0:16 hello and welcome to business lessons from the military I'm your host Kevin bemel the oneeyed guy I guess right now and we are here every uh Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time 2 p.m. EAS eastern time with an hour in for Central and Mountain to talk about uh military Doctrine military history great military leaders and how we can apply those lessons to bettering our businesses helping them be more successful so a couple of weeks ago um I started um the
0:51 sort of next section of Marine Corps Warf fighting Doctrine talking about C Cultural Literacy and competence and we're going to continue in that vein um dealing today with the subject of cultural differences so I mean it should be no surprise to to anyone that that the way um people um act behave think varies considerably um from from place to place um even here within the United States we have um significant cultural differences
1:29 um between uh regions of the country um between people of um uh either more uh recent uh uh immigration versus those whose families have been here for a longer time um all of these things create cultural differences all the more so um between two countries and even even between uh countries in the in the West for example there are cultural differences between uh Great Britain and the United States between even France and Germany although you know they're right next door there are cultural differences between the US um and and
2:05 Mexico some are are less than others um nonetheless it is um a very valuable skill to develop to be able to negotiate these uh cultural differences and so we're going to talk start talking about that today probably talk about it we'll talk about it more um in in the coming weeks as as well um and do rather a a deep dive into this subject so going to go ahead and uh you know share screen as I do and let's uh get the slideshow going
2:43 here we go right here's our our you know military theme I always joke about that okay and uh the um uh three pillars of attainment okay which is the basis for um all the work we do here on the way to wow shows ostensibly we're operating in the finances Realm of the Pursuits pillar but we're also dealing in the relationships realm um and in in particular kind of friends and colleagues um though that's you know part of dealing with cultural differences and also our identity and
3:18 our mindset so as I talked about um a couple of weeks ago part of being culturally literate is knowing who we are okay having a you know having a a thorough self- knowledge okay and um if if you want to take a look at those past episodes please go to my uh YouTube channel um youtube.com atthe way toow you can check out those and all the other episodes um so knowing who we are makes it easier then to perceive
3:54 cultural differences and respond to them in an appropriate fashion and the desire to do that is a mindset okay so some people have the mindset you know they don't they don't care about cultural differences people have to conform to my way of doing and my way of thinking otherwise you know they're not good people or they're ignorant or this or that or the other thing other people have a a mindset more along lines of look every culture has its um its its distinctiveness and it's
4:29 incumbent of on me to understand those in order to um be able to broaden the uh array of people with whom I can have a productive relationship um as you might guess I I I consider myself to be you know very much in the latter category I do think that's an important skill uh for us to develop so let's let's go on here so in talking about um cultural differences um culture is essentially defined through a series of cultural
5:05 norms now as we talk about cultural norms right for for someone who has only been involved in his own culture he probably doesn't look at these various aspects as Norms per se it they're just the way things are are right the person was raised that way and and they don't perceive any distinctiveness in them until they're confronted with someone
5:42 who has different cultural norms okay so the fact of the matter is especially as children we're all pretty much ethnocentric meaning we we we look at our own culture as being the culture you know in air quotes right um and it's not until we see it in contrast to others that we begin to understand that oh every one of us is subject to certain cultural norms okay but those Norms are not Universal throughout the world or
6:17 for that matter even throughout the country or or throughout you know the state or even City that we live in okay depending on on where we are obviously some places in United States are more homogeneous than others Okay so we're going to talk about um these various uh aspects of cultural norms okay and and and that's going to give us uh that that's going to give us a foundation from which to start examining how do we deal with cultural differences so one of the questions you might be asking yourself right now is well wait a minute
6:52 I mean there's so many different cultures how do I know which cultures I want to learn to deal with I mean you know even like people tend to think of Asians as being or or even just Far Far East Asians as being you know culturally homogeneous that's that's not true at all um Japanese culture is different than Chinese culture which is different than Vietnamese culture which is different than Thai culture Etc and and even within China or Japan there are distinctive subcultures if you will right so how many of them are we going to learn are we going to learn you know a hundred different cultures um no
7:29 that's actually not the goal so while it might be desirable um to learn the cultural cultural norms or or be and get comfortable with the cultural differences of a couple of key cultures because a lot of your businesses Focus there um the idea is is to set a framework in which we can quickly understand cultural differences when we're um when we need to deal with them okay and and be more attuned to how we
8:05 respond okay so that we we don't make um number one cultural faux Paws but number two we don't make assumptions about the people with whom we're dealing with from our cultural mindset but rather as much as possible looking at their responses Etc from their cultural mindset right because that will that will give us greater insight into how to conduct our business all right so let's look at these um there's a seven cultural norms uh we're going to talk about okay and
