10 insights from Erin Meyer's book "The Culture Map" (video)

1.The vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work.

2.Sometimes, you may feel as if you really need direct negative feedback about how to improve something that you can’t get right.

3.Unless we know how to decode other cultures and avoid easy-to-fall-into cultural traps, we are easy prey to misunderstanding, needless conflict, and ultimate failure.

4.Speaking about a person’s culture often provokes the same type of reaction as speaking about his mother.

5.Try seeing, feeling, and tasting the water you swim in the way a land animal might perceive it. You may find the experience fascinating—and mind-expanding.

6.The art of persuasion is one of the most crucial business skills.

7.The more aware the team becomes of how culture is impacting their work, the more effective they will be at bridging the differences.

8.Managed with care, the cultural and individual diversity can become your team’s greatest asset.

9.Even when raised in the same community, by the same parents, working in the same environment, no two individuals are precisely the same.

10.Yet the culture in which we grow up has a profound impact on how we see the world.