I joined KPMG straight out of business school. It was 1995. Within months I was on a plane.
One of the most remarkable things about working for a global organization in those years was the rhythm it created. I would typically arrive in a new country in November, use December to travel and absorb the place, and show up ready to work in January. A new country every year. A new culture every year. A new way of seeing the world, every year.
Five continents. Seven countries. Eight years. It is the education I am most grateful for, not because of what I learned about business, but because of what I learned about people.
The Room Has a Culture Before You Walk In.
Different cultures approach work differently. This is not a controversial observation. But knowing it intellectually and feeling it in the room are two entirely different things.
Early in my time in Asia, I made a classic mistake. I presented an idea in a group setting, surveyed the room, saw nods of agreement, and felt confident we had alignment. We didn't. What I had read as agreement was something else entirely: respect for a senior voice in the room. In many Asian cultures, challenging an idea publicly, especially in front of others, runs against the grain of how professional relationships are built. The disagreement wasn't absent. It was waiting for a different setting.
I learned to pull people aside. One on one. Away from the group. And in that setting, the real conversation happened. The pushback came. The concerns surfaced. The idea got better.
"Reading the room means understanding the culture the room was built in."
Debate Is Not Disrespect.
The lesson ran the other direction too.
When I worked in the UK and the US, the directness of disagreement could feel jarring if you weren't prepared for it. Someone challenging your idea publicly, pushing back in a meeting, arguing a different position with energy, in a Western context, that is often not insubordination. It is engagement. It is the desire to get to the best answer.
A leader who misreads that as conflict, or who takes it personally, will damage the relationship and miss the insight. You have to adjust the mental model, not the person in front of you.
Both lessons are the same lesson stated differently: context determines meaning. The same behavior means different things depending on where the person grew up, what norms they were shaped by, and what kind of trust they are extending when they engage with you.
Stereotypes Are a Starting Point, Not a Conclusion.
Here is the nuance I want to be careful about. Everything I've described above is a cultural tendency, not a rule. Individuals don't fit their cultural context all the time. Some of the most outspoken people I've worked with in Asia were born there. Some of the most deferential colleagues I've had were British.
What I carry from those eight years is not a set of cultural formulas. It is a discipline of reading each person within their context, holding the cultural backdrop as useful information without letting it become a fixed lens for the individual in front of me.
The goal is to meet people where they are. Not where a generalization says they should be.
The Trust That Opens Doors.
Something practical came out of all this time abroad that I still use every day.
I can greet, thank, and say goodbye to people in their native language. It is not fluency. It is something smaller and more important than fluency. It is acknowledgment. It says: I have been to your part of the world. I know something of where you come from. I chose to learn a few words in the language you grew up in.
That gesture opens a door that no business card or title can open. People want to work, negotiate, and collaborate with someone who understands where they are coming from, not just from reading, but from having been there. There is an innate trust that builds when you can demonstrate that you have lived inside someone else's world, even briefly.
The Skill No One Lists on a Resume.
Today our workforces span countries, time zones, and cultures in ways that would have been unimaginable in 1992. The ability to lead across those differences, not just manage across them, but genuinely lead, is one of the most important capabilities a senior executive can have.
I was fortunate. In my first eight years of corporate life, I got to learn it firsthand. Not in a workshop. Not from a book. From sitting in the rooms, making the mistakes, adjusting the approach, and watching what actually built trust across every culture I was part of.
The world is smaller now. The need for that skill is larger than ever.