Communication Style of USA

The United States, a nation founded on the fundamental belief in equality, is today a multicultural mosaic of over 290 million people of varying race and cultural heritage. American culture portrays a strong sense of regional and ethnic identity, which is represented by a number of subcultures and influenced by the countrys vast geographical and regional differences. Americas influence on business culture across the globe is unmistakable. However, understanding the cultural concepts behind the surface appearance is just as important for your company when doing business in the US as in any other country. In American culture, the primary focus in conversation is usually on the information exchange when interacting they typically talk in a very straight forward manner and the word they use are said and taken in the literal way. The communication style are discussed firstly in pragmatic aspect of communication style and secondly in process and flow centered aspect of communication style A. Pragmatic Aspects of Communication Style 1. Declining: Americans are task centered and thus the primary purpose of communication is to exchange information, facts, and opinions In the US, conflict is dealt with directly and openly, and for this reason, Americans will not hesitate to say no or criticize others in public. 2. Receiving a compliment: Americans tend to accept, justify and extend compliments frequently are they are not modest with their compliments 3. Giving and receiving apology: American apology emphasizes on justification and explanations 4. Criticism: Americans use direct mode of criticism. They more often try to express dissatisfaction through constructive suggestions, sarcastic remarks, angrily and in an insulting way. B. Process and Flow Aspect of Communication Style 1. Speaker Centric vs. Listener Centric: English is the only language in the world that uses first pronoun I with capital letter. This illustrates how a speaker is important in the process of communication. 2. Directness vs. Indirectness: Americans are often expected to communicate their ideas clearly and directly to others. They are expected to be straight forward i.e. the have direct mode of communication 3. Assertive vs. Hesitancy: Americans show high degree of assertiveness on scale developed by Richards and Macorskey. Americans find it relatively easy to make a request and actively disagree with others opinion and express their personal rights and feelings. 4. High Context vs. Low Context : America is relatively low context culture. To illustrate it, expressions like give ones word or tell it like this show emphasis on the use of words to carry the bulk of the meaning.

To capsulate, the American communication style tends to go in a straight line, like an outline i.r they have a linear discussion. Meaning is conveyed through explicit statements made directly to the people involved with little reliance on the contextual factor. Issues are discussed with feelings showing attachment, and disagreement with the issue or the idea is stated up front with the assumption that only idea/issue, not the relationship is attacked with specific information.

Teams and Decision Making

TEAMS: Despite Americas individualist ethos, American managers appear to have an insatiable appetite for information about teams. TYPES OF WORK TEAMS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS TYPE OF OUTCOME AND EXAMPLES COMBINATION OF MEMBER EXPERTISE TEAMS DEGREE OF INTEGRATION WITH OTHER WORK UNITS Low Level of Integration TEAMS WORK CYCLE

ADVICE AND INVOLVEMENT Advisory Panels Committees Employee Involvement Groups PRODUCTION OR SERVICE Assembly Teams Maintenance Crews

Low Differentiation of Expertise Among Members

Can Vary in Length

Low Differentiation of Expertise Among Members

High Level of Integration

Work Cycles Typically Repeated or Continuous; Cycles Often Briefer Than The Team Life Span

Flt Attendant Crews PROJECT Research Groups Task Forces Architect Teams ORGANIZED ACTION Sports Teams Negotiating Teams Expedition Teams Surgery Teams Cockpit Crews High Differentiation of Expertise Among Members Low Level of Integration Brief Performance Events, Often Repeated Under New Conditions, Requiring Extended Training and/or Preparation High Differentiation of Expertise Among Members Low Level of Integration Work Cycles Typically Differ For Each Project

DECISION MAKING: In the United States, people often make decisions by taking a vote, and the majority rules. On the smallest levels, American culture operates on debate and discussion between opposing parties that leads to democratic decision-making. Even school children are often asked to vote on an idea, making a decision by majority. Americans also tend to utilize a hierarchy, whereby someone in a management position can occasionally overrule the vote or make a decision without consulting a team. Changing work-force demographics and new organizational forms are increasing the diversity of work teams in general and decision-making teams in particular. Given these environmental changes, work teams that are diverse in terms of sex, race, ethnicity, national origin, area of expertise, organizational affiliation and many other personal characteristics are increasingly common. Diversity may lead to a variety of different consequences for decision-making teams.

