While on my travels in the UK last week, I had a series of experiences that made clear to me why some companies and cultures are entrepreneurial, and others are not.

I happened upon a news feature on the British soccer referee Graham Poll. Having not seen the program from the beginning, I didn't understand what Poll's wife and mother were talking about when referring so solemnly to "the incident".

"I don't understand what happened," his mother said, tearfully. I wondered if he'd lashed out at a player or committed a crime.

Finally they showed the clip of horror, the accidental yellow card that Poll gave a player, who had already racked up enough yellows to deserve a red.

Poll was teary-eyed recounting the aftermath of humiliation that followed in the British press, the suspicion that accompanied him every game afterward. The sadness of having a 27-year-career wiped out from that mistake. His daughter had sent him a text message letting him know that despite the mistake, his family still loved him. Not coincidentally, he resigned in May.

I thought the story was ridiculous; in the U.S. refs screw up all the time. It happens. Sure, people get riled up, but then they drop it. The referee goes home and shows up at the next game. And if he had enjoyed a distinguished, decades-long career like Poll, we'd be surprised at his mistake, but we wouldn't condemn him for it. Our politicians get away with far worse.

Several days later I met podcaster Anna Farmery at the Women Business Blogging Conference in Leicester, UK. We were discussing British Prime Minister Tony Blair's seemingly endless world tour marking the end of his political tenure. Though I'm not an avid follower of British politics I've always felt bad for Blair, who seems to be a charismatic, compassionate leader in the tradition of Bill Clinton, and yet he will be remembered far less fondly by his constituents than our former president, who used the White House as his very own motel room.

"What did Blair actually do wrong?" I asked Anna. Sure, most of us who abhor the continuation of the war in Iraq don't agree with Blair's support of the Bush administration. But I see many other things that Blair did right.

"At the end of the day, Blair is probably a better PM than Bush is a president," Anna said. "But we don't allow as many mistakes out here."

Clearly, Americans have a cultural way of remembering things in averages, the good with the bad, and accept the darker shades of gray.

I came away from that conversation with a new distinction: The British don't have a culture that allows failure, like the U.S. does. Consider the Silicon Valley culture of high-stakes risk and reward. The Googles of the world wouldn't have been built without founders who were willing to buck the odds and without investors who understood the numbers game involved with great success. Most of my successful colleagues in the Valley have experienced layoffs, setbacks, sometimes the failure of their own companies. Some of our failures we don't exactly brag about, but we can refer to them as proof of experience. We may over-identify with our achievements, but we don't identify with our failures. We use them as professional stepping stones. Our inability to not let fear of failure stop us is irrational, perhaps, but it works.

Contrast this with the English referee Poll, who saw his failure as a signal to call it quits.

Another thing struck me when I presented at the Women Business Blogging conference about the marketing power that women hold online. In terms of leveraging blogs for commercial purposes, the UK is "behind" the U.S., though in other ways it's on-par or even further along. I was impressed with the attendees' openness to blogging, their interest in it on an anthropological level, and to London's long-established blogging culture. Meg Pickard, another presenter at the conference, has blogged longer than most people I know (and I know a lot of bloggers!). Following two phenomenal, more theoretical presentations, I felt a bit like the filthy American, out to show people how to make a buck.

"Don't worry," said the conference head, Sue Thomas. We may not show our interest on commercialization publicly, but you are answering questions that we all have."

I chatted further with Anna Farmery on the current state of advertising on blogs. She was effusively grateful that I'd answered her questions and agreed to a later podcast interview.

"Of all of the businesspeople I've interviewed," she said, which includes a rather impressive list (Seth Godin, Daniel Pink, and other heroes of mine) most are American." She explained that many she's approached who are British have declined being interviewed, even those with books and businesses to promote. I was shocked by this. Perhaps we're not all born with the promotional gene; or perhaps it's more nurture than nature, and some cultures "approve" of promoting oneself than others. The culture of academia is like this: My sister, a college professor, sees mass exposure as less legitimate than, say, a mention in a college text. (I'm attempting to change her attitude in light of the publication of her next book.)

I'm not necessarily proud of the American tendency to grab our 15 minutes of fame, but I wonder if the British tendency to under-exploit doesn't hurt them on an entrepreneurial level. If you can't shill, monetize, or--on occasion--lose, how can you play?

Jory Des Jardins also blogs at Pause.