Fish Can't See Water: How National Culture Can Make or Break Your Corporate Strategy

I am remiss in reviewing “Fish Can’t See Water” sooner.I teach the capstone course for the MBA program at the European School of Business. This book fits perfectly into the presentation of this double semester, in depth look at the real world. In the course, “Leadership and Corporate Sustainability”, I avoid most texts. I find them to be a fictionalized look at how people in business and businesses operate. Fish Can’t See Water presents no fictions.The book takes a double barreled approach, each revolving around culture. In each case the authors present true example after true example of how the “Fish can’t see”. The value of the Lewis model of global culture comes from not only theory, but experience. It relies on nuance rather than pigeon holing the world into a set definition of what the cultures may be.The book takes the next step of applying the “Fish can’t see” experience to corporate culture, both influenced by home country and by tradition. They are excellent and very applicable examples.In today’s world, lifecycles of corporations are getting shorter and shorter. Structurally and dynamically, they are not built for sustainability. Today the average life of a member of the S&P 500 has dropped to 20 years, down from over 50 years decades ago. With that in mind, every corporate leader should put “Fish” on their reading list.The message is interesting in that it does not suggest that we refuse to change, it suggests that we can’t see the need because we swim in our own ocean. Not only don’t we see the other people in their own dynamic, we don’t even see our own dynamic. We let ourselves be insulated from others because we see them through just one type of lens and we don’t take time to measure if that is the correct prescription.

This book is so full of interesting examples to illustrate the points made that it is a very easy read. At the same time it is very well structured so you can navigate between sections depending on the topics that interest you most.There are so many aspects of culture that play a critical role in interactions between people but that we are not aware of. Understanding how our past experiences and origin contribute to what makes our own individual culture and how that differs between countries is, in my opinion, one of the most important things that we all need, not just in business but in life. Communicating with others is key to everything and even the most simple interaction between two people, even if they are apparently of the same culture, carries a baggage of cultural heritage that colors the dialogue and its outcome. So when that comes into play between people from different countries or communities, it can get complicated and difficult. Understanding the cultural background of people can make the difference between a successful and productive business meeting and a disastrous one that causes you to lose the deal (even if it appears the meeting went very well!).I think that this book should be on the reading list in all high schools, colleges and companies. For my own company, which I founded a year ago to help executives accelerate their global expansion, I am planning to put it on the reading list.I have recommended this book to many people and they all rave about it!

Fish can't see the water is a book recommended by the Economist, discussing how national culture influences business culture and how business culture can enable (or disable) your company's success. It was illuminating for me, and certainly described what I have been suspecting. I always thought that TQM and lean would be difficult to roll out in our company, but now I can say emphatically that TQM and lean is better suited to a reactive culture and less suited to a multi-active culture such as ours. I could go even further to describe why our multi-active culture is not compatible with TQM and lean, and where we need to change to become compatible. What I will not be able to do however is determine how to implement the change in our culture.The book only scratches the surface of cultural analysis, spending most of its time on case studies to demonstrate the effect culture has on the success of a company. The book is excellent for a manager without much immersion in this subject (such as myself), but it will not be adequate on its own to enable managers to apply what has been learnt.The style of the book is easy to read, the case studies interesting and the "dimensions" or differences between national cultures illuminating. Highly recommended reading.

Excellent and inspirational book on how national culture in powerful, yet often invisible ways, can accelerate or or derail corporate strategy execution.The book uses the Lewis model (from Richard D Lewis' book: When Cultures Collide) to define and describe national types and their uniqueness, complemented by the new Cultural Dynamic model.The two authors, who come from very different and diverse background, use their two models to explain how national and business cultural influencers impact work and management practices over the business cycle - and through this the effectiveness of strategy execution.This book confirms the simple truism that "Culture eats strategy for lunch".The many cases of global corporations such as Sony, Samsung, P&G, GM, Walmart, Nokia and Toyota, are clearly extensively researched.While the topic of corporate is prone to stereotyping and cliches, the authors manage to convincingly present a new line of thinking in each case to explain how the national culture profoundly impacted the success of these companies - yet, often without the management or board noticing the critical enabling or derailing cultural dynamics.However, the book is also practical and suggests how Western companies can more effectively deal with other cultures, and how companies can improve their response to the inevitable corporate crises and how each nation face their own unique challenges from globalisation. Fish Can't See Water: How National Culture Can Make or Break Your Corporate StrategyFish Can't See Water: How National Culture Can Make or Break Your Corporate Strategy

I found the summaries very useful. However I found the text repetitive in parts.By contrast I felt that more focus on the future with insights into the culture of organisations like Hutchison Whampoa, Lenovo, Tata, America Movil and Gazprom would have been useful.

Good

An excellent book, by people who know what they are talking about, mostly for people who suffer from the standard arrogance.If I can just make a comment: it is written by people who are also, a little bit, suffering from the "fish can't see water" syndrome.

I'm grateful for sellers who deliver as promised and in this case, exceeded expectations.Well done!Thank you!