Decisions are based on a large number of explicit facts about the questions being discussed and they prefer to use those facts in a pre-agreed formal decision process. Consider, as a hypothetical example, an academic selection committee searching for a department chair. The members' diverse perspectives would undoubtedly influence the decision process. If managed well, their discussions might eventually result in the hiring of a Nobel laureate. If badly mismanaged, others at higher levels might usurp the selection committee's choice of a new leader. It is well-know that global corporations have different corporate decision structures. For example, Coca Cola Corporation is well known for its top-down decision making approach where a few people at the top decide how to run the company, e.g., performing rapid changes to its global branding strategy or rolling out improvements to production methods.

Leadership and Motivation

The US has hybrid leadership models. US leaders tend to be hard drivers and have a much more push-oriented approach to change management. The rugged individualism of US culture and continued struggle to limit the size of government creates a leadership style that focused heavily on execution, with the weight of accountability focused on the individual. One of the style of followed by the United States is the democratic system of governance and it is increasingly intricate to ascertain regarding the degree of authority centered at the apex and equalized by the authority of the serving population implementing their power by disengagement of their labor. People in US would prefer democratic leaders who seek input from subordinates before making decisions American managers are medium on paternalism. Supportive leadership shows strong positive relationships with followers satisfaction and organizational commitment. As the country is high on individualism, supportive and participative leadership therefore have a high degree of impact but directive leadership has no significant impact on follower. Rewards and punishments are based on individual performance. Therefore, leader contingent reward and punishment are expected to have positive impact in the U.S. Bass (1990) stated that charismatic leadership is important at all levels in U.S. organizations. For the Americans, the ideal leader should be intelligent, honest, understanding, a good verbal skills and determinant. The profile of leadership of American emphasizes that leaders are especially charismatic/valuebased, participative, and sensitive to people. Stated another way, American want leaders to be
exceedingly motivating and visionary, not autocratic, and considerate of others. Furthermore, they report that leaders should be team oriented and autonomous. The least important characteristic for

American is self-protective leadership. They believe it is ineffective if leaders are status conscious or prone to face saving

According to Hofstedes four dimension model (1984), American has low value in power distance dimension where followers find it is more comfortable to work with their managers or superiors because followers dont need to follow everything their managers ask or command if they have the proper reasons to support their actions. Hofstede considers that leaders from the USA make it quite well in getting used to their style to the subordinates' better necessity for reliance. US leader give more stress on continual feedback and motivation. Hofstede has recognized Americans as the most individualist nation in the world. In his view, people in individualism culture enjoy personal particulars and successes in order to define themselves. Americans put value on the work and put importance on planning and decide what to do and when. They believe that one can achieve success through practice. American managers believe that they can control their environment and what occurs in it, and they assume themselves responsible for the problems out of home such as strikes and economic events (Jacoby,1973). In USA, government has imposed severe penal laws for regulating behaviors of the people. Americans have noncompulsory thought, and believe in performance of work and change rather than acceptance of fate. American people know themselves dominant on the nature, have tendency to solution of problems and emphasize on three variables of structure, strategy and system. Adaptability is a pronounced characteristic of American leadership generally. Emotional toughness is common to all top executives; Americans spend more time trying not to show it. Emotional resonance, the ability to grasp what motivates others and appeal effectively to it, is most important in the United States Individual performance appraisals have been extensively developed, and widely implemented, in the U.S. because they are central to managerial decisions regarding incentives, promotion, etc. Merit-based incentive plans are very common in American corporations ( Lawler et. al., 1992), and they are consistent with the vertical individualistic values of American culture. American companies use employee stock ownership plans more than any other form of rewards, although

this is still divided unequally among the employees, based on their organizational position, and performance evaluation Philosophical Dimension Employment Evaluation and promotion U.S. Approach Usually short-term; layoffs are common Very fast: those not quickly promoted often seek employment elsewhere Very specialized; people tend to stay in one area (accounting, sales, etc.) for their entire careers Decision making Carried out by the individual manager

