The Culture Map

After an international project meeting, two people are puzzled. One finds the feedback noticeably vague and wonders whether problems are being concealed. The other experiences the same sentences as clear and respectful – and finds the direct follow-up question unnecessarily harsh. Both communicated attentively, but had different expectations of what clarity sounds like.

Erin Meyer's The Culture Map tries to make such friction in global collaboration discussable. The book maps cultural differences along eight scales, including communication, feedback, leadership, decisions, trust, disagreement and time. Particularly relevant for us is: How can we use these patterns to start conversations without pigeonholing people?

1. Compare relatively rather than absolutely

Relativity is central to the model. A communication style is not direct or indirect in isolation, but in relation to participants' expectations. Someone considered very cautious in one context may be experienced as distinctly direct in another.

This perspective helps us avoid immediately interpreting discomfort as a character flaw. “Unclear”, “impolite” or “noncommittal” may signal different conventions. Equally, they may relate to personality, role, language, industry or a particular situation.

2. Eight scales as a conversation map

Meyer describes eight areas in which expectations can diverge. These include how much messages are conveyed through context, how direct critical feedback is, whether trust grows mainly through tasks or personal relationships, and how decisions are made.

Such a map is useful not because it predicts someone's behaviour, but because it offers questions: how explicitly should disagreement be voiced in our team? Does a decision end the discussion, or does clarification of implementation begin afterwards? When is a commitment considered binding? Making these expectations explicit means no one has to learn solely from hints.

3. From a map of countries to a team agreement

Global teams are not made up of averages. People have multiple cultural affiliations, individual experiences and different roles. Differences within a country can exceed those between two countries. Using national categories to explain every action overlooks the person and reinforces stereotypes.

The approach therefore becomes professional only through verification. A cultural pattern can suggest a hypothesis: “Perhaps we expect different forms of feedback.” The next action is not a label, but a question to the particular person and an agreement about working together.

Your exercise: compare expectations

Choose a recurring collaboration in which misunderstandings occur:

1. Minute 1 – describe the situation. Record a concrete observation without attributing it to culture or personality.
2. Minute 2 – make expectations visible. Complete “I had expected that…” and formulate a plausible alternative expectation.
3. Minute 3 – prepare a clarifying question. For example, ask: “How is feedback most useful to you – directly in the conversation, with context or in writing afterwards?”

The goal is not to analyse the other person's origins. It is a small, testable agreement: how do we want to communicate in this collaboration?

What we take from this

This insight strengthens perspective-taking, dialogue skills and constructive engagement with ambiguity. In WEITER7 , clarifying a specific expectation can serve as an experiment: make an agreement, apply it in the next situation and review it together.

Which irritation in my collaboration might have less to do with a lack of goodwill than with an unspoken expectation?

Context: This insight presents selected ideas from Meyer's practical model in our own words. The model describes comparative patterns at group level and must not be used to assess individuals. The example, exercise, critical interpretation and framework connection are the Institut's own adaptations. Cultural perspectives complement, but do not replace, analysis of personality, role, power and situation.

Sources and further reading: Erin Meyer's official book page ↗ · Overview of Culture Mapping tools ↗