How many ways can you apologize in Japan? What is appropriate for various situations? Find out more about the delicate matter by watching this video!

When I made my first business trip to the Middle East in the mid-70s, I was told to cover myself head-to-toe. No need for an abaya, chador, cloak or hijab, but I should wear a full skirt that covered my knees (mid-calf or full-length would be even better) and my blouse should cover my elbow and fasten at the neck. If I chose to wear trousers, although not recommended, it was to be very loose.

With the obvious exception of Saudi Arabia, this conventional wisdom has remained the norm. Yet, even before the Arab Spring of 2011, the dress code for women had begun to change in several countries in the region.

Dressing modestly remains the goal. Form-fitting trousers, see-through blouses or tight T-shirts remain culturally insensitive. Most Middle Easterners make inferences about someone’s status by their clothing; dressing well denotes status in Middle Eastern cultures.

That the world becomes smaller every day is borne out by the changes in what women may successfully wear in the Middle East. Trousers have become increasingly fashionable in many countries as long as they aren’t form-fitting. They make it easier to sit without worrying about how much leg is exposed. In the office, trousers should cover the ankle.

If you’re traveling to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Bahrain, your skirt can skim the top of your knee. However, and this is important, your skirt must be the same length when you sit down. So, pencil skirts are out, but full skirts and dirndl style skirts can often do the job.

In the same region, women can wear sleeveless blouses as long as they aren’t tight and the fabric isn’t revealing. The neckline must be modest (absolutely no cleavage).

Like most rules, there are exceptions. If your company policy allows clothing that may not be acceptable outside the office, it’s a good idea to keep a scarf with you, or carry a pashmina in case you have to meet with someone who is ultra conservative. These items can come in handy when you’re not at work and you don’t know the religious inclination of people on the street. The pashmina can also be a handy cover for your shoulders when the air-conditioning is set too high.

When visiting Iran and Saudi Arabia, women must cover their clothing with either an abaya or manteau and wear a headscarf. In Iran, the hijab should not allow any hair to show (for tips on how to accomplish this, check out the Role of Women article in the Iran Country Profile on CultureWizard). In Saudi Arabia, women should wear an abaya and headscarf. Outside Riyadh, the headscarf may often be omitted, although regulations vary by region and change frequently and without warning.

Carrie
RW3 CultureWizard

Did you know that charm, charisma and humor are some of the most important personal traits Brazilians look for in others when doing business? Read Sean Dubberke’s article in MOBILITY magazine to learn more about working effectively in Brazil.

RW3 CultureWizard

In The Guardian, writer and semiologist Umberto Eco talks about culture being the substance that defines European identity in the modern day. He speaks about its potential as a binding agent for a stronger European market, and a stronger Europe in general.

Eco specifically promulgates the expansion of the Erasmus student exchange system to capture not just students, but virtually everyone, in the process of developing an integrated “European culture”.

The university exchange programme Erasmus is barely mentioned in the business sections of newspapers, yet Erasmus has created the first generation of young Europeans. I call it a sexual revolution: a young Catalan man meets a Flemish girl – they fall in love, they get married and they become European, as do their children. The Erasmus idea should be compulsory – not just for students, but also for taxi drivers, plumbers and other workers. By this, I mean they need to spend time in other countries within the European Union; they should integrate.

Europe is certainly not like the United States or other federations that share a common language and constitution. Eco doesn’t think it ever will or should be. On the other hand, there may be some innately “European” values that exist in many places on the continent (and surrounding isles).

What would you vote for as the most European of values? What makes Europeans as a whole particularly unique as a large cultural unit?

If Europeans are too different to lend meaning to the concept of “European culture,” what makes them so?

We want to know what you think – please share your thoughts in the comments area.

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

Alex Rawlings is 20. He speaks English, Greek, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Afrikaans, French, Hebrew, Catalan and Italian. Watch this BBC video to hear him speaking each language, describing how he learnt them growing up surrounded by numerous cultures around Europe. Truly remarkable!

Read more about “hyperpolyglots” in this related BBC story.

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

As someone who writes and blogs about culture, how it affects our lives and the way we do business, I found this recent BBC news piece both funny and illuminating. It seems the Germans and Brits are at odds – again. Many Brits working with Germans find themselves offended by the abruptness of the German language, and many Germans working with Brits find themselves annoyed by the British penchant for small talk and indirectness. Germans, it turns out, don’t even have a word in their language for “small talk”! This is the point that really blew me away.

Culture runs deep – deeper than most of us know. Not only does culture influence how you will deal and be dealt with by someone from another culture, it influences your ability to understand other cultures – even when making your most open-minded efforts.

Germans don’t share concepts central to British culture and vice versa. For example, the tendency to make pleasant “small talk” by discussing the weather or “simulating concern” (this is how the BBC puts it) for the well-being of others doesn’t happen very often in Germany. Of course, “Wie geht es dir?” or “How are you?” is a common phrase in both languages, but the purpose ascribed to the statement differs within the context of German and British culture. Germans use the expression as a genuine question and only when they are truly interested in how someone is doing. Brits use is as a greeting, a substitution for “Hello” and it does not mean the person asking is necessarily concerned about the other person’s well-being.

