In Vietnam’s cities, where foreigners and locals interact on a daily basis, both socially and professionally, gaps in cultural understanding are common.
British linguist Richard Lewis and author of the book, When Cultures Collide, has compiled an interesting chart meant to help people understand and better relate to other cultures.
His book was called "an authoritative roadmap to navigating the world's economy," by the Wall Street Journal, but Lewis is fully aware that these are meant to be generalizations and not applicable to all:
"Determining national characteristics is treading a minefield of inaccurate assessment and surprising exception," Lewis wrote. "There is, however, such a thing as a national norm."
Business Insider broke down Lewis’ 3 categories:
"Linear-actives — those who plan, schedule, organize, pursue action chains, do one thing at a time. Germans and Swiss are in this group.
Multi-actives — those lively, loquacious peoples who do many things at once, planning their priorities not according to a time schedule, but according to the relative thrill or importance that each appointment brings with it. Italians, Latin Americans and Arabs are members of this group.
Reactives — those cultures that prioritize courtesy and respect, listening quietly and calmly to their interlocutors and reacting carefully to the other side's proposals. Chinese, Japanese and Finns are in this group."
While many cultures fell between 2 categories, Vietnam sat front and center on the “Reactives.”
Here is the full list of attributes for this class:
- Listens most of the time
- Reacts to partner’s action
- Looks at general principles
- Polite, indirect
- Never confronts
- Very people-oriented
- Statements are promises
- Harmony oriented
- Often asks for “repeats”
- Face-to-face contact important
- Subtle body language
"By focusing on the cultural roots of national behavior, both in society and business, we can foresee and calculate with a surprising degree of accuracy how others will react to our plans for them, and we can make certain assumptions as to how they will approach us," Lewis writes.
Do you find Lewis’ categorization of Vietnamese culture to be accurate?
