For many expats working in Barcelona or across Catalunya, feedback becomes an early and persistent puzzle. Meetings feel polite. Performance reviews sound positive. And then something changes afterwards — a deadline shifts, a decision stalls, an issue surfaces weeks later that everyone seemed to know about but nobody mentioned.

This is not evasiveness. It is not incompetence. It is Catalan business culture operating exactly as it is designed to — and the expat missing the signals it is sending.

I have worked with dozens of international professionals trying to navigate exactly this. The confusion is real and understandable, because Catalan feedback culture sits in a genuinely interesting position on the cross-cultural spectrum — and understanding where it sits, and why, makes an enormous difference to how you work with Catalan colleagues and partners.

Where Catalan Culture Sits on the Feedback Spectrum

Erin Meyer’s research in The Culture Map positions feedback cultures on a spectrum from direct upgraders — those who use explicit, unambiguous language to deliver negative feedback — to indirect downgraders, who soften and embed negative messages to protect relationship and face.

Catalan business culture sits in the middle of this spectrum — but it is not simply a compromise between two extremes. It has its own specific logic, shaped by the intersection of Mediterranean relationship culture, Spanish indirect communication norms, and the distinct Catalan cultural identity that prioritises directness more than many of its Spanish neighbours.

What Feedback Actually Looks Like in Catalan Business Culture

The most important thing to understand about feedback in Catalunya is that setting and relationship matter enormously. What a Catalan colleague will say to you one-to-one is significantly different from what they will say in a group meeting. And what they will say after a relationship has been established is significantly different from what they will say before one exists.

In group settings, Catalan business culture tends toward constructive framing. Direct criticism of a colleague’s work in front of others is genuinely uncomfortable — not because Catalans avoid conflict, but because maintaining the functional working relationship takes priority over the satisfaction of naming a problem publicly. The concern exists. It will surface. But the group meeting is usually not where.

In one-to-one settings, the conversation shifts considerably. Catalans are capable of direct, honest feedback in private — and they value being given the same. The investment here is in creating the conditions: a private conversation, sufficient relationship to sustain the directness, and an approach that frames the concern as a shared problem rather than a personal critique.

The Dutch example is instructive. A Dutch colleague will give the same feedback publicly and privately, with the same directness in both settings. A Japanese colleague will give significantly softer feedback in both settings. A Catalan colleague will give different feedback depending on the setting — and calibrate that feedback to the state of the relationship. Failing to understand this calibration leads expats to consistently misread both what they are hearing and what they should be saying.

The SBI Model — and Why It Works Well Here

The Situation-Behaviour-Impact (SBI) model, developed by the Centre for Creative Leadership, provides a useful structure for cross-cultural feedback — and it works particularly well in Catalan business contexts because of how it separates observation from judgement.

The model frames feedback as: in this situation (specific context), I observed this behaviour (specific, observable action), and it had this impact (specific consequence). It avoids the two most common failure modes of cross-cultural feedback: the vague generality that communicates nothing useful (“this didn’t quite work”), and the personalised judgement that damages relationship (“you’re not reliable”).

In Catalan culture, where relationship is central and where directness is acceptable but personal criticism is not, SBI provides a structure for honest, specific feedback that doesn’t land as an attack. It is not a formula — it requires genuine relationship and a private setting to work — but it is a reliable starting point for difficult conversations.

What to Do Differently When Working with Catalans

For the broader framework on how feedback varies across cultures, the article on direct and indirect feedback in international teams covers the full spectrum. And for leaders and professionals navigating specifically the Barcelona and Catalan business context, cross-cultural coaching, mentoring, and advisory provides the tailored support that generic cultural training cannot.