immediate reactions that would further stereotypes or judgments.
Roy: Nice connection to Pragya Agarwal’s “Sway,” I didn’t think to draw those parallels but you’re right on about the similarities. Cultural relativity is so important in this shrinking world of business and politics. With the large amount of traveling that you do, did you find Meyer’s book helpful or do you feel like you already knew what she was saying?
Troy, as I read about the different cultures that I’ve visited, I agreed with her descriptions completely. As I mentioned to Andy, I wish she had given us a sense of how the evaluations came about – where they experiential, research based, or other? I had no disagreements – only a question of how she plotted the various cultures on the scales.
Roy, great blog and personal application. I too think we can learn a lot from these principles in the context of the Church and Christian nonprofits. I imagine that you need to demonstrate great cultural competency where you are located given the often hidden cultural differences that exist because of religion.
What about this mapping tool excites you that you want to use it with your team?
Eric, you are so right about LDS culture and its importance here. About the tool for staff, I believe it will help us to be able to work together more effectively. If we understand how others think and work best, we can only improve our understanding. We saw that result with the Enneagram when our staff did that together. I anticipate a positive results like that with this tool.