I once read a story about a group of African Pygmies who where brought to the edge of a forest to look at the savannah for the first time. They immediately panicked at the sight of animals roaming about, albeit well off in the distance. The Pygmies perceived the animals to be right in front of them, like an odd insect just before their noses. They were startled because this particular ethnic group had no language or means for gauging perspective and spatial dynamics over such great distances. As complete forest dwellers, they were not aware that such distances existed.

The majority of what we can associate with culture exists in the invisible. It runs so deep that we often lack the vocabulary or realm of understanding to comprehend what’s going on under the surface, and how we might be perceived outside our own cultural sphere. Once we’re out of the familiar jungle of our own culture, all bets are off.

Adam
RW3 CultureWizard

As viewed from the RW3 CultureWizard headquarters in New York, the Empire State Building happens to be dressed in full purple and yellow today – the colors of our Wizard!

Looking back to a post we made in 2009 on Kraft’s mission to sell Oreos in China, we’ve seen some major progress, according to this recent NPR story. In fact, The Oreo has become the best-selling cookie in China.

Kraft initially responded to Chinese taste buds by reducing sugar content in the cookies. For the masses, it was too sweet. They took further steps by looking at other flavors the market craved, resulting in Oreos with green-tea and mango flavored filling. They also changed the shape to resemble a rolled wafer, much easier to eat in the traditional Oreo fashion for a country that isn’t accustomed to “dunking” their cookies in (soy) milk. The imprint Americans have for eating Oreos (“Twist, Lick, Dunk”) doesn’t exist in China. To address this, “Oreo launched a series of TV ads where cute children demonstrate to their parents and other adults how to eat an Oreo cookie in the American style,” says the NPR story, effectively teaching children and adults at the same time.

Lorna Davis, head of the global biscuit division at Kraft, told NPR what she learned:

Any foreign company that comes to China and says, ‘There’s 1 1/2 billion people here, goody goody, and I only need 1 percent of that’ … [is] going to get into trouble. You have to understand how the consumer operates at a really detailed level.

Culture encompasses all the detail to which Davis refers. Culture informs the preferences we develop at a young age, which influences our behaviors for life.

What other foods have you seen undergo this kind of cultural transformation as it migrates from country to country?

Grayson
RW3 CultureWizard

RW3′s Sean Dubberke traveled to Rwanda last year and wrote an article on the experience for Eastern Air Connections, China Eastern’s in-flight magazine. Connecting with Rwandan culture was an important aspect of the experience, which Sean details through the friends he made and what he learned from them. Read Rwanda’s Heart here (the link will load a PDF, opening in Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox will optimize image quality).

My first experience with time was the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. I couldn’t wait to be able to tell time and get my own watch (sadly, it wasn’t a pocket watch). Since then, I’ve learned to see time through so many different lenses.

The 12-hour clock divides the day into two 12-hour segments (midnight to noon and noon to midnight). Thus, 2 o’clock in the afternoon is 14:00 on the 24-hour clock.

I come from a country that uses the 12-hour clock, but I much prefer transportation schedules that use the 24-hour clock. It means there’s less chance of being mistakenly booked on a flight that departs before my connecting flight arrives. In fact, many countries use the 12-hour clock when conversing, but use the 24-hour clock in timetables.

Sounds simple? Not so fast.

Many African cultures use the 12-hour clock, but start the cycle at 6 a.m. (sunrise) rather than 12 a.m. (midnight). In East Africa, this is known as Swahili time (click here to see what time it is on a Swahili clock). In other words, 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. becomes the first hour of the day. You can think of this first hour as 00:00 to 1:00 on the 24-hour clock. Imagine the confusion if you schedule a meeting by asking for “2 o’clock”? Unless the exact time is clarified, your African colleague might think you meant 8 in the evening (2 o’clock = the start of the third hour of the cycle, which is at 8 in the morning or evening, according to certain African cultures). Confused yet? When scheduling appointments, it’s important to specify morning, afternoon, or evening if using the 12-hour clock. Alternatively, you could use the 24-hour clock considering it starts at midnight.

In Thailand, there’s a different twist on time. Thais divide the clock into four 6-hour segments: 07:00-12:59, 13:00-18:59, 19:00-00:59, and 01:00-06:59. When speaking among themselves, Thais divide the day into four 6-hour segments. Therefore, “1 in the evening” is the first hour of the 19:00-00:59 segment, or 7 p.m. on the 12-hour clock, 19:00 on the 24-hour clock. Click here for more information from Wikipedia on the six-hour clock.

And, check out AFAR’s beautiful mix of clocks from around the world.

From AFAR Magazine

Carrie
RW3 CultureWizard

Brazil’s hunger for growth is noteworthy on many fronts. Working long hours to make new sales targets and developing business at all hours of the day has become the norm for many Brazilians. So much that President Dilma Rouseff enacted a law ordering companies to pay overtime for emails or calls taken after the normal work day (versus the VW approach to prohibit this activity after employees leave the office).

