SIX
Respect, Rank, and Ritual
The implications of formality at work and in everyday life
I have a British colleague who loves to reminisce about his first week of work at a Silicon Valley computer maker in the 1980s. The office was staffed by employees who either hailed from California or had been living there long enough to have embraced the state’s relaxed style. You can imagine the staff ’s raised eyebrows and stifled chuckles when my friend walked in dressed in a three-piece suit. To them, he looked as if he was heading to a black tie affair or a James Bond look-alike contest.
Throughout the day his colleagues joked about his attire, assuming he would get the message that he could wear more casual clothes. He recalls many of the staff being dressed in jeans and flip-flops. The next day he lost the vest but kept the suit and tie. More encouragement by his coworkers led him to ditch the jacket and swap it for a sweater. When he was pressed further to relax his style, he finally hit his limit and shot back, “Just so you know, for me, this is informal!”
Our programming around formality plays a role in so many aspects of our lives, affecting not just the way we dress, but also how we greet and interact with others, serve and eat food, give and receive gifts, and simply walk down the street. Many of our expectations and habits concerning formality are connected to our deep-rooted cultural programming. As a result, slight miscommunications and even more significant culture crashes can easily occur when people from different ends of the formality spectrum cross paths.
Before we dive into the details of how these differences play out across cultures, it’s helpful to understand what formality and informality mean to you—and how to identify them. The word formality is generally used to describe an observance of established customs, conventions, or rules of etiquette. That, in my opinion, is a very formal definition. So let’s get down to what it really means in the context of our day-to-day lives.
Most of us can identify formal or informal behavior when we see it in the context of our own culture. It’s particularly easy to spot formal behaviors in contrast to more informal behaviors. We often refer to the set of formal behaviors that we use in various contexts as “etiquette.” If you display proper etiquette, it means you are behaving, dressing, or speaking in a way that is considered to be polite in a particular setting. But what constitutes formal behavior or proper etiquette in one culture may actually be considered relatively informal in another, or vice versa. The example of my British friend’s experience in that Silicon Valley start-up is a simple illustration of that.
Think about other behaviors that you might be quick to label as “formal” or “proper,” and how often you use or expect to see these behaviors. For me, easily identifiable formal behaviors include use of titles like Mr. or Ms., holding oneself upright as opposed to a slouching or lounging posture, speaking in hushed tones as opposed to being loud and boisterous, eating with utensils versus hands, and repeated use of polite language such as “thank you” and “please” to express consideration of others. For someone from another culture, their telltale signs of proper etiquette may include actions such as bowing deeply, standing rather than sitting, avoiding direct eye contact, and removing shoes in certain places. While there are general similarities between certain expressions of formality across cultures (such as the use of honorifics, offering guests a place of honor), the nuances and frequency of use can be extremely variable. In some cultures, behaviors perceived as formal are reserved for certain situations and ceremonial events, while in other cultures behaviors like these may be in play on a daily basis.
Navigating cultural differences related to the use of formal or informal behaviors can be challenging, but the bigger, underlying obstacles are the different ways that we communicate and perceive hidden messages through those behaviors. One of the most common messages conveyed by formal behavior is respect, including respect for places, traditions, or people. When it comes to human interactions, people may be authentically moved to use formal behaviors and other protocol to show deference for others, but it’s frequently done out of a sense of obligation—a social imperative to show respect for some-one’s higher rank or status related to things like experience, job titles, and age. These formal protocols are often a means of acknowledging that one person has more influencing power than another. Using formality as an expression of respect for rank is an essential survival skill in cultures in which a social hierarchy defines the way people interact with each other.
In these cultures, varying degrees of deference may be required based on the extent to which people expect and accept that there is an unequal distribution of power. This phenomenon is known to sociologists as power distance—a term coined by Geert Hofstede as part of his IBM study1—and this factor also plays a role in the other topics discussed in this book.
In other cultures, however, formality may be downplayed as a way of purposefully disassociating from anything that smacks of social hierarchy. Although formality may be used to show respect in certain limited circumstances, the lack of formality is used to flatten any sense of social hierarchy. I think one of the main reasons U.S. culture is relatively informal is because the country’s British “founders” wanted to escape the confines of a strict class system. As the culture evolved, informality has been increasingly used as a tool for asserting the ideal of equality over hierarchy.
