Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions

>[Dr. Ben Zugay] Hi, everybody.

The purpose of this video

is to expand upon something
that you've read about

with regards to group composition.

We're gonna talk about cultural diversity

from the lens of Hofstede's
Cultural Dimensions.

That will all make a lot more sense
in just a few minutes.

First of all, you're probably thinking,
"What is this?"

Well, welcome to our first
online lecture for our class.

These online lectures are
designed to take book content

that is either difficult to understand
and explain in further;

or it is designed to take something
that the book just briefly mentioned

and I expand upon it (as this video will);

or for me to talk about something
that is completely brand new,

something that you didn't read about.

So there are very specific purposes
behind these videos.

I'm not going to lecture word for word
about things that you've already read.

I expect that if I assigned a reading,
you've read those things.

So keep that in mind as we go
through these online lectures.

In addition to that, #2,

please do take notes
as if we were in class.

These topics are of interest to you

with regards to our tests
and assessments in this class;

and of course, they are of interest
to you with regards to your career,

so I encourage you to take notes.

Number 3,
I will, throughout online lectures,

occasionally ask you to do things.

I may say, "Hey, pause the video.

Write down something in your notebook,
and then come on back and resume the video

and I'll give you some feedback
on what you wrote down."

It's kind of a way for you to do
an activity through the video.

So if I ask you to do things like that,

please make sure that you stop
and actually do them.

And one final thing,

my goal is to keep these
as short as possible

but still be comprehensive
with the content and the information.

But you know, that this
being a YouTube video,

you can pause, you can rewind,
you can do what you need to,

to meet your needs.

In addition to that, if you hover
on the bottom right-hand side,

there's that gear icon.

Well, if you click on that
and you click on "Playback speed,"

you can make me sound like
Alvin and the Chipmunks,

and speak really quickly;

or you can make me sound like
I'm trudging through molasses,

speaking very slowly.

So please adjust to your needs.

So let's go ahead and
talk about our content.

So you read about group composition,
the way that groups are made up,

and you know from your reading

that there are essentially two
different categories of groups.

There are groups that are made up
of the same type of individuals,

kind of represented by the purple crayons.

Everyone's kind of the same.

And then you know that there are groups

[whose] members are made up of
whole different types of individuals,

represented by the colored crayons.

And we know that both
groups and both teams

can be beneficial in certain situations,

but you've read about that,
so we're not talking about it here.

But something that caught my eye
as I was reading our textbook

was this quote on bullet point #2.

It says, "Group composition
becomes especially important

as organizations become
increasingly more culturally diverse."

Hmmm...
Well, that's an interesting thought.

We know that our country
is becoming more diverse

as the United States.

We also know that the organizations,
in turn, that we work for,

are going to continue
to become more diverse.

I had a chance to work
for the Walt Disney Company.

It's an extremely diverse organization.

I loved working with the individuals

that I got a chance to,
from all over the globe,

and I'm talking about "work with,"

not necessarily had visitors
come from all over the globe.

I got to work with individuals
from all over the globe,

and you will as well.

And as a matter of fact, in our class,

you may have a chance to work with
somebody from a different country

within your teams,
and that's really exciting.

I was thinking more and more
about this, and I was like,

"Wow, there's a lot of value to be added
by thinking about cultural diversity,"

and our book just talked
about it in, like, a sentence or two.

That's what the purpose of this video is:
to expand upon that.

Here's what we know about individuals

from different countries
and different cultures.

We know that even our own
(and others, especially),

we know that cultures differ
in a number of ways.

Cultures can differ within countries,
but especially across countries, right?

And these differences impact
how people view the world.

That, in turn, impacts how people perform
at work and perform in a team setting.

This absolutely impacts you

because somebody who has
a different background than you --

which will be everybody,

but especially individuals who come
from different cultural backgrounds --

will bring different selves to work.

They'll be different than you.

So you need to be prepared

to deal with that difference
in a positive way.

So I started thinking:

"What are some tools that I'm aware of
that can help us to understand

the differences from person
to person in a business setting?"

Ha! Gert Hofstede's cultural dimensions.

That's a great tool, it's a very
well-known tool within academic research

and from a practical perspective as well.

You will probably hear about this,
maybe not by name,

but you'll definitely hear
about this in the business world.

So here's what we know
about Hofstede's cultural dimensions.

Basically — I'm not gonna read this
right word for word, but basically,

this is a way in which
we can look at cultures

and we can say, "Here is how this
culture is different than this culture,

is different than this culture,
is different than this culture"

by looking at these cultural dimensions.

There are actually six of them,

six different ways that Hofstede measures
differences from culture to culture.

and these differences help
to explain what people value,

what people think in general, etc. etc.

