While writing an essay on the book The Culture Map by Erin Meyer^[1] after the reading, I decided to post my thoughts on my website because I believe it is a fundamental work for those who are about to study cultures. I spend much time getting to know people and their mindsets, but I am not an expert on this topic. That’s why this review represents an amateur’s perspective on this topic.

About the book

Erin Meyer wrote a perfect book for those who want to begin or continue studying cultures, emotions, and themselves. She is a business consultant helping people work worldwide and navigate their work in cultural diversity. The book is focused on this aspect of cultural differences.

Every culture is a complex and multidimensional entity. Although there are older and younger cultures, all are holistic. It is as if human psychics are in agreement within their parts. The interconnections are so strong that changing one aspect inevitably affects the entire system.

Mankind does not yet have enough words and conceptual tools to fully describe the culture as a system. However, the author introduces multiple dimensions to help us understand cultures better. From a practical perspective, this allows us to measure cultural characteristics, compare them, and improve communication and collaborative work results.

Of course, it is almost impossible to identify all the features of your culture if you don’t travel and get to know other countries. Only when you realise that different people think and feel differently, not only act differently, can you begin getting to understand yourself and your own country.

There are 8 dimensions. You can read and think about them within the context of your country. I will list them here in a very simplified manner. There are already many outlines of the book that you can find on the internet.

1. Low and high-context cultures: Do you prefer a broad context in your conversation (e.g., a set of goals, prerequisites, foundations) or a limited one, like just a task or short description?
2. Direct or indirect negative feedback: How do you provide negative feedback to your colleagues?
3. Principles-first or application-first: Do you prefer to work based on principles after obtaining broad information and context, or can you work on a limited task using just a few examples?
4. Egalitarian or hierarchical: How much respect do you expect from your subordinates? Are you allowed to talk to your boss’s boss directly?
5. Consensual or top-down decision-making: Are decisions made in groups through unanimous agreement or made by the boss?
6. Task-based and relationship-based trust: Is trust built through business-related activities (cognitive) or emotionally based on sharing a meal or spending time together (affective)?
7. Confrontational and avoids confrontation: Are direct disagreements and debates positive or negative for the team or organisation?
8. Linear or flexible time: How strictly do you adhere to schedules? Is the emphasis in your work on promptness and good organisation, or on flexibility and adaptability?

What value it brings you

First of all, the book is focused on effectiveness. This value seems crucial to the author. It also provides the insight that people are different. The culture they live in influences their way of thinking, building relationships, working, and even arguing. Hence, you should take this into account and even leverage it if you work in a multicultural company or move to a different country. A broad cultural experience is necessary to become a strong professional.

However, another important aspect stems from, I believe, the weak side of modern culture, which suggest that every point of view is correct and worthy of respect. This part is about personality. The author never discussed a culture’s characteristics as its weaknesses. Whether your culture confrontational or not, it is just an individuality, not something you can work on and improve.

By placing yourself on this scale, which can be done on the website by taking a test, you can realise that some of your qualities, which you might think are inappropriate or signs of weakness, could be valuable to other cultures and essential in other areas. I believe that this is a valuable idea. Whether you are too direct, too focused on collaboration and forgetting yourself, or even too emotional, everything is good with you. Your values might not be shared by your neighbours, but by millions of people in another country. You might also think that your country is not for you, and that could be true. Perhaps there is a country where you can feel perfect.

Strong and weak sides

While reading, I felt as if the author tries to avoid sharp corners. I missed a strong opinion in the book. It makes me feel as if not everything has been said because the most revolutionary ideas are controversial. The book seems like it opens new ideas but hides them behind politeness.

I noticed this only once in the book when the culture has an additional dimension while discussing low and high-context cultures: how you change as you grow. If you live in a low-context culture, the more experiences you are, the more accurately and concisely you can express your thought. Conversely, if you live in a high-context culture, the more advanced you are, the more complicated context you can create, allowing a single sentence to express multiple ideas and provide multiple layers of allusions.

I believe that there is no idea of growth and evolution in this book, except for effectiveness which is not about changing your personality but more about improving the way you use what you already have. Here, you would find the impression that the person is static. The dynamics are manifested in adaptation, in adopting the rules and using them to build a business. Interestingly, growth most commonly begins with breaking the rules.

One more thing that I cannot agree with is the examples used for dimensions. If we look at the aspects of low and high-context, they are not mutually exclusive. As a master of low-context conversation, you can create an accurate and clear brief report, wrapping up all ideas in one paragraph. The same person can also be a master of allusions, capable of working with plots and contexts, and making hints of varying complexity. I can envision an alternative graph that better represents my idea. Instead of having one scale with low-context on the left-hand side and high-context on the right-hand side, we could have two, as there are at least two dimensions within it.

This judgement applies to this scale only. Most other scales seem to describe a single dimension.