As an example, in many U.S. workplaces it may be totally acceptable to refer to your boss by their first name and even gently tease them. This informal behavior may even be welcomed by the boss, who doesn’t want to come off as “above” everyone else. In other cultures, however, the informal and rank-breaking nature of this behavior would be considered totally disrespectful, no matter how long you had been working with your boss. Without knowledge of the underlying meanings associated with informality in the United States, a boss from a more formal culture might interpret the lack of formal etiquette as extremely rude and unacceptable. Conversely, someone from the United States might perceive a colleague who is more deferential toward their boss as being excessively and artificially polite.
The bottom line is that we are all conditioned to perceive formality as a positive or negative depending on our culture and the context. I found a good illustration of the negative association common in the United States when I looked up the word “formality” in the Oxford English/American online dictionary. Here are the first two definitions that come up:
1. The rigid observance of rules of convention or etiquette; and 1.1 Stiffness of behavior or style.
Notice the words “rigid” and “stiff ”? In U.S. culture, the words “rigid” and “stiff”—and even the implication of being “conventional”—can have a decidedly negative connotation. In other cultures, words like “proper,” “appropriate,” and “official” might be more likely to appear in a definition—these words may have a more positive connotation in that culture.
People from different cultures tend to interpret formality in a positive or negative way for a wide variety of reasons, many having to do with context. For example, think about how you use varying levels of formality to greet someone, depending on your level of intimacy with that person. How would you greet a new acquaintance as opposed to an old friend? If you are like me, you modify what you say, your gestures, and even your facial expression to something you deem more formal when meeting someone new. This formality also implies a form of respect, but that’s not to say you don’t respect your old friend. You may have great respect for your friend; it’s just that you no longer need to use formal cues to acknowledge it. Of course, that’s just how it works in my culture. It would not be safe to assume that I have carte blanche to be informal with old friends from other cultures, or that the way I express formality or informality will be perceived in a way that matches my intent.
Formality pitfalls are many and sundry, but you have a fighting chance of navigating these potential crashes if you take the time to figure out what formality means to you.
Figuring Out Your Formality Zone
The first question to answer is, do you generally think of formality as a positive or negative? Although it often depends on the situation, in our day-to-day lives most of us have some kind of gut reaction to behaviors or appearances that we construe as formal or informal. Let’s use dress as an example again. If you think someone’s clothes are formal, how does that inform your perception of them? If they tend to dress formally for a community gathering at a park, does it suggest to you that they are uptight or just very refined in their style? If someone dresses informally in a work environment, does it suggest to you that they don’t take the job seriously, or that they are trying to appear humble and relaxed?
Consider how you dress in various contexts and the message you think you send through your choices. Would you wear the same thing for an interview that you would wear to dinner with friends? Would you wear the same thing to a class at school as you would to a baseball game or soccer match? Do you feel sufficiently formal if you wear jeans to work? Why or why not? What does wearing jeans “say” in this particular setting?
Dress codes can vary widely from culture to culture. For example, unless you lived in Cuba, you wouldn’t know that wearing an untucked, typically short-sleeved, patterned guayabera shirt to a business meeting or wedding would be considered perfectly formal and appropriate male attire. In 2010, Cuba actually declared the guayabera to be its “official formal dress garment.”2 During the time that I lived in the Dominican Republic—another place where guyaberas are worn—I came to realize that the guayabera was the equivalent of wearing a suit in many other parts of the world. And while people tend to think that wearing any kind of suit is generally a safe bet, differences in details can be laden with particular messages. In Italy, for example, brightly colored business shirts and ties are appreciated as fashionable, but in Japan anything but a classic white button-down could potentially be perceived as unprofessional.
Fortunately, all you really need to know is that the notion of being formally dressed is a moving target, and when you cross cultures you can’t assume that people “read” clothing the same way you do. To err on the side of caution, try not to make assumptions even within your own country, because every company, community, and region may have its own set of formality standards and perceptions.
I’m never shy about asking my clients what to wear when I’m preparing to lead a workshop at their company. While dressing in what I perceive to be a traditionally professional way may be vital for success in certain places, dressing this way in other places—like Silicon Valley’s start-up arena—may cause you to lose credibility, because people might feel that you just don’t get them.
