📝 Workbook · Business · Unit 9

Workbook · 9B — Working across cultures

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Exercise 1

Exercise 1 — Cross-cultural vocabulary

Complete each sentence with ONE phrase from the box.

Word bank — drag or tap, then tap a gap
  1. In a  drop  culture, 'yes, we can consider that' may mean 'no' — depending on rank and tone.
  2. Every well-run cross-cultural team has a written  drop  — feedback, silence and disagreement are all rendered explicit.
  3. The launch team is  drop  — product, engineering, legal and comms all sit on it.
  4. Every culture has a  drop  — the water it swims in without seeing.
  5. She's fluent in  drop  — direct and precise in Berlin meetings, warm and indirect with clients in São Paulo.
  6. A  drop  operates on implicit, unspoken rules; a cross-cultural team must codify them.
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Exercise 2

Exercise 2 — Fix the countability error

Rewrite each sentence, correcting the uncountable / plural-only noun mistake.

  1. 'The manager gave me two very useful feedbacks.'
  2. 'I need an advice on which vendor to choose.'
  3. 'The staff is unhappy with the new hybrid policy.'
  4. 'We did many researches before launching in Vietnam.'
  5. 'The news about the merger were leaked yesterday.'
  6. 'Our headquarter is moving to Amsterdam next quarter.'
  7. 'The police is investigating the breach.'
  8. 'She has many experiences in cross-cultural teams.'
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Exercise 3

Exercise 3 — Build the word (prefixes & suffixes)

Complete each sentence with the correct prefix or suffix form.

  1. The team keeps OVER___ deadlines they can't meet. (verb ending in -ise / -ize)
  2. We're UNDER___ on the launch — Priya's asked for two more engineers.
  3. It was a total MIS___ — one side said 'we can consider it', the other heard 'yes'.
  4. Every quarter we RE___ the roadmap based on what the market actually did.
  5. The steering committee is CROSS-___ — product, engineering, legal and comms on it.
  6. The board wants more visib___ into pipeline scalab___ — can we forecast a €5M quarter?
  7. We need to STANDARD___ the review template across all four offices.
  8. The OPEN___ of the Amsterdam team is one of our strengths — protect it.
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Exercise 4

Exercise 4 — Direct or indirect?

Decide whether each line is a DIRECT (low-context) or INDIRECT (high-context) way of giving the same message.

  1. 'This slide is confusing — cut it.'

  2. 'I wonder if there might be a way to make this slide land more clearly for our audience.'

  3. 'We can consider that.' (spoken quietly, by a senior colleague, at the end of the meeting)

  4. 'That won't work — here's why, and here's what I'd do instead.'

  5. 'It would be very interesting to hear other perspectives on this proposal before we move forward.'

  6. 'No, we shouldn't ship this. Two blockers: X and Y. Owners?'

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Exercise 5

Exercise 5 — Rewrite the operating-agreement line

Rewrite each vague cross-cultural rule as a specific, testable norm.

  1. 'We respect each other's cultures.'
  2. 'We communicate clearly.'
  3. 'We don't misunderstand each other.'
  4. 'Everyone speaks up.'
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Exercise 6

Exercise 6 — Three managers debrief the launch

You'll hear three regional managers debrief the same cross-cultural launch. Decide who should lead the next one.

🎙️ Three regional managers debrief a cross-cultural launch — multi-voice

  1. Which manager's debrief impresses you most, and why?
  2. Which manager's debrief is 'blame the other culture'?
  3. Which manager has insight but no structure?
Show transcript

Bruno (Bram, Amsterdam):The launch worked in Amsterdam. We did what we always do — clear plan, clear feedback. The Tokyo team just wouldn't tell us what they wanted. We gave them a lot of feedbacks and the staff was surprised. The Brazilians were always late. Look, we were the only office giving proper feedback. A deadline is a deadline.

Katya (Sofía, São Paulo):In São Paulo we tend to build relationship first, then negotiate — I know this looks slow to Bram's team. What saved the launch was an operating agreement all three offices signed in month three. One: a written yes is a yes; a verbal yes may be politeness — critical decisions land in the doc. Two: improvement feedback happens in 1:1s, never in group meetings. Three: silence in a thread is not disapproval; give people 24h before reading it as anything. We're using the same agreement for Q3.

Carlos (Haruki, Tokyo):There was misunderstanding at first — but that is normal in cross-cultural work. There is often silence that Bram-san reads as disagreement, when it is actually thinking. In Tokyo we do not interrupt to prove we are engaged; we wait, and then we speak carefully. This is not disagreement. It is respect. I hope next time we can talk about this more.

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Exercise 7

Exercise 7 — Draft your team's operating agreement

Draft a 4-line CROSS-CULTURAL OPERATING AGREEMENT for a real (or invented) team spanning three cultures (max 100 words). Each line must be a testable norm — no 'we respect each other'. Cover: how YES/NO is captured; how FEEDBACK is delivered; how SILENCE is interpreted; how DISAGREEMENT is surfaced. Use at least ONE uncountable noun and ONE prefix/suffix word correctly.

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Exercise 8

Exercise 8 — Case study reflection: Currentflow launch

Currentflow 3.0 launches simultaneously across São Paulo, Berlin and Tokyo. Tokyo asks to delay by 12h. Three culturally-different launch messages exist. Answer:

  1. Do you grant Tokyo's delay request? What do you write to Haruki?
  2. How do you resolve three culturally-different launch messages?
  3. How do you rotate on-call for the first 24h post-launch without silently punishing Tokyo?
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