Disagree with me on my terms!
Ever since I read the excellent book “The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business,” by Erin Meyer, I have been wondering about one fundamental thing. Are we, tech professionals, really aware of the variety of cultural dimensions that drive our behaviours and of the extent to which they impact how we assess if our colleagues demonstrate our company’s values? Why pick on the techies? Well, after all we are the ones supposed to see things in binary terms, either #000000 or #FFFFFF only. To illustrate my question with an example, if my company advocates building trust as one of the key leadership principles, how do I feel about my “confrontational” colleague whose behaviour is so much at odds with my “non-confrontational” communication style? Are they contributing to building trust in the team? Do I see them as breaking the company rules? And would understanding that the…