8:41 the first one is thoughts right so just the way people think varies from um culture to culture okay and and thoughts and behavior all of these things um you know are are are some what interactive so it's it's it's difficult to um give an example of a cultural norm that's only thoughts oriented um you know because people are not separated that way we're integrated um you know we're integrated beings um so but you know in
9:19 terms of thoughts so um some cultures really prioritize a much more linear way of of thinking other cultures really develop a a more sort of holistic way of thinking or maybe even almost like a circular way of thinking okay and so um how a culture generally deals with its thoughts um the people within the culture children are just they're just raised to think that way there's no it's
9:54 it's not like there's you know they're in school okay we're a linear thinking country so you're going to learn to think line linearly that no that's not how it works it's just this is something it's it's it's um um it's something that children almost absorb as opposed to learn because they're in the you know gestal uh of of where they live okay next are behaviors so you know the sets of actions Etc again you know in in in our country I'm I'm going to give some examples of these um after we go through
10:30 the seven cultural norms but in our country for example upon you know meeting someone um we don't know or just you know meeting someone after not having seen them for a while um it's very customary to shake hands um and and by the way it used to be that only men shook hands um women did not that was in the United States that was um in the 19th century generally speaking men didn't shake hands with women um now days it's the cultural norm especially in business that you know men and women shake hands with each other it's it's a
11:05 way of of of greeting um in other cultures um the the greeting is um perhaps more formal you might call it so you know if as you've seen in in certain Asian cultures you know they they bow okay um now they now in some of those cultures they've adopted the handshake as a more informal greeting but in a more formal situation um they will bow in the United States by the way bowing used to be done um this is probably more toward uh or more in the sort of um early to mid 19th century and earlier um
11:42 a Man Would Not Shake Hands with a woman but when he was introduced he would make a slight bow to her as as a a form of courtesy okay bowing the United States really doesn't doesn't exist anymore um at least among sort of um normative American culture but there are subcultures um in the United States I can imagine among people who who for whom bowing was a part of their um you know is a part of their normal culture um where um they continue to do so even though they're now living here in the United States okay um patterns of
12:20 communication so these are the ways that we not just talk but but give even verbal clues about uh in in order to send messages okay and um you know so here in the United States um we we tend to um sort of you know get right down to what it is we want to say um we're we're very sort of efficient if you will in the way we communicate okay other cultures they're Less Direct in in in how they approach
12:58 verbal communication um in the United States we tend not to be um um as uh Broad in our body language our body language tends to be a little more subtle whereas in other cultures body language is is larger so if you've ever read any of um Peter Ma's books uh he's the author of very famous book called um a year in provance um Peter M was a a britisher Who um moved he and his wife moved to the south of France and he he'll he'll talk about people he meets
13:35 and he'll talk about how um you you'll you'll meet a like two a French woman in in one of the markets and she's carrying her two you know bags of of of of food um and she she'll meet a friend and she will set down her bags in order that she can talk properly because hand motions are a big part of communication in the south of France okay oh I I I take Peter Ma at his word I have not um been to the south of France I don't know but but so so that's an example though whereas here in the United States uh for the most part we're probably not going to set down our bundles if we meet a friend on
14:11 the street and we're going to have a conversation with them we're gonna you know hold hold our bags or whatever we've got and have the conversation because arm movements are not a big as big a part of our patterns of communication okay Customs um how we just do things is uh obviously a big part of our uh cultural norms so um it used to be um that the cultural norm in the well the cultural norm I was brought up with um was uh if if a man um
14:49 even a young man or in my case a teenager um male was with a woman okay um and he was you know they were driving in a car so when when they when the man you know parked the car first of all the man would almost always drive like when I drove with my mother I would usually end up driving even though obviously she's older than me okay so I I would park the car and then I was expected to come around and open the door for my mother right that was the custom back then um and uh I remember one time I I don't remember where we drove store
15:25 somewhere I think it was and you know my mother and I are talking I pull in the parking space I shut off the car and I you know get out of the car and close the door and I'm walking off and I'm still talking about whatever I'm talking to and I get about 10 10 15 feet away from the car and I realize I'm talking to myself I go back to the car and I open my mother's door and I'm like where were you and she said waiting for you to open the door right that was her way of teaching her son that the appropriate thing is for you to come around and open my door now she looked at that as a a matter of respect um this is how a man showed respect for
16:01 a woman by opening the door for her if we walked into a store it was expected that I would hold the door open for my mother and let her through um but I wouldn't walk through first okay now you know fast forward several years I'm now in college I'm I'm out on a date with a woman and um we were going to a movie and you know I'm I'm I'm driving the car and I pull in the parking space and I get out of the car and I go walking around the back of the car to open the door for her and I'm reaching for the door as she's opening it and she looks at me and she says what you think I can't open my own door like no I'm I'm quite sure you
