Cultural Profile Differences between US and India

1. IAN TAYLOR'S CULTURAL PROFILE

2. Similarities

3. Dissimilarities
Dissimilarities

4. WHAT I LEARNED
• Many aspects of my cultural profile mimic the cultures I grew up with in America. These similarities in the the
cultural map are evaluating, deciding, scheduling, and disagreeing.
• When I am being evaluated, I neither strongly desire direct or indirect negative feedback. After reflecting, I believe the
central position comes from my situational nature in feedback. I typically believe feedback needs to be situational with
out it is used.
• For deciding, I mirror the US’s mostly top-down structure of decision making. Most elements in a business should evolve
through discussion before, but ultimately, the decision must be by a leader not a group.
• The remainder of the cultural map are categories which I have grown away from my up brining and adopted
alternative methods through different cultures I have experienced. The dissimilarities in the cultural map are
leading, trusting, persuading, and communicating.
• When it comes to trusting, I have strongly adopted a more relationship-based structure. I believe this has come through
my time living in Indonesia and interacting with individuals in a more eastern, collectivist society.
• For leading I have also adopted a high power-distance approach with my time in Asia. The cultural map is accurate on
this separation from typical ”American style”

5. HOW IT CONNECTS TO ME AS A MANAGER
• As a global manager, understanding my own style and preferences to cultural differences is vital for
knowing how I will respond to others in my organization.
• Erin Meyers decoding of different relationships in her INSEAD lecture (2018) shows how the profile is a
continuum, not a finite score. This will help me know that there will be ever changing elements with the
relationships I have with different employees, customers, and managers in my organization.
• With knowing my four similarities and my four dissimilarities, I can prioritize my focus on American
colleges for evaluating, deciding, scheduling, and disagreeing. I can also minimize my focus on leading,
trusting, persuading, and communicating when in the US as I will naturally differ from my collogues.
• Not that any element of this cultural profile is necessarily negative, I can also highlight elements in which I
personally would desire to find more growth or adjustments in. Specifically, in trusting I would prefer to
gain more task-focused relationships in my organization. Additionally, in scheduling I would like to
improve my flexibility.

6. References
Meyer, E. (2021, January 14). What's Your Cultural Profile? Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2014/08/whats-your- cultural-profile.
Meyers, E. (2018). The Culture Map. Global Leadership Network. https://globalleadership.org/videos/leading-
others/the- culture-map-2.