PURPOSES OF MEETINGS

Americans are less inclined than, say, many northern Europeans, to view meetings as a setting for making decisions. One American chief executive had a memo sent to managers saying “Staff meetings are not the place to make decisions!” Americans are more comfortable with a more individualized approach – those with direct responsibility address the problem together.

In American business culture, there is much talk of consensus, but little tradition of collective decision-making and none of collective responsibility. Moreover, there is little expectation in American business culture of consultation per se. It’s not that American colleagues and managers will not consult others. It is rather that they will not do this as a matter of course, but only when necessary and then only with those directly involved. To use a phrase we have used several times already, they will not feel obliged. Individuals are expected to own fully their objectives and tasks, and to obtain the support of others through persuasion rather than through consultation. Americans’ distrust of “collective” decision-making is based on the belief that it often results in a weak decision. Many American management training courses strive to convince them otherwise, but with limited success.

Americans will see meetings (or video-conferences) as opportunities to inform and be informed, to be visible and make one’s efforts visible to others; in short to “stay in the loop”, and avoid isolation from others.

CONDUCT OF MEETINGS

Here again, standard good practice, as described in management books, prescribes the preparation of a detailed agenda and adherence to proper techniques for leading the meeting. But do not expect your American colleagues to be too formal or strict in adhering to these.

Americans do expect that people will speak up if they wish to. Keeping quiet means that you have nothing to say. A certain amount of social talk or even a bit of letting off steam is tolerated. But any apparent lack of focus or objective in a meeting may cause an American participant to use the opportunity to advance his own “agenda”, or to simply tune out. Unfortunately, skilled discussion leaders are hard to find in American organizations. This can be frustrating enough for American participants, but doubly so for international colleagues.

We can go only so far in attempting to generalize about American patterns and preferences in these areas of teamwork, meetings and decision-making. So much depends on the character of the particular organization and people involved. Much of what we have described here is more often seen in large organizations, whether multi-national or not. Smaller companies will have a very different feel or atmosphere: a greater sense of urgency, closer relationships between company managers and their “colleagues”, fewer formal management systems, greater visibility of success or failure.

We have, however, indicated where American assumptions, expectations, and behavior may be different to common tendencies elsewhere in the world.