Figuring Americans Out
A review of Craig Storti’s
Old World / New World.
Bridging Cultural Differences:
Britain, France, Germany and the U.S.
Long ago, when I was still wet behind the ears from washing up onto these European
shores, I could have really used a book like this one. It is a highly readable
introduction to the problems and pitfalls of communication between Americans and
(select) Europeans. Through specific encounters between citizens of the Old and
New Worlds, Storti eases his readers into a framework of cross-cultural
communication theory, helping them to make sense of these differing world views.
Today, as a trainer of cross-cultural communication, I’ve learned that one is never
high and dry in this business – in fact, I’m always looking for ways to get my trainees’
feet wet before they have to dive in at the deep end of intercultural encounters.
Storti’s book is of use to the trainer, too, as it offers plenty of material that, with a bit
of modification, can be used to introduced our clients and students to either Old or
New World views and attitudes.
The Plan of the Book
Old World/New World consists of three chapters, each devoted to communication
problems between US-Americans and members of the target national cultures of the
subtitle. The chapters begin with a series of 17 short dialogues, presented one after
the other without immediate commentary. The dialogues are mostly about 6 to 12
lines long, and in the small space of their brief encounter, the interlocutors manage
quite well to misunderstand one another, but for reasons that are not always
apparent. In his introduction, Storti warns that readers may need to read a dialogue
several times before the problem can be detected.
This is a deliberate feature of most of the dialogues in this book: the cultural
mistake one or both speakers make is not readily apparent and may not become
so until the reader turns to the analysis. this not only makes the dialogue a puzzle
which the reader is then challenged to figure out, but the invisible nature of the
mistake also accurately reflects real-life cross-cultural encounters, where the
players are often not aware that a cultural difference has caused a
misunderstanding. Indeed, if the two speakers in such an encounter were aware of
their cultural differences, they would not be likely to misinterpret each other in the
first place.
(pg. 6)
Only after all the dialogues have been presented does Storti offer his analysis of
what went wrong in the interchange. I found his comments fair, insightful and easy
for newcomers to the field of intercultural communication to understand. He brings in
theory at pertinent points of his analysis in a way that both illuminates the specific
situation under discussion and provides a frame for the bigger picture of crosscultural communication in general.
Take, for example, the Franco-American dialogue “Bothering the Chief:”
TOM:
I think we’ll need to hire two part-time people to help us plan the
conference.
Yes. We’re running out of time, and this conference has to go well.
I could speak to human resources today.
Did you already mention this to M. Marceau?
The chief? I didn’t want to bother him with this. He’s busy getting
ready for that sales meeting. Besides, it’s your division. He’ll agree to
anything you say.
CLAUDINE: Yes. I’m sure he’ll approve.
TOM:
Good. Then I’ll call human resources this afternoon
(pg. 102)
CLAUDINE:
TOM:
CLAUDINE:
TOM:
In his analysis, Storti notes that, “on the whole, power is much more closely held and
jealously guarded in France, and people such as Claudine who have the authority on
paper to make decisions normally check with their superiors before acting, even on
the most routine matters, as a kind of courtesy and ritual deference.” (pg. 116)
This leads quite naturally into the concept of power distance, and Storti takes the
time here to explain the concept, the power distance rankings for France and the US
in Hofstede’s survey, and the attitudinal differences this generates in the workplace.
In contrast to the French, he says,
Americans tend to be lower power-distance types. They see inequalities in power
and influence as man-made and largely artificial; it is not natural, though it may be
convenient and even necessary, that some people have power over others. Those
in power, therefore, mindful of the inherent unfairness of the situation, tend to deemphasize it; they try to minimize the differences between themselves and
subordinates and even to redistribute power as much as possible, through
delegating responsibility and rewarding initiative.
(pg. 118)
Presenting all the dialogues first puts several pages of text between a dialogue and
its analysis. This creates the need for shuffling back and forth between sections of
the book, which could be annoying to some readers (it helps to use at least two
bookmarkers); the advantage, however, is that it makes the reader pause and
actually think about where the communication problem may lie. The honest reader is
given an actual training experience while working through the book and constantly
picking up concepts and techniques to help in the analysis of further cross-cultural
exchanges.
Intended Audience
Storti states explicitly that “Old World/New World has been written primarily for
Americans who need to understand the British, French, and Germans better and for
members of those three countries who need to understand Americans better.” (pg. 2)
I would emphasize the words “primarily for Americans.” As the US is notoriously
multi-cultural, Storti’s specifies that the “type of individual most likely to exhibit the
collection of cultural characteristics labeled ‘American’ in this book is a white man or
woman of European descent” (pg. 11). Judging from the number of dialogues that
take place within a working-place setting, Storti’s implied reader also seems to be a
business person. Non-Americans who do not gain their livelihood through business
will nevertheless gain much by a close reading of Old World/New World.
Firstly, Storti assumes the inherent ethnocentricity of his American reader. He
therefore takes care to make those elements of American culture that are invisible
and implicit to the US citizen visible and explicit to him or her, and, in so doing, to any
reader of this book. For this he often introduces concepts and terms from authors
such as the Halls, Hofstede, Trompenaars and many more (cf. the Franco-American
dialogue above). Storti also often refers to the historical development of the two
continents, which has in turn deeply influenced our cultural evolution.
America did not merely turn out to be different from Europe by default; it was
different by design. Americans may indeed have come from Europe, but that’s just
the point: they left. And Europeans did not. there were things about life in Europe
that made those who chose to emigrate unhappy or dissatisfied, things they
wanted to get away from. We can therefore be quite sure that whatever those
things were, Americans neither re-created nor tolerated them in the New World.
