A fun flip book: Working with Americans and Working with Danes: A delightful but informative look at cultural differences between Denmark and the USA
5/5
()
About this ebook
Danish working culture, with its flat hierarchy, isn't always a good fit with ambitious, charismatic American bosses. Meanwhile, the American way of selling can be too emotional and aggressive for the Danes, who prefer a more fact-based, authentic approach.
Americans sometimes struggle with the Danish way of doing business, which often puts the needs of employees above the needs of customers. The limited Danish work week and five weeks a year of annual paid vacation sometimes makes Americans feel that their Danish counterparts are never in the office when they need them.
This guide to doing business in Denmark and doing business in the US also contains information on business etiquette, such as dining out and giving business gifts. It offers additional insights on social life in the two countries, including tips on small talk and how to make friends.
The light, easy-reading tone of this book makes it an ideal guide to US business culture vs Danish business culture.
Kay Xander Mellish
Kay Xander Mellish is a US-DK dual citizen and the author of five books about internationals in Denmark. One of Denmark's top speakers on cultural differences, she also holds seminars and presentations on Danish working culture and helps newcomers to Denmark adapt and thrive at Danish companies. Kay is the voice behind the "How to Live in Denmark" podcast and the long-running How to Live in Denmark blog. She also coaches Danish companies that need help working more smoothly and effectively with their US colleagues, customers, and suppliers.
Related to A fun flip book
Related ebooks
10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Forgotten Choice: Shift Your Inner Mindset, Shape Your Outer World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYour First Job How to Make a Success of Starting Work and Ensure Your Early Years Are the Launch of a Successful Career Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOwn Your Career: Break the Corporate Blueprint and Build Your Own Ladder Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCould I Do That? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlex - A Big Stretch Forward: A book for employees about how a business works to lay foundation for flexible work environments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFinancial Independence Remain Employed: Who Says You Need to Quit Your Job?: MFI Series1, #193 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInbound Organization: How to Build and Strengthen Your Company's Future Using Inbound Principles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReboot Your Life: Energize Your Career and Life by Taking a Break Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Actionable Summary of Making It All Work by David Allen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLess: Accomplishing More by Doing Less Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Long View: Career Strategies to Start Strong, Reach High, and Go Far Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Much Is Enough?: Balancing Today's Needs with Tomorrow's Retirement Goals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Tina Seelig's Insight Out Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat Communication Secrets of Great Leaders (Review and Analysis of Baldoni's Book) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Ben Carlson's A Wealth Of Common Sense Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStart a Company: A Short-Form Self-Employment Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInner Creative Girl: A Little Motivation to Create Your Dream Career or Make It a Business Plan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBurdens of a Dream: 33 Actionable Nuggets of Wisdom for the Creative Entrepreneur: Burdens of a Dream, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Power of Having Fun: How Meaningful Breaks Help You Get More Done Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAging with a Plan: How a Little Thought Today Can Vastly Improve Your Tomorrow, Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Value of Debt in Retirement: Why Everything You Have Been Told Is Wrong Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Keith Ferrazzi & Noel Weyrich's Leading Without Authority Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Essence of Successful Aging: Life Quality and Well-being Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Power of Charisma Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Joosr Guide to... Designing Your Life by Bill Burnet and Dave Evans: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow What?: A Step-By-Step Approach to Land Your New Job or Career Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTruth at Work: The Science of Delivering Tough Messages Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMinimalism: The Ultimate Minimalism Guide: Proven Steps To Simplify Your Life, Save Money and Get More Done In Less Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBecome a Better Leader in 30 Days Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Human Resources & Personnel Management For You
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Third Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leading the Unleadable: How to Manage Mavericks, Cynics, Divas, and Other Difficult People Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First-Time Manager Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New One Minute Manager Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Moved Your Cheese: For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else's Maze Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rocket Fuel (Review and Analysis of Wickman and Winter's Book) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Performance Appraisals That Work: Features 150 Samples for Every Situation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/52600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews: Ready-to-Use Words and Phrases That Really Get Results Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Unspoken Truths for Career Success: Navigating Pay, Promotions, and Power at Work Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFocal Point: A Proven System to Simplify Your Life, Double Your Productivity, and Achieve All Your Goals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Getting to Yes with Yourself: (and Other Worthy Opponents) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaders Eat Last (Review and Analysis of Sinek's Book) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Way of the Shepherd: Seven Secrets to Managing Productive People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 9 Types of Leadership: Mastering the Art of People in the 21st Century Workplace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Game of Work: How to Enjoy Work as Much as Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings12 Habits Of Valuable Employees: Your Roadmap to an Amazing Career Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuccess Mindsets: Your Keys to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Gain vital insights into how to motivate people Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The CEO’s Secret Weapon: How Great Leaders and Their Assistants Maximize Productivity and Effectiveness Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Radical Focus SECOND EDITION: Achieving Your Goals with Objectives and Key Results Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Performance Appraisal Phrase Book: The Best Words, Phrases, and Techniques for Performace Reviews Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A fun flip book
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
A fun flip book - Kay Xander Mellish
Table of Contents
Working with Americans: Tips for Danes
Introduction
Why the US is a great place to do business
The enthusiasm gap and why you will have to act excited to succeed in the US
Titles, hierarchy, and why they matter to Americans
The celebrity boss, and why Americans want to hitch their wagon to a star
How are you?
