Working Across Cultures — Ioannis Antypas

I have spent my working life between worlds. Born into Greek culture and now based in Jeddah, working across Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East, I have learned that the ability to work well across cultures is not a soft skill or a pleasant bonus. In an interconnected economy, it is one of the most practical and valuable capabilities a professional can develop — and one of the most quietly underestimated.

Every culture has its own unwritten rules: how decisions get made, how trust is built, how disagreement is expressed, what respect looks like. Misread those rules and even brilliant work can stall; read them well and doors open that no amount of technical skill alone would unlock. This article shares some of what moving between Greece, Saudi Arabia, and the broader region has taught me about doing business across cultures — not as theory, but as lived experience.

Culture is the operating system beneath the work

It is tempting to think that business is universal — that a good idea, a fair price, and solid work speak for themselves everywhere. They do not, at least not on their own. Culture is the invisible operating system running beneath every professional interaction, shaping how your idea is heard, how your price is judged, and how your work is received. The same proposal, delivered identically, can land completely differently depending on the cultural expectations of the person across the table.

This is why cultural intelligence — the ability to read a cultural context and adapt to it — matters so much. It is not about abandoning who you are or pretending to be someone else. It is about understanding that the way you naturally do things is one option among many, and being willing to adjust so that your message arrives the way you intended rather than the way it happens to be interpreted.

The lesson of relationships before transactions

Perhaps the most important thing I have learned working in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East is the primacy of relationships. In much of the region, business is built on trust and personal connection, and that trust is established before any serious transaction takes place. Rushing straight to the deal, in the way some Western business cultures prize, can come across as cold or even disrespectful. Time spent building a genuine relationship is not a delay before the real work; it is the foundation that makes the real work possible.

This was an adjustment even coming from Greek culture, which is itself deeply relational and warm. What I have come to appreciate is that investing in relationships is not inefficiency — it is a different and often wiser definition of efficiency. A deal built on a strong relationship is more resilient, more flexible when problems arise, and far more likely to lead to the next opportunity. The time spent up front is repaid many times over.

Reading what is not said

Different cultures carry meaning in very different ways. Some are direct, valuing explicit, say-what-you-mean communication. Others are more indirect, where a great deal is conveyed through context, tone, and what is politely left unsaid. Much of the Middle East, like many cultures, places real weight on indirect communication and the preservation of dignity on all sides. A direct “no” may be softened into something gentler, and learning to hear the real meaning behind the courteous phrasing is an essential skill.

For someone from a more direct background, this can be genuinely confusing at first. The instinct is to take words at face value. But across cultures, the most important message is often the one carried in what is implied rather than stated outright. Learning to listen for it — to notice hesitation, to read the room, to understand that politeness may be carrying a message — prevents a great many misunderstandings and signals a respect that people notice and remember.

Respect is the universal language

If there is one principle that travels everywhere, it is this: genuine respect is understood in every culture. You will not always know the right custom, the correct greeting, or the local etiquette — and people rarely expect a visitor to get everything right. What they do notice, unfailingly, is whether you are making a sincere effort to understand and honour their way of doing things. A respectful person who makes an honest mistake is forgiven easily; a competent person who is dismissive of local norms is not.

This means approaching every culture with curiosity rather than judgment. When something is done differently from what you are used to, the useful question is not “why is this not how I would do it?” but “what is the thinking behind this, and what can I learn from it?” That posture of humble curiosity has opened more doors for me than any credential. People are remarkably generous with those who show they genuinely want to understand.

What working across cultures teaches you about yourself

One unexpected gift of working across cultures is how much it reveals about your own. Until you step outside it, your culture feels simply like “the normal way things are done.” Only by encountering other ways do you realise that your instincts — about time, hierarchy, directness, trust — are not universal truths but cultural choices. That awareness makes you a more thoughtful professional everywhere, because you stop assuming your defaults are the only reasonable ones.

It also builds a kind of adaptability that compounds across a career. The same flexibility that lets you adjust to a new culture lets you adjust to a new industry, a new team, or a new kind of problem. In that sense, cross-cultural experience is training in the broader skill of reading a context and responding to it wisely — a skill closely tied to clear decision making and to the way I think about building a durable professional edge.

Why this matters more, not less, over time

Some assume that globalisation and technology are flattening cultural differences into a single way of working. My experience suggests the opposite: as more business crosses borders, the ability to navigate cultural difference becomes more valuable, not less. Teams are increasingly international, customers increasingly diverse, and the professional who can move comfortably between cultures becomes a genuine asset — the person who can bridge worlds that would otherwise struggle to understand one another.

It connects, too, with how you build a reputation and a voice that travels. The way you tell your story and present your work has to flex across audiences, which is part of why I see storytelling and cultural awareness as close cousins: both are about meeting people where they are and making yourself genuinely understood.

Small gestures carry weight

One thing that has struck me repeatedly is how much small, sincere gestures matter across cultures. Learning a few words of greeting in someone’s language, understanding the basic etiquette of hospitality, showing patience with a pace of relationship-building that differs from your own — these cost almost nothing and signal a great deal. They tell the other person that you see them, that you have made an effort, and that you respect their way of doing things. In my experience, those small signals of genuine regard often open doors that no polished pitch ever could.

Building bridges is a skill worth developing

Working across cultures has been one of the most enriching parts of my professional life. It has made me more patient, more curious, more humble, and far more effective at building the kind of trust that real work depends on. None of it required abandoning my own heritage; if anything, understanding others has helped me understand and value where I come from more deeply.

If there is a single takeaway, it is that cultural intelligence is a skill like any other — something you can deliberately build through curiosity, humility, and a genuine willingness to learn from people whose way of doing things differs from your own. In a world that grows more connected by the day, that may be one of the most valuable investments a professional can make. If you are navigating cross-cultural work and would value a perspective from someone who lives between worlds, that is part of what I bring. Explore how to work with me, or get in touch.