Hofstede defines culture as
a collective mental programming,

so a collective, shared mindset by people

that distinguishes them
from another group of people.

But Hofstede also says

that this does not imply that everybody
in a society things the exact same way.

We know that there are
differences with individuals,

but in general, here's what I want
you to gather from this slide,

is that Hofstede's cultural dimensions
are six different ways

in which we can explain
differences from culture to culture.

And in our case,
we're gonna look country to country.

So what are these six differences?

These six differences can be found here.

We are going to look at the first four.

We are not going to look at the last two

because they have a little bit
less to do with business,

but the first four definitely
have to do with business.

The first way in which a culture can differ
from one to another is in power distance.

Power distance explains how much

less powerful individuals, institutions,
and organizations within a country

expect and accept
that power is distributed unequally.

Okay, what does that mean?

So in countries that score
high in power distance,

you accept the power
that exists within society.

For example, let's say
that the organization

has a lot of power (as most do)
at the top of the organization.

The CEO, she's very powerful,

so we, in a high power distance society,
would never question the CEO,

would never question
the senior member on the team,

whatever it may be.

But if we're in a lower power
distance country or culture,

we are okay questioning authority
a little bit more.

We're not okay with that
unequally distributed power.

We're not okay with the power
at the top of the organization.

So that's power distance.

Individualism explains how much
interdependence there is

within a society among its members.

In individualistic societies —

these are societies that score
high on individualism —

these are cultures that really
value the individual, the self.

They are the "I/Me" cultures.
It's about Me. It's about Myself.

But in cultures that score
low in individualism,

those cultures are known as
collective cultures,

and these are cultures that would say
and value things like "Us/We/The Group."

That's a collectivist culture
and they would score low in individualism.

Next up is masculinity.

Masculinity has nothing
to do with gender

but it has to do with
what motivates people.

In societies where masculinity is high,

that's where motivation
comes from being the best.

Or if you are in a feminine culture,
where masculinity is low,

well, you're motivated by doing
something that you like

and that's what motivates you.

The last that we are going to look at
is uncertainty avoidance.

Uncertainty avoidance is:

How comfortable are people
with uncertainty?

How comfortable are they
with ambiguous situations?

In cultures that have
high uncertainty avoidance,

they like to avoid uncertainty.

so they have Plans A, B, C,
all the way through Z.

(That's an extreme example
but you get the point.)

In countries or cultures that have
low uncertainty avoidance,

they're okay with uncertainty.

They say, "Eh, we'll come up
with Plan A as we're doing it."

(Okay, again, an extreme example,
but you see the difference.)

So these are the different ways in which
[cultures] can differ from each other.

Interesting.

So hopefully,

you're looking at this and saying,
"Why should I care about this?

How does this impact me?
How is this practical?"

I hope you're asking that.

So here's what we know.

When you work with others,
there will be differences

in behaviors and values and beliefs
that are different from yours.

You should do your absolute best

to understand the others
that you are working with

in terms of their values,
their beliefs, their behaviors, etc. etc.

When you do this, this helps reduce
unnecessary stereotyping

that absolutely happens

when you work with individuals
from other cultures or other groups

that you don't necessarily
belong to or identify with.

We do stereotype, but the more that you
focus on understanding the other person,

the quicker you can get over that,

the quicker we can work
through the rough spots,

and the quicker we can work together
as a team on what we need to work on.

And Hofstede's cultural dimensions
give us some tools to really—

It's a lens to help understand:

How and why do people
behave the way that they do?

So let me give you
an example from my career.

When I worked at Walt Disney Company,

as I had mentioned, I worked with
individuals from all across the globe.

I worked in Animal Kingdom Theme Park,
and in Animal Kingdom Theme Park,

we had different areas of the theme park
that represented different continents.

We had Asia, we had Africa.

Those were some areas that I was
responsible for overseeing.

We would bring in students

from different countries
on those continents

to represent their culture,
to share their culture,

to be an ambassador for their country.

and I had a wonderful opportunity

to work with individuals
from Botswana, Africa;

from South Africa in Africa;
from Kenya in Africa;

from Singapore in Asia;
from China in Asia;

and from Thailand in Asia.

So again, Asia and Africa.
Those were the two areas.

And I worked specifically,

I remember working
in particular with Jin,

and Jin was from Singapore,
and I would notice, you know,

when I would see Jin come from afar,

Jin would always be interacting
and talking with his fellow employees.

And I was Jin's manager,

and I noticed, every time that I would
come up to Jin and walk up to him,

I would notice he would quiet down.

And Jin's purpose of being there

was for him to share his culture
with the guests of the theme park,

so I would turn to Jin and I would say,

"Hey, what ideas do you have
in terms of sharing your culture?"

