The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures

by Erin Meyer

In peach cultures like the United States or Brazil, to name a couple, people tend to be friendly (“soft”) with others they have just met. They smile frequently at strangers, move quickly to first-name usage, share information about themselves, and ask personal questions of those they hardly know. But after a little friendly interaction with a peach person, you may suddenly get to the hard shell of the pit where the peach protects his real self. In these cultures, friendliness does not equal friendship. When conducting a workshop in Brazil, one of the German participants who had been living in Rio de Janeiro for a year explained, People are so friendly here. It is unbelievable. You might be buying groceries or simply crossing the street. People ask you questions, speak about their families, and they are constantly inviting you over for a cup of coffee or suggesting that they’ll see you tomorrow on the beach. At the beginning I felt so happy to receive so many invitations of friendship. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that all those people who invite me over for coffee keep forgetting to tell me where they live and those constant suggestions that we’ll meet on the beach the next day simply never materialize. Because the beach is, of course, many miles long. In Minnesota, where I was raised, we learn at a very young age to smile generously at people we’ve just met. That’s one characteristic of a peach culture. A Frenchwoman who visited with my family was taken aback...

Peach vs cocont cultures.