Being blunt is different from being truthful. We Eastern Europeans are so truthful that we end up not saying anything at all for fear of being too blunt. So what you get is all these 1:1’s where everyone has to make sure that everyone else is on exactly the same page before being open about it in a larger meeting. No space for disagreement or discussion in a larger forum!
I can’t speak about other Europeans or their culture, but here in Eastern Europe we historically had very little education in presentation, debate skills and critical thinking. So people have strong opinions, but little skill in presenting or confronting them with other perspectives and ideas. Of course, it never is all black and white. But this is my own experience with tech millennials at least.
Americans (at their best) are in some ways the opposite - they’re good at diplomatically navigating a variety of imperfect voices to arrive at a mutual agreed upon point of view. Coming with that (idealized) American mindset into Eastern Europe isn’t easy.
> they’re good at diplomatically navigating a variety of imperfect voices to arrive at a mutual agreed upon point of view.
I think this is reasonably accurate. It's rather necessary in order to be able to function in a nation where you are interacting with a huge variety of people with a huge variety of sensibilities, from all over the world.
I can’t speak about other Europeans or their culture, but here in Eastern Europe we historically had very little education in presentation, debate skills and critical thinking. So people have strong opinions, but little skill in presenting or confronting them with other perspectives and ideas. Of course, it never is all black and white. But this is my own experience with tech millennials at least.
Americans (at their best) are in some ways the opposite - they’re good at diplomatically navigating a variety of imperfect voices to arrive at a mutual agreed upon point of view. Coming with that (idealized) American mindset into Eastern Europe isn’t easy.