I don't know his culture,

so, you know, my job is
to help him to do that.

And he would just quiet down and
he didn't often bring up new ideas to me,

so I would, after a while,

have to start coming up with ideas
for him to do and share with our guests.

And I would notice that he would
often just do whatever I said to him,

and this really threw me for a loop

and there was kind of this
[makes a struggling noise].

I don't want to say it was conflict
by any stretch of the imagination,

but there was clearly—

We weren't working as efficiently
as we could together,

and I was just thinking in my head,

I'm like, "Jin, add some value.
Just take the lead here."

And he didn't right away.

So hmmm... I'm sitting here
thinking, "What is going on?"

Well, I didn't have
a framework like you now do

in terms of cultural diversity
and Hofstede's cultural dimensions,

and if I would have, I could have
better understood Jin,

I could have better understood his culture

and I could have better understood
what I could and should have done

(and eventually did do) to work with him
in a more efficient way on a team.

So let me show you a super-cool tool.

Let me show you
Hofstede's cultural dimensions

and how you can explore
all sorts of cultural dimensions

from all sorts of countries
across the globe.

Here's what I would like you to do.
I want you to follow along with me,

I want you to open up a browser,
and I want you to google this.

I want you to google
"Hofstede's cultural dimensions."

That's what I would like you to google.

When you do that (and pause
the video wherever you need to),

click on "compare countries"
[or "country comparison tool"].

It's the first thing:
hofstede-insights.com, compare countries.

So you're gonna do that...

Welcome to Gert Hofstede's website.
I can't recall if he's still alive or not.

(It does not matter.)

The point of this website is for you
to be able to compare countries

on their different cultural dimensions.

I am going to compare the United States
(the culture that I represent)

and Singapore
(the culture that Jin represents).

So all you do, very simply here is,
you type in the country,

and the United States pops up first

(it probably recognizes that I'm using
a computer in the United States),

and it instantly gives me cultural
dimension numbers on all six areas.

Remember, we talked about these four.
We talked about these four.

So we see these numbers.

They range from 0 to 100:
0 obviously low, 100 high.

And you can see where
the United States falls.

So Individualism appears
to be our highest,

The United States is a very
individualistic society:

"I" and "Me,"
where it's "all about Me."

That's our culture.

Power distance is relatively low.

We're okay questioning authority
within the United States.

We're okay speaking up.

Okay, interesting.
So we're seeing this.

Now let's type—

He's from Singapore,
so we're gonna click on that,

and the United States
has now switched to purple

and Singapore is now blue.

So we see immediately some differences
between Singapore and the United States,

and you can see, obviously,
the larger the gap,

the greater the difference.

Singapore's power distance
is higher, much higher at 74

in comparison to the United States.

Individualism, the United States,
very individualistic;

Singapore, very collectivist.

Hmmm... very interesting.

Well, I want to read more about that,

so very cleverly, they have
this "read more" button,

so I'm gonna click on that
and I encourage you to do the same.

And again, you can type in
any countries that you want.

You can compare more than two as well.

If you just go on here,
Argentina or whatever,

but notice that the colors change,
so keep that in mind.

Okay, but we're looking at Singapore
and we're looking at the United States.

If we wanted to read more
about Singapore in blue,

we would click on Singapore here
and we would read much more about it,

and it'll break down
every single cultural dimension

(power distance, individualism,
masculinity) and it's a custom score,

it's a custom result based on their score.

Singapore is high on this dimension
of power distance of 74.

"Power is centralized, and managers
rely on their bosses and on rules."

Huh. "Employees expect
to be told what to do."

Well, that's very interesting.
So if I go back...

again, we're looking at power distance,

if I go back to the "issues"
(and I put those in quotes)

that I thought I was
experiencing with Jin,

saying, "C'mon, man, get it together.
Add some value here. Speak up."

That's not his culture.

That's not what he has learned to do
from his culture, so we look at this.

I would always come up to them,
Jin and his group of fellow students,

and I would come up to them,

and Jin, in particular,
would always quiet down.

Well, now I see why.

Power distance is
much greater in Singapore.

"Jin, can you do this?"
He would do whatever I asked of him.

Jin would rarely bring up new ideas to me.

Hmmm... That is interesting.

And now I have a tool that helps me
to understand why that is.

Power distance is very different
in Singapore than in the United States.

Very different. Very interesting.
Let's look at another one really quickly.

Individualism and collectivism.

So United States, in purple,
very "I" and "Me."

Collectivist, Singapore [in blue],
very much about the group,

the "We," the "Us."

Let's read about it...

"Individualism... Singapore
with a score of 20

is a collectivist society."

That means that "We" is very important.

