Thursday's Edition: Neutral vs. Affective

The 8 political drivers

The Dutch call it “doe maar gewoon” - just act normal. The Italians have no equivalent phrase.

A joint venture meeting in Rotterdam, 2019. The Italian delegation arrives with energy, with volume, with hands that move with every word. They greet their Dutch hosts with warmth that feels, to them, like respect. The Dutch receive it with composed nods and measured handshakes.

Within an hour, both sides have drawn conclusions. The Italians find their partners cold, possibly uninterested in the deal. The Dutch find their partners theatrical, possibly unserious about the work. Neither side is performing. Neither side is faking. They’re both communicating authentically, using completely different vocabularies for professionalism.

The Italian CFO makes an impassioned case for accelerated timelines. His voice rises. He leans forward. He makes eye contact that borders on staring. His Dutch counterpart responds with data, delivered in a tone so level it could balance a carpenter’s bubble.

The Italian thinks: He doesn’t care.

The Dutch executive thinks: He can’t control himself.

Both are reading the other’s cultural behavior as a character flaw.

Neutral cultures, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Japan, and Scandinavia, keep emotions controlled. Feelings exist, but they stay internal. Business is conducted through facts, logic, and measured delivery. Raising your voice signals loss of control. Animated gestures suggest you can’t make your point with reason alone. The cooler you stay, the more credible you appear.

Affective cultures, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Israel, and much of Latin America, express emotions openly. Enthusiasm isn’t unprofessional. It’s proof you care. Passion in a negotiation shows commitment. A raised voice might signal importance, not anger. Warmth and expressiveness build trust. The more animated you are, the more genuine you seem.

Neither approach is pretense. The Dutch executive isn’t hiding his feelings to manipulate. The Italian isn’t performing to deceive. They’re both communicating authentically, using completely different cultural perspectives.

The disconnect runs deeper than volume and hand gestures. It shapes what people notice and what they miss.

In neutral cultures, the message is the words. Tone and expression are secondary, sometimes irrelevant. “The proposal has merit but requires modification” means exactly that. In affective cultures, delivery carries meaning. The same sentence said with a slight smile and warm tone means something entirely different than when delivered with flat affect. “Reading between the lines” isn’t optional. It’s required.

Japanese business culture exemplifies neutral communication at its most refined. Silence signals wisdom and emotional restraint. A pause after a question isn’t awkwardness. It’s thoughtfulness. Western executives, trained to fill every gap, often misread Japanese silence as disagreement, disinterest, or confusion. They rush to clarify, to add information, to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. Their Japanese counterparts read the rushed speech as anxiety or shallow thinking.

The collision creates a feedback loop. The Westerner talks more because the Japanese executive seems unresponsive. The Japanese executive withdraws further because the Westerner seems frantic. Both leave the meeting confused about what happened.

Hornby mapped these patterns onto individual psychology. Neutral communication aligns with the West Sage, who subjugates feelings to ideas. The Sage speaks and acts according to ideas about a situation rather than feelings about it. Emotions don’t belong in professional discourse.

Affective communication aligns with the Green Caregiver, who communicates through tone of voice, facial expression, and empathic connection. The Caregiver’s mode of communication is instinctive, using gentleness or firmness of touch, modulated tone, and sympathetic expression. Feelings aren’t obstacles to connection. They are connection.

Neither is right nor wrong. Both work within their own systems. The problem emerges when the systems meet.

A Dutch company acquiring an Italian firm discovers that integration meetings become shouting matches, at least from the Dutch perspective. The Italians are simply discussing. A Japanese firm partnering with an Israeli startup finds that their new colleagues seem confrontational, even aggressive. The Israelis think they’re being direct and engaged.

Both sides typically conclude that the other lacks professionalism. The neutral culture sees uncontrolled emotion. The affective culture sees cold indifference. Neither recognizes they’re watching competent adults communicate normally, just in a foreign language that sounds like their own.

The Italian executive in Amsterdam eventually closes the deal. So does the Dutch executive. But both leave wondering if they can really trust the other.

They can. They just don’t know it yet.