<commit_before>---
layout: default
title: Cultural slaps
---

On the third part decided to write about some cultural differences and their manifestations.

## Creatures of the hierarchy

Let's start with something from Quora http://www.quora.com/What-things-can-you-do-in-Israel-that-you-cannot-do-in-the-USA:

"What things can you do in Israel that you cannot do in the USA?

Tell your boss that he's an idiot and he's running the company into the ground, and still have a job the next day."

I'll contemplate on the whys, because it's here the same for Greeks (that's me) and maybe others. Let's start with stealing a line about company organization from this book (DOKSIADIS BOOK):
"Traditionally the cell of the Greek business unit is the boat. ... When crisis comes by usually in a form of a storm, they all need to break the hierarchy and save themselves cause else they're going to sink and die. It's easy to listen to people swearing at their superiors, doing each other's jobs if there is a gap and generally do whatever possible in order to get out of the situation. ..."

I can only assume that in Israel the same must hold truth but in the context of an army unit, or the traditional family living among foreigners. So in many cultures, when in doubt / crisis, break the hierarchy.

I painfully observed a completely different pattern while working in the UK:

People above me in organizational charts used to engage into general conversations in relaxed everyday situations. I've seen that in case of crisis a different pattern was the usual case: Everybody would blindly listen and obey the leader, who would lead to salvation or move the company out of the crisis. Then we could all be friends again and chit chat it over a pint of beer.

I can only imagine how the other person might have felt in the following situation:
Richter (head of a client face department looking stressed): I want you to do XYZ for ABC (Actually it was "We need to do XYZ for ABC").
Me: Why?
Richter: One sentence explanation.
Me: Based on what you just said DEF is a better option than ABC, should we implement DEF instead?
Richter: I'll get back to you. Bye.

Only he didn't get back, he got to my manager. Next day my manager
Hanes: Hi, Richter came to me yesterday...
Me: I don't understand why. He must have given you his arguments, which you will repeat here filtered with what you understood. Yes?
Hanes: More or less.
Me: So based on the same input, I'll give the same response, I am frustrated that he bypassed me and got to you.
Hanes: You didn't understand, what he really wanted was you to say "Yes", not argue.
Me: But we are in crisis mode, if I don't know how he makes decisions, I will have to ask him for input every five minutes, if he provides an insight, then I'll be able to guess what he needs more or less.
Hanes: I see... for the moment next time say "Yes".

I will not tell you the ending of this story (it doesn't have a happy ending for me). But you got the point: Being behind schedule and in a bad place, my inertia was to break barriers, engage in direct communication... etc. Our Richter here wanted to basically issue an order and establish a hierarchy (I need this from you). When I communicated an unexpected message the gut reaction was again to follow the hierarchical approach, by talking to my manager. In my world, he'd probably talk to me straight instead of spending 10 minutes to find my manager and discuss over ("Hello? Aren't we behind schedule?").

OK that was the first slap, let's go to the second.

## It's a one way street

The second thing that stroke me was the unidirectional flow of information from the top to the bottom, but not the other way around.

Starting again with an an anecdote:

My then manager was preparing for my first appraisal. He had booked a meeting room. Once we sat, he said something like "Oops, I forgot the forms that we need to fill". Five minutes later he came in with some print outs, which he started reading and filling them with me. I was listening patiently and waiting to provide my input. At the end of the last paper, I replied with: "It seems that you forgot the remaining papers, do you want me to wait here". "What remaining papers?" was his response with the feeling of surprise painted over his face. "Up to now we have discussed about how I perform and what the company wants me to do. There is nothing about how good you are as my manager nor about how happy I am working here".

After that I started asking around. It seemed that in most places that was the case. Exception was (surprise!) foreign based companies operating in Britain. An example would be my experience in Accenture, there was grading of managers in both a semi-anonymous as well as formal fashion.

My opinion, without lots of thorough research, has to do with the concept of employment and how it is understood in different cultures. I tend to believe that in the US/Canada it's basically a contract, in capitalist terms: more or less two parts discuss on what can be offered to each other. Employee provides skill, labor, loyalty, some restrictions on their lives etc. The employer provides of course the salary and stability but we see more and more things like career path/trajectory, education and training as well as all those magic perks glorified by Google. It seems that there is a "deal" or a "package" that each one brings to the table.

