Cultural Differences when Doing Business with Americans

10 Common Cultural Differences Doing Business in the USA

Depending on your own culture, working with Americans can be challenging. When delivering USA cross cultural training, we get to hear many of the challenges facing professionals when working with Americans.

This is both in a face-to-face context, i.e. in the USA, and the virtual context, i.e., working remotely.

Understanding more about a country and its culture can help minimise problems. To help you, we’re going to share 10 of the most common cultural differences foreigners encounter when working with US culture.

As you’ll discover, many of these cultural differences come down to a difference in values and how Americans are being perceived by others.

1. Time Orientation in American Business Culture: “Time is Money”

Time is literally given material worth in US culture.

Every second of every day is precious and as a result, Americans hate it when their time is wasted. Being late for an appointment, missing deadlines and a general lack of timekeeping will quickly see you judged as ‘unprofessional’.

2. Speed and Urgency in US Business Culture

Americans come across as always in a rush, under pressure and wanting everything ‘now!’.

You’ve got to remember that American culture is built on speed, on being the best and being the first. If you are to survive, things have to happen quickly or someone else will beat you to it.

3. Task Focus vs Relationship Building in the USA

Unlike in some cultures where you build a personal relationship first before moving into business, in the US you do business first and then maybe think about the relationship.

Remember, at work, Americans focus on getting things done, not on making friends. That’s not to say they are unfriendly – two very different things.

4. Direct Communication Style in American Business

American communication is direct, frank and transparent.

You are expected to say what you mean and mean what you say. Especially within the workplace, there is no room for people’s feelings, worrying about how a message may be interpreted or showing deference to any hierarchy in the room.

Being a foreign manager in the USA requires an understanding of the local values. The American management style might be very different from your own.  Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash

5. Concise Communication in US Workplaces

Americans have short attention spans.

Things need to be quick, concise and to the point. When giving an opinion, making a presentation or giving a speech, you must ‘cut to the chase’ ASAP to avoid people losing interest. Emails should always be brief. Learn more about business email etiquette in the USA.

6. Individualism and Personal Responsibility in the USA

Americans believe that destiny is in their own hands.

As a result, people take on responsibility very easily and have no problem trying to manipulate outcomes. It’s for this reason that Americans can seem so single-minded in their pursuit of success. This independence was also seen as one of the reasons for the quick spread of COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic in the USA.

7. Self-Promotion and Individual Expression in American Culture

In American society, every child is raised believing they are special.

You are taught to fight for your individuality and to express it without fear. As adults, within the workplace, this manifests in people trying to ‘stand out from the crowd’ and in some cases rejecting conformity.

8. Competition vs Collaboration in US Business Culture

America is built on free-trade Capitalism, which itself is reliant on competition.

US culture is therefore highly competitive meaning the idea of teamwork takes on a very different look and feel to some other parts of the world. In a ‘dog eat dog’ world people are taught they need to ‘look after number one’. Negotiating with Americans can be tough for cultures more inclined towards harmony and compromise.

9. Attitudes to Change and Innovation in the United States

Although much of middle America is conservative, culturally speaking Americans look forward not backwards when seeking inspiration.

They are quick to accept and adopt change as change in US culture means progress, development and improvement. Looking backwards is for losers.

10. Success, Status, and Material Achievement in American Culture

Americans love to buy stuff.

Buying material goods in America means success. It’s the reward for all your hard work. It’s what makes America free. Having material wealth, for some people, is, therefore, more important than personal relationships.

Working Effectively with Americans in Cross Cultural Business

When working with different cultures, it’s usually our differences in values that can cause us problems.

As we see in the examples above, all of these cultural differences are experienced by cultures that have different value systems.

For example, in China, India, and the Middle East, the direct communication style of the Americans comes across as rude, aggressive, and cold. This is, however, only the case because they come from cultures in which you are very diplomatic and indirect. For Germans and the Dutch, they have a very different experience of Americans.

That’s why it’s always important to remember that in any cross cultural situation, there are two sides to the story.