'The Culture Map' Shows Us The Differences In How We Work WorldWide

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In the book, The Culture Map (PublicAffairs, 2014), Jorge da Silva, a Brazilian engineer at a steel company recounts how they tried to convince the team in Houston, Texas to adopt a new process created by their Latin American offices.

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“We kept trying to explain to them why the new process was so important. However, we didn’t seem to be persuading them. So we developed a very detailed presentation that explained, slide by slide, the key concepts addressed in the new method. But the more detailed we became, the less responsive our American teammates were.”

 When an American friend suggested that rather than using reasons, he should show an example of what could happen with their new approach. Mr. Da Silva invited two key Houston team decision-makers to Brazil to witness the operation themselves.

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“We took two days to show them around the plant, to have them interview the workers on the assembly lines, and to review the production reports. They got a really good look at the process in action, and they asked a lot of questions. And when they got back to the U.S., they got the ball rolling. Now we have the same safety process in the U.S. that we have in Brazil.”

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Showing the application of the process was much more convincing than the logical explanation to the American team. (In fact, just giving this example is an example of persuading with use cases rather than conceptual logic alone). This illustrates one key difference in how we view doing work together across cultures, here particularly between the US and Brazil.

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This is but one of many illustrative examples from Erin Meyer’s new book, The Culture Map, describing specific differences in how people from different cultures communicate and consider ideas at work. Ms. Meyer is an Affiliate Professor in the Organisational Behaviour Department of INSEAD b-school based in Fontainebleau, France, and has appeared on the “On the Radar” list of the Thinkers50 in 2013. Meyer has been in the trenches of HR as a Director at McKesson, then at HBOC, and Aperian Global. This book represents her collective research the data from 20-30 different countries into an accessible form that can be easily applied..

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National Culture trumps Organizational Culture

Such permutations exist across national, ethnic or regional work cultures everywhere, even when people are part of the same organization overall. To me, this is an increasingly common issue that globalized organizations face in getting collaborative work done. With the interconnected systems of the global economy in full swing, a great many more of us are now in such ecosystems. Like it or not, cultural awareness across nations is becoming a must for all, managers and employees alike.

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Discussions on organizational culture are frequently in focus because we feel we can have an active hand in learning or practicing these cultural elements, much more than we might if we did not grow up in a specific different national culture. However, as discussed in this book, there is a way to frame and understand the work behavior in various national cultures if you frame it right. This book combs her broad investigation into such cultural distinctions and formulated into a framework of eight different scales. (Mr. Da Silva’s story for example describes different approaches on her Persuading scale.)

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The Eight Scales

Each of the eight scales is described as a continuum between the two ends which are diametric opposite or at least competing positions as follows:

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• Communicating – Are they low-context (simple, verbose and clear), or high-context (rich deep meaning in interactions)?

• Evaluating – When giving Negative feedback does one give it directly, or prefer being indirect and discreet?

• Leading – Are people in groups egalitarian, or do they prefer hierarchy?

• Deciding – Are decisions made in consensus, or made top-down?

• Trusting – Do people base trust on how well they know each other, or how well they do work together?

• Disagreeing – Are disagreements tackled directly, or do people prefer to avoid confrontations?

• Scheduling – Do they perceive time as absolute linear points, or consider it a flexible range?

• Persuading – Do they like to hear specific cases and examples, or prefer holistic detailed explanations?

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These aren’t graded low to high. You don’t get a 10 for Communicating to show that you are a great communicator, or an 8 for being Decisive. Neither are they better in one direction versus the other. Rather, each endpoint has value from its own perspective. For example, take the Trusting scale (see Fig 1). In China, Saudi Arabia or Brazil, for example, trust stems 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 stems from working together on business activities. “You do good work consistently, you are reliable, I enjoy working with you, I trust you.”

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Because these national cultures are on opposite ends of the Trusting scale, there is a tendency to see those on the opposite end as being wrong-headed about how they do things. When working together, the challenge is not to prove how you are right and they should see your way, but to first understand that the view has value to them. It is how they are used to see and do work in environments they are familiar with. If you want to succeed in working together then have the conversation about the particular difference. Somewhere along the line of accepting, understanding or challenging, is compromise.

