which is a business school outside of Paris. I study how cultural differences

impact organisational effectiveness. I am also the author of the book The Culture

Map, breaking through the invisible boundaries of global business.

In today's global economy you might be a French person working in Korea, you might

be a Russian person working in Brazil, or a Scottish person trying to do business

in France. But what's really complicated is trying to figure out how to adapt

your style to the society that you're working with to get the results that you

need. Often people think the challenges will

be things like, should I shake hands or how should I ask for business cards. But

the real challenges are ones that are much more subtle. I had a situation in

Japan recently where I gave a presentation to a small group of

Japanese. Afterwards I asked if there were any questions and no one raised

their hand. So I went to sit down. My Japanese colleagues said to me,

"Erin, I think there were some questions. Do you mind if I try. And then he stood up and

he looked at the group and he said, "Does anyone have any questions?" When no one

raised their hand he looked very carefully at the audience and then he

said, "Oh do you have a question?" And this woman said "Thank you, I do" and she asked

a very important question. Later on I said to him how did you know those

people had questions. And he said well it had to do with how bright their eyes

were. These are the types of things that if were aware of them we can look for

the interaction. the silent interaction, that's impacting us. But if we're not

aware, we might go through our entire business without even realising how

culture has impacted our success. For example, I worked with a team a while ago

where I had just British and French working on the team. I asked the British

what's it like to work with the French and they said, "Well Erin, you know the

French they're very disorganised, they're always late, they're always changing the

topic in the middle of the meeting, so it's very difficult to follow them." A

little bit later a group from India joined the same team. I asked the Indians

you know how'd it going working with the French, and they said to me, "Well

Erin, you know the French they're very rigid, they're very in adaptable, they're

so focused on the punctuality of things that it's very difficult for them to

adapt as things change around them." This is what I call cultural relativity and

you can tease out on my culture map framework how France is between the

UK and India, which then leads to these opposite

reactions. This can be helpful if you're leading a global team. I've been working

with Heineken, this big Dutch Brewing Company. And a while ago they purchased

a big office in Monterrey Mexico and I had these Mexicans who are managing

Dutch people now in the Netherlands. People learn from a very young age that

an authority figure is really just a facilitator among equals. And in Mexico

children learn from a very young age to really defer to the authority figure. So

I had these Mexicans who are managing these Dutch people and they said to me,

"You know, Erin, managing Dutch people is absolutely incredible because they do

not care at all that I'm the boss. So I go into these meetings, I'm trying to

roll out my strategy, my team is contradicting me, they're challenging me,

they're taking my ideas off in other directions, sometimes I just want to

plead with them, please, you know don't forget that I'm the boss so this is

really complicated. In today's global world it means it's no longer enough to

know how to lead the Mexican way or the Dutch way or the Scottish way or the

American way. We have to be flexible enough to adapt our leadership style to

the environment that we're working with. I've developed a system that I call a

Culture Map, which divides culture up into eight different dimensions. It looks

at things like how do we build trust differently in different parts of the

world or how do we make decisions in different societies. And then I have

countries that are positioned up and down these dimensions that help people

to decode how culture is impacting their work. If you look at this culture map

framework that I have you can start to tease out these often opposite types of

reactions that cultures have to one another. So this can be helpful if you're

leading a global team. There's some research that shows that the highest

failure rate when people are working with other countries is not between the

UK and China, but between the US and the UK. And this happens because people

assume because we speak the same language, because we seem externally

rather similar, that there are no cultural differences we keep trying to

push our own culture and that leads to the highest failure rate. So what I

suggest is that people remember that even when they're working

with cultures that seem very similar, they always need to be on the lookout

for how these cultural differences are impacting their success. Often people

think that challenges will arise only when we're working face to face, but even

when we're working over the email or the telephone cultural differences may be

impacting us. For example, in the UK it's very common at the end of a phone call

that you would write into an email everything that had been decided and

send that recap out. I was doing some work in India a while ago. One of my Indian

clients said, "You know, Erin in my culture if we make some decisions on the

telephone and we come to some conclusions verbally, that would be

enough for me. If you get off of the phone, then and you put into writing

everything that we've decided and you send that email to me, that would be a

clear signal to me that you don't trust me." So companies need to be thinking

about this not just when we're taking a trip, but at every moment that we're

working internationally. There's some very interesting research that shows

that if you show a video of fish swimming through an aquarium that people

in Western countries will see mostly the fish in front and people in Asian

countries will see mostly the things that are happening in the background.

People in different parts of the world are trained to think differently. So when

you bring together people from different countries you can have a much more

complete way of seeing things. The team may be better at identifying risks,

better at coming up with innovative ideas. As long as the manager knows how

to manage these differences effectively, it can be extremely positive for the

organisation. But you have to be extremely flexible to lead in today's

complex cultural environment. We have to be flexible enough to adapt our style to

the society that we're working with in order to get the results that we need.