Career paths

Control mechanism

Very explicit; people know exactly what to control and how to do it

Responsibility Concern for employees

Assigned to individuals Management concerned basically with the individuals work life only

Conflict and Negotiation

Cross-cultural studies on interpersonal conflict clearly indicate that the competing style (i.e., high assertiveness, low cooperativeness) is more favored by members of individualistic cultures i.e. USA. According to the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument is a model for handling conflict which is based on two dimensions: assertiveness and cooperativeness. According to the model the USA lies in first quadrant which is high on assertiveness and low on cooperativeness which means they possess competing style of conflict management style. Conflict management style is the win-lose approach. One act in a very assertive way to achieve the goals, without seeking to cooperate with the other party, and it may be at the expense of the other party. This approach may be appropriate for emergencies when time is of the essence, or when you need quick, decisive action, and people are aware of and support the approach. (Morris and associates (1998 pp. 729-747) U.S. managers preferred competing styles, integrating styles and compromising style were the most preferred, followed by the dominating and

emotional expression style. American male have higher dominating style than American females. American strongly uses assertive tactics in conflict situation, with a greater concern for attaining justice for them.

USA

Mitchell Hammer proposed an intercultural conflict style model based on two core dimensions: Direct vs. Indirect approaches to dealing with disagreements and Emotionally Expressive vs. Emotionally Restrained patterns for dealing with the affective dimension of conflict interaction. According to this model the US uses more of direct approach and they are emotionally restrained for dealing with conflict, the two dimensions depicts that US uses discussion style of communication. The Discussion style uses a verbally direct path. You say what you mean and mean what you say. When talking about the disagreement, you tend not to throw in your own personal feelings in the discussion. Successful conflict resolution usually involves fostering communication among disputants, problem solving, and drafting agreements that meet their underlying needs. In these situations, conflict resolvers often talk about finding the win-win solution, or mutually satisfying scenario, for everyone involved (Fisher and Ury (1981), Getting to Yes).

The Basic Cultural Values and Ways of Thinking

Individualistic Egalitarian Information Oriented

Reductionist Sequential Seeks the truth Argument Culture

How They approach the Negotiation Process

Non-Task Sounding Quick Meetings Informal Make Cold Calls Full Authority Direct Proposals First Aggressive Impatient Forgoing a Good Deal

Information Exchange

Means Of Persuasion

Term Of Agreement

Source: The Chinese Negotiation by John L. Graham & N. Mark Lam, Harvard Business Review Article, October 2003

America is viewed by commentators as a low context society; all aspects of a deal need to be specified in detail and all parts of the relationship between two or more parties need to be completely and unambiguously described. An American negotiator usually has the authority to return to the home office with the best resolution that he or she can negotiate. This is a typical individualist approach. A non-U.S. negotiator is more likely to have less authority. Deal points are discussed in negotiations, but must be considered by the home office before they can be approved, or more likely renegotiated. Non-U.S. clients might not be aware of difference, nor of the fact that U.S. organizations may stress the success of the individual over the success of the group. This may be a hard concept for a non-U.S. client to understand. A common saying outside the United States is that you cant be sure that an American really means no until his plane has taken off. There are many situations in which U.S. negotiators may say no to a proposition and not mean it. U.S. negotiators have a reputation for directness. So it may not be apparent to a nonU.S. client that when a U.S. negotiator says No, or We cant do that, what it really means is Suggest an alternative or Offer us a compromise position.