2.5 The Art of Smiling

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From the course by University of Pennsylvania

The Power of Team Culture

111 ratings

University of Pennsylvania

The Power of Team Culture

111 ratings

Course 1 of 5 in the Specialization Culture-Driven Team Building

Behind the success and failure of teams lies team culture. But what exactly is culture? How and why does it contribute to success and failure? In this course, you learn how to recognize aspects of team culture of which most people are typically unaware. It is often these seemingly unimportant aspects that have the greatest effect on the outcomes of group tasks. Your recognition of them enables you to form, join and lead teams more effectively. You also come to appreciate the role of ritual and symbols in the daily operation of teams, as well as in situations of change and crisis. Knowledge of the ideas and information in this class enables you to be a better team player and a more effective team leader.

From the lesson

Crossing Cultural Boundaries

Sometimes we must take a step back and view cultural differences from perspectives different from what we're used to. Cultural boundaries exist everywhere. Differences can be found within one culture as well. Have you ever considered that a smile isn't just a simple natural response? In this unit we delve deeper into culture and the differences amongst various cultures, including corporate culture.

2.1 Two Examples of Cultural Boundaries5:16

2.2 Why Police Boundaries4:26

2.3 Culture in Motion4:52

2.4 Golden Arches East4:20

2.5 The Art of Smiling5:32

2.6 The Right to Fire4:41

2.7 The Law of Jante5:16

2.8 Cultural Relativity and Ethnocentrism4:59

2.9 Avoid Stereotyping5:12

2.10 A Checklist of Little Differences for Business4:30

2.11 Gestures as Boundary Marker4:49

2.12 Corporate Personhood4:54

Meet the Instructors

Greg Urban, Ph.D.
Professor
Anthropology

Now here's something you may not have thought about before unless of course you

encountered it as a cross cultural difference.

When is it appropriate to smile?

In the last video we talked about McDonald's

how they had to modify their signature product.

The all-beef hamburger in order to do business in India.

But the prohibition on eating beef is only one

of the many cultural boundaries they had to cross as they expanded worldwide.

One difference they encountered concern when it's appropriate to smile.

Now, before listening to these lectures,

some of you probably thought that smiling was just a natural response, a reflex.

Something given by our biology as humans.

But now, you can perhaps appreciate that is not just natural but

also one of those culturally learned routines.

It is second nature in the sense of the old Roman saying

these are product of culturally acquired habits.

In particular, when to smile and how to smile are embodied cultural routines.

They are part of what we are calling the habitus.

Correspondingly conditions under which smiling is not appropriate can vary and

differences in this regard can produce cultural boundaries.

Trifling as it may seem,

the embodied culture of smiling can also cause problems.

In the US, McDonald's wanted its employees to smile.

They felt that this communicated a sense of friendliness and openness.

But in business transactions in some parts of the world like Russia and China.

If a wait person at a restaurant smiles at a customer,

customers may feel they are being laughed at.

The expectation is that wait persons should maintain a serious demeanor.

If smiling by wait persons can be taken as laughing at the customer in some context.

And that smiling can be taken as unfriendliness in other context.

I recall a local restaurant near where lived closed about a year ago but

it had been there for maybe 15 years, and I eat there often.

The food was really very good and not terribly expensive, and

I got to know the restaurant pretty well.

The woman who ran it was from China.

She would also take our orders.

During these business transactions, she never smiled.

Not once that I can recall.

And I invariably experienced this as unfriendliness.

Over time, I got to know her better.

I would have conversations with her it became clear that she was indeed friendly.

And actually could and did smile,but when she was taking my order

her lips would never form themselves into a smile.

And I did never did quit get over the feeling that the absence of the smile

was a mark of unfamilyness.

Even hostility amazing how something so

seemingly insignificant can have this effect.

Michael Bohm and the weekly newspaper The Moscow Times in 2011 wrote,

the American smile has a terrible reputation in Russia.

He explains that during the Soviet era, the image of an insincere, insidious

American smile was used in portrayals of American politicians as Warmongers.

It was also used in characterizations of ordinary Americans as using

smiles to betray one another in business and personal relations.

A story I've heard concerns Japanese businessmen in India during the 1980s.

According to this story, the Japanese were losing market share to the Americans.

When they did some research to find out why, one of the discoveries they made

was that the Indians preferred the American businessmen.

WHy?

Because they smiled.

So guess what?

The Japanese instated smile training.

Fast forward to 2009 and The Guardian newspaper reports that

a Japanese railway company has introduced smile scanning software.

Employees are required each day to smile into a camera attached to a computer,

which then, guess what, measures their smile.

According to the article, the machine then analyzes things like eye movement,

lip curvature, and facial wrinkles, and

rates the overall quality of their smile on a scale ranging from 0,

suicidal, to 100, delirious.

It also gives suggestions for improvement and

a printout of the employee's ideal smile.

Evidently this company believes that more employees smiling on the trainline

will improve team performance and can be good for business.

Clearly the company is also trying to spread the culture of smiling.

We may wonder whether this is evidence of the American cultural routines of smiling,

crossing cultural boundaries into Japanese business culture.

In the next video, we look at ways in which Japanese businesses

have resisted certain aspects of American business culture.

And as we end this video make sure to smile.

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