I was able to read recently Cultural Intelligence: Surviving and Thriving in the Global Village by David C. Thomas and Kerr Inkson. There is a newer edition out than the one I read, but I’ll share a view thoughts on it.
This book really serves as an introduction to culture for international work and business. It includes a lot of the basics of culture as it impacts communication, negotiation, team effectiveness, and leadership. It is a really well organized conceptualized in its structure. That’s a weird comment to make in a short review, but I really enjoyed the many different theoretical frameworks and conceptual insights in different areas that I had not come across yet. It provided some great hooks to think about these areas of culture.
I liked the books handling on how to increase cultural intelligence, it’s unpacking of what cultural intelligence is, and its treatment on issues related to leading and managing multi-cultural teams. The sections on negotiation were more focused on intercultural communication than negotiation so I thought that negotiation was a weak point of the book, which is odd given the purpose of the book and the centrality of negotiation in that objective.
I much preferred Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map as it relates to really helping people figure out working and relating cross-culturally because it handled the real areas of dissonance in working cross-culturally more directly and with some helpful tools that can pay huge dividends. This book is a bit more of an introduction with less practical application, but the overview does contribute a lot of helpful perspectives.
