As a gent with some years under his belt, I have to humbly admit that it was quite late in my career before I realized how much culture influences how people operate. Two separate incidents with two different cultural contexts brought it to the fore about ten years ago. I sought some advice from a senior exec that I was close with and he just laid it out in very unflinching way. It was just one conversation but it has helped me tremendously in the years since.
I thought about it when I posted but it felt like an invitation to dunk on the cultures involved. In one case it was a communication pattern that I found to be very unprofessional by an entire team, the other was nearly instant and *intense* conflict between a former direct of mine and their new manager that I got sucked into the middle of.
