Must-Read Books For Globally-Minded People

Dealing with difficult international business situations? Moving abroad with your family? Career change in a different country? Here is our reading list with book recommendations for globally-minded people!

The Culture Map

Whether you work in a home office or abroad, business success in our ever more globalized and virtual world requires the skills to navigate through cultural differences and decode cultures foreign to your own. Renowned expert Erin Meyer is your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain where people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together.

When you have Americans who precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans who get straight to the point (“your presentation was simply awful”); Latin Americans and Asians who are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians who think the best boss is just one of the crowd–the result can be, well, sometimes interesting, even funny, but often disastrous.

Even with English as a global language, it’s easy to fall into cultural traps that endanger careers and sink deals when, say, a Brazilian manager tries to fathom how his Chinese suppliers really get things done, or an American team leader tries to get a handle on the intra-team dynamics between his Russian and Indian team members.

In The Culture Map, Erin Meyer provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business. She combines a smart analytical framework with practical, actionable advice for succeeding in a global world.

Bridge The Culture Gaps

This practical self-help guide will optimize the performance of individuals and teams working in an intercultural environment. By increasing awareness of the nature and impact of diversity in the workplace and national cultural differences, it demonstrates how to use the power of difference to achieve positive results for all.

Learn how to mitigate unconscious bias to create inclusive organizations and how to use key cultural dimensions to communicate and cooperate in intercultural teams. Addressing the unique challenges of influencing across cultures and managing international transformation projects, this is an indispensable toolkit for a key competence in business.

Leading interculturalist Robert Gibson challenges conventional ideas and makes new connections between culture, diversity and neuroscience in this modern guide for anyone working virtually or together in a diverse team or international business. Use these simple and proven approaches for better communication, collaboration, leadership and decision making in today’s globalized workplace.

Culture Hacks

International business requires a deep level of industry insight but also a keen understanding of the cultural differences that impact how business is done. If you’re an American working in China or Japan for the first time, you may not realize the way each culture thinks and reasons is quite different from your own, which can lead to frequent misunderstandings.

You may be unaware, for example, that Americans reason in a linear manner, Chinese in a lateral manner, and Japanese
intuitively. Or that Japanese view the world in literal terms, while Americans and Chinese are more balanced between abstract and literal.

You won’t read about these differences in a typical business etiquette book, but they are foundational to the way each culture considers and conducts their business.

In Culture Hacks, Richard Conrad draws on his 25 years of experience living and working in Asia to explain the different ways Americans, Chinese, and Japanese think, reason, and interpret the world. He’ll equip you to successfully navigate unfamiliar territory by offering best practices and recommendations for interacting with and understanding each other.

Cultural Chemistry

Are you fascinated but frustrated by cultural differences? Have you stood on the edge of cultural gaps and wondered how on earth to bridge them? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Working across cultures can be very challenging, both professionally and personally, but these cultural gaps can be bridged. Cultural Chemistry combines strategy with knowledge, introducing you firstly to the Four R’s – an easy, four-step process for simplifying and improving your cross-cultural partnerships – and then exploring cultural differences, by meeting people and hearing stories from all over the world. Whether you are a business traveller, an expatriate, have global clients, work in a multi-cultural team or are simply a holiday maker who wants to dig deeper, Cultural Chemistry will teach you; – Why reflecting on our own culture is so important – How to make a great first impression – Why our assumptions about people are often completely wrong – Why what we say isn’t always what is heard – How to be an effective manager and motivator, whatever the culture Cultural differences don’t have to be difficult. By learning more about cultural variances and being prepared to turn off our cultural cruise-control, we really can make our international encounters both more rewarding and more enjoyable. About the Author: Originally from the UK, Patti McCarthy is a 3CK (third-culture kid) who has lived and worked on five different continents. Through her business, Cultural Chemistry, she provides coaching and training to organisations wishing to embrace the opportunities which cultural diversity provides. She is also a regular media commentator and public speaker on the impact of cultural differences on everything from business expansion to childcare. She lives with her husband, her two dogs and her three children, who were all born in different countries.

Crossing Cultures with Grace and Humor

Which culture is the “best?”
Which group has life figured out, and which is still evolving?
Who has it right, and why doesn’t everyone else follow suit?
Without understanding and appreciating cultural differences, we might have preconceptions about the answers to these questions, when there really is no right answer.
Syed Zafar and Joyce Sauter explore such preconceptions in a series of articles on cultural awareness, diversity, and differences that shape our world and our interactions with others. By taking a closer look at the varying cultures of the world, they open readers’ eyes to the differences that make us unique and steps we can take to recognize, appreciate, and accept the cultures we come across.
Hundreds of cultures have been shaped over the centuries, and to each one, their way of living is the only way they know. When we view other cultures as wrong, backward, or unevolved, we fail to appreciate that they have a perspective of life we’ve never seen. By examining and understanding cultural differences, we can not only enrich our cross-cultural relationships, we can also enhance our own lives.

