With teams spread across the planet and international expansion on every startup’s roadmap, understanding and working with cultural differences has never been so relevant as in today’s business world.

In this episode, we learn how to navigate cultural differences with Erin Meyer, author of “The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business” and co-author with Netflix founder and CEO, Reed Hastings, of “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention”.

Erin is also a professor at INSEAD, one of our partners at STATION F. Her work focuses on how the world’s most successful leaders navigate the complexities of cultural differences in a multicultural environment.

Topics

00:21 — Introduction with Roxanne Varza

01:14 — The concept of culture mapping

02:23 — Why is culture mapping important

02:52 — On the difference between France and the USA regarding feedback

05:31 — On giving presentations and eye contact in Japan

08:52 — How trust varies across cultures and influences the way we do business

13:22 — “The Eight Scales” in culture mapping: Communicating, Evaluating, Leading, Deciding, Trusting, Disagreeing, Scheduling, and Persuading

15:07 — The perception of culture as relative: working in France vs. the UK vs. India

16:38 — Where France falls on the culture map

21:08 — The cultural differences within Europe: France, Scandinavia, etc.

23:20 — On the US and China

24:33 — Cultural barriers in digital/remote communications

26:48 — On multicultural profiles

28:05 — Erin’s research and mapping methodology

29:56 — Erin’s advice for navigating cultural differences

31:42 — How Erin met Netflix founder Reed Hastings

32:58 — How Reed uses The Culture Map at Netflix

33:33 — On giving feedback at Netflix (US) vs. Singapore, Japan, Brazil

36:35 — The company culture at Netflix and Erin’s first impression

38:43 — Erin’s advice for companies starting out: “Freedom breeds innovations and process kills organizational flexibility.”