Why It's Hard to Work with Americans

The Americans and the French definitely have different approaches to working.

Americans don’t like to depend on other people.

That’s why we like the image of the self-made man,

the lone cowboy, the do-it-yourselfer

succeeding thanks to his own individual hard work.

So

how to you work on a collaborative project with these individualistic Americans?

I’m Christina and you’re watching Speak Better, Feel Great TV.

The place to boost your English and boost your career.

In this video, I’m gonna help you understand why your American colleague

may not always cooperate on team projects.

Ya ready?

Americans are individualistic.

They like to be left alone to do a job.

Now, they don’t mind when the manager tells them what to do.

After all,

that’s the manager’s job.

But Americans don’t like it when the manager tells them

how to do their job.

In fact,

The Hofstede center,

which specializes in intercultural comparison and communications,

did a study of

50 countries

and ranked them on how individualistic each country was.

Who was number 1 for individualism?

Yep.

‘Mericans.

We believe the best managers give instructions and then

let us find the best way to do the job.

And we’ll probably try hard, because we want to be

individually recognized for our efforts.

And we expect individual recognition.

That’s why all of those “Employee of the Month”

programs are so typically American!

This means that,

contrary to French professionals,

Americans

aren’t very good at working on teams.

We don’t have the instinct to do it. After all,

working on a team means

giving up individual preferences. It means

giving up control of how you work.

It means being recognized as a team, and not

as an individual.

Creating a team to solve a problem is generally the last resort,

after we’ve seen that individuals working alone

just can’t do the job.

I can already hear you say

“But, Americans brought team-building to France.

The idea of team work must be important for them”.

Well, actually what’s important is creating and cultivating a team mentality.

We Americans need to be trained in team work.

It’s not natural for us.

That’s why team building has such a high profile in American management training programs.

If it didn’t have a high profile,

teamwork

wouldn’t have a profile at all in the American workplace.

Now, it’s your turn.

Tell us about your experience working with Americans.

Have you had problems working them as a team?

Or on the contrary,

have you had the opposite experience?

After all, in a country of 316 million people,

there are a lot of individual differences.

Especially in the US.

Did this video help you better understand your American colleagues?

If you work with Americans and you want to understand them better

and feel more comfortable working with them,

subscribe to my YouTube channel

right now.

Or better yet,

go to christinarebuffet.com

and sign up for the newsletter, where I share exclusive resources and tools

to help you improve your English.

I’m Christina, from Speak Better, Feel Great TV.

See ya next time!