Working with different business cultures all over the globe, my biggest surprise is that while the USA is bad, it's not actually the very absolute worst I've ever worked with.
I can imagine all the guesses, but if you haven't talked with a crap ton of people from dozens of countries, it's not obvious.
The key is business culture is like its own weird separate culture with rules and structures, but most places have a fairly comprehensible set of expectations. So most of the time, it's just remembering perceived differences in expectations. Some places it's polite to be what feels really overly friendly to me. Some places it's polite to be what feels obsequious and formal to me. It's like, whatever. A secondary form of language kinda. It's not even social cues, it's just mechanics of language really. Places with that stuff, those are all fine and wonderful to deal with because there's a framework to communicate and all that.
Part of why the USA shits the bed trying to talk with is because every business person here has like zero framework, it's all lies and bullshit, and everyone wants to be the smartest bestest boy. It's not business culture as much as daycare for toddlers who have millions of dollars and hate human rights. Not the worst though, not by far.
What's key to understand is this is all separate from things like the real people in different places. Business brain people don't have any relevance to real human behavior, it's this whole other structure of make believe which controls everyone's well being. It's important to know because I know how to email a business guy in South Korea using language that will feel appropriate enough after translation, but that's completely irrelevant to the real people living there. It's easy to talk to business guys in China or India or whatever. Germany, Nigeria, Mexico.
UK business guys are pretty bad too. Still not the worst but you have to put a lot of extra work in because business culture in the UK still thinks the Brittish empire exists. The majority of business dudes in the UK see no difference between selling something that has their company name on it, and making it themselves. It's like how all the stuff that says "made in the USA" is 99% made somewhere else, and then one staple is put into it and it's made in the USA, but if you talk to business guys here, they never confuse where things are made, just like... more basic realities like linear time and physics. UK guys go the opposite way, and always say they own everything. But that's all relatively navigable. It's like, okay, you all live in an imaginary world, but I can still get everyone to understand time and logistics and stuff enough to get everyone understanding the same information. I can translate imagination land to reality and back, they get it.
Apparently tumble ate my explanation, but the worst business guys are Australians.
I cannot stress how much effort I put into explaining things in ways that work for people who aren't native English speakers, because I understand how weird translation can get, and I am not good at other languages. I have so many special little quirks and tricks to make what I say become something moderately clear and apropriate in translation. I can rotate through a dozen approaches to a topic to make it click for someone unfamiliar with what I'm explaining. I know it works because it's been time tested.
Australian executives simply take any information they receive, and do not. Did you say something is going to take a month - after signing a contract and collect a fee? The Australian business executive simply accepts that you have said you have begun work and it will be finished in 48 hours. If I told an Australian executive that the earth revolves around the sun, I would expect him to let me know that I had told him a hamster named Ben carries a really bright lamp around space to make the seasons. I have to painstakingly document every single detail of any interaction with Australian business persons, because they simply imagine things that have happened and information they have been told, and ignore whatever has transpired in actuality.
I have actually warned all my friends off buying anything from Australia - not because I think there's anything specifically wrong with the general quality of Australian goods, but because after every conversation with Australian executives going exactly the same (I say one thing, they declare I have said something completely different), I am hard pressed to believe anyone at a corporate level in Australian businesses actually understands laws, regulations, logistics, safety, or just... words. Every interaction I have with an Australian business guy inevitably stuns me into a loss for words through some completely unanticipated recap of an interaction we had or email I sent which is fully disconnected from the text or actual event. I cannot understand how the people of Australia, not particularly better or worse than people anywhere else, become the worst humans I have had the misfortune to encounter the second they enter the world of business. I wouldn't trust a single Australian executive to pour water out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel.
