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- Herausgeber: Books on Demand
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
This flip book combination of Kay Xander Mellish's classic "Working with Americans: Tips for Danes" and "Working with Danes: Tips for Americans" is a fun way for both Danes and Americans to learn about each other's working culture - and take a peek at what's being said about their own way of working. Danish working culture, with its flat hierarchy, isn't always a good fit with ambitious, charismatic American bosses. Meanwhile, the American way of selling can be too emotional and aggressive for the Danes, who prefer a more fact-based, authentic approach. Americans sometimes struggle with the Danish way of doing business, which often puts the needs of employees above the needs of customers. The limited Danish work week and five weeks a year of annual paid vacation sometimes makes Americans feel that their Danish counterparts are never in the office when they need them. This guide to doing business in Denmark and doing business in the US also contains information on business etiquette, such as dining out and giving business gifts. It offers additional insights on social life in the two countries, including tips on small talk and how to make friends. The light, easy-reading tone of this book makes it an ideal guide to US business culture vs Danish business culture.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 185
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Table of Contents
Working with Americans: Tips for Danes
Introduction
Why the US is a great place to do business
The enthusiasm gap and why you will have to act excited to succeed in the US
Titles, hierarchy, and why they matter to Americans
The celebrity boss, and why Americans want to “hitch their wagon to a star”
“How are you?” Small talk and how to do it
Danish directness vs American “positive face”
The American litigation monster and what it means for you
Dining out and the secrets of tipping culture
Why you are getting CC’d on so many emails
Hiring and firing Americans without getting sued
American diversity and the Danish businessperson
Religion and what it means for your business
Long working hours and the persistence of stay-at-home parents
Politeness and profanity
Why American employees won’t go outside their job descriptions
Leveraging the American love of sports and competition
Meetings and negotiations with US business partners
Reverence for the military
Humility, self-irony, Danish humor and why you should avoid all three
Why positive feedback is so important for your business
Convenience and why a lack of it could torpedo your business in the US
Americans and vacation time: Two weeks and they don’t take it all?
What to do if you’re stopped by an American cop
Guns and violent crime
Why many Americans don’t trust their own government
Fear and the American employee
Charities and how to contribute without getting in trouble
“If you can walk, you can work”: Health and health insurance in the US
Making friends in the US, and why short-term friendships are OK
Don’t be the grumpy foreigner
A few tips on American English
The Executive Summary: Top things to remember
Working with Danes: Tips for Americans
Introduction
Why Denmark is a great place to do business
Two words to better understand your Danish colleagues
The sacred value of time
Danish names
The Danish “flat hierarchy”
Flexicurity and unions
Turn down the volume!
Selling to Danes
The Danish calendar, and holiday weeks to avoid
Managing Danes
“Jante Law” and why Danes underplay their skills
Rating systems
Don’t overdo it on the compliments
Ambition and competitiveness
Gender equality in Denmark
Differing concepts of privacy
Danish meetings
Don’t say “Let’s have lunch” unless you mean it
What Danes think of Americans
Small talk with Danes
Danish patriotism
Design in Denmark
Working for a Danish boss
The visitor who wasn’t equal
Negotiating with Danes
The Danish way of customer service
Crime and punishment
Danish humor and conflict avoidance
Denmark is not just Copenhagen
Driving in Denmark
Dining with the Danes
Avoid cheerful hot air
Health care and the Danish social welfare system
Diversity and the Danes
What to wear in Denmark
Gifts in Denmark
Danes and English
Long-term stays in Denmark
The Executive Summary: Top things to remember
Appendix: A few notes on Danish history
About the Author
WORKING WITH AMERICANS
TIPS FOR DANES
AN ENTERTAINING GUIDE TO BUSINESS CO-OPERATION
KAY XANDER MELLISH
For May 5 and July 4
Introduction
Why the US is a great place to do business
The enthusiasm gap and why you will have to act excited to succeed in the US
Titles, hierarchy, and why they matter to Americans
The celebrity boss, and why Americans want to “hitch their wagon to a star”
“How are you?” Small talk and how to do it
Danish directness vs American “positive face”
The American litigation monster and what it means for you
Dining out and the secrets of tipping culture
Why you are getting CC’d on so many emails
Hiring and firing Americans without getting sued
American diversity and the Danish businessperson
Religion and what it means for your business
Long working hours and the persistence of stay-at-home parents
Politeness and profanity
Why American employees won’t go outside their job descriptions
Leveraging the American love of sports and competition
Meetings and negotiations with US business partners
Reverence for the military
Humility, self-irony, Danish humor and why you should avoid all three
Why positive feedback is so important for your business
Convenience and why a lack of it could torpedo your business in the US
Americans and vacation time: Two weeks and they don’t take it all?
