Below are excerpts from the interviews conducted for “One World: Learning to Bridge Cultural Gaps” (from “A Day in the Future").

Ned Herrmann

Cultural differences can be profound.  I visited Sweden not so long ago, to address the Advertising Institute of Stockholm.  And the surprise for me was that nobody reacted to what I was saying.  They sat there absolutely stoned faced.  They did not respond to anything I said.  It was almost if I was in the wrong place, giving the wrong presentation, to the wrong audience. 
           
And so I went down to the audience, and asked them "What's happening here? Is this Tuesday? Is this Stockholm?  Is this the advertising institute?"  Still no reaction until I came very close to one individual and smiled, and he smiled, and then the audience reacted back.  Nobody told me that it is a sign or respect in the Swedish culture "not to react to an individual". Nobody told me that.  So I was completely misreading their response.  They actually loved what I was saying.  I was at the right place, doing the right thing, but they didn't in their culture think it was appropriate to show that to me. 

At the next stop in Copenhagen, when I walked out on stage, there was a standing ovation.  And I didn't realize but above me on the screen was this applause sign, that was blinking "NED NEEDS THIS APPLAUSE".

Philip Harris

One of the things that I think that illustrates this need for the understanding of interculture communications is of course, body languages and gestures.  And this in India, we find out that the custom is that men and women do not hold hands.  That normally men hold hands. So the first time I went to New Delhi and I saw all these men holding hands I though well, you know, is this a city of gays?  Or is this indeed the way things happen?

And I notice that the women walk behind the men, they don't walk with the men, but the men indeed...and hold hands.  So the holding of the hands differ by culture.

Farid Elashmawi

Culture is the norm that a group of people have agreed together to survive.  To survive at a certain time and a certain place.  Japanese have decided to speak Japanese.  They decided to die for respect.  The Arabian have decided to speak Arabian to communicate their hospitality shown by their hugging each other.  The American decided for directness, assertiveness, openness, individualness, all this are our culture dimension. 

Lewis Griggs

For example, something as superficial as eye contact may have in it's roots a set of values, the knowledge of which could help us understand eye contact in ways so to minimize it's negative impact on us. 

For instance, as a mid-western Anglo American and an MBA, I vale direct eye contact.  It means that I have been able to establish eye contact with you, honesty, integrity, telling it like it is, you know openness, forthrightness, strength, control space, etc. 

Now everybody else, it could be an Anglo female, it could be a black, Asian, Hispanic form the U.S. or elsewhere in the world, who could really read my amount of eye contact as either threatening, manipulative, controlling, domineering, sexually inappropriate, somehow possessive of the space, and therefore distrust worthy. 

What we need to do is understand the reasons for somebody else's body language or eye contact.  And by understanding the reasons we will be able to discount our own negative response to it. 

Diana Rowland

Our perceptions of others are based on our own value system.  What the other culture's values are in relationship to our value system. 

For example is relationship to latin values, Americans are seen as being time conscious and hard working.  But to Asians we are seen as being laid back and easy going.  The Latins see as as being team workers, whereas the Asians see us as being individualistic. 

For this reason it's a good idea to have a sense of our own value system, before we start looking at another's value system.  It helps us realize our perceptions of others are based on our own perspective.

Phillip Harris

Because people are more comfortable with people like themselves.  And the reason that they are is that people hate to be embarrassed.  And what we like to do is predict another person's response, right?  S

If we live in an environment, and work in an environment where people are like us, we can predict...we know all the cues, we can predict all the responses, so we are not at risk to being embarrassed. 

As soon as you get outside of that circle, as you begin to broaden it, you don’t know all the cues, and the more different a person is from you, the more the cues are going to be different, the more likely that you are going to be defensive, and therefore be embarrassed by the response you are going to get, or something like that.