The Hindu Business Line : The iceberg model of culture

I wrote this with a heavy heart to Norma Kohls, a few days ago, in response to a brave handwritten letter where she announced the passing of her spouse, Dr L. Robert Kohls, who was Global Adjustments' cross-cultural mentor for the last decade and passed away in San Francisco. In October last year, Bob came to Chennai 40-odd years after his first visit. During his last visit, he launched the `Global Indian' workshop on cross-cultural understanding. He went back home, and cancer caught up with him; Norma was his caregiver and on August 9 this year, he passed away.

Bob Kohls left footprints behind for many to follow. If readers wish to know more about his work, do an Internet search for `L. Robert Kohls', and he appears in over 1,600,000 entries, as he was a true pillar in the cross-cultural communications field.

His work on `Values Americans live by' and `Iceberg model of culture' will live on , and will help develop insightful relations between the people of the world. He helped set up the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, which gave him the Primus Inter Pares Award, the Nobel prize equivalent in this field .

"The worst thing that could happen is the Westernisation of India. Please hold on to your wonderful culture and adapt your actions to suit intercultural understanding. Empathy and compassion are a must as you act in intercultural awareness. You Indians have a huge potential." This was Bob's parting advice to the team at Global Adjustments .

In this article, I wish to share what he taught us about the iceberg model of culture, which is the need of the day for Global Indians to feel at home in India and the world.

Above the water line

Only 10 per cent of culture is visible, explicit, taught. This includes how we behave, what we eat, how we speak, words we use, thousands of skills and information conveyed through formal and informal lessons.

Also, above the water line includes recognisable specialties of culture such as dressing in a sari versus a kimono, saying `R', rolling the `R' or saying `L' instead of `R'. This 10 per cent is what we have to learn to understand, assimilate and if necessary adapt to for instant success while doing business with other cultures.

At the water line

This is the hide and seek part of culture — implicit understandings are talked about and the unwritten codes are explained — where belief borders on the unbelievable, even with explanations. Examples of this for a Westerner would be the Indian belief in reincarnation and rebirth, and the law of karma or action that guides our daily lives. This belief governs the way we value relations over contracts, the way we are more accepting and tolerant of change.

Equally baffling to an Indian would be the Western belief of `independence and self-reliance' which dictates a peanut farmer aspiring to be a US president and actually achieving it, as he believes it is his own merit and hard work that get him what he is after. It may guide behaviours in business interactions such as not offering to do someone else's task, not guiding unless asked or even not inviting a newly-arrived colleague to lunch when stepping out of the office. The last example was something an Indian professional explained to me, adding how hurt he was that his co-worker Jim just went off for lunch when he, Ram, didn't know where to go to find vegetarian food during his visit to the US office.

Below the water line

There is much `hidden' culture — over 90 per cent — below the water mark. Kohls explained to me that these are habits, assumptions, understandings, values, judgments and so on that we know about our own culture, but do not or even cannot explain. Usually, these are learnt by osmosis and not taught formally.

An example here is what we eat with what during our meals. For example, in South India, typically, we would eat rice with a curry, first course dal, second course sambar, third course rasam; in-between mixing vegetables with rice and gravy, crunching a papad for extra flavour alongside or even crushing it into the rice-gravy mixture for special effect. A payasam or sweet rice pudding will follow and the finale will be curd rice and pickles!

A north Indian would eat radish and carrots, add raw onions along with the chappati and chole (chickpeas) and would occasionally squeeze lime over it; the next course would be pilav and black dal, and the meal would end with an utterly sweet gulab jamun.

The order we eat foods in, the number of courses, the concluding dish, the adaptations based on modern rushed times are all below the water line of culture.

Similarly, observable as a sign of `friendliness' are starkly different ways of being perceived as `feeling respected'. These include how people greet one another:

A kiss on the cheek — twice in some parts of France and four times in other parts of the country.

Bow low in China.

Bow more number of times than the other person — in Japan.

Shake hands, make eye contact and smile — in the US.

The need of the day is to understand the cultural iceberg, as it is a great tool in understanding the underlying culture during interactions. Once we know where it stems from, we can easily practice wearing the twin designer hats of `respect' and `empathy'. On this, Robert Kohls always led by example.

(The writer is Founder-CEO of Global Adjustments, the India focused cross-cultural and destination services company)