“ Your claim that it is possible to see the Himalayas from your home town checks out. I have never been to the Himalaya countries, so I made  a quick calculation, read, fact check, to see if you could see the Himalayas form your home town which is approximately 131 Kilo meters away. My calculation verifies your claim, it is possible to see the Himalaya form your home town..”

Just like that, he made a calculation.. I could have been hurt or taken a back to hear that this person admit that he actually doubted my true claim!

Facts/Principle-first

But in reality,  I was surprised but not hurt because it was clear to me, that I had been talking to a ship navigator, how is used to calculating his route all his life and a miscalculation would mean a disaster.  So his habitual pattern of reasoning  was being influenced by  the ‘principle-first reasoning’ (Erin Meyer, The culture map). A work culture where everything is doubtful unless proven or verified. In this type of reasoning, facts are essential to support a claim.

According to professor Erin Meyer, This type of reasoning is more prevalent in the school system of Latin Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal), Germanic countries (Germany, Austria) and Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina).

In general the Anglo Saxon countries like United States, The United Kingdom, Austria, Canada and New Zealand fall under principal-first reasoning.

In this type of reasoning, people tend to focus on the ‘why?’ first before taking action.

 

Claim/Application- First

On the other hand, application-first reasoning also known as inductive reasoning (prof. Erin Meyer), is a type of reasoning where general conclusions are reached based on a pattern of factual observations.

In this type of reasoning people tend to focus more on the ‘how?’ than the ‘why?’ before taking action.

Scandinavia, The Netherlands fall more to the application first culture than  Australia, Canada and United States. (Erin Meyer)

 

As a manager from a multicultural team, you can motivate your team members to follow cross cultural training, so as to be more culture sensitive to one another.