Immigrants didn’t leave the safety and security of home and sail across the North
Atlantic to utterly alien shores merely to re-create there a way of life they had found
unbearable in Europe.
Part of what makes America American, then, is that many of its basic values and
traditions came about expressly in reaction to what made Europe European.
(pg. 15)
For the European reader, these explicit discussions of American culture provide a
how-to handbook on figuring Americans out.
Secondly, Storti always takes care not to let business references in his dialogues
predominate. Each and every dialogue is foremost a social interaction between
members of different cultures – this is the primary context. The business world often
provides a secondary context, and one that will make this book more accessible to
business people (the majority of intercultural communication trainees) without
alienating readers from other professions.
Only rarely in this otherwise thoroughly balanced book does Storti’s own American
viewpoint get the upper hand. Most Brits will smile at the reference to Britain’s
“excellent rail system” (pg. 70), and many Germans may object to the generalization
that there is, in their country, “a predisposition against strangers . . . and virtually no
reaching out” (pg. 251) or that “angst is the German national disease” (pg. 195).
Uses for Training
With slight modification, I have used many of these dialogues as training tools in my
intercultural communication classes at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied
Sciences. After introducing the concepts of ethnocentricity (the assumption that
everyone is just like us) and attribution (ascribing motives to peoples’ behavior
according to our expectations rather than according to their cultural background or
individuality), I take my students blow-by-blow through the following critical incident
first published by Harry Triandis in 1975. In it, a U. S. American manager is trying to
agree on a project deadline with a Greek staff member:
Behavior
American:
How long will it take you to
finish this report?
Attribution
American: I asked him to participate.
Greek:
His behavior makes no sense. He
is the boss. Why doesn't he tell
me?
Greek:
American:
I don't know. How long should it
take?
American:
He refuses to take responsibility.
Greek:
I asked him for an order.
You are in the best position to
analyse time requirements.
American:
I press him to take responsibility
for his own actions.
Greek:
What nonsense! I'd better give
him an answer.
Greek:
Ten days.
American:
He lacks the ability to estimate
time; this time estimate is
totally inadequate.
American:
Take 15. Is it agreed you will
do it in 15 days?
American:
I offer a contract.
Greek:
These are my orders. 15 days.
In fact the report needed 30 days of regular work. So the Greek worked day and night, but at the end
of the 15th day, he still needed one more day's work.
American:
Where is my report?
Greek:
It will be ready tomorrow.
American:
But we had agreed that it
would be ready today.
The Greek hands in his resignation.
American:
I am making sure he fulfills
his contract.
Greek:
He is asking for the report.
(Both attribute that it is not ready.)
American:
I must teach him to fulfill a
contract.
Greek:
The stupid, incompetent boss! Not
only did he give me wrong orders,
but he does not even appreciate
that I did a 30-day job in 16 days.
The American is surprised.
Greek:
I can't work for such a man.
This never fails to generate much discussion and considerable motivation to “crack
the code,” to get behind the words and uncover the cultural attitudes and values that
govern behavior in such situations. And once trainees have been introduced to this
tool, Storti’s dialogues can be easily plugged into the framework:
Cross-cultural Dialog: Misleading
Behavior
German: Did Schmidt show you his report?
Attribution
German:
American:
American:
Yes. It needs a lot of work.
German:
American:
German: Did you tell him?
German:
American:
American:
I told him it was a good start.
German:
American:
German: You shouldn’t have mislead him.
German:
American:
American:
What do you mean?
German:
American:
(p. 190)
(Trainers who need examples of cross-cultural dialogues between members of
national cultures other than those profiled in this book should see Storti’s 1994 book
Cross-Cultural Dialogues. 74 Brief Encounters with Cultural Difference. Besides
looking at a wider range of cultures, he offers here instructions on “How to Write a
Dialogue”.)
During the students’ analyses of these dialogues, they often make generalizations of
American behavior that I find unfair to myself as an American, just as they do not
always want to accept my generalizations of German behavior as applicable to their
individual lives. Where do we draw the line between generalization and stereotype?
In Old World / New World, Storti advises us to be cautious in our use of
generalizations.
While generalizing is a perfectly respectable way of organizing information,
generalizations should not be made to carry more truth than they can bear. They
are statements of the probable and the likely but not necessarily of the actual; they
describe the typical, the normal, and the average but not always the real. By
definition and design, they transcend context; to generalize, after all, means to
deliberately ignore the particular and the specific. But we should remember that
nothing ever happens except in context. Moreover, there is no such thing as a
general person, only unique individuals.
(pg. 10)
This statement is typical of Storti’s insightful, fair and even-handed treatment of
cultural differences throughout his book. His clear, non-technical prose makes the
book accessible to those just starting out in cross-cultural communication, while the
51 dialogues and their analyses offer the seasoned trainer ample material for
exemplifying concepts and theory. This book is a worthy addition to the
interculturalist’s reference shelf.
References
Storti, Craig. Old World, New World. Yarmouth: Intercultural Press, 2001. ISBN 1-877864-86-2.
—————. Cross-Cultural Dialogues. 74 Brief Encounters with Cultural Difference. Yarmouth:
Intercultural Press, 1994. ISBN 1-877864-28-5.
Triandis, Harry. “Culture training, cognitive complexity and interpersonal attitudes.” In R. Brislin, S.
Bochner, and W. Lonner (eds.): Cross-cultural perspectives on learning. New York:
Wiley, 1975.
James R. Chamberlain is Director of the Language Center at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of
Applied Sciences. He has been teaching Business English since 1984 and training intercultural communication skills since 1994. E-mail: james.chamberlain@fh-brs.de