This post is going to discuss video by Dr.
Lyengar, found online (YouTube). In the
video, she was discussing choice and how that varies by culture. The name of the video is Ballet Slippers or
Adorable. I will try to discuss her
points without making it necessary to see the video, but it is worth the 20
minutes or so of your time to do so. It
discussed some very interesting concepts.
Dr. Lyengar starts her presentation about
trying to order green tea with sugar in Japan.
She was unable to do so because Japanese culture frowns upon sugar in
green tea. Therefore, she was refused an
order for green tea in a restaurant! The
point of the example was that Americans are used to having things our own way,
but Japanese culture wants to “protect” someone from making a bad choice. Those are very different approaches in how
one perceives the world around us. Can
we have too many choices? It
depends. Our American culture fine-tuned
into making choices, but having too many choices and the authority to make them
all may not always be optimal.
To illustrate that point, she talks about
the difference between European families who had doctors make a decision to
take a child off of life support versus the American families. European families seemed to adjust to the
tragedy better when the choice was made for them. American families did NOT want anyone to make
the choice for them, but suffered great guilt and emotional trauma as a result
of making that hard choice. Who is
better off after the result?
Dr. Lyengar also discussed the East European
Block mentality of choices versus the West.
In a culture that has far fewer choices, it appears that they grouped
what all Westerners would view as separate choices, into a large set. The video talks about how Westerners view
choices in soda as many but the Eastern Block viewed it as a choice between
having soda, and having none. In this
instance, is limiting that choice to soda or nothing better or worse?
Her final example was to demonstrate choice
and how it can be affected on one’s cultural view of motherhood. Asians tend to revere their mothers more than
their Western counterparts. It
transcends into how they perform based upon their mother’s expectations of them
versus what they choose to do as an individual.
This is the exact opposite of how Americans view things and set their
goals and standards.
She even delved into the fanatical devotion
to “choice” by Americans by giving the pink nail polish example. She was trying to decide her “choice” of two
different brand names of pink nail polish, which were essentially the same but
had different names. In other words, no
matter which choice she made, she would still get essentially the same
product. However, she would be able to
choose and that was the highest order of priority for her and basically all
Americans.
Dr. Lyengar makes the following assumptions
for Americans:
- Make your own choices,
- More options leads to better choices
- Never say no to choice.
I agree with Dr. Lyengar’s assumptions
about Americans. I also happen to agree
with her that having choice be the highest priority in every decision may not
always be for the best. The implications
on leadership is that a good leader may limit the choices he presents to his
subordinates by framing the issue. A
good description of the issue and what the end-state needs to be may limit the
number of options available to accomplish that mission. However, giving the flexibility to
subordinates plays into the American desire for choice and the freedom to
choose. This framework would be
important for Americans due to our cultural affinity for choice. I am not saying that one should not give
subordinates the ability to free-style into solutions. If proper parameters and metrics are given as
part of the problem set, and then looked upon as necessary, then creative
solutions are possible to attain the desired end result. Everybody wins.
The same style of leadership may not work
if one were a supervisor overseas in an Asian market, or an Easter European
country. Knowing what cultural
expectations are will help a supervisor in determining what sort of style that
he needs to have as a leader. That was
the most important concept that I received from Dr. Lyengar.
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