Understanding key dimensions of culture and unique aspects of your own cultural background is a lifelong process. While there’s no magical shortcut that will allow you to perfectly understand your culture and others in a matter of minutes, certain scholars have developed tools that can help.
One example is the cultural profile quiz developed by Erin Meyer. While Erin Meyer’s work is based primarily on the way people communicate and collaborate in business settings, the dimensions of culture identified in her work are a helpful starting point in understanding key factors that influence the way we communicate and collaborate with others.
Once you’ve taken the quiz, review your results and the explanations provided for each cultural dimension. As you read, consider the following questions:
- Did anything about the results surprise you?
- If your country was available from the list at the end of the quiz, did you find that your cultural values were very similar to or different from a “typical” person from your country? Why do you think that was the case?
- Which of these dimensions would be hardest for you to compromise on if you found yourself collaborating with someone who was on the opposite end of that spectrum?