ADPlist rejected me as a mentor despite a 25+ year career in design
How cultural sincerity can lead to enormous misunderstandings
Like many senior designers, I wanted to help colleagues in the industry with their careers. I thus logically signed up on the big UX mentorship platform ADP List. Naturally, you need to write a biography, so I did.
I wrote something along the lines of:
Hi, I’m Bas.
I have a fair bit of experience in the design industry, but you also have your own life experiences. I love to share our stories. Not as mentor and mentee, but as equal individuals with a mutual passion for design. I’m sure we can learn a lot from each other.
ADP list reviewed my application. This included an analysis of my portfolio, which contains case studies of how I built design teams and transformed organizational cultures. My application was nevertheless rejected.
When I asked why, they told me I didn’t have the right profile and sufficient experience to be a mentor.
I found that interesting because I have more relevant experience than most of the ADP list mentors.
I resubmitted my application but now with the following biography:
I’ve been working in design since the 90s, for agencies, start-ups, and in-house, on several continents.
I’ve designed numerous complete apps and enterprise systems for companies of various backgrounds, cultures, and sizes.
I also built design teams and helped organizations increase their design maturity.
I’ve been mentoring and managing talent for over 15 years.
This time, my application was accepted almost instantly.
Cultural differences
What happened was a typical case of cultural misunderstanding. Both my biographies are factually correct. I nevertheless feel insanely uncomfortable submitting the second one.
Blatantly showing off achievements, mentioning successes, and imposing yourself as an authority is not done in Dutch culture.
The Netherlands is one of the most feminine countries in the world, and humbleness is seen as a virtue. In my first biography, I try to put the mentee at ease by expressing I feel equal to them. This is considered mature behaviour for me and my feminine compatriots.
In masculine countries, it’s socially expected to manifest yourself. You might need to indicate you are the authority.
Feminine countries see the world as collaborative, while masculine societies often think in terms of competition.
The school system
An easy way to observe the divide between feminine and masculine countries, is by looking at how the school systems work. In the Netherlands (similar to their Scandinavian cultural peers), grades are not so important. Getting a higher grade doesn’t give you a better social reputation. It’s normal for everyone to support the weakest kids so that the class advances as a group.
In masculine countries, the emphasis is often on the performance. The best kid will be put in the spotlight. Having the highest grade is a sign of acknowledgement and respect.
In Dutch secondary school (that’s high school across the pond), most students only care about scoring a 6 out of 10. This will allow you to advance to the following year. When someone in my class would get a 9, you’d often hear comments like: “Well, you could have joined us for that beer last weekend instead.”
The medicine faculty of the University of Amsterdam removed the cum laude from its diplomas. The distinction was putting too much emphasis on competition and performance and was affecting learning.
It is no longer about the loner who wants to excel, but someone who wants to learn and work together as a team.
— Hester Daelmans, Head of the medicine faculty, source
I personally encountered issues when I tried enrolling for a master’s programme outside of the Netherlands. My diploma doesn’t contain grades, which was confusing for foreign universities.
Challenges in business environments
At a given moment, I became responsible for recruiting tech talent at an international organization. I thus started reviewing CVs, together with a German colleague.
As neighbouring countries, both ascending from barbaric tribes and having a Lutheran influence, The Netherlands and Germany might appear culturally similar. German culture is, however, very masculine, which can be observed in their obsession with luxury cars.
My German colleague started making comments like: “Very good candidate, high grades!”
I asked him how this was relevant. For me, high grades don’t show whether you are competent. It merely shows how well you fit into an established school system and how much someone is willing to compromise teenage years. These years should be the best ones of your life.
Conversely, I browsed through CVs and thought: “Look at this person, listing measurable successes. How insincere. What a braggart. Must be the most obnoxious person ever to work with.”
It took us a while to learn from each other and to come to a conclusion.
People from feminine countries usually undersell themselves because humbleness is a virtue. Candidates from masculine countries might oversell themselves because of their competitive nature.
Promotions
We now come to one of the most challenging aspects of multicultural business. At least, from my personal perspective.
I can’t count the times someone told me, “You need to put more effort into the visibility of your work.”
This is something very unnatural for me. I’ve been conditioned my entire life not to stand out.
Don’t stick your head above the grain field, is one of the most used Dutch idioms. Anyone who pretends to be better than someone else in Dutch society will be socially corrected with the well-known Dutch directness.
It took me years to realise that my masculine Italian, Hungarian, and Greek colleagues, were constantly busy with their reputations. It’s natural for them to find ways so that the decision-makers will know about their contributions. And when they feel their annual appraisal isn’t sufficient, they will fight tooth and nail to get this adjusted. Or at least put pressure on the supervisors to ensure a higher raise the following year.
I’ve been raised with the expectation my work will be noticed when it’s good enough. In my role as supervisor, I see it as my responsibility to give as much credit to my supervisees.
Mature people don’t claim credit, certainly not for the work their supervisees did. I took for granted that this is how my supervisors would see it too. But of course, they didn’t.
It’s no coincidence almost all senior people in my organization came from masculine countries.
In feminine cultures, you often wait for your environment to notice your contributions. In masculine countries, you must take the stage; otherwise, someone else will take credit.
ADP List
Now let’s return to my initial rejection as a mentor on ADP list.
I was doing my best to stay as humble as possible, but ADP List, a Singaporean / American platform, was applying their masculine lens.
“The message sent is not always the message received.”
— Virginia Satir
I should have known better. After all these years of working in international environments, and doing multicultural research, I should be savvy enough to adapt my communication.
On the other hand, running a global platform like ADP list, or managing an international organization, also brings the responsibility to invest in cultural awareness.
It’s staggering how many senior leaders in renowned organisations lack cultural awareness.
I’m not saying this is the case for ADP List, but I believe their moderators should have some basic knowledge. They deal with a multicultural crowd every day.
The person who approved my profile could have emailed me, “Oh, you must be Nordic. I see that you are a veteran in the field, but you need to adapt your tone. Many mentees won’t respect you if you don’t impose yourself.”
Multicultural communication is complex. We are conditioned in a certain way, and behave accordingly. We can be deeply hurt if someone says something that violates our social norms.
I know this because directness and honesty are other virtues in the Netherlands. In Dutch society, It’s much better to have a contradicting opinion than not to express an opinion at all. I gave my unfiltered judgement when no one was ready to receive it way too often.
Many people make a case that IQ and EQ might need to be supplemented with cultural intelligence. All our businesses are multicultural, and if we don’t become aware of each other's natural impulses, we will be subject to a lot of misunderstanding.
I believe the best starting point is to assume that someone doesn’t have bad intentions. Most people don’t. We simply come from different places and have our own perceptions of politeness, morality, and virtue.
One of the ways to increase your cultural awareness is by signing up on ADP List. It’s a great platform and an excellent way to find UX colleagues from the other side of the world.
I explore cultural differences in more depth in one of my previous articles:
