Years ago, I was in China for a conference, and at the end of the day I was invited to dinner at a restaurant in Shanghai. My son was studying Chinese, and he and his friends had come down from Beijing to stay with a classmate’s father. I was to be the guest of the father. I got stuck in traffic and arrived late.
It was International Women’s Day, and I had a designated seat at a table with some very successful women: a poet, a real estate developer, an author. Much to my dismay, everyone had waited for me to start. Strike one. All guests should arrive together at the designated time.
Then the host ordered wine, and when it was poured, I took a sip before he’d made his toast and had his first drink. Strike two. You should wait until after your host has given the first toast.
And finally, I kept sipping my wine, not knowing we were supposed to toast before taking another drink. Strike three. Always toast someone before you drink, if only by lifting your glass to the person next to you and waiting for them to drink with you.
My only saving grace was that I happened to be wearing a red suit, considered a lucky color in China. I could have avoided every one of these missteps if I’d simply read our information on social customs in China. It’s a mistake I only made once. Now, it’s the first thing I check before every trip.
Culture really isn’t about vocabulary. It’s about what silence and actions mean, who speaks first in a meeting, or in my case, who drinks first, and whether a “yes” is a commitment or a courtesy.
That kind of preparation used to be standard.Ten years ago, businesses routinely provided cultural training for employees relocating abroad. Over the years, that support has become less common, with some companies dropping it from the relocation package entirely. Two shifts explain why, and each one carries a hidden risk.
The first is technology and AI. Translation apps put a translator in your pocket, and video calls flattened the world. In a recent poll, most global mobility professionals said employees are now getting their destination and cultural information from AI. But employees often don’t know the right questions to ask, and they should be wary of how well AI handles the nuances of every culture.
The second shift is budget cuts. With the rise of lump sum relocations, many of the choices employees make are entirely up to them. Smart programs offer some guardrails, but without a managed program, employees are left to their own devices.
Cultural knowledge protects employees from high-stakes mistakes: misreading a negotiation, offending a host without knowing it, or failing to build the trust that business relationships depend on. No amount of technology replaces it, because the value isn’t just the information, it’s the insights gained from adopting it. Making that effort shows that the meeting, or the trip, was taken seriously, and that you value the other person’s time.
This is the gap our destination guides were built to close. They cover the practical logistics of everyday living, but they also go deep into business protocol and social customs, the exact knowledge technology can’t give you, but we can. It’s the kind of support that turns a business trip into a relationship instead of a transaction.
Written by Cathy Heyne, GMS-T, President
