ExtraVallis Expert Interview: Culture with Annalisa Fernandez of Because Culture
Key Takeaways:
Doing business abroad today is drastically different than a couple of decades ago
We don’t actually “manage” time, we manage behavior, which is inherently cultural
Cultures with much longer histories have a different perspective of time as plentiful, and take a more agile approach to allocating it to tasks instead of following pre-determined targets
American culture is the most individualistic in the world, and this contributes to misperceptions about Americans being focused more on their own goals than a more holistic approach
Cultural intelligence, or cultural training, is critical – more than sales or negotiation training – to succeed in today’s world
Edited Transcription (edited for readability):
Interviewee: Annalisa Nash Fernandez is a specialist in world cultures, focusing on cultural elements in technology and business. A former global strategic planning director, she bridges her dual background as a sociolinguist to navigate cross-cultural communication. Annalisa held various roles at Philip Morris International and Kraft Foods Brazil, and investment banks in New York and Santiago. Annalisa earned an MA in translation from the University of Wisconsin, and a BS in international finance from Georgetown University.
Interviewer: Mr. Aaron Everhart is the Vietnam Country Lead for Draper Startup House, helping people turn ideas into companies. Aaron is the former Head of Asia Territory and CMO for ExtraVallis and is also the founder of HATCH! Ventures, a startup ecosystem builder in Southeast Asia and local implementer of GIST activities in Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, and Hanoi, Vietnam.
Aaron & Annalisa: Opening remarks
Aaron, host: As an American who has lived extensively extensively abroad, speaks several languages, and has immersed herself in the study of how national culture impacts perceptions and subsequent operational outcomes, what would you say are the most impactful (positively or negatively) misperceptions Americans have when doing business abroad?
Annalisa: Let’s step back to think about how doing business abroad today is so drastically different than a couple of decades ago. Not only with respect to technology – although you could argue that culture has moved downstream from technology, so that it all goes back to tech.
The US educates over a million international students annually. So while traditional cross-cultural advisory focused on greetings – say whether to bow or shake hands, in your business today, there is a good chance the person with whom you’re shaking hands was educated in the US.
So the kind of cultural intelligence that I focus on is about the ideology and mental programming behind these expressions. It’s more subtle, but if you think about how those first impressions are made in a matter of seconds, it’s still critical to doing business abroad. More importantly, when you move beyond first impressions into really doing business, the cultural differences present themselves in areas like trust, negotiation style, feedback, timing, decision-making, and engagement.
Americans, in general – and I’m clearly going to be generalizing a lot here since we aren’t dealing with a specific scenario or specific people – tend to forget about culture when it comes to the boardroom. When business interactions reach a certain level, their counterparts appear to behave similarly and speak the same language.
Venturing out of the Western world, work environments appear to be just as competitive and complex, but they are not as individualistic as Western work environments. For example, the Chinese value group loyalty and harmony over individual accomplishments, and as a result, negative feedback in an open setting, and even open debate in meetings, should be carefully managed. This goes against the grain for those from Western countries, who are used to more a more direct style of communication, but it is critical for doing business in China. Even more importantly, foster a holistic project approach, and ensure that everyone understands their role in the context of shared group goals so that they are fully engaged.
So the biggest misperceptions that Americans have? At the end of the day, admiration, frustration, and stereotypes of cultural groups tend to center around conceptions of time. Americans are rushed. Spaniards are night owls. Germans are precise. The French run late. It’s a cliché, but it’s the primary frustration I get from my clients.
We don’t actually “manage” time, we manage behavior, which is inherently cultural. In the US, time is linear, and we view it as an expiring resource. American use punctuality as a litmus test for responsibility and competence.
But that is a very simplistic view. In much of the rest of the world, time is more circular, or polychronic. People don’t manage time, but adjust to it, and circle back to the same tasks with more knowledge. Cultures with much longer histories have a different perspective of time as plentiful, and take a more agile approach to allocating it to tasks instead of following pre-determined targets. So what Americans see as disrespect of deadlines is a big misperception, but one that can be tackled with cultural intelligence. And maybe even something we can learn from.
Aaron: And what are the most impactful misperceptions that locals have about Americans?
Annalisa: That Americans are superficially engaging and positive, but don’t care about people and relationships – only business. It’s tough to hear, and while some of it is warranted, much is misperception of different cultural paradigms. The US is a task-based culture, where trust is earned by a performance track record, versus relationship-based cultures, where it’s more based on networks and a societal graph.
Let’s take another region of the world for comparison and look at Middle Eastern culture. Americans doing business abroad will trust the counterparty based on performance and contracts, until proven untrustworthy. But in Middle Eastern culture, trust is earned through relationships over time. Americans move quickly, forge ahead, forgive mistakes, and keep a positive attitude, while relationship-cultures may hold back until trust is earned. This can lead to a real impasse in anything from feedback to negotiations.
American culture is the most individualistic in the world, and this contributes to misperceptions about Americans being focused more on their own goals than a more holistic approach.
