If you want to get your point across in a meeting in Finland, keep quiet; and let your counterparts deliberate. Of course, that won't work at all in, say, Canada.
在芬蘭，如果你想在會議上讓別人明白你的觀點，就要學會安靜，讓對方思考一下。當然在加拿大，這個方法卻一點兒也不適用。

As more of us do business across cultures and far-flung offices, every meeting can feel like a riddle. What do the long silences, idle chitchat and serious faces really mean in context?
現在，更多人把生意擴展到不同的文化地域，辦公室遍布世界各地，每次開會都感覺像是一個謎。長時間的沉默、漫無目的的閑聊、認真嚴肅的表情在不同語境中究竟意味著什么呢?

It's best to prepare ahead of time so you can quickly zero in on cultural quirks before you head to the meeting table. Here are five rules of thumb for different countries to make navigating your next international meeting a little less nerve-wracking.
走向會議桌之前，你最好提前準備一下，才能很快明白不同文化的特殊習慣。這里列舉出了五個針對不同國家的經驗法則為你保駕護航，下一次開國際會議就不會再這么傷腦筋。

Stick to the schedule
嚴格遵守時間表

Where: Germany, Austria, Japan
國家：德國，奧地利，日本

We've all been to meetings that have a loose agenda, if any at all. They don't start on time and they seem to repeat as stragglers wander in. Not so in these countries. Japanese users of Do.com, an online meeting platform, are more likely to create a detailed agenda and pass out supporting documents several days prior to a meeting than meeting goers in any other country, according to founder Jason Shah.
我們開過會的人應該都參加過時間規劃松散的會議。開會時間不準時，遲到的人進來，還要重復一遍之前的話。但在這些國家就不是這樣。在線會議平臺網站Do.com的創始人杰森?沙阿說，利用他們的平臺，日本人比其它國家的會議組織者更傾向于創建詳細的會議日程，開會前幾天就把輔助文件分發出去。

"People [in Japan] are cognisant of how much time remains and don't go over," said Shah. It's expected that you'll understand the written materials ahead of the meeting. If a meticulously planned meeting runs over the allotted time, the gathering might be deemed unproductive, he adds. Ultimately, it can lead to a negative outcome because participants may be seen as inefficient.
沙阿說，“日本人能夠意識到還剩多少時間，并且不會重復已經說過的話。”他還說，你應該開會之前就對書面材料有所了解。如果精心規劃的會議超出了預定時間，那么他們就會認為這次會議是低效的。最終可能會導致不好的結果，因為管理者可能會認為與會者沒有效率。

Germans and Austrians have a similar sentiment, said Stuart Friedman, founder of Global Context, a cross-cultural communication firm based in Redwood City, California in the US. In the US, a well-planned gathering that exceeds its scheduled time might signal great interest or excitement over the topic, but meetings that run long in Germany are often taken to mean that the parties are not communicating efficiently, he said.
位于美國加利福尼亞雷德伍德城的“全球語境”是一家跨文化交流公司，其創始人斯圖爾特?弗里德曼說，德國人和奧地利人與日本人觀念相似。在美國，如果一次精心準備的會議超出了既定時間，可能說明人們對會議話題很感興趣、很有激情。但是在德國，這樣的會議通常意味著與會各方交流不暢。