Of course, dress is just one small aspect of the formality puzzle. If you are truly going to get familiar with your formality zone, you have to consider your gut reactions in a wide variety of situations. In the following self-assessment exercise, note your gut reaction to the formality level of the five common scenarios I describe. The exercise is merely a starting point to get you thinking about your associations with formality and informality so you can start to open your mind to other ways of perceiving them.
Find Your Formality Zone
For every situation—whether you marked it too formal, too informal, or just right—someone from another culture might have marked it differently. Although people from the same culture may also differ in their perceptions of formality and its implications, people from the same culture do tend to have similar reactions.
Once you begin to get familiar with your own preferences and behaviors, you’ll also become more attuned to the ways that formality—and its association with rank—can impact our interactions in unexpected ways, increasing your ability to head off a culture crash like the following one.
A few years ago I worked with a global petroleum company that had relocated a group of employees from Ecuador to various cities in the United States. After a few months, Ecuadorians in several cities began reporting that their bosses did not seem confident or competent in their jobs, because they were always asking the employees for advice about what to do. Meanwhile, their U.S. bosses had some complaints about the way that the Ecuadorian employees always seemed to be waiting for the next task to be assigned rather than taking initiative to solve problems themselves. What was happening was that both the bosses and the employees thought they were being respectful of each other, but the message they intended to convey by their behaviors was being misinterpreted. The U.S. boss thought he was being inclusive and egalitarian by inviting his employees to be part of the decision making and problem solving process (an informal behavior). By not offering suggestions to the boss or jumping in to fix a problem, the Ecuadorians were showing deference to the boss’s higher rank (a more formal behavior). The solution was to make all parties aware of how their expectations for rank and formality differed, and to have them all adjust their behaviors in order to meet on a middle ground. Once the Ecuadorians realized that in taking more initiative they would still be perceived as respectful, and it would even benefit their relationships with their bosses, they quickly began to do so. The bosses, in turn, felt less obliged to be inclusive and offered up more solutions of their own, but still remained open and receptive to any of the employees’ ideas that were offered. As a result, the number of complaints from both sides diminished significantly.
Adjusting your behaviors in order to convey the right level of respect for rank is no small feat, especially because we can’t assume that the behaviors we typically use to convey respect will mean the same thing to people in other cultures. When dining with others, for example, you may consider the seat of honor at a rectangular table to be at the head of the table or just to the right of the head, while in other cultures (like the Chinese) the place of honor is usually the seat in the center facing east or facing the entrance.3 At business meetings in certain cultures, the ends of the table may be filled by those with the highest rank, while in other cultures these seats would be filled by the lowest-ranking individuals. Even the honorary seats in cars, taxis, and trains are subject to cultural interpretation.
It’s tough to hit on exactly the right formula for expressing formality (or informality) and all of its implications in a culture that is not your own. Sometimes you may be able to ask questions ahead of time in order to head off a potential crash. Other times the only way to get it right is to notice the crash and then sort it out afterward, as the Ecuadorians did in the preceding story. If you are living or working in another culture, you can become more adept at knowing how and when to be formal or informal simply by being observant of these behaviors in others, doing your best to mirror them appropriately, and noticing how people respond to your behaviors. If you’re working with someone from another culture on your home turf, hit the pause button and consider the intent behind their use—or lack—of formality before you write someone off for being too rigid or overly eager, too casual or disrespectful—or make any other judgments that could impact your relationship.
Despite the variables, I generally err on the side of being formal when interacting with people from other cultures (based on the protocols of my own culture), because the general intentions behind many formal gestures are often understood. It’s also always better to appear overly respectful than to risk being disrespectful. Starting with formality and adjusting for informality is also the best path when it comes to verbal and written exchanges, how to dress, and other forms of etiquette.
In the next section we take a closer look at the key roles played by formality and informality in certain aspects of work and daily life, and how to navigate the differences when crossing cultures.
Space Invaders: Respect for Place
Formality is used to show respect not only for people but also for the places that people inhabit, including sacred, public, and more intimate spaces. Most of us know that a certain level of formality is generally expected as a show of respect when entering religious and other sacred spaces, but how we demonstrate that respect varies across cultures. It could be a matter of dress code (like removal or addition of a head covering), how loudly you speak, how you walk, or how you hold your gaze. The best course of action when entering a sacred space is to follow the lead of others and be aware that there may be gender-specific expectations. If no one else is around, rely on your own rules of formal etiquette until someone else arrives and you can adjust as needed.
