Mapping Personal Cultures

In the Swedish movie A Man Named Ove the main character, Ove, exemplifies everything we would normally associate with Nordic people. From living a sparse life to only driving Saabs everything about him says that he is in fact Swedish. When his new neighbor Parvaneh, who is Iranian, brings him food out of gratitude for a favor granted, he is turned off by the use of spice but still eats it all because he would not want to waste anything - and in the process discovers he likes spice. There is a scene towards the middle of the movie where he brings Parvaneh to a coffee shop, buys some cakes and a couple of coffees then directs her to sit at a particular table and chair. He then tells her about how every week on the same day at one o’clock he and his wife would come to this shop, sit at this table, eat cake and drink coffee, and talk about life.

In her book The Culture Map, Erin Meyer shows the eight characteristics of cultures that she believes provides the best understanding of those cultures, which will help to promote better cross cultural communication. In this book she is working from a macro level or the average of behavior for various cultures. From the critical praise the book received and her expertise as a professor at INSEAD I have no doubt she is correct about her ideas. That being said, averages are only a start. The real treasure trove is diving into the average and finding the particular.

We could look at Ove from the average, and in many ways he would fit the map that Meyer creates of the Swedish people. It turns out that what he presents is mostly a disguise he wears to hide his true self, which is hurting from the loss of his wife. It is Parvaneh’s continual presence in his life that allows him to open up and let her see his true self. When he brings Parvaneh to the shop he is revealing not only his self, but also a bit of the culture that existed within his relationship with his wife.

It is rare that person A has the same relationship with person B that person C has. Even within families the relationship structure changes between sets of people. I have three sisters and none of us have the same relationship with my mom. That is of course because we are all individuals and that, by nature, makes the relationships different. An outsider could look at us from a macro level and come to the conclusion that since we are all shy and quiet our relationships are basically the same and they would be entirely wrong. Each relationship is a culture to itself and has its own map points. My mom and I talk at academic levels that none of my sisters would approach, they do not enjoy academics. We have a culture and a shorthand that is unique to us and each of my sisters have a culture with my mother that is unique to them. The macro level would be deceptive.

Hospitality is very much the act of seeing a person from the macro level and accepting them into your personal culture so that they are able to reveal their personal culture. Parvaneh is showing hospitality to Ove by accepting his cold outer self. It is in that work of opening up herself that Ove finds the freedom and security to reveal himself.

In the closing chapter of her book Meyer says that the map she has described is based upon the average behavior of each culture she describes.¹ It would be nearly impossible to build a objective tool like this if all the different behaviors of each culture had to be included. I think her book works as a starting point for understanding cultures, but we should remember that it is an average and not forget that each individual is a treasure trove of uniqueness if we are willing to allow them to reveal their personal culture.