Culture Crossing: Discover the Key to Making Successful Connections in the New Global Era

by Michael Landers

Thrive in the multicultural communities where you work and live

People, money, and information are flowing faster than ever across international borders, putting us all just one step away from a culture crash—that moment when you unintentionally confuse, frustrate, or offend someone from another culture. Are you struggling with trying to learn the customs, nuances, and hot buttons of every culture you might come into contact with? Michael Landers guides you toward a better becoming aware of your own cultural “baggage.” You’ll learn to sidestep the knee-jerk reactions that can get you into trouble and develop the agility to adjust your behaviors and expectations as needed. Through a mix of entertaining and instructive stories, valuable insights, and eye-opening self-assessments, Culture Crossing offers an essential primer for improving all your interactions with people from any background.

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

Published January 9, 2017

Reviews

[Psyckers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting read highlighting some of the many differences in interpretations of various cultural norms that we take for granted. Things like a simple thumbs up sign can be interpreted rather badly in some cultures norms.
The book reminds us all that learning about different cultures and what they perceive is normal is essential in today's work environments. Especially when you are establishing work teams, where success relies on all the team members working together.
Although there a many examples of norms that are different across various cultures, I feel the book skims the surface of this fascinating subject. It could have dived further down in the physiology that forms cultural norms so that deeper meaning of what the book is saying is more apparent.
I still recommend the book for anyone that feels the need to learn more about our work environments more diverse team members.

[Sam Motes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Landers book gives a good high-level overview of why you need to be globally aware and culturally empathetic in today’s connected world. Through the best intentions you could still be sending the wrong message by the cultural norm gestures or sayings if you do not have an understanding of the norms of your audience. It is targeted towards interactions in the business world, but I would argue the advice Landers gives is important in anyone’s daily life due to how connected we are in today’s world. It is not the final word on any global interaction but it is a good start that should be supplemented with focused further readings for the targeted cultures you interact with.

[Ocean · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly didn't know there was a need for such a book but this book seemed important from an international business perspective.

[Iván · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro interesante y necesario sobre las diferencias entre culturas. Nos sirve como ayuda, guia y orientación para estos tiempos globales llenos de multiculturalidad.

[Manoj Saha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book on building cross cultural sensitivity and awareness. Folks who want to be successful in multicultural environments will greatly benefit from this.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the content of this book is extremely important to all people engaged in face-to-face negotiations and other meetings with people from other cultures, there is nothing new about the principles. I have been reading about the consequences of cultural differences leading to unintended insults for some time, in fact the first time was likely in a Reader’s Digest issue decades ago.
Landers is the founder and head of a consulting company that specializes in education organizations and individuals in how fundamental cultural acts can be dramatically different across cultures. For example, in Bulgaria the head movement for yes is to rotate side-to-side while the movement for no is up and down. Completely opposite to the movements in other countries. Perfectly acceptable hand gestures in one culture are considered obscene in others.
I experienced firsthand a simple example of this when I was part of a professional delegation to the People’s Republic of China. A group of us met with the head of a university and when one of the Americans was speaking he nodded his head up and down, which was of course taken to mean that he agreed. However, afterwards a Chinese-American member of our delegation pointed out that the head nodding meant only that he was listening and understanding what was being said. So simple, yet potentially so important.
With potentially so many cultures to interact with, this book can serve only as a primer to the existence of significant differences in social acts around the world. Yet, it is important that vast numbers of people in businesses and organizations know what to do, for in the modern world, even lower-level employees are interacting with people from other cultures. This book should be read by all people up and down the organizational chart. At the least it will make them cognizant of the potential problems that even “normal” behaviors can create.

[Laura Fabiola Álvarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conceptos y situaciones clave para entender y actuar en medio de personas de otras culturas.

[Staci · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really a 4.5 book, so close to being a 5 star book but it just misses the mark. That's not to say that it's not a good book because it is, really good, probably the best layperson intercultural book so far. It doesn't use the heavy academic terms that intercultural books usually use even though it has several of the same background sources (e.g Edward Hall and Geert Hofstede). Thus this book is really good for the layperson who is just starting to look into intercultural communication and how to deal with people with cultural differences. However, the book could use a bit more examples when it explains the differences in culture, to really nail home how different people approach different things. Also, even though this was mentioned earlier as a positive, the book doesn't use the academic terms for things which might throw off those who are reading this book just as the first in a set of intercultural books (e.g. those who plan to study intercultural communication or something similar). The non-academic language is approachable without being dumbed down and can serve to avoid confusions the more academic language might be prone to but for those who plan to read more about the subject, the book can lose points for them when it uses terms like Me/We cultures instead of individualistic/collectivistic cultures. Otherwise, an excellent book and one that probably everyone should read considering how multicultural the world are becoming.