It can be tricky to navigate the formal-informal divide when you are visiting someone else’s home. When guests visit my house, I always tell them to “make themselves at home.” For me, that notion implies that my guests may sit where they like, relax the way they would in their own homes, and feel free to ask for anything they might need. Sometimes guests will ask for a tour of my home, and I am happy to oblige. I guide them through the various rooms of the house, including bathrooms and bedrooms—often dashing ahead to close the doors to messy closets. They often follow me into the kitchen and linger by the counter as I put the finishing touches on some appetizers or the meal. My approach and expectations reflect my informal programming, including a looseness about sharing some of the less-polished aspects of the meal and the more intimate aspects of my life.
Conversely, when I’ve been a guest at people’s homes in more formal cultures, things unfold differently. In Colombia, for example, my family and I would usually be led to a room or area designated for the guests and shown where to sit. It would not be appropriate to request a tour of the more private rooms of the house, and the kitchen would often be considered off limits. In this context, formality is used as a way to keep others at a distance from the more intimate and unpolished aspects of their lives. This is not to say that all households in Colombia follow the same protocol—it can vary based on personal preferences, socioeconomics, and other factors—but there is a tendency to be more formal, just as there is a tendency for people from the United States to be less formal. Our conditioning in terms of formality in the home often begins at a very early age, which is why people often hold fast to these customs even when living in other cultures.
How do you expect guests to behave when entering your home? How about when you are a guest? Is it okay to put your feet up on a chair? If someone does this in your home, do you feel this is rude or does it imply that your guest is relaxed and happy? Does this change when you are in an office setting, store, or a restaurant? What about how other people’s children behave in your home? Is it acceptable for them to run around and play as raucously as they please in certain rooms?
Perceptions and acceptability related to how we conduct ourselves in certain spaces can vary widely across and within cultures. What might be perceived as a slight lack of respect for someone’s home in one culture could be seen as a major affront by others. This is exactly the kind of offense that a U.S.-trained Iraqi force deftly avoided in 2009, when they canceled a planned raid on a suspected weapons cache because it was raining. “It was absolutely the right call,” said the American captain quoted in a New York Times article. He explained that the raid would have required soldiers to traipse through people’s houses during a rainstorm in muddy boots. Tracking mud into people’s homes might have made more enemies than the troops arrested, because it would be construed as disrespectful—a concern that people from the U.S. might have considered secondary to the task at hand. “It’s not the way we’re used to doing things, but it has become the way we’re used to doing things,” the captain said. The author of the article goes on: “Across such cultural differences, the Iraqis learn from the Americans and the Americans learn from the Iraqis, imperfectly and only within limits. And still the training continues, with both sides complying on some points and pushing back on others.”4
It’s a lesson that speaks to the need for us as individuals to adjust behaviors as needed (to the best of our ability) in the interest of reducing conflict and displaying respect. But this story also highlights that it’s not a one-way street, and we can hope to truly avoid culture crashes only if both parties are self-aware and open to seeing things from a new perspective.
”Call Me Bob”: The Importance of Titles
According to the unwritten rules of Swiss etiquette, a person should always refer to a more senior counterpart at work as Mr. or Ms. (Herr or Frau) until he or she gives you the green light to use each other’s first names. A colleague of mine based in Basel, Switzerland, explained this to me, illustrating his assertion with a story about how it took eight years for his officemate to finally suggest that they move to a first-name basis. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t gotten to know each other—they were literally sharing a small office.
While waiting eight years to call someone by their first name might be a bit extreme (even for the Swiss), consider that in countries like Japan, China, and South Korea, first names are seldom used in the workplace. People who have been working together for years may not even know each other’s first names. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the United States, where people are quick to say “Call me Bob,” often while they are still shaking hands for the very first time.
When my daughter’s seven-year-old friends call me Mr. Landers, I actually cringe a little. To my ear, it suggests that the person addressing me thinks I’m old, stuffy, and uptight—that I’m not as free-spirited and cool as I think I am (or aspire to be). I usually ask them to call me Michael, but some kids just don’t feel comfortable doing this, because their parents have clearly told them that they must use this formal title when addressing adults as a show of respect for my seniority.
