I’ve ordered this book on the recommendation of a friend. I’m often with people from different cultures, how that affects our communication? I thought interesting to dig into that, that’s why that book caught my attention.

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

Of course, it’s impossible to reduce one being to the country he comes from. Nevertheless, the author makes it a point, we are shaped by the place we grow up in. Its government, how stable or volatile things stay, how others function around us, it all affects to some extends the way we perceive time, hierarchy, trust, and many other key elements that impact our communication.

To make this tangible, a dozen of countries are plotted on 8 distinct scales. Each extreme of the scale supporting an opposite stand. For example, scale disagreeing: confrontational (far left) vs. avoids confrontation (far right). Each country would then be plotted in-between those two extremes.

It becomes visible that a French thrives in heated debates, what an American (as the author personally relates) might find very uncomfortable, whereas an Philipino would loose face if challenged.

It helps also to realize that some cultures are more peach and some are more coconut. If Americans are so easy in striking conversations and showing interest in strangers, that might quickly be felt as shallow. I would often use superficial as description. After The Culture Map, I will describe that as being peach culture. Soft skin until you hit the kernel. At the opposite of the scale, you’d have cultures like Russians, coconut culture. Hard skin first, if you manage to pierce it, you likely find a loyal friend. That reminded me a trip I’ve done through Russia years ago, indeed to me it felt very difficult to get any sort of conversations.

Making something visible leads to understanding. Without falling into the trap to reduce people to their country of origin, this read could help me do better in certain contexts.

It’s filled with personal experiences and other feedbacks, that makes it entertaining and certainly not dry. I needed some time though to truly enjoy it.