Social mammals
We humans are
social mammals. Very intensely social, in fact. That shows in the uses to
which we put new technologies: communicate, organize, trade. It shows in
everything we do. Even the most autocratic boss is a group animal. Social
drives for dominance and being related are essential for us.
The unwritten rules of our
social groups are what I call culture. Culture is biological. It has
co-evolved with human nature and with human psychology for over a
million years. Competition between groups has honed our collaborative
capacity. Culture transmits itself through the
generations despite huge societal changes. The formal rules of our
institutions cannot work as intended without relations. And relations follow the unwritten rules of culture.
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N.B. To appear June 2010: Cultures and Organizations 3rd
ed, with among others a new dimension indulgence-restraint by Misho
Minkov and a chapter on evolution of cultures by me. The pic you see
here is a cover proposal by the US publisher. Geert had the PhD titles
removed and his name printed in the same case as Misho's and mine. Why?
Well, read the book... |
Hidden rules
The tricky thing about culture is that it is
never conspicuous. You don't see it, it is not written down, you are
never explicitly taught it. But it is there! And we are all very good at
it. It helps us know how to greet, eat, negotiate and do all the other
social things we do, without having to reinvent the wheel all the time.
Culture is social glue that makes us behave in the way we do
automatically, without thinking.
Culture (along with a host of other
things) also co-determines much of what happens in
our lives and our jobs, and that is what I can tell you about. Leadership,
trust, transparency, management, humour, rights, religion, you name it; culture plays a
big role.
So cross-cultural misunderstandings are just as
invisible to most of us as culture itself. And then it is easy to
conclude that 'they' are stupid or immoral, instead of just acting
properly but according to different unwritten rules. |
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This 8-minute
movie animation
'Father and Daughter' by Michael Dudok de Wit gives a sad and beautiful
glimpse of last-century Dutch life (If you do not get to the film, search
for 'father and daughter', or look on YouTube). Can you think of
unwritten rules about showing emotions, and how big one's ego should be,
that are apparent in this film? |
This site
This site is my chatty counterpart to
www.geerthofstede.com, the
serious site on culture maintained by Geert and me. For general background on
culture, go there.
Or go to my
site at Wageningen University
to see what I do with my professional friends. |
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...What is she offering? We are very intensely social...but
not always trustworthy... |
