Culture, complexity, and the rule of hammer

blog by Huib Wursten and Fernando Lanzer

It’s sometimes annoying, but new examples of cultural issues are constantly conveyed by reading the daily newspapers, watching television news, or scrutinizing messages on social media. However, the reactions of others clearly show that the warning of the Dutch genius Johan Cruijff is obviously valid: “You only see it when you know it.”

The slogan “You only see it when you know it” is certainly true of Geert Hofstede’s model of value dimensions.

Because of Hofstede’s profound research findings, we know about many of the consequences of culture. This is not to be underestimated.

In a recent article, a Bulgarian scholar compared it to the finding that atoms are not indivisible but contain elementary particles, that light is not monochromous but consists of several colors, or that any information can be coded and transmitted through a series of pluses and minuses, or 0 and 1. 

The Bulgarian scholar concluded: “Hofstede was the first one to “unpackage culture”

Before Hofstede, culture was approached as a single compact object that could not be analyzed meaningfully. Hofstede proposed breaking it down, or “unpackaging it,” into components.  

We call them “value-dimensions of culture”. 

Reality is complex.  A model does not make reality less complex.  A model enables us, however, to see reality from different angles and to break it down into manageable components.  This enables us to think about reality in a more focused way and to exchange ideas about reality with others in a more precise way.  And above all, it enables us to take targeted action when we want to act with the purpose of solving problems.

Geert Hofstede’s framework seems to also cover Einstein’s idea that “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” It highlights that true understanding allows one to distill complex concepts into their essential elements and communicate them clearly.

We are aware of a trap, though. It is called the Law of the hammer.

The “law of the hammer,” or the “Law of the Instrument, “ is often summarized as: “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” This concept points out cognitive bias, which is when people tend to rely too heavily on a familiar tool or approach.

Avoiding the Law of the Hammer

In order to avoid the law of the hammer, which in this context would mean applying the same cultural framework rigidly to every situation, we learned the hard way to consider the following strategies:

Cultural Complexity: We need to be aware of the nuances and context-specific factors that may influence cultural behaviors.

Guidelines, Not Rules: We use the dimensions as a starting point for understanding cultural tendencies, but we recognize that individual and situational variations always exist.

Local Expertise: We constantly try to match our ideas with local experts who frequently provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the cultural landscape.

Our cultural biases We are aware that our culture programmed us. We need to continuously reflect on our cultural biases.

Still, even though we are aware of the trap, we cannot help but believe that culture has a “gravitational “influence on human behavior.

In our work, the combination of the Hofstede dimensions shapes a Gestalt. We distinguish seven of these Gestalts, which we call Worldviews.

Without falling into the trap of the law of the hammer, we strongly believe that a culture’s worldview has an effect called downward causation. This means that the Worldview affects other layers of human behavior.

Is it happening in 100 percent of situations?

Of course not! But we are grateful for our Welsh colleague Berwyn’s 80/20 rule: not everything can be explained by Worldviews. 

We are satisfied with 80 %.