Access to Asia. Waisfisz Bob

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understand why anyone would sacrifice money to punish someone who had the good luck of getting to play the other role.”

      This is not how U.S. Americans typically think when it comes to these kinds of games.

      For example, when an online article about Henrich's study appeared in Pacific Standard24 in February 2013, hundreds of comments from U.S. readers largely confirmed what researchers already knew about our culture: We prefer splits to be made 50-50; otherwise, we're inclined to punish the other player, even if it means losing money ourselves. We also tend to view someone's behavior as being indicative of a personality trait or disposition as opposed to a situational response. Psychologists call this the fundamental attribution error, or FAE.

      Some of the comments on Henrich's research included (italics are ours to highlight examples of FAE)

      • “(T)his hypothetical tightwad offered you nothing. If he's that greedy and indifferent to the lives of others, how do you think he'll use the money once he gets it?”

      • “The other person has proven themselves unusually greedy and selfish. They've also done nothing to deserve having this fortune showered upon them.”

      • “I can only speculate on why this other person wouldn't offer a fair share of this fortune that fell into their lap through no merit of their own, and I find self-absorption a more likely explanation than them needing every last dollar in that fortune for completely altruistic reasons.”

      Note how these commentators jumped to conclusions and made assumptions about greed, selfishness, and self-absorption based on the sketchiest of information.

      Thinking Is Not Universal

      The Machiguenga study helps highlight the erroneous assumption that there are universal ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. This bias is played out in organizations day after day, especially as it relates to leadership and management research and advice.

      Consider this quote from a New York Times interview with the director of the U.S. – based NeuroLeadership Institute:

      “Certainty is a constant drive for the brain…the feeling of uncertainty feels like pain…that turns out to be cognitively exhausting.... The less we can predict the future, the more threatened we feel…so we are driven to create certainty.”25

      Did you assume the we in that quote meant we humans? Actually, it more accurately refers only to certain cultures.

      Geert Hofstede's studies over a 40-year span resulted in various dimensions of national cultures. These cultural dimensions must be compared within the context of other country scores and not analyzed as a standalone dimension. As mentioned previously, one of Hofstede's dimensions looks at the issue of uncertainty avoidance by measuring the extent to which people across 76 countries and regions “feel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.”26 According to Hofstede's model, the higher the score, the more people within that culture will be uncomfortable with the new, unknown, and surprising. Such cultures deal with that discomfort with strict laws and rules; they also tend to espouse one unassailable truth. For more on this topic, see Chapter 3, pages 45–46. Scores on the uncertainty avoidance dimension range from cultures like Greece and Portugal, which scored 112 and 104 respectively, to Singapore and Jamaica, which scored 8 and 13 respectively.

      The U.S. score on the uncertainty avoidance dimension is 46, which Hofstede describes as the medium to low range, similar to Indonesia (48), the Philippines (44), and India (40). The U.S. score is quite different from that of Japan (92), South Korea (85), Taiwan (69), China (30), and Hong Kong (29). As these data illustrate, there are considerable variations of tolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity throughout Asia. To assert that all human beings are “driven to create certainty” is misleading at best.

      Relationships Are Dynamic

       Access to Asia offers you an education in what we're calling the Global Three Rs:

      • Engaging in sufficient research (due diligence) about a culture

      • Showing respect for differences

      • Enhancing relationships through interaction

      Think about the word relationship for a moment. A relationship is a dynamic, involving two or more individuals or things. We cannot determine where we stand in relation to another culture until we have a better handle on ourselves. It is for that reason that this chapter does something few other books do: It holds up a mirror to U.S. culture.

      “A fish discovers its need for water only when it is no longer in it. Our culture is like water to a fish…What one culture may regard as essential – a certain level of material wealth, for example – may not be so vital to other cultures.”

– Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, Riding the Waves of Culture27

      We are often oblivious to what we think, what we value, and what we are motivated by because we take them for granted. We are like the goldfish mentioned in the previous chapter. We don't realize that we're swimming in water until the glass bowl is overturned – a feeling that is analogous to doing business in a new culture.

      Remaining unaware of how we see the world puts us all at a huge disadvantage – like the new recruit who is ignorant of organizational culture, also known as “the way things are done around here.” That's an alienating position to be in until you learn to adapt. But how can you possibly learn what you need to do to develop and maintain meaningful relationships with global clients, customers, and partners?

      This is where the eight questions can help – questions that surfaced after interviewing more than 100 people for this book. These questions speak to many of the dimensions identified by the work of Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars, Michele J. Gelfand, Richard Nisbett, Robert J. House, Peter Dorfman, Mansour Javidan, Paul J. Hanges, Mary F. Sully de Luque,28 and George Simons.29 Think of them as the beginning of holding up a mirror to yourself, with the goal of succeeding in business in Asia.

       1. How Do We Prefer to Act – Individually or as a Group?

      You may already be familiar with the terms individualism and collectivism or communitarianism30 that refer to the tendency for cultures to be oriented toward the self or the group. In individualistic societies like the U.S., U.K., and Canada, for example, decisions are made, contracts are negotiated, and deals are cut for which people consider themselves individually responsible. Business people from collectivist cultures, like those covered among the 10 countries featured in this book, prefer group representation and group negotiations. In most cases, making a decision without group input is to be avoided.

      People in each of these two cultural dimensions have developed different social skills that, although essential to success in one's own culture, are not necessarily understood elsewhere. As Richard Brislin, professor of management and industrial relations at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, advises

      To transcend the distance between self and others, people in individualistic societies have to develop a certain set of

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