"People like to belong to in-groups,
like families, clans, or organizations

who often look after each other
in exchange for their loyalty."

Interesting.

So you can click around,
and I encourage you to do so.

You can read about the United States,

you can read about any
other country that you want,

and I encourage you to do this.

You will see this information again,

and I don't have an explicit assignment
necessarily set for you for this right now,

but it's just interesting information

that you should see,
you should be aware of,

and you now have a tool
which can help you

to better understand
some of these cultural dimensions.

So let's go back here.

So here is what I know,
and this is continuing the story with Jin.

Had I known about these cultural
dimensions (and I eventually did),

we would have been much more able

to quickly and more smoothly
help each other.

It's that simple.

When I take the time to understand
Jin and his culture, and in turn,

if and when he takes the time
to help and understand me,

but you know what?

Here's what I know from my career.

I don't ever want to depend
on somebody else

doing the same thing
that I'm going to do for them.

I want to do all that I can
to accommodate the other person.

This is my personal experience now,
I'm speaking from this.

I would like to think that Jin would learn
about the culture that he's dealing with

in terms of dealing with me,

but I'm not necessarily
going to expect that,

and it's not out of respect
or disrespect at all.

It's just that I can only control
what I can control,

so I want to focus on me,

doing the best that I can
to understand him.

And hopefully, in turn, he'll see that
and he'll want to understand me.

And the more tools that we put
in our toolbox, like cultural dimensions,

Hofstede's cultural dimensions,

we have more places to go back to

and we have more tools to use
when we're put in situations

where we're working with
individuals from different cultures.

Had we known this, had I known this
(and eventually, I did use this),

we were able to more smoothly
and more quickly understand each other,

which was great.

So how do you actually use this?
How can this be a practical tool for you?

Because it's important that we understand,
of course, our book content,

but then how does this
apply to us in real life?

Well, hopefully, my experiences,

my examples that I was able
to share here helped you out,

but I want you to consider this.

And again, it ties into what I just said.
Here's how you can actually use this.

You should be doing your homework

on other individuals that you
are going to be working with

in terms of the background that they have;

and then you should make your adjustments,
you should make your adjustments,

and you can make adjustments mentally,

just knowing that something is going
to be different with this interaction

than you are used to
from a cultural perspective.

And you can also do this behaviorally
or even verbally as well, so for example,

that's I did when I worked with Jin.

I made the adjustment.

So I knew that he was from
more of a collectivist culture,

where the focus isn't on "Me"
(or him, in this case),

but it was more on the group.

He's more concerned
with helping the group out.

So it was asking the same thing,
but just wording it a bit differently.

It's the same thing, so instead of saying,
"Jin, what do you want to do here?"

Well, that's very individualistic.
Ooh! Spotlight is on the individual.

Mmm... that's not part of his culture.

Instead, something that I said
or something similar is,

"Okay, so what are some outcomes
that would be best for the group here

as we look to educate
our guests on your culture?"

That's a very different question
on the surface,

but it's really asking the same thing:
"What should we do here?"

So do your homework,
understand who you're working with

in terms of their cultural backgrounds,
their cultural dimensions,

using a tool like Hofstede's
cultural dimensions.

You make those adjustments,

and then as you're working
with others, be patient

because it is going to be
an uncomfortable process,

especially if you're not used to working
with individuals from different backgrounds,

and that's okay, because
it takes time to get good at things,

and when you are put
in uncomfortable situations,

just be patient,
just be patient.

Do your homework,
make adjustments,

be patient as you work through
the uncomfortable components

of these relationships
within a team, and remember,

the sooner that you can get over
these cultural differences —

and I don't mean "brush-them-aside" over.

When I say "[get] over
these cultural differences,"

I mean when you can better
understand each other

and make these adjustments
and work with each other,

and you learn how to work
through these differences

and emphasize these differences

and help each other in these
differences that you have

by using a tool like Hofstede's
cultural dimensions.

When you do that, the sooner
you can work through these,

the quicker you can move
to being a high-performing team,

however you define that.

I hope you found this video informative,
grounded in some practical application,

and you now have a tool in your toolbox

that truly is interesting in terms of
Hofstede's cultural dimensions.

When we think about team composition,

we know that there are
benefits and downfalls

to having our teams look all the same
and to having our teams look different,

but we know that we are going
to be working in teams for sure

throughout our careers
that look different than us.

We're gonna be working
with other people, and that's awesome.

And when you come across a situation

where you're working with somebody
from a different culture,

you now have a tool in your toolbox
to help you to better understand them,

which, in turn, will help you
to better work with them,

which helps, in turn,
for the team to perform at a higher level.

If you have any specific questions
with regards to this content,

feel free to contact me.

Have a wonderful rest of your day,
and thank you so much.