The Culture Map
"As today's business world becomes ever-more global and virtual, executives and managers are expected to work harmoniously together with counterparts from a broad array dramatically different cultures and backgrounds, often without leaving their desks. But when you throw people together who come from starkly different backgrounds and cultures- from Americans who precede anything negative with three nice comments to French, Dutch, Israelis and Germans who get straight to the point ("your presentation was simply awful"); from Latin Americans and Asians who are steeped in hierarchy to the Scandinavians who think the best boss is just one of the crowd- the result can sometimes be disastrous. Even with English as a global language, it's easy to fall into cultural traps that endanger careers and sink deals. In The Culture Map, renowned expert Erin Meyer offers highly practical and timely perspective on one of today's most pressing business issues: how do different cultures influence the way to do business when working globally? And she explains how to dramatically increase business success by improving one's ability to understand the cultural drivers of colleagues, clients, and suppliers from different countries. With the rapid increase in global call centers, outsourcing, supply chains, and project teams, cultural diversity touches almost everyone. Globalization has led to the rapid connection of internationally based employees from all levels of multinational companies.
Stats for nerds
28recommend
38mentions
33people
2018–2026years
79% recommend18% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- If you are interested in this cultural topic and how to practically modify your communication, check The Culture Map book.
- Work related: The Culture Map - can strongly recommend! Non-work: the Alex Rider series. Both entertaining and serious when it needs to be without being super grim.
- I didn't mention race in the post, but culture. I think culture has a significant effect on a person, and to prove my point, I'd refer to the book The Culture Map, which was a revelation for me and explained a lot of things I had noticed while working in a multicultural environment. Genetic factors typically account for about 50% of individual differences in traits like personality, cognition, and psychopathology, leaving the other 50% to environmental influences.
- Regarding the culture bit: I feel that Erin Meyer's "The Culture Map" [1] should be high on any reading list around how to work in a remote environment, especially as a manager. Of course, every individual is different and not everything needs to be taken at face value, but it provides a nice framework to think about how/why other teammates may approach situations in a specific way.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22085568-the-culture-map
- > Well, as a german it seems I have to get straight to the point
"The Joy of Reading Books You Don't Understand"
It seems you didn't even try to understand The Culture Map, and opted for a strawman.
> I do not think, thinking in stereotypes this broad is helpful for communicating.
You're trying to use it as a cookbook. If you instead see it as a dictionary to be used when someone you're interacting with isn't behaving the way you had expected, it will make more sense. We can still be unique flowers with a wide variance, even if cultural regions have shifted medians.
- If this is a fun question for you, the book The Culture Map covers a lot of differences in how different cultures communicate, set expectations, express disagreement and displeasure, etc.