In Britain and probably mostly in Europe it seems that employment stems from medieval serfdom with a twist. The twist is that you have the right to change employees without prosecution. Employer and employee agree to a salary and more or less that's it. I haven't witnessed in my employment in British companies things like: training programs, investment in expanding employees skill-set, even in buying books, or any worthwhile perks. Also I had witnessed recently a change in my job function without even announcing it. One day I got to the office and I was told that I should be doing "different things". When complaining that this was not aligned with the job description in the interview, the response was that I was right, but that the company was "evolving". For me this was breach of contract, for my manager it was business as usual. I should also feel happy.

## <NAME> versus <NAME>

In the startup world they are both well known and respected. <NAME> is known outside his business accomplishments for his books "(The four steps to epiphany)[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507 "The four steps to epiphany on Amazon"]" and the more recent "(Startup owners manual)[http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-By-Step/dp/0984999302/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y/278-6803900-2006242 "Startup owner's manual on Amazon"]". <NAME> is also well known for his business accomplishments as well as his book (The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses)[http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lean-Startup-Innovation-Successful/dp/0670921602/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z/278-6803900-2006242 'Lean startup on Amazon']. A very convenient discovery was that Amazon.co.uk has grouped them together:

![Amazon.co.uk book grouping](/images/blank_and_ries_amazon_recommendation.png "Amazon.co.uk book grouping")

Well the funny thing is that if those two people were running a who is more famous contest, <NAME> would win for a variety of reasons, such as being around for more years as well as being a professor/mentor of Ries. Of course this has nothing to do with Ries who is more than great and awesome. My first surprise was that everybody seemed to know Ries, but almost nobody Blank, as discovered while discussing about startups. I can only suspect that for some reason Ries became popular, while for some reason this did not happened with Blank, which is odd. Many concepts described in his book are popular but the one what impresses me most is what happens with "(pivots)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_startup#Pivot "Pivot definition Wikipedia"]".

We were trying to raise capital for our then startup at about 2009. While saying that we had "pivoted", which we had, initially people were skeptic thinking that our initial planning was wrong hence the need for pivot. Some had suggested that we should not mention it but instead argue that our current direction was the original one - a white lie. Later on, lean startup methodologies caught up and became popular. After their tipping point and getting spread, people demanded us to have pivoted, as a sign that the company had gotten to the next level: They had some hypothesis, tested it, got the results and changed direction, so they've matured. There is nothing wrong with an idea getting traction and becoming part of the established paradigm, my thought was that since the idea was solidified across the Atlantic it would have somehow found it's way here. 

## Conclusion

The summarization of the "cultural slaps" and their consequences, just materialized while finishing this post. It seemed to me that coming to UK, I would get to an alternative version of the States, while I landed into a different European country, but European nevertheless. After years I made the decision to make it my country and live here, but still have not fully recovered from the initial shock.

Instead of embracing capitalism ala Adam Smith and building products and services for the many, altering the status quo as we (UK) did in the industrial revolution, we (UK) prefer to serve the existing state of affairs (as discussed in "(Business Relationships)[/posts/2015-02-01-relationships]")... as introvert Europeans do.

We many times promote the best "local" person in the room at least to the highest positions in our companies (part 2: (Kiske field)[_posts/2015-03-20-kiske_field]) as it would have happened in France or Spain, although for example London is to some extent a city of first generation immigrants.

People from this and only this country brought not many generations before the concepts of challenging assumptions, science scientific discovery and many others. Yet again, as in "It's a one way street" above, internally in companies you are not allowed to challenge what is communicated to you or even thorough discuss it. Same with cultural products. Concepts from Silicon valley had to be planted and grow here from the start, even if they were expressed in the same language, from a similar (don't they call USA Anglo-Saxon) culture, having the paradox of German or Scandinavian business cultures embracing them first. While at the same time in the popular sphere people seem to be well exposed to the overseas junk pop, such as the curves or Rihana's bottom or our own version of X-factor as it would happen ... (you've guessed it) in a typical European country.

That's the end of the journey for this series of articles. Thank you for following it!
 <commit_msg>Names to Ryan and Kevin from http://www.behindthename.com/top/lists/united-states-decade/1970/100<commit_after>---
layout: default
title: Cultural slaps
---

On the third part decided to write about some cultural differences and their manifestations.

