“I highly prefer the American way which is based on trust and conviviality . The hierarchy exists but it is not shown. You can work in a confident way”
“On my first graduate scheme I was one of 4 British grads and worked with another graduate who was Chinese/American. I found it very challenging at first, as did the others, as we bonded a lot by having a similar sense of humour and we all used to socialise together outside of work as we had all moved to that area for work so had no other networks. This individual would not come out with us and also kept quite separate from us during the day which affected how we worked together. She was very professional at all times and didn’t let her personality come through as she was always in ‘work’ mode. ”
“The hardest thing for me to understand is differing levels of directness in communication. I think the American culture tends to be fairly direct, especially when there are tasks to complete or issues to resolve. When someone from another culture is not so direct in asking me to do something, sometimes I don’t understand the urgency or I don’t understand that I really need to take action whereas they think they have asked me to act quickly.”
“I remember sitting at a meeting in The USA and when it was about time but we were still discussing it we did stop and it was scheduled another follow up meeting later that week and everyone left on to their next thing.”
“A US Global Manager took it for granted that a PI would resolve queries during his summer holidays, and I explained her that in Europe it is not acceptable to ask a PI to interrupt his family holidays to access the eCRF and resolve a study queries”
“People from US getting surprised/annoyed because we in Europe go on vacation for 2-3 weeks at once.”
“When I worked in the City of London in the late ‘80s, the dress code was still very formal – dark suit, black shoes, etc. Some companies began adopting “dress-down Friday” policies, where employees could wear less formal clothes to work. Our American colleagues seemed to understand this best – they all turned up wearing an alternative “uniform” of khaki trousers, polo shirt, loafers etc. British colleagues – including me – really didn’t know what to wear! Some of us simply removed our ties; others turned up wearing shorts and T-shirts and were sent home to change! It seemed we (Brits) had no “alternative uniform” for work and we f
“I do have difficulties to adapt to task oriented behaviours: what matters is the result, not how you get there or how people feel during the process to get there. In these type of circumstances where there is a perceived “aggressive” behaviour towards team members, I find it difficult to accept. I have felt this with some colleagues/clients from US”
“When I work with people from the US my feeling is that in general they are extremely organized and communicate in a very efficient level, however, in other countries people go around on circles, do not answer to the specific questions you ask or provide you with a lot of unneeded information, etc…)”
“Many US people thinks that the rules or regulations for US are applied to all other countries.”