Etienne Nichols: Welcome to the Global Medical Device Podcast where today's brightest minds in the medical device industry go to get their most useful and actionable insider knowledge direct from some of the world's leading medical device experts and companies.

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Etienne Nichols: Hey everyone, I want to introduce you to Olga. She and I met at LSI Portugal. LSI Europe I suppose is what we're supposed to say back in September. And she has a wide ranging background that I thought was really interesting.

And we got talking, got to talking about the Culture Map, which is a book that talks about different ways of communicating across across cultures. And so Olga, do you want to just tell us a little bit about your background?

Olga Chashchina: Yeah, sure. First of all, hi again, Etienne. It's really nice to reconnect.

Hello everyone. My name is Olga Cheshina. So I'm initially from Russia. I'm living currently in Paris where I started my own startup in medtech field. This is actually how we met with Etienne through professional connections and while doing so I have also completed a PhD in biomedical engineering.

And as you can imagine, I have lived in Russia. Now I'm living in France and have been working in research which is extremely international.

And in my startup Today, out of 12 people, we have nine different passports. So every day I'm working with very different people. And this led me to read this nice book, the Culture Map by Erin Mayer, Insead professor in Intercultural Management.

And I totally love the book and I hope we can discuss it further today.

Etienne Nichols: One of the things that I'm curious about with you and your team is what the common missteps are when navigating these cultural differences. Because nine different passports out of 12, that's a lot.

Olga Chashchina: I do think that the very basic problem in intercultural management is thinking that everybody's thinking the same way.

Etienne Nichols: So.

Olga Chashchina: So it's having this similarity bias that forces us to assume everybody is thinking the same way. And even after reading the book, I still do this mistake every time. And it's really nice to have people around you courageous enough to remind you about the differences we might be having.

So it's very humbling to see all of those different people interact in very different manners and try to bring the strongest of each other in the same context. So forgetting about the differences and not being aware of them at all, I think it's the biggest problem.

And I do think a lot of people who haven't been forced to work in such an environment probably haven't been even like asking themselves what are the differences? So I think it's really interesting and curious to actually be aware of those differences.

Etienne Nichols: Do you have an example of one.

Olga Chashchina: Of these like differences in communication?

Etienne Nichols: Well, differences in what are the missteps and what are the things that you need to remember?

Olga Chashchina: Yes. For example, like I'm taking the very first chapter of the book and it's, it's called the context communication. It's my favorite and I think it's really the most important one.

The context communication as is described in the book is a notion that each culture communicates based on their specific knowledge of context. And for example, if I'm taking the Russian culture, we initially assume that everybody shares the same context, so we don't need to provide the context once again.

But there are some low context cultures which assume that every time you communicate with a person you need to provide them this context once again. And for example, the US are considered as low context communication culture.

So for example, when a Russian comes to an American and tries to explain what they're thinking, they will just start with facts, not without the context. But you may assume that people have actual very different contexts, so the person won't understand what the Russian person is speaking about, so there will be a big misunderstanding problem.

The other way around is also very interesting because an American person can come to a Russian person and try to give all this context and the Russian person will just think, well, you really think I'm dumb because you give me all this information so you think I don't know it already.

So. And it can be actually considered as an insult and create a communication problem once again. So for example, with my co founder, I come from a high context communication culture and he comes from a low context communication culture.

And we usually need to remind each other that it has been a while we have been working in the same context, so we do share context. I don't need him to explain me the things every now and then and he sometimes wants me to provide more context.

But it's nice just to have a feedback in real time.

Etienne Nichols: Yeah, it's. I would expect it to be really helpful to Actually acknowledge the fact that that needs to happen because I've never really heard anyone talk a whole lot about that.

Olga Chashchina: Well, I was actually really surprised reading the book because I didn't know about this neither.

But even going through those pages, I realized a lot about my own communication style and it was really helpful for me to put it in perspective of the global world.

So I think the book allowed me to learn more about myself and actually people around me.

Etienne Nichols: What about just from an industry perspective, are there any cultural things within the industry? So let's say medical device versus nephrology. I know you just went to a nephrology conference that was much more science, well, scientific based, but maybe slightly different.

Any thoughts?

Olga Chashchina: I actually think that when you are speaking about health, health is a totally cultural field and in health we still have a lot of biases. We don't completely understand how different genders work in health.

We still have doubts about the perception of pain in women, men, different cultures. And while talking to doctors, sometimes I hear them complain like, you know, people don't describe their symptoms the same way, going through some cultures who would actually use completely different terms for the same symptoms.

So this is really important to understand the cultural background of each person when you want to treat them and to treat them accordingly and really understand what their problems are.

It's not really true to say that females are completely hysteric when they come to doctors because they just go to doctors more often. This is not true.

It's not true neither that some people don't experience pain because they seem to just to complain too much. So I think that medical field is probably the field which is exposed much more to cultural context than a lot of other fields, even if it's still very much scientific based.