Uncommon Sense In Unusual Times

Have you ever felt that you were talking to someone and the other person had no common sense at all? No matter how hard you tried to explain your point of view, it seemed you were talking about a completely different situation. Most of us have experienced this frustration and seemingly pointless uphill battle.
Have you ever considered that the other side had exactly the same feeling about you, but for a different reason?
I lost my first business and ruined friendships because I used to think that speaking the same language, having common sense and good intentions, would be enough to get along with others. I was wrong.
Just like most people who don’t change until it hurts enough, I waited for that personal and professional slap in the face to embark on my mission to find out why people think, feel, and behave so differently; and how we can turn those differences into synergy.
There are plenty of books and online courses about cultural intelligence, personal and leadership development. They tend to be informative but rarely transformative as knowledge without practice is like a teabag without hot water, potential waiting to be released.
But in this hybrid book, every chapter is fully integrated with an interactive coaching platform to challenge your views on concepts you might have taken for granted and stretch your comfort zone to a point where life is going to make much more sense in these unusual times.

How To Move Abroad

Four-time expat and travel expert Jessica Drucker distills 15 years of living, working and traveling abroad into an amazingly simple recipe that anyone can follow. In the long tradition of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Week, Marie Kondo’s decluttering framework and Bill Bryson’s travel memoirs, How To Move Abroad And Why It’s The Best Thing You’ll Do provides a practical step-by-step guide and personal anecdotes to get you abroad, whether you’re looking to start over, retire, reignite your career, or show your kids the world.

Drucker demystifies the process of setting up life in a different country, clarifying topics such as:

  • How to finance your move
  • How to get a job abroad
  • How to pay your taxes
  • How to blend in like a spy, even when you stick out like a sore thumb
  • How to learn any language.

This book is for you if

  • you want to escape the rat race
  • your heart breaks after every vacation
  • you have a remote job
  • you don’t want to wait until retirement
  • you are looking for somewhere safer for your kids
  • you are tired of a dead-end job or career
  • you want more adventure in your life

How To Move Abroad And Why It’s The Best Thing You’ll Do connects you to that group of people, and helps you sidestep expensive and time-consuming pitfalls, and helps you get realistic about how to make your move!

This Is Where You Belong

The average restless American will move 11.7 times in a lifetime. For Melody Warnick, it was move #6, from Austin, Texas, to Blacksburg, Virginia, that threatened to unhinge her. In the lonely aftermath of unpacking, she wondered: Aren’t we supposed to put down roots at some point? How does the place we live become the place we want to stay? This time, she had an epiphany. Rather than hold her breath and hope this new town would be her family’s perfect fit, she would figure out how to fall in love with it–no matter what.

How we come to feel at home in our towns and cities is what Warnick sets out to discover in This Is Where You Belong. She dives into the body of research around place attachment–the deep sense of connection that binds some of us to our cities and increases our physical and emotional well-being–then travels to towns across America to see it in action. Inspired by a growing movement of placemaking, she examines what its practitioners are doing to create likeable locales. She also speaks with frequent movers and loyal stayers around the country to learn what draws highly mobile Americans to a new city, and what makes us stay. The best ideas she imports to her adopted hometown of Blacksburg for a series of Love Where You Live experiments designed to make her feel more locally connected. Dining with her neighbors. Shopping Small Business Saturday. Marching in the town Christmas parade.

Can these efforts make a halfhearted resident happier? Will Blacksburg be the place she finally stays? What Warnick learns will inspire you to embrace your own community–and perhaps discover that the place where you live right now . . . is home.

Third Culture Kids

‘This book is the ‘bible’ for anyone who wants to understand the blessings and the curses of growing up multiculturally’ -Wm. Paul Young, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Shack

In this third edition of the ground-breaking, global classic, Ruth E. Van Reken and Michael V. Pollock, son of the late original co-author, David C. Pollock have significantly updated what is widely recognized as The TCK Bible. Emphasis is on the modern TCK and addressing the impact of technology, cultural complexity, diversity & inclusion and transitions. Includes new advice for parents and others for how to support TCKs as they navigate work, relationships, social settings and their own personal development.

Specific updates:
· A second PolVan Cultural Identity diagram to support understanding of cultural identity
· New models for identity formation
· Updated explanation of unresolved grief
· New material on ‘highly mobile communities’ addressing the needs of people who stay put while a community around them moves rapidly
· Revamped Section III so readers can more easily find what is relevant to them as Adult TCKs, parents, counselors, employers, spouses, administrators, etc.
· New stages and needs tool that will help families and organizations identify and meet needs
· Greater emphasis on tools for educators as they grapple with demographic shifts in the classroom

Bloom Where You're Planted

Are you contemplating a move abroad? Don’t panic!

From culture shock to capable, from language barriers to lifelong friends, and from foreign land to the familiar. Being hurled into life in a strange new place can be daunting and overwhelming, but it can also be exciting and enjoyable. Rich with tips on how to expat like a boss, Lasairiona McMaster’s “Bloom where you’re planted”, takes you on a journey from packing up her life in Northern Ireland to jumping in at the deep-end as an expat in two countries.

An experienced expat from a decade of living abroad, her honest and uncensored tales of what to expect when you’re expatriating, are as funny as they are poignant, and as practical as they are heartfelt. If you’ve lived abroad, or you’re considering the move from local to expat.

If you’re looking to rediscover yourself, or simply wondering how on earth to help your children develop into adaptable, resilient, and well-rounded people, this book has something for you.
  • Get yourself – and your house – ready for the big move.
  • Travel with kids, like a boss.
  • Make life-long friends, super-fast.
  • Dealing with distance.
  • It takes a village.