Small talk and how to do it
Danish directness vs American positive face
The American litigation monster and what it means for you
Dining out and the secrets of tipping culture
Why you are getting CC’d on so many emails
Hiring and firing Americans without getting sued
American diversity and the Danish businessperson
Religion and what it means for your business
Long working hours and the persistence of stay-at-home parents
Politeness and profanity
Why American employees won’t go outside their job descriptions
Leveraging the American love of sports and competition
Meetings and negotiations with US business partners
Reverence for the military
Humility, self-irony, Danish humor and why you should avoid all three
Why positive feedback is so important for your business
Convenience and why a lack of it could torpedo your business in the US
Americans and vacation time: Two weeks and they don’t take it all?
What to do if you’re stopped by an American cop
Guns and violent crime
Why many Americans don’t trust their own government
Fear and the American employee
Charities and how to contribute without getting in trouble
If you can walk, you can work
: Health and health insurance in the US
Making friends in the US, and why short-term friendships are OK
Don’t be the grumpy foreigner
A few tips on American English
The Executive Summary: Top things to remember
Working with Danes: Tips for Americans
Introduction
Why Denmark is a great place to do business
Two words to better understand your Danish colleagues
The sacred value of time
Danish names
The Danish flat hierarchy
Flexicurity and unions
Turn down the volume!
Selling to Danes
The Danish calendar, and holiday weeks to avoid
Managing Danes
Jante Law
and why Danes underplay their skills
Rating systems
Don’t overdo it on the compliments
Ambition and competitiveness
Gender equality in Denmark
Differing concepts of privacy
Danish meetings
Don’t say Let’s have lunch
unless you mean it
What Danes think of Americans
Small talk with Danes
Danish patriotism
Design in Denmark
Working for a Danish boss
The visitor who wasn’t equal
Negotiating with Danes
The Danish way of customer service
Crime and punishment
Danish humor and conflict avoidance
Denmark is not just Copenhagen
Driving in Denmark
Dining with the Danes
Avoid cheerful hot air
Health care and the Danish social welfare system
Diversity and the Danes
What to wear in Denmark
Gifts in Denmark
Danes and English
Long-term stays in Denmark
The Executive Summary: Top things to remember
Appendix: A few notes on Danish history
About the Author
WORKING WITH
AMERICANS
TIPS FOR DANES
AN ENTERTAINING GUIDE TO BUSINESS CO-OPERATION
KAY XANDER MELLISH
For May 5 and July 4
Introduction
Why the US is a great place to do business
The enthusiasm gap and why you will have to act excited to succeed in the US
Titles, hierarchy, and why they matter to Americans
The celebrity boss, and why Americans want to hitch their wagon to a star
How are you?
Small talk and how to do it
Danish directness vs American positive face
The American litigation monster and what it means for you
Dining out and the secrets of tipping culture
Why you are getting CC’d on so many emails
Hiring and firing Americans without getting sued
American diversity and the Danish businessperson
Religion and what it means for your business
Long working hours and the persistence of stay-at-home parents
Politeness and profanity
Why American employees won’t go outside their job descriptions
Leveraging the American love of sports and competition
Meetings and negotiations with US business partners
Reverence for the military
Humility, self-irony, Danish humor and why you should avoid all three
Why positive feedback is so important for your business
Convenience and why a lack of it could torpedo your business in the US
Americans and vacation time: Two weeks and they don’t take it all?
What to do if you’re stopped by an American cop
Guns and violent crime
Why many Americans don’t trust their own government
Fear and the American employee
Charities and how to contribute without getting in trouble
If you can walk, you can work
: Health and health insurance in the US
Making friends in the US, and why short-term friendships are OK
Don’t be the grumpy foreigner
A few tips on American English
The executive summary: Top things to remember
Introduction
As an American who has lived in Denmark for more than 10 years, I’m often asked by my Danish clients for tips on how to work better with their American colleagues.
