For this blog, I am exploring the idea that business practices in Western Cultures vary greatly compared to Eastern Cultures. Specifically, those in Western culture rush to solutions before acknowledging the actual problem.
This is very interesting to me because I just read a book that touches on this subject called Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. While it may seem that rushing to solutions is a bad thing, Gladwell shows that for professional pilots for commercial airlines, it is actually a good thing. For example, Gladwell looks back at many plane crashes, specifically from Korean Air a few decades ago. What he found was many of these crashes were the result of pilot error. The pilots from Eastern culture, especially the younger co-pilots, were afraid to speak their mind and make a definitive statement about the state of the aircraft. This lead to planes running out of fuel and crashing due to built up ice, simply because the pilots from Eastern culture were afraid to speak their mind and fix the problem. Meanwhile, it Western cockpits, the pilots were not afraid to tell people what to do in order to accomplish landing the plane safely.
So although it would seem this rushing to solutions is not a good trait, in the case of life and death, the Western culture practices actually work better and save more lives. That is not to say all possible problems shouldn't be examined, because I believe that is important when making any decision, but come crunch time it is essential to make a decision and stick to it.
Business: West vs. East
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you make a very interesting point. I agree that for that situation that the more western idea of speaking your mind would definitely helped to avoid a plane crash. However, I think it is important to point out that eastern culture's tendency to weight possible problems can actually be beneficial in some situations. It is important to acknowledge that despite positive and negative aspects of both cultures are present, neither one is the absolute correct way to go about a situation.
After I read your post I started have interest in the book "Outliers". Maybe I'm going to start reading it today. Well, I agree that some parts of Eastern tendency of thinking can possibly cause those kinds of problems. However, I also wonder any situations when Eastern ways of thinking are better to solve problems because there pros and cons in both Eastern and Western ways of thinking.
I think looking at different countries business cultures is so interesting! I actually did a project last year that analyzed a country from each continent, and how their business practices are similar or different and the stuff I found out was actually kind of surprising. When you look at each individual culture, you can definitely see the different strengths and weaknesses each has to offer (Korea's was obviously a weakness in this situation!)
Interesting. I have read Blink by Gladwell, and it was about how we make snap judgments...Interesting stuff. I like your example of the different airlines, and in this case, it does seem that the Western questioning is important. Do you think there might be situations when it isn't as efficient or valuable? When the Eastern culture may actually be the better way?