When Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography about establishing a library, he explained:
“The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practis'd it on such occasions; and, from my frequent successes, can heartily recommend it.”
Haven't experienced either culture but was more familiar with the Japanese proverb "The nail that stands out gets hammered down."
Edit: Now that I think about it, I did experience the phenomenon at one workplace where my manager literally said that my "performance was making the other devs look bad." I was later placed on probation (for being a bad manager though I signed up as an IC) and I GTFO.
Yes I feel that proverb applies for Australian culture too. It’s all about superiority of the group over the individual and maintaining the silent rule of “this is normal, you’re a freak if you divert from that.”
That sounds like a pretty toxic workplace. Good thing you could escape it.
It isn’t very strong in the USA, but it exists here too.
Biggest example is high school. Popular is god and you must follow it. Ie. There are a limited number of socially approved ways of excelling and standing out is the worst thing you can do.
Also in the military there’s a motto, “never volunteer for anything”. The thought being, being noticed for anything is bad.
“The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practis'd it on such occasions; and, from my frequent successes, can heartily recommend it.”