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

by Erin Meyer Narrated by Lisa Larsen

Overview

An international business expert helps you understand and navigate cultural differences in this insightful and practical guide, perfect for both your work and personal life.

Americans precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans get straight to the point; Latin Americans and Asians are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians think the best boss is just one of the crowd. It's no surprise that when they try and talk to each other, chaos breaks out.

In The Culture Map, INSEAD professor Erin Meyer is your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain in which people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together. She provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business, and combines a smart analytical framework with practical, actionable advice.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Erin Meyer provides us with a brilliant guide to what all business leaders need to know right now: How to succeed in managing across the diverse cultural contexts of today's workplace!"—Marshall Goldsmith, author of the New York Times and global bestseller What Got You Here Won't Get You There

"Whether you are sitting at a desk in Boston or eating at a restaurant in Beijing, communicating across cultures is the great challenge of the global economy. Getting it right will be the difference between success and failure. Erin Meyer has written a very important book. Managers everywhere should read it." —Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer, founders of the Thinkers50

"Whether you're a corporate or traditional diplomat, global traveler, government official, or passionate world citizen, this is the one book you should not miss. Chock-full of real-world examples and a simple framework that can be utilized in any cross-cultural context, Meyer's work is characterized by a fresh and relevant voice, distilling down the essentials of communicating, persuading and working effectively around the globe. It is rare that I pick up a cross-cultural book and can't put it down."—Cari Guittard, Huffington Post

"With business becoming ever global, there are a raft of books available on dealing with cultural differences. If you only read one, make it INSEAD professor Erin Meyer's...Skillfully blend[s] real-life examples...with an analytical framework... What brings this book to life are the numerous examples Meyer has encountered, both in her own life as an American living in Paris, and in her experience as running the Managing Virtual Teams module at INSEAD."—HR Magazine, 5 star review

"The book abounds with well-chosen anecdotes to illustrate the misunderstandings that can arise from clashing cultural assumptions, making this enlightening book a pleasure to read."—Foreign Affairs

"Amusing."—Financial Times

"This readable book explains how to dramatically increase organisational success by improving our ability to understand the behaviour of colleagues, clients, and suppliers from different countries."—Professional Manager (UK)

"A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures...Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business."—Kirkus Reviews

"In a relaxed, entertaining, but always knowledgeable style, Meyer draws on numerous examples from her experiences to explain how to detect the invisible barriers in the global business world—and how to get past them."—Siemens Industry Journal

Kirkus Reviews

2014-04-16
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures."The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work," writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a "culture map scale" that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172893292
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	10/15/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	642,018

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