How to do business in NZ

I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker last week about my perceived differences between the working culture of the United States and that of New Zealand.

When I first began working, I had a definite preference for working with British expats (they're heaps of them here) because (like Americans) they say what they mean. In general, Kiwis are less explicit in their interpersonal interactions, so you never really know what they want or need.

Part of this comes from (I believe) NZ being a small country with a small population. It is not wise to make enemies or piss anyone off as you will have to work with them again. Harmony is valued and confrontation is not.

An example of this is that one of Perin's development goals is to be less confrontational when playing devil's advocate during meetings with clients. What is seen as a normal business practice in the States makes clients uncomfortable here.

Spending my life as a loud American and doing business with other loud Americans has left me with the expectation of being able to hear everyone speak in meetings and during presentations. Rather frequently during meetings, I will be sitting near a Kiwi speaker but won't be able to hear them. My natural inclination is to ask them to speak up, but then my hearings not that bad and I know no one else that's sitting farther away than me can hear them either. So I sit back and observe. What's going on here? Why isn't anyone else asking the speaker to talk louder?

I believe that there is a definite Asian influence for saving face. No one wants the speaker to lose face by asking them to speak up. Everything is subtle. No one tells anyone else what to do explicitly. They suggest and imply. Quietly.

And there is no feedback. If you're doing well, you won't hear about it. And if you're doing poorly, you won't hear about it. However, if you are doing poorly, people will talk about you behind your back.

The whole conversation came up again at the end of last week when I sent an email to the executives of my company praising the hard-work and selfless dedication of one of my co-workers on a big project we just finished. The co-worker wrote back saying thank you, it was a "very, very American email," and that the Kiwi executives won't know how to handle it.

Now five days later, I have still received no word from on-high about my electronic praise (although I will admit that I've been out of town on training). At the absolute minimum, I hope to get together with the bosses soon and [quietly] talk smack about some of our crappier employees behind their backs.