[myst]

Googled that ‘yes’ thing. Not different from my experience in other parts of the world. ‘Yes’ means ‘yes, sir’ only in the army. What is your environment?

[Maxion]

As someone living in the Nordics my experience already with central Europeans and especially so Americans is that these cultures are already much more high context than the Nordics. I guess up here we're all borderline autistic?

[t0mas88]

I've done business the other way around, Western Europe with Finland. I think it's just different context? There are unwritten customs and meanings in Finland as well, just different ones.

Even UK vs Netherlands is a significant difference in how things work in business deals and that's just a 45 min flight. Unspoken expectations are different on how the other side is supposed to behave.

[4gotunameagain]

I am entirely convinced that the entire country of Germany suffers from Asperger's.

Denmark is a bit better, maybe because they drink more ? Dunno.

[bojan]

> ‘Yes’ means ‘yes, sir’ only in the army.

Not really, if you get a "yes" in the Netherlands, Nordics, Germany or Poland it does mean, simply, yes.

The consequence of which is that actually getting a "yes" takes a lot of work.

I don't dare speak for other countries, no experience there.

[myst]

I live in Germany. 'Ja' here means 'ich stimme zu' only when explicitly asked. That's why Germans stick 'Ja?' after every second sentence. Ja? In general, 'ja-a...' means 'I hear you', same as almost everywhere else. That has been my experience.

[nomel]

Hardware engineering, where an inappropriate yes can mean massive amounts of time and money wasted, making it a very low context environment, by necessity.