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.

在芬兰，如果你想在会议上让别人明白你的观点，就要学会安静，让对方思考一下。当然在加拿大，这个方法却一点儿也不适用。

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?

现在，更多人把生意扩展到不同的文化地域，办公室遍布世界各地，每次开会都感觉像是一个谜。长时间的沉默、漫无目的的闲聊、认真严肃的表情在不同语境中究竟意味着什么呢?

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.

走向会议桌之前，你最好提前准备一下，才能很快明白不同文化的特殊习惯。这里列举出了五个针对不同国家的经验法则为你保驾护航，下一次开国际会议就不会再这么伤脑筋。

Stick to the schedule

严格遵守时间表

Where: Germany, Austria, Japan

国家：德国，奥地利，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.

我们开过会的人应该都参加过时间规划松散的会议。开会时间不准时，迟到的人进来，还要重复一遍之前的话。但在这些国家就不是这样。在线会议平台网站Do.com的创始人杰森餠阿说，利用他们的平台，日本人比其它国家的会议组织者更倾向于创建详细的会议日程，开会前几天就把辅助文件分发出去。

"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.

沙阿说，“日本人能够意识到还剩多少时间，并且不会重复已经说过的话。”他还说，你应该开会之前就对书面材料有所了解。如果精心规划的会议超出了预定时间，那么他们就会认为这次会议是低效的。最终可能会导致不好的结果，因为管理者可能会认为与会者没有效率。

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.

位于美国加利福尼亚雷德伍德城的“全球语境”是一家跨文化交流公司，其创始人斯图尔特弗里德曼说，德国人和奥地利人与日本人观念相似。在美国，如果一次精心准备的会议超出了既定时间，可能说明人们对会议话题很感兴趣、很有激情。但是在德国，这样的会议通常意味着与会各方交流不畅。