16:39 could open your own door I just I was taught that the the polite thing to do was for me to open the door for you out of out of respect for you she says yeah don't don't do that like oh okay so see at that point cultural norms were starting to change and and you know one might argue I was brought up with a kind of older or oldfashioned cultural norm cultural custom I should say um and and and they were changing so so these things can have some fluidity by the way even in what is otherwise seemingly a pretty homogeneous uh culture okay so
17:15 but obviously Customs make up a big part and how do we learn them we just learn the way you know like the way I did parents you know immerse their children in this is how we do things right that's that's a custom okay three more uh cultural norms beliefs okay so um you know again and I'll I'll just use uh you know examples from the United States so it used to be that there was a a pretty broadly held belief that you know the United States was a was a great country it was a you
17:51 know a Force for good in the world um you know all these these kind of things um I I would say that that belief is less of a cultural norm today and without getting into the politics of it um you know there's a there's a significant number of Americans I I I don't know that it's necessarily a majority but certainly a significant number of Americans who believe that America is a malign force in the in the world so you know those kinds of belief patriotism used to be a uh a respected uh belief in the United States now in in
18:27 you know many um areas I don't mean Geographic areas necessarily but in many areas of life patriotism is considered um day class A it's considered bad um even evil right so um the beliefs that that um uh that a a culture generally has make up part of its cultural norms okay as do its values okay so in United States um we value freedom now I think PE it would be reasonable to say that you know there different groups in
19:03 America might Define Freedom or Liberty in in different ways but but that's I do believe that that's a pretty um Universal value if you ask you know if you ask the typical person walking uh you know Ty the typical person in the United States um do you value Freedom they would say yes okay now you might go on and say what does freedom mean to you and you might get different definition misss okay but that that Central value um would would you know would be pretty Universal here in the United States okay as opposed to um do you believe in God
19:39 right so I remember when I first started in the Navy um back in 2007 uh one of my colleagues showed me an article that had been published in the Washington Post that said that um I think it was 92% of Americans said that they believe in God that's a pretty Universal value at that point I mean I used to joke when I would do the What's called the indoc brief the indoctrination briefs it was really the helping you know people who had newly come to okanawa understand how
20:14 things worked there and I would joke with them you know what other thing in American Life do 92% of Americans agree on right um so I would say that I mean I haven't seen any statistics more recently um so you know that was already over 15 years ago or 15 years ago but I I would bet that that belief is not as broadly held today as it was 15 years ago so that that cultural norm in that the cultural norm of that value of believing in God I think is is is is probably
20:50 changing how rapidly I can't say all right and then finally um institutions so there whether the institutions are are private institutions like religious institutions academic institutions whether they're public institutions like like governments okay um how those work and the faith that people have in them are are a cultural norm so again excuse me um churchgoing or or religious uh religious worship used to used to be a much more broadly held C
21:28 cultural norm belief in those institutions Reliance on those institutions was um much more broadly held in the United States um than than they are uh today so that's that's an Institutional Norm that has changed significantly over the last you know say half century or more um belief in the government too or or I should say maybe not belief in the government faith in the government um has also changed okay so if you look at how many PE uh what percentage of people have faith in Congress have faith in the presidency in
22:03 the Supreme Court um those have all dropped significantly too over the last 50 years and there's a lot a lot of um expressions of lack of faith in in our government institutions really from many different political quarters um so um our our institutional our our the cultural norms of our institutions um are much they're they're much less broad Norms um than they than they used to be so those are changing
22:39 now I've spoken primarily about cultural norms within the United States as examples because those those are the easiest ones I think for us to perceive in terms of the changes over time but imagine you know the differences in cultural Val cultural norms in terms of beliefs and values between say you know the United States and uh China or the United States and Saudi Arabia um even the United States and uh Mexico so um you know probably bigger um uh
23:15 differences in cultural beliefs and values between Western countries and and um and uh um Asian and South Asian countries then you know third world countries countries in Africa th those are probably greater than for example the differences in cultural norms between the United States in Australia where um we have a fairly similar cultural heritages heritage we have I I think Heritage is it maybe Heritage is plural all by itself so the cultural heritage
23:50 of the United States and Australia are very similar okay and so that has led to much more similar cultural norms to today um than would be the case between say um uh Vietnam and the United States okay um even though Vietnam there's been there was a significant French influence on Vietnam and there's a French influence on the United States as well nonetheless the the major influence um on Vietnam is is a a Southeast Asian um influence an Asian influence whereas the
24:26 biggest influences on the United states were uh Western European okay so um as we continue with this subject of cultural differences and and and understanding cultural norms and and how to um deal with cultural differences these are some of the aspects that that I umum um uh encourage you to keep in mind and um I just want to give you some um ideas um this is this is coming right out of uh uh no I don't know I
