zlacker

>>femfos+(OP)
I'm a bit sad about how eager everyone is jumping on the idea that "candid advice" will always be construed as possibly sexist. I'm from Germany and we are famously blunt, so maybe there is a cultural aspect to this, but to me candor != risk of sexism. If your advice is candid, it also shouldn't leave any ambiguity..."I'm unsure about you doing the pitch because the last N times you froze up and you seem nervous again" makes your reasoning clear without beating around the bush. How can you twist this into something sexist?

>>igorkr+5i
A lot of Americans of any gender would be put off by a lot of very routine and candid professional communications that happen in Germany. I find American English in general to be tending toward the near universal avoidance of direct speech and statements, independent of speaker/listener identity.

Importantly the speaker and listener are not consciously aware of this happening. The net result is that you can say literal/plain thing A and the listener can hear literal/plain thing B.

Speaking to Americans requires a significantly accurate modeling of the listener's mind and expectations to be able to be clearly understood, much much moreso than any other language I have studied or even heard of.

Basically, it is very easy to be totally misunderstood when using plain, literal speech (such as is common in Germany or in Slavic countries).

I've written about it: https://sneak.berlin/20191201/american-communication/

>>sneak+sJ
How does this play out in American companies with lots of employees from Europe and other places?

>>bonobo+BU
I used to work for a company that has the standard "Meet Expectations" / "Exceeds Expectations" performance review every 6 month. Some European coworker felt the need to make a ppt titled 'euro-perf' to teach Europeans how to write performance feedback. Apparently words like "Good", "OK", "decent" etc meant slightly below median, and words like "Amazing" meant slightly above median for Americans. An European coworker also told me that he used to think a solid track record of Meet Expectations is very good and worthy of a promotion.

>>qihqi+WZ
Yeah I find American exaggeration (over-positivity) quite tiring. Good things become "amazing" and "literally the best ever". Even "great" is just around median in actual meaning. Everyone is "excited" to meet you and "thrilled" about whatever you say, wide smiles etc. Complaining about anything is a huge no-no, your life narrative must always be carefully crafted and anything slightly negative rephrased as a positive challenge and learning opportunity. Everyone is a hero sitting on a great exponential upward curve ahead of them. You are considered negative and a downer for just not buzzing all the time. Seems like people care even more about "saving face" than in East Asia.

>>bonobo+251
It's really industry and region specific. Some parts of america are very direct.