CulturePROtocols

CULTURE DRAMA

Body Language

• Gestures• Proximity• Facial expressions• Emotional animation• Degree of formality• Posture

• Keep your hands still in public

• Emotional control• Neutral-to-pleasant

facial expression• Dress conservatively,

esp. women• Voice volume control

CULTURE DRAMA

Greeting etiquette

• Eagles with eagles; sparrows with sparrows?

• Women included? Ok for them to proact?

• 100% choreographed? • Photo opt?• Translators?

• Greet entire entourage?

• Who are the “seeing-eye” dogs?

• For show or for real? • Who’s the power

behind the power?• Talk any business?

• Months of “getting to know you” background info & “champion” meetings before the first formal meeting

• Let French execs take the initiative in initiating the greeting.

• Asian business card exchange ritual

CULTURE DRAMA

BUSINESS GIFT-GIVING ETIQUETTE

ETIQUETTE ISSUES• Professional vs.

personal gift?• Status-appropriate• Public or private

opening? • Open gifts in front of

giver?

• For top eagle only or the company as a community?

• Invisible gift around others

• Culture-iconic?• Honorary display

location?

Japan’s standard

U.S.A. Gifts Etiquette• Legal bribery (Foreign

Corrupt Practices Act)• PAC group campaign

financing• Stadium luxury box hosting

& entertainment• Gift value parameters• Tax write-off legal

loopholes

CULTURE DRAMA

Cross-cultural meetings

• Participants?• Punctuality?• Seating

arrangement?• Agenda?• Speaking order?

• Language?• Communication

style?• Conflict• Compromise• Small talk• Closure

CULTURE DRAMA

CROSS-CULTURE PRESENTATION

ETIQUETTE

• Non-literal translation• Body language• Use of humor• Sales pitches• Monolog or dialog?• Eagle to eagle• No surprises

CULTURE DRAMA

International Negotiating

Japanese

Latin America

• Personalizing a professional relationship

• Non-legal approach• Flexible, evolving

implementation (“flex friendship”)

• Don’t push for compromise

• Long meals• Flexible, evolving

implementation• Simpatico

Russians

Out sitting & out-drinking you—

endurance marathon

Chinese

• Last minute sandbagging

• Attacking informal inconsistencies

• Invisible benchmarking you

Middle East

• Exaggerated rhetoric & buddy-buddy

• Gifts & sucking up• Putting you on the

spot one-on-one in awkward situations

• Conservative entertaining

Germans

• Technicians first• Direct, exact, serious• Be/do what you say• Accuracy > feelings• Privacy of people &

corporate info

Asians

• Face matters dealt with behind the scenes

• Aggressive, forthright Koreans

• No public negativity or doubt

• Status groupings• No social

embarrassment

U.S. Americans

• Humor & informality• Hyped salesmanship• Delegation disunity• Legalistic• Impersonal• Short-term

CULTURE DRAMA

BRIBING ETIQUETTE• Bribery or facilitating

business?• Institutionalized (legal)

bribery)

• It’s mostly legal; use “consultants” when it’s not.

• Sometimes in the job description

• Govts do most of it.• Natural part of paternalistic

culs• Corps are the goose that

lays the golden egg in DCs.

• Bribery to facilitate business activities vs. to buy influence

• Do it with respect in non-institutional culs.

• Don’t imply anything illegal; phrase it for what it is: pay for a service rendered.

• If you can’t take the heat, stay home.

• “I know how expensive it is to process our papers.”

• $$$ taped to the bottom of your driver’s license

• “Mr. Wang is my good friend!”

• “I’m from the Garza family.”