{"id":21114,"date":"2019-01-31T12:05:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T20:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=21114"},"modified":"2019-01-31T12:27:16","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T20:27:16","slug":"when-yes-means-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/when-yes-means-no\/","title":{"rendered":"When Yes Means No"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erin Meyer\u2019s The Culture Map<\/em> is like Ralphie\u2019s secret decoder pin in The Christmas Story<\/em> because when you know how to decode multicultural messages you can learn how to live and lead better in cross-cultural contexts. I hope to leverage Meyer\u2019s cultural how-to-field-guide and see if I can adapt some of her ideas and apply them to my thesis topic of spiritual warfare. This post will survey time, truth, and travel in the context of improving global ministry leadership practices.<\/p>\n

We are all chasing time it seems and I knew I would like Meyer\u2019s book after scanning Chapter 8- How Late is Late?[1]<\/a> I was raised in a linear time-based home environment and you can imagine the internal stress I experienced on my first cross-cultural mission trip into sub-Saharan Africa. I found out what my indigenous workers thought about time when I accidently scheduled an all-hands meeting during what they called their \u201cmorning-tea time,\u201d because no one showed up! With a little help from my Care Ministry manager and lots of practice I adapted and reset my internal clock, or at least my Western assumptions and expectations about people and time. In Botswana, when someone really meant they were coming at a certain time they would say something like, \u201cI am coming now, now.\u201d[2]<\/a> If they say \u201cI am coming just now\u201d that could mean anytime in the next few hours, but if they say \u201cnow, now\u201d they mean they are coming directly from where they are to where you are. Yes, they really think and talk like that while taking a very flexible approach to time. When I went to church in Botswana the worship music would start on time. However, over the next hour congregants would leisurely arrive into the ongoing church service until sermon was over and the last song was sung. We noticed that most of the social interactions at church in Botswana began after the preaching was over and then the fellowship began.<\/p>\n

Truth to a Westerner is not the same as truth to many other cultures. Being dishonest is associated with loosing or maintaining face, but more complex. The Chinese call is \u201cmianzi\u201d and it is a Confucian concept of avoiding public shame by saving face.[3]<\/a> Meyer\u2019s admits that saving face is more important than stating the truth and I have encountered this in marketplace business dealings last year when working on a large aviation build job in the Middle East. It was amazing how much un-truth we encountered with major international contractors who would \u201ctell you what you want to hear\u201d to save face, but they were not able to deliver on any of their timelines or due dates. It required many more meetings, face-to-face negotiations, and line-by-line logistical and blueprint reviews. I discovered that you cannot challenge them or accuse them of lying because that is just the way they do business. In other words, they expect the Westerner to just know they will say yes and promise results and it is \u201cour\u201d job to ensure they do their job. So instead of asking if they can meet a certain deadline, it was more effective to conduct regular progress updates and personally inspect the work being done to ensure accountability. These are examples of what Meyer\u2019s calls Task-based versus Relationship-based relativity.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

Traveling many times to and from my marketplace ministries in South America, Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East has taught me valuable lessons on how to adapt and function in various cross-cultural contexts. Simple gestures, handshakes, head nods, and verbal greetings go a long way to being tolerated and sometimes accepted in multicultural settings. The hardest part for me to overcome was viewing other cultures through my own Western bias and set of cultural assumptions. Like Meyer\u2019s says, using the wrong lens can lead to misjudging the culture and promote ineffective relationships and failure to meet your objectives when traveling and doing business and mission in cross-cultural environments.[5]<\/a> \u00a0For example, asking something of someone three times is the normal way to communicate in high-context cultures like Japan, India, China, and Afghanistan. When we lived in Afghanistan we would ask our \u201cchowkidar\u201d (watchman) if they wanted to share some leftover food from our meal. It is culturally assumed that he will say \u201cno\u201d to the first two invitations to share food. However, if he really wants the food and you ask the third time, then the transfer can appropriately occur, and honor and courtesy has been maintained. It is just not proper to ask once nor accept on the first ask in many cultures.<\/p>\n

I like the culture map scales, provided by Meyer, for more than 20 countries along a range that allows me to predict cultural preferences depending on the country I am going to visit.[6]<\/a> Penny notes that wearing a suit in certain countries are like \u201csocial indicators can either garner respect or erode influence.\u201d[7]<\/a> While serving in Botswana I always had to wear a suit coat when meeting in remote \u201cbush\u201d areas when meeting tribal chiefs and elders. Even though they lived in mud huts with thatched roofs, the chiefs and elders always wore a suit coat to formal meetings. As an outside guest it was expected of me to wear a suit coat also to preserve the shared power position with their leaders in front of the tribe at large. I expect much of this tradition comes from their Colonial backgrounds.<\/p>\n

In a Crush interview on Meyer I found some insights into my contractor truthfulness challenges when dealing with the aviation build job referenced above. Meyer says, \u201cYes can mean everything from what we consider to be \u2018yes,\u2019 to I\u2019m listening to you (it\u2019s not yet happening).\u201d[8]<\/a> When taken in that context, I can see how some cultures can look you right in the eye and say \u201cyes\u201d in their culture but mean \u201cno\u201d in my culture. I also discovered that Turkish workers are more relationship-based than my US task-based profile on Meyer\u2019s trust scale.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

In summary, this is a great marketplace ministry tool. While I think Livermore\u2019s Leading with Cultural Intelligence<\/em> is more useful to the ministry leader[10]<\/a> I give Meyer\u2019s a thumbs up as a good resource guide to help interpret and decode how different cultures influence \u201cday-to-day collaboration.\u201d[11]<\/a> I compared how Meyer\u2019s work influences time, truth, and travel and believe that there is much in her book that can help the LGP global leader. I believe I can use some of her eight cultural scale behaviors to decrease pushback and improve communication on the topic of spiritual warfare.<\/p>\n

Stand firm,<\/p>\n

M. Webb<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Erin Meyer. The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures<\/em>. (New York: PublicAffairs, 2016) 219.<\/h6>\n
[2]<\/a> Ibid., 224.<\/h6>\n
[3]<\/a> Ibid., 198.<\/h6>\n
[4]<\/a> Ibid., 20.<\/h6>\n
[5]<\/a> Ibid., 12.<\/h6>\n
[6]<\/a> “Erin Meyer: The Culture Map.” Kirkus Reviews, 2014, Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2014.<\/h6>\n
[7]<\/a> Karen Penney. “The Culture Map: Erin Meyer.” Director 69, no. 4 (2015): 20.<\/h6>\n
[8]<\/a> Peter Crush. “We Think the French Are Lazy, but They Work Harder than Brits.” People Management, 2014, 31.<\/h6>\n
[9]<\/a> Meyer, Culture Map<\/em>, 171.<\/h6>\n
[10]<\/a> David Livermore. Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success<\/em>. (New York: AMACOM, 2009) 92.<\/h6>\n
[11]<\/a> Erin Meyer. “Navigating the Cultural Minefield.” Harvard Business Review 92, no. 5 (2014): 119-23.<\/h6>\n

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Erin Meyer\u2019s The Culture Map is like Ralphie\u2019s secret decoder pin in The Christmas Story because when you know how to decode multicultural messages you can learn how to live and lead better in cross-cultural contexts. I hope to leverage Meyer\u2019s cultural how-to-field-guide and see if I can adapt some of her ideas and apply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1431,1433],"class_list":["post-21114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture-map","tag-erin-meyer","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21114"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21117,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21114\/revisions\/21117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}