What to do if you’re stopped by an American cop
Guns and violent crime
Why many Americans don’t trust their own government
Fear and the American employee
Charities and how to contribute without getting in trouble
“If you can walk, you can work”: Health and health insurance in the US
Making friends in the US, and why short-term friendships are OK
Don’t be the grumpy foreigner
A few tips on American English
The executive summary: Top things to remember
Introduction
As an American who has lived in Denmark for more than 10 years, I’m often asked by my Danish clients for tips on how to work better with their American colleagues.
It’s usually the smartest people in the organization who ask the question. Others seem to assume that because they speak great English and have watched every episode of their favorite US TV series that they have a handle on the American culture and way of doing business.
As the great American composer George Gershwin once titled a song, it ain’t necessarily so.
Shaped by location and history
Denmark and the US are both wonderful countries, yet each has been shaped by its own location and history.
Denmark’s tradition of social welfare has grown out of centuries of farmers and fishermen trying to help each other survive the punishing Nordic climate.
American confidence and can-do spirit is a result of generations of immigrants gutsy enough to leave their home countries to try something new.
More in common
That said, the countries have more in common than they have differences.
Both are passionate about free speech and selfdetermination. Neither one has much patience for formalities. Both enjoy a good business deal.
As a citizen of both countries, I hope this book helps Danes and Americans work together even more successfully.
Kay Xander Mellish
Copenhagen, Summer 2019
Why the US is a great place to do business
Most Danes have been exposed to American culture since childhood, and some feel they know it as instinctively as they know their own.
Yet it’s hard for anyone who doesn’t live in the US to appreciate how diverse, chaotic, and simply big the place is. One Danish businessman said he first got the message when he drove his large American rental car onto an interstate highway in Kansas and his GPS told him “Next turn in 250 miles.”
(That’s 400 kilometers, for people not well-versed in the convoluted US measurement system.)
Fifty personalities – and more
Unlike most European countries, which are for better or worse nations centered around a capitol city, the United States is fifty different states with fifty different personalities.
Some states even have more than one personality – Northern California, for example, has an entirely different vibe than Southern California, and upstate New York has none of the buzz or hype of New York City.
Laws are different in every state, so what is legal and openly sold in one state, such as cannabis or cannabis products, can land you in jail in another.
Localities also make their own rules and regulations: for example, several cities in California have banned plastic drinking straws and forks.
And every state and locality has its own tax structure, which is why sales tax (MOMS) is added to the listed price in the US, not included in it. If you take a $10 item to the cash register in Seattle it will cost you $11.10, but in nearby Spokane, it will be $10.89, and only $10 in the next-door state of Oregon, which has no sales tax at all.
Danes focus on what they know
Failing to understand the diversity of the US is one of the biggest mistakes Danes make when approaching the country for business. There is no guarantee that a product that is a smash in Utah will be of any interest at all in Kentucky.
Danes also tend to focus on areas they know from their vacations in the US or the media: Los Angeles, Manhattan, maybe Miami or Boston.
But much of the economic and population growth in the US is taking place in cities that are less well known in Denmark.
San Antonio, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; and Jacksonville, Florida all have bigger populations than the more famous cities of San Francisco, Seattle, or Denver.
Understanding American diversity
Another surprise for Danes can be the extreme diversity of the US population. Despite a great deal of rhetoric about the opening and closing of borders, the US has been undergoing an immigration boom since the 1990s. One out of eight US residents was born someplace else.
The upside of this diversity is a youthful energy and an unending supply of new ideas and fresh viewpoints; the downside is that since everyone is coming from a slightly different perspective, Americans lack the automatic understanding and trust of each other that Danes take for granted.
That’s why smiles and small talk are so important. Americans from wildly different backgrounds need to establish that they’re on the same page for at least as long as it takes to address the matter at hand.
It also means there is a thicket of rules and regulations to make sure everyone is treated equally.
Danes who like to do business on impulse and instinct may find themselves tearing their hair out as they try to comply with the US Equal Opportunity laws.
