Care for a Danish, anyone?

A few groups of Danish students have visited my college, and for each group, I was asked to provide some business communication coaching. Great experience. What surprised me most was their reactions to the elevator speech. It was a novel idea to them. And they loved it.

We began by observing that each culture has its own secret nonverbal rules, such as shaking hands versus bowing when greeting someone. In the U.S. (I am not an expert in international business comm.), we initiate conversations in a very specific way. It's a dance, and if you misstep, you are not going to get positive feedback from your dance partner. 

What's interesting is if you falter on the nonverbal part of the dance, the response you will get is surely going to be a negative nonverbal reaction. If you are not from the U.S., and you don't understand the dance, you may be left wondering why Americans are so rude, unfriendly, etc. Truth is, we are trying to teach the dance. Through rewards and reinforcement, cultural norms are passed along across generations. Once the Danish business students understood this, and were overtly (verbally) taught the nonverbal rules to engagement here, they began to see that Americans are not unfriendly at all. Then those Danes could dance.