To build a “roadmap for a culture” that is useful for the Untourist about to go on a German Untour (or any of our destinations outside the US) is a tricky thing. It is all too easy to stray into stereotypes and oversimplification, especially when we’re way outside our own culture. Things look deceptively simple as an outsider, and often the behavior that you see when you visit a place is just the very tip of the iceberg of understanding .
Fons Trompenaars is a Dutch scholar who has identified some helpful ways to see patterns across cultures. And even better, he’s done extensive research in a variety of countries, so the conclusions on how one country might differ from the other is based on empirical data, not gut feel ( a very unreliable way to decide when it comes to culture). Although each individual within a culture may very differ greatly from the pattern, just understanding where the patterns are helps us when traveling outside our culture. One way to look at these patterns is through these seven questions. :
- What is more important, rules or relationships?
- Do we function in a group or as individuals?
- Do we display our emotions?
- How separate we keep our private and working lives?
- Do we have to prove ourselves to receive status or is it given to us?
- Do we do things one at a time or several things at once?
- Do we control our environment or are we controlled by it?
So while each person will differ, on the whole, it is possible for scholars to find tendencies among different cultures in their responses to these questions. Trompenaars created quite clever sample situations which he would present a little story to the study subjects. Asking what they would do in a situation, and then asking many people from that culture what they would do, is how he gathered his data. 
Since August is our month for Germany, can we use these questions to help us understand our trip to the Rhine better? Or will these questions give us clues on etiquette when we sit down for coffee with the Baron at his Castle in Bavaria?
Research shows that German culture is quite distinct, particularly on two of these dimensions: the rule-relationship spectrum and the emotional display spectrum. (the top two dials on the dashboard.) The German culture as a whole takes rules and policy very seriously and very literally indeed. In addition, their style of emotional expression is way over on the neutral side of the dial. (along with some of their other European brethren: U.K., Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland.) Demeanor, in general, is more restrained, and formal. A strong sense of privacy, and of dividing one’s work life from personal life also keeps public display of emotion on the muted side. This, of course, in influenced by the setting. At home, on vacation, at a bar, you’d will probably see a more open display of emotion in Germany. And we always remind ourselves, no one person is completely typical of their culture; we’re people, not cookies from a cookie-cutter.
Nevertheless, it helps so much when you realize that the reason someone might, or might not, laugh at your joke, return your smile, make eye contact, or countless other behaviors may have almost nothing to do with how funny your joke was, or how friendly they are. When I first traveled in Europe, as a self-conscious 14 year old (dragged along on a sabbatical year by my tyrannical father and mother, Hal & Norma, Untour’s founders), I was already at that awkward age where I agonized over fitting in. It was actually a relief, by the time we got to Germany, to realize that, yes, indeed, I stuck out like a sore thumb….and it had nothing to do with how cool, or uncool I was. It was just a cultural thing.
On that first trip, I didn’t have a dashboard for the cultures I was in, so while I had figured out it wasn’t me, I hadn’t quite figured out what the reasoning was –so different from my own — that was going on in these new settings.
Questions like Trompenaars’ (along with other culture scholars) can help us get to the reasoning behind a different culture’s ways of doing things. These dimensions are just a beginning, The best thing they do is to hit the reset button, turning off “automatic pilot” of seeing things through our own culture’s lens.
For example, by and large, Americans are such an informal lot, that we forget that, for many cultures, a formal beginning is a mark of courtesy. Knowing that, for a German, for instance, the formality of titles and rank is a way to show respect, makes us willing to perhaps pause first before we stick out our hand, with all good intentions, and say, “Hi, I’m Bill, what’s your name?” Would most Germans understand, and perhaps even welcome our informality? Very often yes. But if they smile a bit nervously and introduce themselves in return as Herr Schmidt, we don’t have to take that as a rebuff. Far from it. Using titles rather than first names, when first meeting, is their way of being courteous and welcoming. Having a dashboard of culture in your mind doesn’t give you all the answers, but just like a pilot in the air, it might give you a sense of where you are, and how to navigate new territory.
We highly recommend reading Fons Trompenaars’s riding the Waves of Culture, or any of Trompenaar’s works.