In the Financial Times, a professor of accountancy says, “Brazilians are always late, meetings never start on time…You sit there for two hours talking about one thing, then another.” The argument is that because of the pace of business and the fluidity of “Brazilian time”, it may often become necessary to address certain emails and business needs outside of the regular work day.

In the CNN report below, one labor lawyer talks about “technological slavery” – that it’s impossible for us to disconnect from the internet, from our phones and thus from our jobs.

What do you think is more feasible: shutting down servers after hours to prevent work from taking place, or having the employer compensate the employee? Is responsiveness more important than work-life balance?

Sean
RW3 CultureWizard

While the source of this is unknown (we found it posted somewhere on Facebook), we believe it’s quite true to form! Is there anything you can add to this list?

If you’d like some more culture tips for the UK, click here to read our previous post on the matter.

Mark
RW3 CultureWizard

How’s this BBC piece for bucking the trend?

Volkswagen has agreed to stop its Blackberry servers sending emails to some of its employees when they are off-shift. The car maker confirmed it made the move earlier this year following complaints that staff’s work and home lives were becoming blurred.

Could you imagine your employer doing this?

Even more so, after a near-decade of cell phones and the internet keeping you constantly connected to your work, how would you feel about this? I know the idea of disconnecting from your work and fully connecting to your family and leisure time is a lovely concept, but would there be a downside to the business?

This begs the question that VW is attempting to answer: does your connection to work on a non-stop basis actually make you a more productive worker?

More and more, a disease of distraction affects modern workers. Enabled by the constant connectivity via smart phones and computers, and a myriad of other modern sociological issues, US workers waste nearly two hours a day doing non-work things. And, the US is not alone in this growing trend. Believe it or not, even the efficiency envy of the world, Germany, is dealing with a growing apathetic workforce that wastes significantly more time than their recent forebears (according to the same Inc. story).

Do you think VW and their works council made a wise move in limiting post-shift emails? Do you think allowing for more unfettered personal time creates a more inspired and focused employee?

Adam
RW3 CultureWizard

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here’s a story in the Huffington Post I think many of you will relate to in one way or another (Emerson certainly did). Recently, in Honolulu, a former Air Force sergeant, her husband and their two year-old daughter stop at the local supermarket, a national chain, to pick up some groceries. The mom, who happens to be 30 weeks pregnant, is famished and feeling faint. She quickly eats a $5 chicken salad sandwich. She pockets the sandwich wrapper with every intention of paying for it, finishes shopping, heads to the register with her husband and daughter and pays for her $50 worth of groceries.

The family exists the store and is immediately confronted by a security guard who informs her that she has just shoplifted. Surprised and embarrassed, the mom apologizes profusely and offers to immediately return inside to pay for the $5 sandwich. The security guard refuses her request, EVEN THOUGH SHE JUST BOUGHT $50 WORTH OF GROCERIES, and brings her, her husband and daughter to the store manager.

Now, here’s where the tale gets truly Orwellian. The supermarket manager, while sympathetic to the woman’s plight, is unwilling to break from store policy and calls the police. The police arrive, see that the “apprehended suspect” has a child with her, and, unwilling to break from policy, call in Child Services. Child Services arrives, and, unwilling to break from policy, TAKES THE CHILD INTO PROTECTIVE CUSTODY while the former Air Force Sergeant and 30-week pregnant mom and her husband are arrested and brought to jail.

Finally, after 18 hours in custody and posting $50 dollars bail, each, the mom and dad are reunited with their child, the national supermarket chain gets united with a public relations nightmare, and the couple starts fielding enquiries from a bevy of enthusiastic and skilled lawyers. And all for a $5 chicken salad sandwich. But here’s the rub, along every step of this terrible and ridiculous ordeal, the technocrats following the orders were fully aware of the absurdity of the policies they were enforcing but were unwilling to contradict them.

Now, in some ways we see this happening in the business world all the time, especially in an international arena, where the adherence to rules can vary significantly between cultures. Whether rules are applicable universally or on a case-by-case basis is often a hallmark of culture. According to psychologist Barry Schwartz and his compelling TED Lecture, the difference between a great manager and/or worker and a mediocre one is the wisdom to know when to follow a rule and when to ignore it. His lecture is a near case study in how humanity and wisdom make the world and workplace a better and more productive one.

In a complimentary lecture, take a look at how one visionary CEO, the largest manufacturer of carpets and flooring in the world, decided to trust his wisdom over prevailing opinion and make his company entirely green. It’s a story of exquisite executive foresight, courage and profitability. Believe it or not, in the 14 years since the company began their green and zero-impact protocols, sales have gone from $591 million to nearly $1.1 billion! How’s that for wisdom?

By the way, do you ever find yourself eating or drinking something you plan on buying at the supermarket before you pay for it? Couldn’t you compare this to dining at a restaurant where you eat first and pay later?

Adam
RW3 CultureWizard

恭喜发财! Happy Chinese New Year, or literally, Congratulations and be prosperous!

Check out the Baidu.com homepage (China’s biggest search engine) for an interactive dragon animation.

QUIZ: which famous Chinese animal is not part of the zodiac? And, why do you think so? Leave your answer in the comments area below!

RW3 CultureWizard