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Cultural differences can be difficult to understand or even notice, especially when you are immersed in it. As Meyer describes,

“The regional differences in the U.S. are strong. New York City feels entirely different than Athens, Georgia. So when I began working with foreigners who spoke of what it was like to work with ‘Americans,’ I saw that as a sign of ignorance...

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After 16 months in New Delhi working with…, I can report that I have learned a tremendous amount . . . about my own culture. As I view the American way of thinking and working and acting from this outside perspective, for the first time I see a clear, visible American culture. The culture of my country has a strong character that was totally invisible to me when I was in it and part of it.

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Is stereotyping national cultures in this manner useful? Aren’t people each different?

Apparently, this is a common round of questioning to which Ms. Meyer respond in the book:

“After I published an online article on the differences among Asian cultures and their impact on cross-Asia teamwork, one reader commented, “Speaking of cultural differences leads us to stereotype and therefore put individuals in boxes with ‘general traits.’ Instead of talking about culture, it is important to judge people as individuals, not just products of their environment.” …

Unfortunately, this point of view has kept thousands of people from learning what they need to know to meet their objectives. 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.”

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I tend to agree with her for a different reason: to eventually get to understanding individuals, you may want to start with trying to understand their culture, and know the differences of how they see things. This is only a starting point to really getting to know them, which I think only comes from more frequent and meaningful exchanges with them.

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Does this framework reflect reality?

With any kind of evaluation framework such as in this book, I look for the data and methodology it is based upon. The diagram shows a single point per country on each scale. Early on the author explains that this the peak value in terms how managers from each particular country responded to that scale. As the author describes:

“We began by interviewing mid-level German managers in focus groups of five, asking them to speak about the importance of being flexible versus organized when it comes to scheduling meetings, projects, or timelines [the Scheduling scale]. After collecting all of the data from hundreds of interviews, we analyzed the results…

In other words, the country position on the scale indicates the mid-position of a range of acceptable or appropriate behaviors in that country.”

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Fig. 2 shows how this framework lays out multiple national cultures for comparison against each other. What is important is to understand the placement and then the gap between any two countries.

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What I liked about the book

I appreciate the real stories that capture the experience of culture clash from different views. In some anecdotes, she relates a story and conversation by her clients during a such a clash or misunderstanding. In others, she is the protagonist of the story experiencing the point of culture confusion, and reflecting upon it.

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For example, the opening pages of the book describe how a Chinese country expert, Bo Chen from Wuhan, interacted—or seemingly did not interact—with her client a French executive preparing for his way to China. Ms. Meyer was frustrated by the silence of Bo Chen who was not jumping into the middle of conversation at all to respond, the behavior she was expecting. Instead, he was waiting for Meyer, as the lead consultant, to stop and directly ask him for advice—such is the norm he was used to in China where a junior person would not interrupt a senior person until called upon.

It is this mix of both others views, as well as willing to relate her own personal stories that makes this a fascinating read. It also brings out some of the author’s own journey of discovery of the elements of her framework. The author acknowledges and reinforces that even she herself did not start independent of any cultural bias as we all have. It is encouraging to learn to grow in this way. As the face this inevitably in today’s digital ecosystem, they will have to work with colleagues, collaborators or customers from other cultures whether in person, or online.

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The Culture Map stands out as a practical book to explain and frame a very difficult collection of concepts that are increasingly relevant today. I would place alongside other good frameworks and models for work culture by Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, Edgar Schein, Denison, and others. I would recommend it for anyone today, even if you do not ever move to another country. It will likely help shape your understanding of the world of work as we selectively perceive it across the world.

Rawn Shah is an independent analyst and consultant focused on how collaborative systems are changing the way we work. He is speaking on this topic of collaboration cultures at HR Tech Europe in October, 2014. 

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POSTSCRIPT: My next thought goes to places where culture clashes are even more likely today: the world of online social networks and collaboration environments. The obvious reason is that more people are interacting frequently across there around the world. This happens in public social sites certainly but it can also occur in internal enterprise social networks. There is also a second order issue in the way social software allows you to interact that can bias along one or another of Meyer’s dimensions. There is yet a third dimension: long-lived online communities, just like physical world ones, tend to develop their own cultures over time.

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External Link : https://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2014/10/06/the-culture-map-shows-us-how-we-work-worldwide/?sh=3a2b7e4f5bcb

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