Malcolm Gladwel’s book Outliers has a chapter famously titled “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes“. 

In it, he argues (among other things) that power-distance – respect for hierarchy – can often lead to foreseeable catastrophe when subordinates are prevented from speaking up to their bosses.

His lessons on ethnic culture are equally applicable to organizational culture: project environments that do not allow team members to challenge managers or managers to challenge sponsors are more likely to under-perform or fail.

As Gladwell says in this interview, think like Australians!