On the other hand, in some situations I do think a formal title is essential. For example, when I am writing an email to someone I don’t know, I always use the more formal “Mr.” or “Ms.” If the person responds and signs using their first name, then I also switch to their first name. But these days, many people don’t bother with titles in emails, even when reaching out for the first time. Part of the reason is that emails (and texts or social media messages) are generally perceived as a quicker, more informal way of communicating—as opposed to calling on the phone or writing letters. But don’t let the format fool you. The person on the receiving end of the email may not differentiate the same way you do between all of these modes of communication, and you may be starting off on the wrong foot by being too casual in your use of title—and even in the way you close out the letter.
Why do some cultures tend to use formal titles more often or for longer periods of time than others? The reasons vary from culture to culture, but one major factor is the value that a particular culture places on hierarchy, as noted at the start of this chapter. In places where the societal organization hinges on having a well-defined sense of hierarchy, the use of formal titles helps to maintain and reinforce the social strata. It also lets others know when someone has made a leap (gaining social status) or a fall to another level. The titles serve as signposts to help you navigate the social hierarchy, letting you know how you should interact with someone and vice versa, so that nobody’s feathers get ruffled and the social order is maintained.
I’ve recruited people from certain countries who refused to accept job offers because the company wouldn’t offer them more formal titles, even though the money and responsibility were in line with what they wanted. In societies where class and status play a major role at work and in everyday lives, formal titles are an important form of social capital and are often nonnegotiable. Conversely, there are other countries that tend to shun social hierarchy for historical or sociopolitical reasons, along with the formal titles and behaviors that support it. Although these hierarchies exist in more informal societies (such as the United States, Australia, Israel, and Sweden), people often downplay their seniority in an effort to reflect their own ideologies. In these cultures, it’s the lack of formal titles that may be used to reinforce a social order that hinges on ideals like equality.
A current trend among U.S. companies is to do away with business titles altogether, suggesting that everyone is an equally important member of the team. Although employees of these companies may still have clearly defined roles, official titles are rarely acknowledged internally or externally. In some companies, even senior staff members have business cards with just the person’s name and department. These days, it’s not unusual for people in the United States to arrive at a meeting without any kind of business card. Who needs business cards when people can get all your contact information and even your full work history on networking sites like LinkedIn? Although business cards are still preferable in many industries, people are becoming increasingly comfortable sending links to their profile page if they’ve forgotten their cards.
This informality around business titles and cards is intended to flatten any sense of hierarchy, even if the notion is more aspirational than authentic. But several of these “flattened” companies are starting to rethink this strategy in their overseas offices, where the lack of titles can be detrimental to winning business, establishing credibility and relationships, or simply being respected.
For people from countries that are organized around strong social hierarchies, like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, the lack of titles can cause great confusion. Without knowledge of someone’s rank, they don’t know how to respectfully interact with the person—and they might prefer to just walk away rather than risk any impropriety. Showing up at a meeting without a business card—or with a card lacking a title—can seriously derail relationship-building efforts. It’s almost the equivalent of refusing to shake hands at a Western business meeting.
But even if you did arrive bearing a business card with a title, you still might be in for a culture crash. That’s because it’s not just about whether you hand over a card or what it says, but how you do it.
Tiny Ceremonies
Another way formality is often expressed is through ceremony: an elaborate display of actions that imply respect for a person, object, place, or tradition. In cultures that tend toward informality, the notion of ceremony is mostly affiliated with special occasions like weddings and graduations. But in cultures that tend be more formal, daily life can be filled with tiny ceremonies used to convey important messages.
Let’s return to business cards. Have you ever been at one of those meetings where people distribute business cards like dealers at a blackjack table? I’m often tempted to say “Hit me again” before even looking at the card. Have you ever considered how you usually deliver a business card? And what about how you receive a card: do you examine it closely or glance at it quickly before stuffing it in your pocket? At a big meeting, have you ever stacked and shuffled the pile of cards you received—another unwitting nod to your inner croupier?
