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

by Erin Meyer

If you go into every interaction assuming that culture doesn’t matter, your default mechanism will be to view others through your own cultural lens and to judge or misjudge them accordingly.

Cultural patterns of behavior and belief frequently impact our perceptions (what we see), cognitions (what we think), and actions (what we do).

what matters is not the absolute position of either culture on the scale but rather the relative position of the two cultures. It is this relative positioning that determines how people view one another.

If an executive wants to build and manage global teams that can work together successfully, he needs to understand not just how people from his own culture experience people from various international cultures, but also how those international cultures perceive one another.

Good communication is all about clarity and explicitness, and accountability for accurate transmission of the message is placed firmly on the communicator: “If you don’t understand, it’s my fault.”

Good communication is subtle, layered, and may depend on copious subtext, with responsibility for transmission of the message shared between the one sending the message and the one receiving it.

In low-context cultures, effective communication must be simple, clear, and explicit in order to effectively pass the message, and most communicators will obey this requirement, usually without being fully conscious of it. The United States is the lowest-context culture in the world, followed by Canada and Australia, the Netherlands and Germany, and the United Kingdom.

“Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them.” This is the philosophy of low-context communication in a nutshell.

education tends to move individuals toward a more extreme version of the dominant cultural tendency.

Whether you consider yourself a low-context or high-context communicator, it’s quite likely you will one day find yourself working with a colleague, client, or partner positioned further to the right on the scale. So being an agile communicator, able to move adroitly in either direction, is a valuable skill for anyone in business.

For verification, ask open-ended questions rather than backing the person into a corner that requires a yes or no response.

“It is important not to form opinions too quickly,” Díaz suggests, “to listen more, speak less, and then clarify when you are not sure if you understood.

When you find yourself stymied or frustrated by misunderstanding, self-deprecation, laughing at yourself, and using positive words to describe the other culture are always good options.

The Chinese manager learns never to criticize a colleague openly or in front of others, while the Dutch manager learns always to be honest and to give the message straight. Americans are trained to wrap positive messages around negative ones, while the French are trained to criticize passionately and provide positive feedback sparingly.

One rule for working with cultures that are more direct than yours on the Evaluating scale: Don’t try to do it like them.

the first simple strategy for giving negative feedback to someone from a culture in quadrant D is Don’t give feedback to an individual in front of a group.

A second powerful tool for giving feedback to those from quadrant D—especially those from Asian cultures—is the technique of blurring the message.

The first strategy: Give the feedback slowly, over a period of time, so that it gradually sinks in.

Aini’s second strategy: Use food and drink to blur an unpleasant message.

Aini’s third and final piece of strategy baffled me at first. She urged me: Say the good and leave out the bad.

Principles-first reasoning (sometimes referred to as deductive reasoning) derives conclusions or facts from general principles or concepts.

applications-first reasoning (sometimes called inductive reasoning), general conclusions are reached based on a pattern of factual observations from the real world.

applications-first thinkers like to receive practical examples up front; they will extract learning from these examples. In the same vein, applications-first learners are used to the “case method,” whereby they first read a case study describing a real-life story about a business problem and its solution, and then induce general lessons from it.

The best strategy for managers in Jens’s situation is to cycle back and forth between theoretical principles and practical examples.

Notice the common pattern in all three studies. The Americans focus on individual figures separate from their environment, while the Asians give more attention to backgrounds and to the links between these backgrounds and the central figures.

A common tenet of Western philosophies and religions is that you can remove an item from its environment and analyze it separately.

Chinese religions and philosophies, by contrast, have traditionally emphasized interdependencies and interconnectedness. Ancient Chinese thought was holistic, meaning that the Chinese attended to the field in which an object was located, believing that action always occurs in a field of forces that influence the action.

In holistic cultures if you need to motivate, manage, or persuade someone, you will be more influential if you take the time to explain the big picture and show how all the pieces fit together.

“If they don’t understand what others are working on and how the pieces fit together, they don’t feel comfortable or persuaded to move to action.

But if your goal is simple speed and efficiency, then monocultural is probably better than multicultural. Sometimes, it is simply better to leave Rome to the Romans.

He defined power distance as “the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.”

a first historical point is that the countries that fell under the influence of the Roman Empire (including Spain, Italy, and, to a lesser degree, France) tend to be more hierarchical than the rest of Western Europe.

The countries most influenced by the Vikings consistently rank as some of the most egalitarian and consensus-oriented cultures in the world today.

Our third historical clue relates to the distance between the people and God in particular religions. Countries with Protestant cultures tend to fall further to the egalitarian side of the scale than those with a more Catholic tradition.

Your team may follow your instructions to the letter, but in return, you must show a consistent paternalistic kindness. Protect your subordinates, mentor and coach them, behave as a kind father would to his children, and always look out for their interests.

define team protocols up front. When do we skip levels? Whom do we copy and when?

you find yourself managing staff in a culture that is more hierarchical than your own, you may be surprised and uncomfortable to see how much importance is placed on what you say and how difficult it is to hear the opinions of those in positions below you.

German culture places a higher value on building consensus as part of the decision-making process, while in the United States, decision making is largely invested in the individual.

emphasis on rapid individual decision making, accompanied by the sense that decisions can always be changed,

This process of informally making a proposal, getting input, and solidifying support is called nemawashi. Literally meaning “root-binding,” nemawashi is a gardening term that refers to a process of preparing the roots of a plant or tree for transplanting, which protects them from damage. Similarly, nemawashi protects a Japanese organization from damage caused by disagreement or lack of commitment and follow-through.

When different groups or companies are involved, the long decision-making process fosters stronger and more trusting relationships.

Cognitive trust is based on the confidence you feel in another person’s accomplishments, skills, and reliability.

Affective trust, on the other hand, arises from feelings of emotional closeness, empathy, or friendship.

The United States has “a long tradition of separating the practical and emotional. Mixing the two is perceived as unprofessional and risks conflict of interest.”

Unlike Americans, Chinese managers are quite likely to develop personal ties and affective bonds when there is also a business or financial tie.”

In task-based societies like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, relationships are defined by functionality and practicality.

As a general rule of thumb, investing extra time developing a relationship-based approach will pay dividends when working with people from around the world.

Having a signed agreement in a culture with a consistently reliable legal system makes it possible to do business easily with people you don’t trust or even know.

In Japanese culture, where group harmony and avoiding open conflict are overriding goals, drinking provides an opportunity to let down your hair and express your real thoughts.

when starting to work with those from a relationship-based society, begin by choosing a communication medium that is as relationship-based as possible. Instead of sending an e-mail, make the extra effort to pick up the phone.