Book Summary: The Culture Map, By Erin Meyer
As someone living and working in the United States for a U.S. based company with colleagues who all live in the U.S., I hadn’t spent much time considering the cultural factors that could be influencing my ability to get things done. Yet, as I read this book, I quickly identified scenarios where it’s likely a cultural difference was a driver of confusion.
QUICK SUMMARY
This book helps the reader to begin to understand how culture influences the way we think and operate across eight dimensions. For each of the below, Meyer maps several countries on the scale, then explains the differences through stories, and concludes with practical guidance for navigating working relationships across cultures.
Communicating: Low-Context, High-Context
Evaluating: Direct negative feedback, Indirect negative feedback
Persuading: Principles-first, Applications-first
Leading: Egalitarian, Hierarchical
Trusting: Task-based, Relationship-based
Deciding: Consensual, Top-down
Disagreeing: Confrontational, Avoids confrontation
Scheduling: Linear, Flexible
Interesting words
Wasta: Connections that create preference, relationships that give you influence.
This Arabic word was introduced in the chapter about trusting. On the ‘relationship-based’ side of this scale, trust is built through personal relationships and shared experiences. In some cultures, you’re unlikely to get someone to respond to you unless there is a mutual connection.
Sachlichkeit: Objectivity.
This German word was introduced in the chapter about the disagreeing scale. The ability to be objective, and specifically to separate an opinion or idea from the person expressing it, creates a culture where frequent challenging and disagreeing becomes the norm and isn’t taken too personally.
A closer look at communicating and scheduling
After finishing this book I couldn’t help but realize how completely American I am. The purpose of this book isn’t to declare a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way, but to create awareness of these differences so that we can improve how we work across cultures.
Communicating (low-context/implicit vs. high-context/explicit): All that is needed for communication to occur is a sender, a receiver, a message, and a medium (or channel). In my workshops on communication I teach that it is the responsibility of the sender to ensure that the message is understood by the receiver. The strategies to do this involve providing lots of context, using direct and explicit language, and getting feedback. This is a very U.S.-based perspective. In other cultures, communication is much more low-context and the receiver is expected to play a more active role in decoding the meaning of messages that are received. The Japanese, the lowest context communication culture in the world, have a great phrase meaning “read the air” to describe how messages are passed.
Scheduling (linear vs. flexible): Admittedly I can be not just linear, but ridged about time… particularly during my work day. I find it incredibly rude when someone is late causing meeting participants to wait. This video about it was
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