Putting aside stereotypes
In addition to nixing stereotypes about specific types of people, you will need to discard stereotypes about the US as a whole, many of them nurtured by the Danish media.
Gun ownership is not universal, the majority of Americans are not wildly obese, and every highway does not look like that one open road in Arizona that seems to be the setting for dozens of on-the-road Danish TV advertisements.
The good news is that you won’t have to worry about American stereotypes of Denmark: they generally don’t have any, except for a persistent tendency to confuse Denmark with the Netherlands and tell you how much they’d like to visit Amsterdam.
(Yes, Americans are bad at European geography, but be honest: could you really pinpoint the states of North Carolina, North Dakota, and New Hampshire on a map and explain their cultural differences?)
Doing business in the US
The US is a good place to do business. Americans enjoy working – in fact, they get much of their self-esteem from working – and people are generally open, helpful, and friendly, even if it is the kind of transitory friendliness that Danes sometimes feel is not real.
It may not be real, but it is pleasant, and if you spend some time in the US then return to Denmark, you may miss it.
Meanwhile, the size and wealth of the American market offers enormous rewards for a company with a good product, good marketing, and good luck.
High risk, high reward
The American market – and the American way of life in general – is high risk, high reward. Much more than in Denmark, there is a widespread acceptance that there are winners and losers in life.
But it’s considered OK to fail, and sometimes even to tell people how far down you were and how you used grit and determination to crawl back up again.
You were only failing forward, as the popular self-help expression goes.
For Danes brought up on safety, equality, and contentment, this nonstop instability can seem like life on a rollercoaster.
The most important advice
The most important piece of advice I can give a Dane seeking to do business in the US is this: treat it like a foreign country.
Danes’ familiarity with American culture can sometimes trick them into thinking that the US is just a larger, more colorful Denmark with bigger cars.
It is not. US business culture is full of quirks and cultural traps, and you need to study that culture and proceed cautiously, just like you would if you were doing business in Asia, Africa, or Latin America.
The good news is that America is such a diverse place that you won’t be the only newcomer feeling your way along in an unfamiliar culture.
The country is set up to welcome new people, which it has been absorbing bit by bit since the first humans walked across the Bering Strait from Asia about 20,000 years ago.
Welcome to America!
The enthusiasm gap and why you will have to act excited to succeed in the US
Denmark is a flat country, I often tell newcomers at my How to Live in Denmark speeches, and when you live and work here your tone and emotions should be flat as well.
No wild gesturing or, as the Danes call them, “big arm movements.” No dramatic statements about right and wrong. No losing your temper and raising your voice.
For Danes, being calm and in control is a sign of being a mature adult.
But for emotional exhibitionists like the Americans, this quiet composure can give the impression you are unenthusiastic, uninterested, or even bored.
Exclamation points mean excitement
If you’ve received emails or even marketing materials from your US colleagues, you’ve probably already realized that they are fond of using the exclamation point.
One marketing director from a Danish company told me he went through the text and edited out every single one of them. “They sound like shouting,” he told his American employees.
The Americans were distressed. “Exclamation points represent excitement!” they said. “They give the text energy! They tell customers that we really believe in our product.”
A cultural difference you must adapt to
Enthusiasm, high energy, and positivity is just part of the fuel Americans need to succeed in an often merciless competitive environment.
It is one of those cultural differences you will have to surrender to if you hope to be successful in the US – just like you would have to learn the intricacies of hierarchy if you were working in Asia.
To do well in the US, you will have to at least pretend to be as energetic and eager as the Americans you work with.
Titles, hierarchy, and why they matter to Americans
Many Danish managers who come to the US look forward to teaching Americans about the Danish flat hierarchy.
They are proud of this egalitarian approach and are sure it will be a hit in the country where, as the Declaration of Independence put it, “all men are created equal.”
But it isn’t a hit, because Americans don’t really want to be equal. They want to compete, and if all possible they want to win.
Competition begins in childhood
Growing up in high-security social welfare state like Denmark, it is hard to imagine the lifelong race-to-the-top that begins when American children barely know their own names.
Concerned American parents start teaching their children to read as early as age 3, and strategize to get access to the best possible school for their child to begin around 5 or 6.
Wealthy parents undergo interviews to get their darlings into the most prestigious private school; middle-class parents choose their homes based on the quality of local public schools; poor parents join lotteries for high-quality “magnet” schools or send their kids to safe and orderly Catholic schools even if they aren’t religious.
