The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

by Erin Meyer

What I mean is that you should take the time, energy, and effort to build a personal connection with them. Build trust as a friend from the heart. Forget the deal for a while.

but one simple distinction is between two forms of trust: cognitive trust and affective trust.

confidence you feel in another person’s accomplishments, skills, and reliability.

Americans, in business, draw a sharp dividing line between cognitive trust and affective trust.

it, “Among Chinese executives, there is a stronger interplay between affective and cognitive trust. Unlike

American managers make a concerted effort to ensure that personal relationships do not cloud the way they approach business interactions—

all BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) fall far to the right.

icebreaker exercises in relationship-based societies are rare. Relationships are built up slowly, founded not just on professional credibility but also on deeper emotional connections—

the relationship is built, it is not dropped easily.

For example, Americans are more likely than those from many cultures to smile at strangers and to engage in personal discussions with people they hardly

Americans don’t follow through on their unintended offer, those other cultures often accuse them of being “fake” or “hypocritical.”

In coconut cultures such as these, people are more closed (like the tough shell of a coconut) with those they don’t have friendships with. They rarely smile at strangers, ask casual acquaintances personal questions, or offer personal information to those

very people I need to impress?” they wonder. But that is exactly the point. When you share a round of drinks with a business partner, you show that person you have nothing to hide. And when they

network to find a wasta—someone who has a relationship with the person you need to contact, and ask that person to make a quick call introducing you personally. A

When you present yourself to others, you offer a persona that reflects what you publicly claim to be.

another, it’s necessary to map the Disagreeing scale against a second scale that measures how emotionally expressive a culture is.

We have this word in German, Sachlichkeit, which is most closely translated in English as “objectivity.”

For us, an excellent way to determine the robustness of a proposal is to challenge it.

since they regard disagreement not as a matter of personal emotion, but rather as a valuable intellectual exercise

bruised. For people from these cultures, it is not easy to separate the opinion from the person.

China, behavior toward those with in-group status may be very different from behavior toward those with out-group status.

Confucius provided very clear instructions about how to behave with people you have relationships with. But he provided almost no guidance on how to behave with strangers.

the relationship toward those with out-group status can be one of indifference and, in ca...

building a personal connection can go a very long way toward establishing trust and reducing the level of confrontation you experience.

“even asking another’s point of view can feel confrontational in our culture.

guard. No one wants to be put on the spot in front of a bunch of people.”

In order for you to feel a meeting was a great success, which of the following should happen?

C. In a good meeting, a formal stamp is put on a decision that has been made before the meeting. The large majority of Americans responding to this question chose option A. The French, however, largely chose option B. And most Chinese and Japanese selected option C.

approve a decision that has already been made in informal

“I do not quite understand your point” and “Please explain more about why you think that.” These expressions encouraged

developed a great relationship with my students—much closer than I used to have with my students in China, where the professor is always put up on a pedestal.

Sometimes just a few words of explanation framing your behavior can make all the difference in how your actions are perceived.

“Appointments are not taken seriously and, as a consequence, are frequently broken as it is more likely to be considered a point rather than a ribbon in the road. .

locals in Burundi, “when the cows come home.” Of course, a business manager in any country in

the perception of time in Germany is partially rooted in the early impact of the industrial revolution, where factory work required the labor force to be on hand and in place at a precisely appointed moment.

developing world—life centers around the fact of constant change. As

What matters is that your work structure is flexible enough to adapt with changes in the natural environment,

importance of relationships seems to be a key to understanding the Scheduling scale.

By contrast, in China, decisions are most often made by the boss in a top-down fashion (scale five, Deciding).

the Chinese tend to make decisions quickly and to change plans often and easily, valuing flexibility and adaptability over