Aaron: More specifically, how have you seen a subculture like that of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship adapted and mis-adapted to local startup ecosystems?
Annalisa: These are definitely cultures. Culture is a group’s set of shared beliefs, norms, and practices. And in tech, many of these subcultures’ memberships prevail above credentials, and their practices above traditional laws.
So I think in the case of tech, there has been a new kind of culture formed that is downstream from technology. As you’ve said, it expects total commitment, and founders turning themselves over to the ecosystem in the name of ambition and success. American culture, and even its legal system, like bankruptcy laws, support the risk-taking that goes along with it. But the same support doesn’t exist in the rest of the world. Americans move quickly, and mistakes are tolerated along the way – even celebrated as lessons are learned. In Asia, mistakes wouldn’t even be discussed openly in an effort to save face. In Latin America, a founder with the capital to engage in a startup would likely be someone with a reputation for success that wouldn’t tolerate failure, as you’ve mentioned from your experiences.
Aaron: Where is the fault line between locals having to adapt and investors having to compromise?
Annalisa: When I was growing up, my father had a “golden rule,” and it was “He who has the gold makes the rules.” I think that’s applicable here, because it’s usually the companies adapting to the culture of the investors.
Aaron: What about the clash of cultural values – different perspectives on gender roles, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBTQ persons?
Annalisa: This is an example of how we have many differently overlapping cultural groups. Here I think that age groups prevail. Younger ages have a new perspective on inclusivity, expression, and acceptance. And that perspective slowly moves the needle for society overall, both through rising influence of the younger generations and attrition of the older generations.
We see age prevailing in other contexts too, like in Chinese culture that is deeply rooted in collectivist values, versus the individualistic cultures like the US as I discussed earlier. Chinese youth are becoming more individualistic as a result of very recent global cultural interference. But that doesn’t mean that Chinese cultural heritage is being lost to globalization. I actually believe that technology gives cultures the luxury of entrenchment through the personalization it makes achievable.
More and more we are aligning ourselves alongside groups that express our chosen identity and beliefs rather than those of our nationality or profession. It’s a new era for culture.
Aaron: How much attention should an American pay to cultural divergences between non-American cultures, like between Latin American countries or Asian countries?
Some of the most important literature of late focuses on this kind of “cross-rate” between different cultures. Erin Meyer’s book “The Culture Map” plots out country cultures on a global spectrum to illustrate such divergences in communication, negotiation, and management.
When it comes to technology, which is my specific area of focus, these cultural divergences are especially at the forefront because the US is not the role model on, for example, how we deal with important issues like data privacy. The US lacks a cohesive cybersecurity policy, and as of late, BigTech makes the calls. Latin American countries are following the European model of establishing privacy as a constitutional right, which doesn’t explicitly exist in the US. Latin American and European cultures share a cultural affinity for privacy that is less prevalent in the US.
On the subject of intra-regional cultural divergences, Latin America is a great example of a region which has a relatively low degree of language diversity (mainly Spanish and Portuguese), but a much higher degree of cultural diversity that can go unappreciated because of the linguistic similarity.
Aaron: What specific ways can an American become more culturally aware in order to better succeed at cultivating mutually beneficial business relationships?
Annalisa: This is absolute my favorite question. I’m a linguist at heart, but I will tell you: it’s not learning the local language. To become fluent requires a degree of immersion that is usually not practical for a professional with a day job. And without fluency, your meetings will devolve back into English within 90 seconds.
My advice is to save language lessons for your personal, not professional, development. And if you can’t live in a Mandarin-speaking village in China, or work at a company in Beijing to achieve fluency, here is what you can do from your office: learn a few greetings plus the cultural strategies to connect to the people – it’s called cultural intelligence, and it’s what global leaders need to develop to succeed on the new world stage. Cultural intelligence, or cultural training, is just as critical – or I’d say more – than sales or negotiation training and expertise to succeed in today’s world.
And you don’t need to hire a cross-cultural consultant to do this. There are a wealth of business-targeted training resources to develop “CQ,” from cultural training seminars to online self-diagnostic programs.
But you can do your own cultural research. I always recommend that my clients start with the app from the Air Force Culture and Language Center, which has detailed information on what they call the “12 Domains of Culture” for 46 countries. Then find out what app people in the country use to connect – WeChat, Signal, etc., register an account, and start using it before you arrive in the host country.
Next tap into local culture, which is so easy to do online. Open up Netflix and immerse yourself in a local market production from that country – you can hear how those greetings you memorized are used, and more importantly, see how people greet each other and how they interact. Read the national newspaper online – most have key articles translated into English, and brush-up on some icebreaker topics. Engaging in light banter about current local news puts you at a much higher functional level than fumbling along with a few greetings in the local language.
That kind of connection with local culture is just what Americans need to build relationships abroad on local terms. This is increasingly important in what many describe as an imminent post-American world, where Westernization is ceding to multiculturalism.
ExtraVallis would like to thank Annalisa Nash Fernandez for her time.