There are differences between cultures. The differences are in foundational areas. The differences influence collaboration.

Colleagues in multinational teams improve their collaboration by addressing three key questions:

Where do we differ in how we think, therefore in how we work? What influence do those differences have on our collaboration? How can we get the differences to work for, and not against, us?

We at UC address the first question. That is our expertise. We describe, then contrast, how major business cultures think and how they work.

Colleagues address the second and third questions. With their tools, in their forms, behind their company firewalls. That is their expertise.

Currently on UC are ten topics, forty-seven cultural differences, and nearly one thousand examples under Patterns.

We have four topics, twenty cultural differences, and five hundred examples in reserve, to be uploaded over the upcoming months.

As we grow in revenues we intend to grow in research-based analysis, by adding countries, topics and examples. Research

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I did my first research project many years ago. In the mid-1990s. That’s how old I am. In Bonn. Working in the Bundestag. For the Christian Democrats. The majority party. Helmut Kohl was chancellor. Wolfgang Schäuble was the majority leader. I reported to Dr. Schäuble. About all things related to Germany’s relations with the United States.

Time and again I observed how differently the two cultures – Germany, USA – communicated, presented, persuaded, how they made their case. Before then I had co-led intercultural training seminars. German long-term delegates being sent to the U.S. From major German companies. Boot camp. We had them for a full week. We worked them hard. One of the core topics was Persuasion. How Germans, how Americans, fundamentally persuade. About the differences. 

A year into my work for the Christian Democrats I decided put my insights to work for a select goup of people. But first I wanted to go deeper, to do my own analysis. I asked myself a simple, yet complex question: When and how and where do the Germans get their hard-wiring re: persuasion? Same about the Americans.

So I went to work. I interviewed Kindergarten teachers in both countries. Americans at the tender age of four and five learn to do Show ‘n Tell. To stand up in front of the class and present a toy, a stuffed animal, a drawing.

I then interviewed educators at the middle and high school levels. About when students give their first formal presentations. What are they taught? “Could you, please, send me your materials? The same questions at the university level. I reached out to professors. “What do you teach them?” and “Can you send me your handouts?” Here I could draw on my own experiences having gotten a Master’s degree in Berlin. 

Then I turned to a handful of global companies. Corporate Learning & Development. “You folks have all sorts of internal offerings about rhetoric, presentation skills, selling, etc. What are the key points? May I see the slides?” After that I went online to Amazon and ordered the top three or five best-sellers about selling, presenting, persuading. Best-sellers in Germany. Best-sellers in the United States.

But wait, what about advertising? Of course! TV. Radio. Print. The web. A national-culture’s logic, their approach to selling, jumps off the page, the screen, out of the loudspeaker. Every form of selling reveals how a culture persuades. Selling is persuasion. Explicitly. Obviously. What else would it be? 

And there were other sources I tapped into. The point of it all? To gather evidence, irrefutable, obvious, plain for the eye to see. Then group the evidence. And begin the analysis. Read. Watch. Listen. Ask. Discuss. Reflect. With one eye on the patterns. In how Germans, in how Americans, persuade. And the other eye on the differences. Patterns in behavior. First identify. Then contrast. Here’s an example:

Germans separate message from messenger. The presenter consciously and purposely moves into the background. In the German business context the message takes center stage. Germans believe that “arguments should speak for themselves.” 

Americans do the opposite. They link message and messenger. The message, its form, and its presenter create a unity. In the American business context the messenger takes center stage. Americans believe that “you sell yourself first, then your product or service.”

Holy Moses, what a huge difference! And with serious consquences for their collaboration.

Americans find the German separation of message and messenger impersonal, abstract, sterile, even drab. To distance oneself from one’s own message can be interpreted by Americans as risk-averse, disinterested, and anything but persuasive. “If he himself is not convinced by his message, why should I be?” 

Germans, on the other hand, react ambivalently to linking message and messenger. The American style is motivating and attractive. However, Germans are persuaded by rational argumentation. “There must be a reason why he is appealing to our emotions instead of to our reason.”

That was just one of the key differences I discovered. Between how the two cultures do something as fundamental as to persuade. I call it Message vs. Messenger. There were other differences. Several of them.

So that’s how I do my research. I go deep and wide. I try to ask the right question, to gather the right evidence, to get the analysis right. It takes times, effort, concentration, and most importantly, the ability to recognize patterns.

Many find my method unscientific. They miss an academic approach. Theory. With academic terminology. They’re disappointed by the lack of data (whatever that is). 

My response? I do pattern-recognition. National cultures. Foundational topics. Deep. Wide. My data? It’s all around us. For the naked eye to see. If you look in the right places. If your eyes work properly. And if you’re mind has not been infected by wrong thinking. And there’s plenty of wrong thinking out there.