The college admissions race
In their teenage years, kids spend an enormous amount of time preparing for the SATs, the national standardized test many universities use for admission, and getting involved in the kind of extra-curricular activities that might impress college admissions officers.
The idea is to get into the best possible university with the maximum amount of financial aid, then to graduate near the top of your class, get a great first job (or start a company) right out of school and begin a life of success upon success.
The job title is a payoff for lifetime striving
An impressive job title is a sign of this success, and indicates that all the hard work has paid off.
Not only will the title’s owner hold it close to his heart, but so will his parents (“My son is the CFO of a large B2B software company”) plus any people he might be interested in dating (“Let me introduce you to a guy I know. He’s an executive. ”)
The naïve newly-arrived Danish manager who announces that from now on, everyone will be equal and titles don’t matter rips away a little piece of this American striver’s soul.
Titles don’t always indicate real power
That said, titles aren’t always reflective of how much power an employee has within the organization, particularly nebulous titles like “Vice President”, which are often given out instead of a raise.
If you’re trying to figure out who in a partner organization has the power to make things happen or the ability to sign on the dotted line, look for factors like headcount responsibility or the importance of their department to the company’s overall strategy.
The celebrity boss, and why Americans want to “hitch their wagon to a star”
To a Dane, a charismatic American boss may come across as flashy, flakey, and a bit manipulative.
But to an American, the standard consensus-seeking Danish boss may seem passive and directionless.
An ambitious American employee wants an energetic, inspirational boss that can inspire her and take her career to the next level.
The expression “hitch your wagon to a star” is an old one, but indicates a hunger to attach yourself to a more established, stronger figure who can take you aloft with them, like a kite.
Cheerleaders and drill sergeants
Americans see great bosses as motivators, cheerleaders, and drill sergeants, optimizing and energizing their teams to get the best performance out of every member.
This is why Americans buy books and watch movies about charismatic business leaders – from Steve Jobs to Donald Trump to Jay-Z to millennial “Girlboss” Sophia Amoruso.
A boss is a star, and employees revolve around her like planets revolve around the sun.
So much for consensus
This status-based solar system means it is the boss who makes decisions and is ultimately accountable for those decisions.
She may ask for input from her team, but it’s quite common to see a boss make a quick decision without consulting anyone at all.
If the decision turns out to be wrong, many employees will silently un-hitch their wagons and slink away, although others will remain at the boss’ side until the cycle of business brings her back to the top again.
Very few American bosses are such a big failure that they don’t get a second chance, or even a third or fourth.
“How are you?” Small talk and how to do it
One perennial complaint of Danes who do business with Americans is the necessity of small talk.
Why, they ask again and again, do Americans say, How are you doing? when they really don’t want to know how I am doing?
My response is always this: How are you doing? is not a question, it is a greeting, much like Go’ morgen or Go’ weekend.
When you say Go’ morgen, nobody wants to hear that it is not in fact a good morning, that you ran out of cornflakes and the bus was late and your dog threw up all over the carpet last night so the living room smells awful.
All they want to hear is Go’ morgen in return.
Tips for how to respond
That said, I do teach Danes how to respond to “How are you doing?” or similar questions like “How was your weekend?” or “How was your flight?”
My advice is always to respond with a single, positive detail.
How are you? Great. I'm enjoying this weather.
How was your weekend? Wonderful. Spent some time with family, went for a walk with the kids.
How was your flight? Smooth and on time. I watched some movies I’ve been wanting to see for ages.
One simple personal detail lets your associate get to know you a bit better, and understand that you are not a crazy foreigner or a robot.
Now you can ask a polite return question – “And how are you doing?” – get a one-line answer, then move on to business.
Remember that detail should always be positive. If you offer a negative detail, the Americans will try to fix the problem for you. Your flight was delayed, you got nothing to eat? Oh no, let me get you a sandwich.
Longer conversations
You may find yourself at an informal dinner with colleagues you don’t know well, or with their spouses, who are sometimes included in business entertaining.
How can you fill the evening with small talk that won’t cause offense?
Asking about your conversational partner’s connection to the location is always a good conversation starter. You might ask, Did you grow up here in Oklahoma?
The odds are likely that they did not. Americans move around a lot. You can then ask about the differences between where they used to live and where they live now.
That said, it is considered poor form to ask an American with an accent Where do you really come from? Assume that everyone is 100% American born and bred unless they inform you otherwise.
College days