While tossing your cards on the table and sticking received cards in your pocket may be de rigueur at meetings in some countries, it could get you into trouble with people who hail from places where the etiquette for giving and getting business cards is full of hidden messages. Although every culture will abide by its own set of distinct guidelines, in more formal cultures people generally stand up to deliver cards individually, no matter how many people are sitting around the table. And when the cards are presented, it’s usually with both hands and the information facing your counterpart. It’s expected that the receiver will study the card—possibly commenting on a logo or title—before carefully placing it on the table until the end of the meeting, or in a special card case, suggesting that it is being handled with care. Then the tiny business card ceremony is complete, and everyone feels respected.
When exchanging business cards across cultures, your best bet is to err on the side of being more formal and avoid stuffing, stacking, or jotting notes on the back of someone’s business card.
Eating and Drinking
The way we eat and drink is highly influenced by our cultural programming, and often relates to differences in formality expectations. Being aware of how you eat and drink is particularly important because sharing meals is often one of the main ways that we build relationships with others. But sizing up formality levels associated with food and drink can be tricky business, because each culture makes its own rules about what constitutes formal or “proper” etiquette in this context. For example, when someone burps during or after a meal in the United States, it’s considered impolite and too casual, even if the meal itself is considered very informal. In parts of China and Bah-rain, however, burping is considered good manners. Other simple actions—like slurping, how we hold our knives, or how much food we leave uneaten on our plates—all come with implicit messages that can vary across cultures. But differences in basic table manners are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding the role that formality plays in how we eat and drink—and most important, how we break bread in an effort to build relations with others.
As an example, think about how you pour an alcoholic drink. In the United States, only bartenders and connoisseurs tend to pay attention to how a drink is poured into a glass. For many Japanese people, however, pouring is a careful and ritualistic ceremony that most people learn and perform when drinking with others. The first few times I went out for after-work drinks with Japanese colleagues, I marveled at the way they ceremoniously filled my beer glass. No matter who was doing the pouring, the person would carefully hold the beer bottle in two hands, filling my glass so the beer reached the highest point possible without spilling. I was expected to lift and hold my glass with two hands at an angle to imbibe the liquid.
During my time in Japan I learned that it was preferable to avoid pouring anything into my own glass, because it could be construed as a selfish act. And this applies not only to alcohol but to other kinds of drinks too. The rules of proper etiquette dictated that I fill others’ glasses first, with hope that they would get the message that I also wanted them to refill mine (nonverbal communication at play). If women are present, it’s often expected that they do the pouring instead of men. As one blogger aptly put it, “It’s generally considered feminine charm to pour drinks for people. Women are most likely to pour drinks. This is engrained into Japanese culture much the way men opening doors for women is engrained into several European cultures.”5
Even after living there for several years, I was still struck by how unnecessarily elaborate it all seemed to me in contrast to the mostly thoughtless pours that I had been doling out and receiving most of my life. Although I did adapt to the Japanese way of pouring, occasionally I would unwittingly revert to my native habits. My colleagues were never visibly offended by my faux pas, but I did notice that I received very positive reactions when I played by their more ceremonious rules.
Rituals around drinking vary from country to country, and it depends on what and where you are drinking. For example, when you are invited to a Jordanian home, the host will usually offer you a type of Arabic coffee called gahuwa murra served piping hot in a very small amount in a very small cup. The coffee is served first to whoever is on the right, and on from there. The coffee is expected to be finished in about four or five sips so that it remains hot. If you hand the cup back to the host, you will automatically be given another cup. Three cups is the traditional limit, but if you have had enough after one cup, you are supposed to shake the empty cup back and forth from right to left two to four times before handing it to your host. If you don’t drink your first cup of coffee, it can suggest to the host that you have come to ask for something—like a favor. This is actually how some marriage proposals begin!6
On the opposite end of the spectrum are the cultures in which a host would simply hand someone a mug of coffee (perhaps in a cup that says “#1 Dad” on it) and ask if they take it with milk or cream and/or sugar. The host might offer a refill after some time, but the guest would also feel free to request more if desired. No additional protocol, no other hidden messages. It’s simply a cup of coffee.
