Expanding perspectives 🔎

"We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are."
– ANAÏS NIN

📝 Growing opinions

I realized I don't always have opinions about particular things.

More than half of the time.

It's a good thing and a bad thing.

...or maybe neither?

I briefly struggled with this awareness.

Initially, I thought of it as a good thing, especially when interacting with people. I don't have judgment for a person because everyone is a blank page for me. I don't always have a first impression.

(If I took MBTI tests seriously, another way of saying this is that I am giving off a strong INFP energy.)

At the same time, seeing everything as a blank page will not necessarily move the world forward. Often when I look at a new artwork or I hear the news, I don't have thoughts about it. In moments like these, I question... is it indifference or openness? How can I make sure it's the latter?

🤷‍♂️

I noticed opinions generally fall into any of these three categories: background, action, output.

What I concluded from my brief musing is I tend to see each category as a prerequisite to the other:

• I don't have thoughts about a specific output or outcome until I know how it came to be.
• I don't have thoughts about how something came to be until I know the intent or motive behind it.

But in reality, I don't always have the luxury of knowing the background of a person or a thing. I am re-learning to exercise the muscle of creating assumptions while still being able to affirm, deny, or suspend them.

I am trying to do more activities that widen my perspective to help create better assumptions. Some of these are traveling, meeting new people, and reading books.

A book that I revisit to expand my perspective is Erin Meyer's The Culture Map.

🗺️ The Culture Map

This book decodes "how people think, lead, and get things done across cultures" by outlining how culture operates differently in a system of 8 scales. The 3 scales that I found the most fascinating are Communicating, Scheduling, and Persuading.

Communicating 💬

Different cultures have different tendencies when it comes to communication. A person tends to be either more low-context or high-context.

• Low-context - They would define good communication as saying what you mean. Communicate as literally & explicitly possible. Be clear and simple.
• High-context - They would define good communication as being able to communicate a message between the lines. It is critical to be able to read the air. To an extent, being direct can be seen as rude or unintelligent.

"One of the biggest mistakes lower-context managers make is assuming that the other individual is purposely omitting information or unable to communicate explicitly."
– Erin Meyer

In a business setting, especially with different cultures involved, it is recommended for everyone to do low-context communication. This would lessen misunderstanding.

Scheduling 🕓

This is a scale on how fluid (or rigid) different cultures are to schedules.

• Linear-time - schedules are more sequential, focused, one thing at a time, and promptness is important.
• Flexible-time - schedules are fluid, there can be many things going on, and interruptions are not a bad thing. Adaptability to changing schedules/priorities is important.

I would assume this explains "Filipino Time" (Filipinos arriving around an hour late to the scheduled time).

One insight I got from this is that cultures on the left side of the scale have their environment more stable (i.e. weather, events/holidays, or social/political/economic landscape) relative to those on the right.

This also means those on the right find flexibility more valuable, while those on the left put more value in following a schedule.

On a personal level, the moment I get to plan something 6 months in advance is when I also pause and be grateful that things around me are stable enough to think that far ahead.

"Perhaps the most interesting about the Scheduling scale is that those from each side of the scale see those from the other side as inefficient and imagine they must lead lives that are terribly difficult and stressful"
– Erin Meyer

Persuading 🪞

When it comes to persuading, some people tend to put focus on the How (Appliations-first), while some focus on the Why (Principles-first).

This also dictates the teaching styles across different cultures. In a math class, principles-first culture would tend to explain or prove the general principle first, while applications-first would start with applying the formula.

What I found the most fascinating though is leaving Asian cultures out of the scale. Meyer explained this is because Asians tend to have holistic thinking contrary to Westerners who have a specific approach.

Meyer shared this insight:

"A common tenet of Western philosophies and religions is that you can remove an item from its environment and analyze it separately... Aristotle emphasized focusing attention on a salient object.

Chinese religions and philosophies, by contrast, have traditionally emphasized interdependencies and interconnectedness... The terms yin and yang describe how seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent."
– Erin Meyer

In an experiment of looking at photos and taking photos, Asians would tend to put a great deal of importance on the background, while Americans focus on individual figures separate from their environment.

This made me wonder, how much of the Asian culture did I actually grow accustomed to?

Is it why I am writing about my yearning to know about the backgrounds (literally or figuratively) of people or things?

I hope this was eye-opening for you, too.