At Oslo Business Forum, INSEAD Professor Erin Meyer helped leaders master the art of leading in a global environment, transforming cultural challenges into strategic opportunities for growth.
The Culture Map: A Blueprint for Navigating Cultural Differences
In today's globalized business environment, where teams are often spread across multiple countries and cultures, understanding our differences is more important than ever. National cultural differences can deeply impact how effectively we communicate, collaborate, and lead in these diverse contexts.
Using her book The Culture Map as a guide, Erin showed leaders how to navigate cultural differences in communication, feedback, and conversation patterns, all of which are critical for managing diverse teams. Her message was clear: understanding and leveraging cultural diversity is key to fostering innovation and growth.
The Culture Map breaks culture down into 8 behavioral scales:
1. Communicating: High or Low Context
2. Evaluating: Direct or Indirect
3. Leading: Egalitarian or Hierarchical
4. Deciding: Consensual or Top Down
5. Trusting: Task Based or Relationship Based
6. Disagreeing: Confrontational or Avoids Confrontation
7. Scheduling: Linear Time or Flexible Time
8. Speaking: Low or High Comfort with Silence
Erin Meyer is a bestselling author, speaker, and professor at INSEAD, one of the world's leading and largest graduate business schools. Her work specializes in cross-cultural management, organizational culture, and multicultural leadership. She is well-known for her book The Culture Map, which has set new standards for managing multicultural teams.
Erin's research to develop the Culture Map spanned 180,000 interviews in 62 countries. The data she collected positioned the countries up and down the scales of these eight dimensions. Before she delved into them, Erin clarified three important points about the Culture Map, its development, and its purpose:
1. Although the countries look to be in very precise spots, each country naturally has variances. Subcultures, regional and generational differences, and individual traits all affect our communication styles.
2. It doesn't matter where a country falls on the map. The only thing that matters is the gap between the countries. Leaders should be less concerned with categorizing a culture and instead consider how different cultures might perceive one another based on where they fall on the scale.
3. Finally, Erin's Culture Map research has only been conducted with people who have lived their entire lives in one country. This is to ensure consistency and greater integrity of patterns.
The Art of Communicating Across Cultures
Erin explored three dimensions in detail: Communicating, Feedback, and Speaking.
Communicating: High- or Low-Context
Communication styles between low-context and high-context cultures are dramatically different. In a low-context culture, we assume a low level of shared reference or knowledge. We believe effective communication should be very explicit, simple, and clear. In contrast, a high-context culture assumes a large amount of shared knowledge. We "speak between the lines" and believe the best communication is sophisticated, layered, and nuanced.
Anglo-Saxon cultures all tend to fall on the lefthand side of the scale. The English language gives less opportunity to read between the lines. Latin cultures fall mid-right, with languages that tend to be more high-context, while Asian cultures fall further to the right with very high-context languages. In these languages, many words have multiple meanings and can only be understood based on the context in which they're used.
There are words in other languages that describe this style of communication. For example, sous-entendu, which in French means "don't listen to what I said, listen to what I meant." The phrase captures the nuance of indirect communication found in high-context cultures, where meaning is conveyed between the lines rather than through direct language.
Most misunderstandings occur between high-context cultures working with other high context cultures, such as Italians working with Koreans. The reason? We're all "reading the air"—but we have different air. High-context communication works best when we are from the same country.
Erin believes global teams—regardless of the cultures present in them—can benefit from low-context processes. Be as explicit as possible. Put it in writing. Repeat key points.
Even in these scenarios, however, leaders should look closely for unspoken meaning. Use a cultural bridge to ask clarifying questions and to increase your ability to read the air.
Feedback: Direct or Indirect
Providing feedback is a crucial part of communication, but cultural differences significantly impact how it's delivered and received. Erin explored how feedback styles vary across cultures, with some being more direct and others more indirect. What may be seen as constructive in one culture could come across as harsh or even dishonest in another. Leaders must understand these nuances to facilitate more effective communication and avoid misunderstandings.
Across cultures, we want to give feedback in a way that's as constructive as possible. The problem is that what's constructive in one culture is often seen as destructive in another. When we look at cultures that are high-context but direct, we see that although we "read the air" a lot, we provide very direct feedback. Erin noted that in this dimension, people even use "up-graders," or words that make the negative feel stronger. In low-context cultures, we tend to use "down-graders," which make feedback feel softer.
She offered the example of an exchange of feedback between Dutch and British colleagues. When the British man sent a report to his Dutch colleague for review, he received direct feedback for improvement—and he took it very personally. When the tables turned a week later and the Dutchman sent a report to his British colleague for review, he received soft feedback—and when he later learned that his colleague didn't like the report, he felt as if he had been dishonest with him.
Erin noted that our experiences in childhood often shape our approach to giving and receiving feedback. "What we're bathed in as children may leave us with tougher or more sensitive skin as an adult," she said.
Speaking: High or Low Comfort with Silence
Cultural differences in communication extend beyond words—our comfort with silence can also vary significantly. In some cultures, silence in meetings or conversations is awkward and uncomfortable. In contrast, in others, it is seen as a natural part of dialogue or even a sign of thoughtfulness and respect. Erin's research highlights how understanding these differences can help leaders ensure every voice is heard.
On the lefthand side of the Culture Map scale, silence is seen as negative. We'll do anything to fill the silence. On the righthand side of the scale, silence might mean nothing at all or even be positive. Erin has observed interesting variances in cultures' comfort with silence. For example, Italians and Americans become uncomfortable around the 2.5-second mark, while in Japan, people can tolerate 10-12 seconds of silence without any discomfort.
Erin noted three distinct dialogue patterns that vary by culture:
Pattern #1: Constant Overlap
In some cultures, it is perfectly appropriate for cultures to talk over one another at the same time. We see it as an indicator of good rapport. Examples include Latin cultures and India.
Pattern #2: Serve and Return
In other cultures, we talk like we play ping pong. We don't like overlap or periods of silence. Examples include Anglo-Saxon and Germanic cultures.
Pattern #3: Deliberate Pauses
In other cultures, one person will talk and then there will be a short pause before the other speaks. This allows deliberate time for processing or a thoughtful response. Examples include East Asian cultures and Finland.
Bridging the Cultural Gap in Global Teams
But what happens when multiple cultures work together and fall into all three of these patterns? The third group loses; they never get their opportunity to speak. Erin encouraged leaders to look out for and make people aware of these varying patterns. "Then you can hear the voice of diversity," she said.
Key Points
Questions to Consider
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