And I think it's very important to continue digging into scientific proofs of different cultural differences.

Etienne Nichols: Is there anything that's really surprised you about, I don't know, communication style or expectations?

Olga Chashchina: I think I'm still surprised every day.

What has really surprised me the most I think is, well, actually learning how the context works, but also how the feedback works, how people react differently to different feedback styles.

And sometimes we assume that some cultures are so polite and you are not allowed to provide negative feedback there very openly, while it's totally the opposite.

So for example, if you are talking about Europe, a lot of European countries are so much more open to very negative feedback, while we are usually very high context. So a lot of things are hidden in between the lines.

But for example, France is a very open Minded country. When you are speaking about feedback, people just give you harsh feedback every now and then, like without any letting you know what's coming to you.

While when we are talking about the US culture, once again, usually think about US communication styles, very direct, very contrast contextualized, very, very precise. But when you are talking about feedback and the story is completely different.

Etienne Nichols: So.

Olga Chashchina: And I think these contradictions are very surprising and it's really useful to learn how to go around them because it also can create a lot of drama at work.

Etienne Nichols: That was really eye opening to me when we talked about that at lsi when you brought that up, I'm just remembering that that was probably one of my favorite moments, honestly of the entire conference when we were talking about feedback and how you're just describing an American might say it's amazing.

Oh, that was amazing. And you said, you know, in Russia, you know how we say that it was not bad. That didn't blew my mind because it's so true the way that works.

Olga Chashchina: Well, it's true that some cultures are also very reserved when talking about positive feedback. We always talk about negative feedback and how it can provoke different difficult emotions. But giving positive feedback is also actually very difficult.

And a lot of people are not comfortable with praise. And I do think that praise should be also well measured and well argumented because sometimes people just don't understand. What exactly did you like about their work?

So it's much easier to compliment the personality, not the facts. And this can be misleading.

Etienne Nichols: Yes. I love the specificity that it requires and what you just said, well measured and well argumented. I think that's a very good way to put it. If you say something is amazing and you can't really back it up, then you really haven't complimented them.

And the other thing that I would say is that was helpful for me to learn from you is when you were saying people may come to the US and they experience all these compliments and they think, oh, I'm doing amazing.

And they may not be able to read between the lines. Yes. But I need to tweak this, this and this. And that's not very helpful if they're not able to get that constructive feedback as well.

Olga Chashchina: Exactly. And this is actually one of the examples which was given in the culture map book. There was this French person who moved to the US and who really struggled with the feedback because she comes from France where negative feedback is so easy going and split it this way.

So, so. And the, the negative feedback was much more subtle in the US So she just didn't see that, didn't perceive the value of that feedback in between all the positive things she was hearing, which is completely not a common thing in France.

So.

Etienne Nichols: Right.

I think that's important for people to realize. It's. It took me a while to learn that. I've. I, you know, it's interesting.

I think there are lots of different layers, and I'm sure the culture map probably talks about this, but I'm curious what your experience is. You can have across geographic lines, certain expectations, across industry lines, you know, certain expectations.

Like you said, health maybe versus automotive. But then there's even professional versus friendship and family and so on. And it's. It's so complicated. It becomes a very complex issue.

You know, working through that. How much of. How much of that do you feel like you need to understand the person and, and their personality versus where they come from and.

And how much of that? I don't know. How do you weight that?

Olga Chashchina: It all comes to the fact that you really need to know the person.

I think that the goal I usually have is, well, first of all, to like the environment I'm working at. And this comes together with liking people I'm around with. After all, we spend so much time with our colleagues, it would be a shame not to appreciate them.

And getting to know them on a professional level, but also on a personal level, actually also helps you build relationships. And the way how you dress relationships in different cultures is actually also something very different.

So you always build relationships much more in Asian cultures before you actually can do any business together, while it's probably a bit less relevant in some other cultures. So for me, as coming from Russia, I actually value relationships before I can do business with people.

So I do tend to actually have much more time invested in extra professional activities with people around me, even at work.

Probably that's why I'm always trying to do some activities like associations and things like that. But it is a cultural background after that. So. But if you are interested in people on a personal level, and actually there is so much to learn from them, especially when they're coming from everywhere from the world, that I think very naturally you learn how they behave, what they're doing, what belongs to their cultural background, but what belongs to their professional experience, et cetera, et cetera, so you, at some point when you get to know people well, you don't need the culture map anymore.

You just have a person in front of you. But it kind of helps to have the culture map in the beginning when you just Start to learning because you can ask them the questions about what they can say, think about certain cultural difference, and it actually just opens a debate.

Etienne Nichols: I, I love the concept of the culture map, you could say, so let me back up a little bit. It probably sounded like maybe I'm negating it. You said know the person, you don't need to know their background and things.

But if you don't know what questions to ask or what you're trying to get at.

For example, I, having never really read the culture map and, and being relatively new to all of the different cultural nuances, I've traveled in different places and I get, I've gotten a feel and I have a certain understanding.