25:01 don't know why that came up I'm actually I'm GNA stop sharing here um so um this is coming right out of Marine Corps uh Warf fighting Doctrine okay and um there's some examples here that I think are are worth um considering um as we talk about this so um we talk about um uh dress and appearance the cultural norms of dress and appearance right so the United States um and and and this is even more so postco um right we used to think of dressing for success in the
25:37 United States for man it was to put on you know a suit and tie or at least a coat and tie um and and for women it was it was either uh you know an appropriate dress or um uh you know maybe a pant suit um something that you know is is is dressy if you will okay now um in the workplace uh one can dress much more casually than ever before and that's perfectly um acceptable okay and you know over the last um Century especially um the the ability to um assess the the
26:18 wealth or cultural standing of someone in America based on their dress has has significantly changed these days you know you can see someone in jeans and a t-shirt and whereas a 100 years ago that person would have been a workingclass individual um and and a wealthy uh upper class person would almost never dress that way unless maybe they were gonna you know go fishing or something and even then probably not today you have no idea of the of the wealth or class standing of an individual who's dressed in jeans and a t-shirt you just don't
26:53 that's the casualness and flexibility of dress in the United States whereas in other cultures um they retain um a much more distinctive separation of how um wealthier people or higher class people dress um than um less wealthy people poor people and people of a lower uh class would dress okay so that's that's an example of a a cultural norm that um we can we can see pretty easily okay uh food and eating habits right in the United States um for the
27:30 most part we eat in order to assuage our hunger and make sure we have energy for the day okay whereas in other countries eating is is much more of a ritual all the time okay so if if you look at customs in France and and how they eat you know meals are a focus of the day they are an opportunity for people to all all all meals breakfast lunch dinner all of them are opportunities for families to be together for friends to be together to converse to you know
28:07 share time together Etc um in this country we do that sometimes but but you know breakfast probably not not anymore I mean it used to be families had breakfast together you see it on you know TV shows from the 50s perhaps but not So Much Anymore in in the United States um and even if you have a quote unquote breakfast meeting the point of that meeting is to discuss business usually it's it's not it's not to socialize per se so maybe you know you may have social lunches on occasion you might have you know dinners with friends um and and and and those
28:44 may be more similar to how people um eat in France um but but the whole cultural norms around eating in the United States where there's a lot of focus on fast food on uh Quick Serve uh sitdown restaurants you you have far less of that in France than you do here and I I I see now we're we're we're at time so there's there's some other um well so I do want to take time to do one more and that is how relationships especially family friends so in the United States
29:19 our relationships tend to revolve around the nuclear family now that wasn't always the case um Extended kinship relationships were far more common a 100 years ago and farther back today than they are now and while there are there are people and there are Americans who live in multi-generational households that is not the norm in the United States and generally those people are you know more recent arrivals to the United States okay and that's as contrasted with um
29:54 say again again um you know countries like like China where multigenerational households are far more common and um relationships are are much more strongly based on kinship and family than they are here in the United States while you know we think of our members of our family as being important um we have many other factors that enter into the quality of our relationships than just family and kinship okay so the whole way that a relationships are conducted in the
30:29 United States is very very different than it is in other countries and that's one of the reasons why dealing with cross-cultural situations can be difficult is um we're looking at relationships through our cultural norms and not realizing that other people we're dealing with have different cultural norms in terms of how relationships are dealt with and so we're we're operating at Cross purpos okay so um that's what uh that's what I've got for today on cultural
31:04 differences um I I I I hope that um number one you find this useful I hope you find it interesting too I think you know this is more and more important as things get more complex in the world um that that we understand um how to navigate cultural differences and as our as the United States becomes more culturally diverse I think it's also um very important to understand how to navigate these differences successfully um because in the end that is what's
31:39 going to um I think maintain uh societal or it's one of the things that's going to maintain societal cohesion uh here in this country so thank you very much for joining me today and and hanging in for a few minutes longer uh than normal I appreciate it very much tomorrow is uh tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time is people making money and the topic is the magic I put that in air quotes of compound interest and as I mentioned in my show yesterday um we are going to be
32:14 doing some I'm not going to call it mathematics I'm gonna be call I'm GNA call it some money um because compound interest is a a money concept and money in my experience is always easier to figure out uh than math and so um I hope you will join me for that um it's a very very useful tool to understand for your investment life or for for the investment side of your life I should say um and so that that will be our topic for tomorrow and then next week on Monday at 10: am Pacific time will be the next edition of trusts and Estates
32:50 weekly and then seven days from today we will be back for the next edition of business lessons from the military so thank you very very much for joining me again I I hope you enjoyed it wishing you a wonderful and productive rest of the day and signing off Marie darling you are my bell all the best folks