It’s usually the smartest people in the organization who ask the question. Others seem to assume that because they speak great English and have watched every episode of their favorite US TV series that they have a handle on the American culture and way of doing business.
As the great American composer George Gershwin once titled a song, it ain’t necessarily so.
Shaped by location and history
Denmark and the US are both wonderful countries, yet each has been shaped by its own location and history.
Denmark’s tradition of social welfare has grown out of centuries of farmers and fishermen trying to help each other survive the punishing Nordic climate.
American confidence and can-do spirit is a result of generations of immigrants gutsy enough to leave their home countries to try something new.
More in common
That said, the countries have more in common than they have differences.
Both are passionate about free speech and selfdetermination. Neither one has much patience for formalities. Both enjoy a good business deal.
As a citizen of both countries, I hope this book helps Danes and Americans work together even more successfully.
Kay Xander Mellish
Copenhagen, Summer 2019
Why the US is a great place to
do business
Most Danes have been exposed to American culture since childhood, and some feel they know it as instinctively as they know their own.
Yet it’s hard for anyone who doesn’t live in the US to appreciate how diverse, chaotic, and simply big the place is. One Danish businessman said he first got the message when he drove his large American rental car onto an interstate highway in Kansas and his GPS told him Next turn in 250 miles.
(That’s 400 kilometers, for people not well-versed in the convoluted US measurement system.)
Fifty personalities – and more
Unlike most European countries, which are for better or worse nations centered around a capitol city, the United States is fifty different states with fifty different personalities.
Some states even have more than one personality – Northern California, for example, has an entirely different vibe than Southern California, and upstate New York has none of the buzz or hype of New York City.
Laws are different in every state, so what is legal and openly sold in one state, such as cannabis or cannabis products, can land you in jail in another.
Localities also make their own rules and regulations: for example, several cities in California have banned plastic drinking straws and forks.
And every state and locality has its own tax structure, which is why sales tax (MOMS) is added to the listed price in the US, not included in it. If you take a $10 item to the cash register in Seattle it will cost you $11.10, but in nearby Spokane, it will be $10.89, and only $10 in the next-door state of Oregon, which has no sales tax at all.
Danes focus on what they know
Failing to understand the diversity of the US is one of the biggest mistakes Danes make when approaching the country for business. There is no guarantee that a product that is a smash in Utah will be of any interest at all in Kentucky.
Danes also tend to focus on areas they know from their vacations in the US or the media: Los Angeles, Manhattan, maybe Miami or Boston.
But much of the economic and population growth in the US is taking place in cities that are less well known in Denmark.
San Antonio, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; and Jacksonville, Florida all have bigger populations than the more famous cities of San Francisco, Seattle, or Denver.
Understanding American diversity
Another surprise for Danes can be the extreme diversity of the US population. Despite a great deal of rhetoric about the opening and closing of borders, the US has been undergoing an immigration boom since the 1990s. One out of eight US residents was born someplace else.
The upside of this diversity is a youthful energy and an unending supply of new ideas and fresh viewpoints; the downside is that since everyone is coming from a slightly different perspective, Americans lack the automatic understanding and trust of each other that Danes take for granted.
That’s why smiles and small talk are so important. Americans from wildly different backgrounds need to establish that they’re on the same page for at least as long as it takes to address the matter at hand.
It also means there is a thicket of rules and regulations to make sure everyone is treated equally.
Danes who like to do business on impulse and instinct may find themselves tearing their hair out as they try to comply with the US Equal Opportunity laws.
Putting aside stereotypes
In addition to nixing stereotypes about specific types of people, you will need to discard stereotypes about the US as a whole, many of them nurtured by the Danish media.
Gun ownership is not universal, the majority of Americans are not wildly obese, and every highway does not look like that one open road in Arizona that seems to be the setting for dozens of on-the-road Danish TV advertisements.
The good news is that you won’t have to worry about American stereotypes of Denmark: they generally don’t have any, except for a persistent tendency to confuse Denmark with the Netherlands and tell you how much they’d like to visit Amsterdam.
(Yes, Americans are bad at European geography, but be honest: could you really pinpoint the states of North Carolina, North Dakota, and New Hampshire on a map and explain their cultural differences?)
Doing business in the US
The US is a good place to do business. Americans enjoy working – in fact, they get much of their self-esteem from working – and people are generally open, helpful, and friendly, even if it is the kind of transitory friendliness that Danes sometimes feel is not real.
It may not be real, but it is pleasant, and if you spend some time in the US then return to Denmark, you may miss it.
Meanwhile, the size and wealth of the American market offers enormous rewards for a company with a good product, good marketing, and good luck.
High risk, high reward
The American market – and the American way of life in general –