Where does your culture belong on Richard Lewis’ model? What did you learn about your own communication patterns?

 Intro

A world traveler who speaks ten languages, British linguist Richard Lewis plots the world's cultures with three categories (points) on a triangle chart in his book, "When Cultures Collide". All of this analysis is trying to understand how to interact with people from different cultures with the consultation of Richard Lewis. Personally, I think these three categories are focus mostly on how people treat others, how they want to be treated, how they behave, and how they react. Basically, it is like a program inside people's brains and it's part of human nature. Like all psychological factors, there are always changeable parts and unchangeable parts. According to his book, by focusing on the cultural roots of behavior, we can foresee with a higher degree of accuracy how others will react to our behaviors or business plans, or even make certain assumptions.

i. Linear - Actives

Those who plan, schedule, organize, and tend to do one thing at a time such as Germans and Swiss.

ii. Multi - Actives

People in this group such as Italians, Latin Americans, and Arabs are lively, loquacious peoples and tend to do many things at once. Instead of planning without a precise schedule, they plan according to the relative thrill or importance. 

iii. Reactives

People with this culture such as Chinese, Japanese, and Finnsthat prioritize courtesy and respect, listening quietly to their interlocutors, and reacting carefully. 

Here is the picture of Richard Lewis’ model:

Source:http://www.crossculture.com/services/cross-culture/

Where does your culture belong on Richard Lewis’ model? 

In this model, I found that Taiwan is on the line of the Linear-Active and Reactive, between Japan and Singapore. That means Taiwanese are prioritized courtesy and respect, listening quietly to their interlocutors, and reacting carefully, according to Richard Lewis’ model.

Do you agree with that assessment? 

I do not totally agree with it. But I think from a foreigner's point of view, it is mostly correct because Taiwanese tend to be more polite to foreigners since they think Taiwan is a small and developing country and even hard to join United Nation. If you are from other countries and doing business in Taiwan, the assessment will be correct. However, if you not from other countries, the assessment will be no longer correct.

What did you learn about your own communication patterns?

Personally, I think my communication pattern tends to be collectivistic with low-context languages. Because I think most of the time, relationship prevails over task. And if the relationship is bad, the task is likely to be bad as well. Although people from collective cultures tend to use high-context language which means they are sensitive to their surroundings, I think language competency and expression can strongly influence other people's understanding. With low-context languages, messages can be received more correctly. However, some adjustment is always needed to reduce the chance of conflicts.

How will this change the way you interact with your classmates? 

Just like the basic principle of marketing. You must know what your customers' needs before you try to sell them anything. Now, I can try to understand their cultures, high-context or low-context, collectivistic or individualistic, and adjust my approaches to communicate with them.

Does it explain some miscommunications in the past? Cite specific examples.

Remember that 5 years ago, I purchased a watch from a foreign website and then sold it to a colleague in Taiwan. Like most countries in the world, In Taiwan, they prefer using their fiat money which is NTD$(New Taiwan Dollars). However, my watch was purchased on a foreign website and I paid for it with foreign currency, USD(the US Dollars). Since the exchanging rate is changing every day, I cannot precisely assess it with today’s NTD. So, I told him what the original price was that I paid at that time. However, the miscommunication was about the currency. He thoughts I was talking about NTD, but actually, I was talking about the USD. As a result, when he picked up his wallet, he grabs the NTD bills and, of course, he grabs less than I expected. In this case, I think sometimes low context is necessary since being accurate is crucial in many situations.

Reference

Lubin, G. (2013, September 6). The Lewis Model Explains Every Culture In The World. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/the-lewis-model-2013-9.