The next scale, indirect or direct negative feedback, is far more peculiar because it doesn’t take into account the context of the feedback or who provides or receives it. We saw an example where a girl provided very direct negative feedback to those she perceived as lower in the hierarchy while being very cautious with her bosses. My concern is why we treat this as a cultural characteristic rather than an act of disrespect that illustrates the hierarchy, but not feedback scale. The girl’s behaviour could be attributed to an inexperienced employee or someone who is unable to build trusting relationships with colleagues. A closer examination of examples in the book reveals that they are used to prove facts they cannot actually support.

Regarding the disagreement scale, I believe that aggression and confrontation can be keys to better relationships. As such, it is hard to agree that “confrontational - avoids confrontation” is a appropriate name for the scale. After years of avoiding confrontation, my personal finding is that doing so often results in a weaker position from a long-term perspective. You can express disagreement diplomatically, but if you completely avoid it, it can lead to failure. Though I don’t have any links or research to support my opinion. My name would be “tough confrontation - mild confrontation”.

Some researchers link cultural artefacts to other dimensions. For example, how the wealth of a country depends on religion^[2]. There are cultural acquisitions that improve people’s lives. However, this book doesn’t suggest such a vision.

What the book is excellent at is providing plenty of practical examples. It is structured, clear and easy to read. When you hear that people from Arabian countries like to procrastinate, or Chinese and Indians would never tell you that they didn’t understand something or they cannot complete the project in time, you want to exclaim, “Hey! Arabian just want to build relationships before getting to work. The things that you expect them to do mean less respect and empathy for them. Chinese cannot do the job without context. They value relationships, so they just cannot be direct. They also couldn’t confront you because it would be a disaster for your business relationship, even more than missed deadlines. Find a way to make friends with them, and they will help you. You should not rely solely on obligations.”

This book gives you an understanding of other people’s needs and feelings. After reading it, you can realise that every individual is special and that your way of seeing and interacting with the world is not the only one.

Just be prepared that your new understanding will not be holistic. The world is vast, and every culture is unique. There is no concept of inhomogeneity within each culture. The cultures are grouped by countries. Israel, with a population of 9 million, and China or India, with populations of 1.4 billion, are just points on the scale. Although some countries are completely multicultural, they are described as a cultural monolith here. Probably, the model is just very simplified.

Scientific approach or not?

I distinguish research books between a scientific background and those based on observations. Both are good, but the scientific approach is limited because if science always relied on prior science, we would never discover anything new. This book is not about science. Reasoning using examples is always a bad idea. The book is based on observation without strong argumentation, and sometimes the cause and consequences are mixed up.

According to my personal feelings, I would argue, for example, that the Japanese ancient constitution was the reason for their ideology. I believe it is vice versa. The same goes for the Germans. I would bet that they started the technological revolution because of their approach. But I have doubts they become so precise and time-effective because they were forced by the industry they built.

I believe that mindset is the primary reason for social structure and achievements if we talk about short-term social changes. The world influences people and their attitudes, as well as their values. History shows us examples of how a nation’s trauma changes people for many subsequent generations. But it is always superimposed on the existing mindset. Trauma reinforces your weaknesses, but the trauma and the cultural manifestations are not the core values. It would take at least a couple of generations to change the actual core.

If we use the scales from the book to give feedback on the book, the culture was studied as a low-context entity. It is a common Western approach to view something complicated as a set of unrelated qualities. There is nothing wrong with that because it has been an enabler for modern science. That is also the reason why we don’t have a doctor who works with a person’s health in general, but have plenty of them who works with parts of a body, even though everything in the body is connected. You can use the knowledge from the book to take some local actions. It makes things easier, but we lose some important aspects. The Eastern approach is to consider the system as a whole. I cannot yet imagine what this book would look like if it had been written by an Eastern author.

My culture map

I tried the online tool that tests your mindset and displays it on charts alongside the countries you are working with. Among multiple countries, I found my profile to be close to the Germans.

However, I didn’t feel confident in this tool based on the questions and results, as well as the arguments I wrote above.

The context of the author’s mindset

I enjoy the exercise of determining the mindset artefacts of authors.

I believe there are some concepts that we could consider as fundamentals in this book, those that form the basic of the author’s mindset and the entire book accordingly.

• Not good or bad, just different (it appears to be an attempt to manoeuve between all the options instead of stating a position);
• Effectiveness is the goal (probably, this value is the main reason why she has been working with this topic for a long time);
• People should adapt to society (not change themselves with society, not adapt it to them, not develop it).

Conclusion

I believe this is a must-read book. While the author focuses on effectiveness, you can also use it to study your own and others’ cultures.

The model in the book is simplified and static. However, you can take it as a first step in your study. The book lacks the idea of qualitative growth, but you can develop it yourself.

The book provides many answers, which is great. However, the book doesn’t pose questions. You might find yourself feeling that you’ve gained a lot of understanding about the world and the cultures, but I think that it is only one piece of information you can start with.

The most controversial aspect for me is that the book should make cultural understanding more complex, but it might simplify your vision if you follow the author and focus on the cultural difference from the most practical point of view. This could give the illusion that this knowledge is atomic and closed after reading the book.