But in America, what's interesting, and I'm curious what your thought is on this, there's a, there's been a movement to really divorce the person from their background so that you look at them only as the person.

Don't, don't make any profiling or prejudice decisions or, or generalities. And in some ways I, I think that's a, you know, probably a good thing. We want to respect the person.

Absolutely. But we forget that the background and the culture they come from has impacted and, and helped shape them, who they are. So I'm. That, that's a, that's one of the thought processes I think through sometimes when I'm just dealing with different people.

What are your thoughts?

Olga Chashchina: It's actually very different, like a very difficult question. Because that's true that sometimes people can have very different opinions. Right. And these opinions sometimes are so contradictory and you are so much attached to our opinions.

The solution for me is just to be open minded and probably be humble about your own opinions.

If you have some opinions, it doesn't mean that they're better than the other ones. And that makes you much more open to acceptance of other points of view. And personally, I do believe that it will help us to navigate through different complex situations where we still need to be.

And I hope we want to be a peaceful place for all of us and our kids. So yes, there is definitely a need to have a structured dialogue when everybody brings their baggage to the table in disrespect, no matter what this baggage is.

And after we can try to dig it and look into this baggage and say, okay, we can deal with that.

That depends on how easy it is for us to deal with all of that background. And I think that probably in some cultures it's more difficult than in the others.

Etienne Nichols: I think it is probably true. And I like the idea of just really appreciating how people communicate so that you can learn the Kate. In a broader way. I think just even in the different states that I've lived in the United States, different people communicate in different ways.

And I'll give you an example. One, I remember being in one place where we will. If someone wants to go somewhere and they want someone to come with them, say, do you want to come with me?

Say, yeah, I don't mind going. Meaning I don't mind means yes, I'm happy to go. In another place they said, I don't care to go. Well, in the first place, if you say I don't care to go, that means I don't want to go.

And this other place, if you say I don't care to go, it means I don't mind going. I would be happy to. So it's very confusing. You have to understand some of these different.

Those are communication. This is a little bit different than what we're talking about.

Olga Chashchina: So this is actually just the question we discussed with my team right now. It's a lunch break.

Because what I think there is a big misunderstanding. If we are speaking the same language. We do have a tendency to forget the cultural differences because we already speak the same language.

So we assume that the, the person who speaks the same language already knows our cultural background. And this is absolutely not true. And this is what I'm seeing today at work because I speak French at work and we actually all speak French at work.

And people usually speak French so well that you don't sometimes understand if they are French or not French at all. They can be from Morocco or some other French speaking countries.

So you forget this difference. So you stop looking into the reasons for the differences in communication and you can have massive misunderstandings. So what you mentioned is just the difference of phrases which are used in this or that particular occasion.

But I think it's true in a much larger landscape. And this is absolutely what I'm seeing for myself, that sometimes I'm more sensitive to specific words because in my native language they have much more value.

And so when I perceive this value while I'm speaking French from the words I have translated, the same way I completely misunderstand the person in front of me because I actually have a different emotional attachment to different words.

So it's very interesting topic and I think there are some research done on this topic already.

Etienne Nichols: Do you have, do you have one word that you can use as an example? A specific. If not, it's okay.

Olga Chashchina: Oh, I don't think I have an example right now.

Etienne Nichols: That's right.

Olga Chashchina: But I totally get the example you are saying because I would understand. I don't care to go. I don't want to go. I don't care if you are going or not.

I would actually be a little bit frustrated because even the phrase I don't care has a very negative meaning to me. So I totally get it.

Etienne Nichols: It is frustrating.

But you learn to. You learn to communicate. And I. I feel like someone said something along the lines of communication is kind of like a parade or language is like a parade.

You can stand there and point at it and make fun of it or whatever, or you can get in the parade and just go along with it because at the end of the day, our goal is to commun so that's what we should be striving for.

Olga Chashchina: And I think it's a very nice resume point.

Etienne Nichols: Right, Right. If there was one. One thing you would want listeners to take away from this conversation, what do you think that one piece of advice would be?

Olga Chashchina: I think that we really need to see the beauty in so many different people. And there is always a beauty to see that. And this kind of opens the communication.

Etienne Nichols: Yeah. Well said. Thank you so much, Olga. I look forward to our conversations. I know it's been a while, but hopefully our pants will cross again before too long. So I'll let you get back to your lunch.

Thank you so much.

Olga Chashchina: Thank you. Bye.

Etienne Nichols: Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, can I ask a special favor from you? Can you leave us a review on itunes? I know most of us have never done that before, but if you're listening on the phone, look at the itunes app.

Scroll down to the bottom where it says leave a review. It's actually really easy. Same thing. Computer. Just look for that leave a review button. This helps others find us and it lets us know how we're doing.

Also, I'd personally love to hear from you on LinkedIn. Reach out to me. I read and respond to every message because hearing your feedback is the only.

Etienne Nichols: Way I'm going to get better.

Etienne Nichols: Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.