## Creatures of the hierarchy

Let's start with something from Quora http://www.quora.com/What-things-can-you-do-in-Israel-that-you-cannot-do-in-the-USA:

"What things can you do in Israel that you cannot do in the USA?

Tell your boss that he's an idiot and he's running the company into the ground, and still have a job the next day."

I'll contemplate on the whys, because it's here the same for Greeks (that's me) and maybe others. Let's start with stealing a line about company organization from this book (DOKSIADIS BOOK):
"Traditionally the cell of the Greek business unit is the boat. ... When crisis comes by usually in a form of a storm, they all need to break the hierarchy and save themselves cause else they're going to sink and die. It's easy to listen to people swearing at their superiors, doing each other's jobs if there is a gap and generally do whatever possible in order to get out of the situation. ..."

I can only assume that in Israel the same must hold truth but in the context of an army unit, or the traditional family living among foreigners. So in many cultures, when in doubt / crisis, break the hierarchy.

I painfully observed a completely different pattern while working in the UK:

People above me in organizational charts used to engage into general conversations in relaxed everyday situations. I've seen that in case of crisis a different pattern was the usual case: Everybody would blindly listen and obey the leader, who would lead to salvation or move the company out of the crisis. Then we could all be friends again and chit chat it over a pint of beer.

I can only imagine how the other person might have felt in the following situation:
Ryan (head of a client face department looking stressed): I want you to do XYZ for ABC (Actually it was "We need to do XYZ for ABC").
Me: Why?
Ryan: (Provides an one sentence explanation)
Me: Based on what you just said DEF is a better option than ABC, should we implement DEF instead?
Ryan: I'll get back to you. Bye.

Only he didn't get back to me, but instead to my manager. Next day's talk with my manager, Kevin:
Kevin: Hi, Ryan came to me yesterday...
Me: I don't understand why. He must have given you his arguments, which you will repeat here filtered with what you understood. Yes?
Kevin: More or less.
Me: So based on the same input, I'll give the same response, I am frustrated that he bypassed me and got to you.
Kevin: You didn't understand, what he really wanted was you to say "Yes", not argue.
Me: But we are in crisis mode, if I don't know how he makes decisions, I will have to ask him for input every five minutes, if he provides an insight, then I'll be able to guess what he needs more or less.
Kevin: I see... for the moment next time say "Yes".

I will not tell you the ending of this story (which doesn't have a happy ending for me). But you got the point: Being behind schedule and in a bad place, my inertia was to break barriers, engage in direct communication... etc. Ryan in this example wanted to basically issue an order and establish a hierarchy, so his approach was in the lines of "I need you to do this". When my response was not the expected one the gut reaction was - again - to follow the hierarchical approach, by talking to my manager. In my world, he'd probably talk to me on the spot, instead of spending time to find my manager and explain his point of view, moreover if we were in behind-schedule-stress mode.

OK that was the first slap, let's go to the second.

## It's a one way street

The second thing that stroke me was the unidirectional flow of information from the top to the bottom, but not the other way around.

Starting again with an an anecdote:

My then manager was preparing for my first appraisal. He had booked a meeting room. Once we sat, he said something like "Oops, I forgot the forms that we need to fill". Five minutes later he came in with some print outs, which he started reading and filling them with me. I was listening patiently and waiting to provide my input. At the end of the last paper, I replied with: "It seems that you forgot the remaining papers, do you want me to wait here". "What remaining papers?" was his response with the feeling of surprise painted over his face. "Up to now we have discussed about how I perform and what the company wants me to do. There is nothing about how good you are as my manager nor about how happy I am working here".

After that I started asking around. It seemed that in most places that was the case. Exception was (surprise!) foreign based companies operating in Britain. An example would be my experience in Accenture, there was grading of managers in both a semi-anonymous as well as formal fashion.

My opinion, without lots of thorough research, has to do with the concept of employment and how it is understood in different cultures. I tend to believe that in the US/Canada it's basically a contract, in capitalist terms: more or less two parts discuss on what can be offered to each other. Employee provides skill, labor, loyalty, some restrictions on their lives etc. The employer provides of course the salary and stability but we see more and more things like career path/trajectory, education and training as well as all those magic perks glorified by Google. It seems that there is a "deal" or a "package" that each one brings to the table.