When it comes to having coffee in a public place there are also notable differences in formality or ceremony across cultures. In Italy, for example, many people go to coffee bars for their morning fix. No matter how rushed people are, they stand or sit at the bar, where they are handed a ceramic cup filled with their steaming elixir of choice, accompanied by a saucer and tiny metal spoon. The options are usually limited to items like a café americano, caffe latte, espresso, or cappuccino (but not after 11 a.m. and never after a meal).7 People take a few moments to enjoy their coffee, perhaps have a quick chat with other patrons or the barista, pay, and get on with their day.
In the United States, the equivalent to the Italian coffee bar are coffee shop chains like Starbucks, where customers can choose from 87,000 different drink combinations offered throughout the seasons.8 No matter which coffee you choose, the experience of buying and drinking it is much less ceremonious than the experience in a typical Italian coffee bar. Ironically, the founder of the Starbucks chain, Howard Schultz, originally designed the experience to be similar to the Italian experience.9 But over time, U.S. culture seems to have transformed it, stripping the experience of formalities and creating an assembly line–like feel that gets people out the door at maximum speed. In most Starbucks there are only paper cups and plastic stirrers as opposed to ceramics and silverware, there’s not much chatting with the barista (too busy) or others, and people most often drink their coffee on the go rather than on-site. The process of getting coffee in the United States is still a ritual, but it is a very informal one compared to the Italian ritual. Many people in the United States love Starbucks precisely because of the way that the experience gets them in and out quickly, without any formalities that might be deemed fussy. For Italians, the “fuss” is an integral part of the process.
The practice of more formal rituals often requires more time to perform, which is why fast-food places do away with them. According to Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation, at least one in four people in the United States eat some type of fast food every day10—a statistic that speaks to not only the way people in the United States value efficiency, but also how little formality matters. Most offerings at fast-food places can be eaten with your hands, from burgers and sandwiches, to fries and chips, to ice cream cones. Drinks are self-serve; you carry you own food on a plastic tray and dump your trash when you are done. Almost everything is disposable (plates, cutlery, cups), and the décor includes tables and plastic-coated seats that can be wiped down with a sponge in a single pass.
To date, the number-one fast-food restaurant in the United States is McDonald’s.11 It’s also achieved varying levels of success in some 118 countries.12 When the Golden Arches first debuted in some of the more formal cultures, they struggled to survive after the novelty had worn off. Although McDonald’s’ original policy was to not adapt to preferences of foreign cultures, they eventually realized that they had to make concessions to survive, in terms of both people’s taste for certain foods and their taste for formality. It’s a decision that has served them well over the years.
In France, McDonald’s’ number-two market, some of the restaurants have been made to look like bistros, with classy, spacious interiors, enticing patrons to linger over their meals.13 Menu choices are tailored to regional palates and sometimes served on reusable table-ware. When one franchisee from the city of Toulouse redesigned the interiors of his twelve restaurants, it resulted in a 20-percent uptick in sales.14
The way McDonald’s found success by adapting to more formal tastes is an instructive example of how important it can be to adapt to varying preferences for formality when interacting with people from other cultures in our daily lives. When and if you adapt, it doesn’t mean that your personal formality preferences have changed, or that you need to judge the merits of being more or less formal. It simply shows that you are acknowledging and respecting the preferences of those from other cultures.
This applies to not just how you run your fast-food franchise, but also how you present yourself—in other words, your personal “brand.” Once you become more aware of the role that formality or informality plays in what you say, how you write, the way you dress, and so on, you can more easily make the slight shifts needed to have more successful interactions and build better connections across cultures.
In each of the preceding chapters we’ve explored distinct aspects of our cultural programming, including formality, views of time, verbal and nonverbal communication, and group and individual orientations. There are plenty of other aspects we could also explore, but in doing this work over the past twenty years, I’ve found that these are the topics that serve as the best primer for raising your level of self-awareness in a wide variety of contexts, and empowering you to assess and adjust your behavior in order to enhance your cross- cultural interactions.
There is, however, one more key step to laying the groundwork for enhanced cross-cultural agility: getting familiar with the all- encompassing ideologies that drive behaviors in each culture—including your own. These are sets of deep-rooted values that collectively shape the way people act, react, and interact in all types of situations. While you can certainly make great strides toward improving your cross- cultural interactions without knowing how all of these underlying forces affect you or others, it’s only by exploring and understanding them that your ability to forge strong connections with people from a particular culture will truly soar.