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Erin Meyer
It was a cold December morning in Stockholm and I stomped my feet briskly while
waiting for the bus. When the bus pulled up the woman closest to the door
hurried on and I stepped forward happy to follow her. Although I had been
oblivious to the loose queue my fellow passengers had formed, I could scarcely
miss the angry coughs they directed my way when I boarded before them. Cutting
in line even inadvertently is a cultural crime in Sweden.
In linear-time cultures like Sweden (or Germany, the US, Japan, or the UK) the
emphasis is on doing one thing at a time, in proper order, including mundane
but important activities like attending a meeting. Most people share the
assumption that a meeting should look like a Swedish line. An agenda is sent
out in advance with start time, end time, items to discuss in order and
sometimes even for how long. If an attendee tries to hijack the meeting by
bringing up something not on the agenda, someone is likely to say, This isn t
scheduled, so let s take it offline or People! A little discipline, please!
In these meetings you shouldn t talk to your neighbor at the same time someone
else is talking, take cell phone calls on the sidelines or leave the room. As
items come up requiring action as in Sven needs to contact Lotte to get
prices from three suppliers those items get noted down and sent out in a
meeting recap so that Sven can make that call and the choice of supplier can be
discussed at an appropriate pre-scheduled time.
A few weeks after my chilly trip to Stockholm I found myself in New Delhi for a
series of meetings about a new training program. India is a highly
flexible-time country (as are Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Nigeria, for example).
Our first meeting was properly scheduled. But, about ten minutes in, people in
the room seemed to be breaking into sub groups and talking about other
important topics that had unexpectedly arisen. Three attendees were huddled
together discussing how we could record sections of the new program. Sapna and
Rakesh left the room in an animated debate about the seating plan, only to
return five minutes later with Varun, who had important technical information
to contribute. The main discussion continued simultaneously and action items
arose such as Nitin needs to contact Rishi to assure the date is now 100%
finalized. But to my great surprise Nitin picked up the phone right there and
then and made the call while the rest of us continued the meeting.
At first I was frustrated. Why weren t we following a line? Was anything
getting accomplished? Why was everyone wasting everyone else s time? But after
a while, I began to see the beauty in the process. At the end of the morning we
didn t need a list of who needed to do what because Nitin had already contacted
Rishi, Sapna and Rakesh had already settled the question of seating, and we
didn t need to find out if Varun was available next Tuesday at 3pm, as we had
already tracked him down and settled everything then and there. Not everything
on the agenda had been handled and some things spilled over to the next
meeting, but other unexpected items had been taken care of on the spot in what
was now clear to be a completely non-linear yet highly efficient manner.
That evening I had dinner with Rakesh and mentioned my Swedish line analogy for
meetings. Rakesh explained, We are more flexible in India. Perhaps it s
because we grew up in a society where the currency wasn t stable and
governments could change regulations on a whim. But Europeans and Americans are
more rigid. Such as your idea that it is important to close one box before
opening the next.
It s not just India. Most emerging and recently emerged markets value
flexibility over linear planning. And that makes perfect sense: when things are
changing rapidly, the most successful business people are those who are just as
adaptable as the environment around them.
Later, over coffee, I remembered what an Indian student had told me about the
evergreen tree process of queuing back home. When it is necessary for a line
to form some eager individuals will form the initial trunk of a tree. Then,
when the trunk begins to look too long, a few newcomers will create their own
lines by standing next to, say, the fifth person in the trunk and implicitly
suggesting that others line up behind them to form multiple branches. This
process continues until you have a human evergreen tree, a single-file trunk of
people waiting with enthusiastic branches sprouting and growing on both sides.
Perhaps my queue analogy for meetings works in India after all.
For the international business person there s no use in stating which type of
culture you prefer or in getting frustrated about other ways of doing things.
Of course it s natural for us to experience our own culture s style as normal.
But, on reflection, we can see that each culture s approach has advantages and
also disadvantages. The great beauty of working across the world is to see the
rich and totally different ways that people choose to get things done.
Erin Meyer is a professor at INSEAD and directs two of its executive education
programs: Managing Global Virtual Teams and Management Skills for International
Business. She is the author of The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible
Boundaries of Global Business (PublicAffairs, 2014). Website: erinmeyer.com;
Twitter: @ErinMeyerINSEAD