Of cabbages and cultures

When I was young I vowed never to be a ‘cabbage yakker’. That is, a woman who talks about the price of cabbages as if they were the most important thing in the whole world. I’m sure there are women for whom cabbages are very important, but I didn’t want to be one of them.

At the beginning of this new year, I’m forced once more to think about the kind of woman I don’t want to grow up to be. A few incidents recently have clarified my thoughts:

• I don’t want to be a woman who secretly smokes in the toilets on Eurostar, even though there are big signs up forbidding it (although I’d have to start smoking first, so I think I can manage this one easily enough)
• I don’t want to be the kind of woman who interrupts another’s conversation in the street, even though they are obviously talking (in a foreign language) on the phone and asks for directions to the diamond-centre of Paris
• I don’t want to grow up believing queues are for other women, and my age gives me the right to push to the front of the line for the Quai Branly museum.

Three women, with perhaps nothing in common except the fact that they were all French, all over 65 and all wearing (real?) fur.

Where I come from, and I’m talking social norms rather than geography, this behaviour is rude. Maybe there is some sub-set of French culture that gives women of pensionable age the ability to do whatever they please. In a way, I hope there is, because at least that means they are conforming to their own norms, and someone thinks they aren’t being impolite.

When people break our social norms it affects our mood during the day. I certainly was less inclined to be polite to the next person who asked me directions, although fortunately for the population at large no one else did that day.

But social norms have a wider implication in the workplace. On project teams, mis-matched cultures and expectations can result in misunderstandings and uncomfortable discussions. For example, you are in the middle of a discussion with two colleagues at your desk. Another colleague enters the rooms, and interrupts your meeting by shouting ‘hello’: he kisses the women and shakes the hands of the men before moving on to interrupt the conversation of the employee at the next desk who is on the phone.

A Brit would probably tell you that is not appropriate workplace behaviour. A French friend would laugh and tell you he does it all the time.

There are big cultural differences that make working on international projects a challenge. But the small things, like how important it is to wish your French colleagues Happy New Year during January, and whether you should bring in cakes on your birthday, are as much at risk of causing ‘them and us’ attitudes between team members.

But then, if we can capitalise on the differences, play to our strengths and build a multi-cultural team, we can prove that it’s the differences between us that make our lives more interesting and projects more successful.