Book recommendation : The Culture Map

Yesterday I completed reading of an interesting book which is called ‘The Culture Map’, written by Erin Meyer. She is a Professor at INSEAD Business School. This book is an easy guide to understand different cultures especially in business life. Specific differences are mentioned in how people from different cultures communicate and consider ideas at work.

It gives a lot of good insights with examples from the social life as well. I think these real life examples from Erin’s personal life and her clients made this book more attractive and easier to understand. I appreciate the openness in examples about culture clashes from different views. 

There are many interesting points in the book. I want to share these 2 areas with you ; Trusting scale and 8 dimensions of cultures.

Let's look at them quickly here :

•  You can see the Trusting scale below. In China, Saudi Arabia or Brazil, for example, trust is established from personal relationships built over time between people. As Meyer describes it: “I’ve seen who you are at a deep level, I’ve shared personal time with you, I know others well who trust you, I trust you.” On the other extreme are the US, Denmark and the Netherlands where trust is established from working together on business activities. “You do good work consistently, you are reliable, I enjoy working with you, I trust you."
  

• She also mentioned that a culture can be defined along 8 dimensions based on her extensive research:

- Communicating: explicit vs. implicit

Americans are the most explicit or low-context culture there is (low-context meaning their conversation assumes relatively little intuitive understanding).Japan and other East Asian countries represent the other extreme.

- Evaluating: direct negative feedback vs. indirect negative feedback

Israelis, Russians, and Dutch are among the most direct when it comes to negative feedback. Japanese, Indonesian are among the most indirect.

- Persuading: deductive vs. inductive

French and Italians, tend toward deductive arguments, focusing on theories and complex concepts before presenting a fact, statement, or opinion. Canada, US tend toward inductive arguments, starting with focusing first on practical application before moving to theory.

- Leading: egalitarian vs. hierarchical

Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden are the most egalitarian; Japan, Korea and Nigeria are the most hierarchical.

- Deciding: consensual vs. top down

While Japan has a very hierarchical leadership system, it has a very consensual decision-making system, India, Russia and China has more top down approach in deciding.

- Trusting: task vs. relationship

People do not worry so much to trust each other in US, Denmark, Netherlands, German because they trust their legal system. In others, including many emerging markets like Saudi Arabia, India, China, people relationships are much more important.

- Disagreeing: confrontational vs. avoid confrontation

Indonesia, Japan and Thailand are some of countries among the ones which avoid confrontation. On the other hand, Israel, France and Germany are confrontational cultures.

- Scheduling: structured vs. flexible

Germans and Swiss have linear time, meaning that they are very precise in terms of scheduling; Western Europeans and Latin Americans tend to be more flexible; Africa, the Middle East, and India are extremely flexible.

After reading this book I understood better the background of cultural differences and clashes that I personally experienced in my business and social life. I highly recommend this book for every person to read.

Cross-Cultural Management - Short Videos

Here you can watch my favorite short videos about how to manage and adapt to cultural differences in the business environment. 

Getting to Yes Across Cultures (Harvard Business Review)What to know before your next negotiation

How Cultural Differences Affect BusinessErin Meyer, author of The Culture Map, explains how cultural differences affect the way
doing business.

Reaching Across Cultures Without Losing Yourself

Andy Molinsky, author of Global Dexterity, explains why it's important to customize 

your behavior in a new cultural setting.

DID YOU KNOW???

Interesting facts about Middle East & South Asia countries

The United Arab Emirates is home to about 150 nationalities; as a result, diversity is both the workplace and the community is the norm. There is a healthy balance between Western influence and Eastern tradition.

The population of Bangladesh is 149 million. Bangladesh achieved a Happy Planet Index Score of 56.3 and ranks #11 of 184 countries analyzed - See more at: http://www.happyplanetindex.org/countries/bangladesh/#sthash.wyTjuUhO.dpuf

Oman is one of the oldest human-inhabited places on Earth. Humans have lived in what is now known as Oman for at least 106,000 years and the city of Dereaze is at least 9,000 years old.

Qatar is the biggest exporter of natural gas in the world, has the fastest growing economy in the world and has the highest per capita income than any country in the world.

India is the world's second-largest English speaking country. India is second only to the USA when it comes to speaking English with around 125 million people speaking the language, which is only 10% of the India population.

Sri Lanka is the largest exporter of tea in the world.

In Saudi Arabia, the average age is 18 years old. 75% of its population is younger than 35 years old.

Most Ancient Egyptian pyramids were built as tombs for pharaohs (rulers of Ancient Egypt) and their families. To date, over 130 pyramids have been discovered in Egypt.