In Britain and probably mostly in Europe it seems that employment stems from medieval serfdom with a twist. The twist is that you have the right to change employees without prosecution. Employer and employee agree to a salary and more or less that's it. I haven't witnessed in my employment in British companies things like: training programs, investment in expanding employees skill-set, even in buying books, or any worthwhile perks. Also I had witnessed recently a change in my job function without even announcing it. One day I got to the office and I was told that I should be doing "different things". When complaining that this was not aligned with the job description in the interview, the response was that I was right, but that the company was "evolving". For me this was breach of contract, for my manager it was business as usual. I should also feel happy.

## <NAME> versus <NAME>

In the startup world they are both well known and respected. <NAME> is known outside his business accomplishments for his books "(The four steps to epiphany)[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507 "The four steps to epiphany on Amazon"]" and the more recent "(Startup owners manual)[http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-By-Step/dp/0984999302/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y/278-6803900-2006242 "Startup owner's manual on Amazon"]". <NAME> is also well known for his business accomplishments as well as his book (The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses)[http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lean-Startup-Innovation-Successful/dp/0670921602/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z/278-6803900-2006242 'Lean startup on Amazon']. A very convenient discovery was that Amazon.co.uk has grouped them together:

![Amazon.co.uk book grouping](/images/blank_and_ries_amazon_recommendation.png "Amazon.co.uk book grouping")

Well the funny thing is that if those two people were running a who is more famous contest, <NAME> would win for a variety of reasons, such as being around for more years as well as being a professor/mentor of Ries. Of course this has nothing to do with Ries who is more than great and awesome. My first surprise was that everybody seemed to know Ries, but almost nobody Blank, as discovered while discussing about startups. I can only suspect that for some reason Ries became popular, while for some reason this did not happened with Blank, which is odd. Many concepts described in his book are popular but the one what impresses me most is what happens with "(pivots)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_startup#Pivot "Pivot definition Wikipedia"]".

We were trying to raise capital for our then startup at about 2009. While saying that we had "pivoted", which we had, initially people were skeptic thinking that our initial planning was wrong hence the need for pivot. Some had suggested that we should not mention it but instead argue that our current direction was the original one - a white lie. Later on, lean startup methodologies caught up and became popular. After their tipping point and getting spread, people demanded us to have pivoted, as a sign that the company had gotten to the next level: They had some hypothesis, tested it, got the results and changed direction, so they've matured. There is nothing wrong with an idea getting traction and becoming part of the established paradigm, my thought was that since the idea was solidified across the Atlantic it would have somehow found it's way here. 

## Conclusion

The summarization of the "cultural slaps" and their consequences, just materialized while finishing this post. It seemed to me that coming to UK, I would get to an alternative version of the States, while I landed into a different European country, but European nevertheless. After years I made the decision to make it my country and live here, but still have not fully recovered from the initial shock.

Instead of embracing capitalism ala <NAME> and building products and services for the many, altering the status quo as we (UK) did in the industrial revolution, we (UK) prefer to serve the existing state of affairs (as discussed in "(Business Relationships)[/posts/2015-02-01-relationships]")... as introvert Europeans do.

We many times promote the best "local" person in the room at least to the highest positions in our companies (part 2: (Kiske field)[_posts/2015-03-20-kiske_field]) as it would have happened in France or Spain, although for example London is to some extent a city of first generation immigrants.

People from this and only this country brought not many generations before the concepts of challenging assumptions, science scientific discovery and many others. Yet again, as in "It's a one way street" above, internally in companies you are not allowed to challenge what is communicated to you or even thorough discuss it. Same with cultural products. Concepts from Silicon valley had to be planted and grow here from the start, even if they were expressed in the same language, from a similar (don't they call USA Anglo-Saxon) culture, having the paradox of German or Scandinavian business cultures embracing them first. While at the same time in the popular sphere people seem to be well exposed to the overseas junk pop, such as the curves or Rihana's bottom or our own version of X-factor as it would happen ... (you've guessed it) in a typical European country.

That's the end of the journey for this series of articles. Thank you for following it!
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