I’ve had the opportunity to work in projects that have members in both the U.S. and Sweden, and that has highlighted some differences in cultural background between us that is quite interesting. One of those differences led to some of the U.S. crew commenting on the fact that the Swedes seemed to be in agreement with certain descisions, but when it was time to follow up – nothing had been done.
This view of Sweden is really clashing with the image that we have of ourselves as trustworthy and always trying our best to produce the highest quality at any time. I’m really making generalizations here of course!
The reason for this seems to have been a small difference in cultural behavior between the U.S. office and the Swedish office. During, for instance, a phone conference someone at the U.S. side would ask something along the line of “What do everyone think about this proposal?” or simply “agreed?” In the U.S. culture your expected to jump in immediately if you don’t agree, and express your concerns. In Sweden on the other hand it is quite often the case that if you are in doubt, you want to reflect on the issue before giving a comment. That, at times, led one side of the conversation to think that an agreement had been made and the other side to think that an issue was still open.
This was quite easy to resolve once it was identifed, but it goes to show how very small differences in behavior can have a profound effect on the effectiveness on a team.
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