Will I love The Geography of Thought?

Nisbett is a psychologist, not a business writer, but this book changed how I prepare for every meeting in Asia.

He proves that Westerners and East Asians literally see the world differently. Westerners focus on isolated objects; Asians focus on the relationships between objects and their environment.

Once I understood that, I finally grasped why my perfectly logical, data-driven presentations in Tokyo were falling flat. The problem was never the data. The problem was that I was showing a spreadsheet to people who were reading the room.

I recommend this to every executive I work with because it reframes the… show more.

When I visited Asian countries of China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, food was always a highlight. But what also stood out for me was the social nature of eating. I was also struck by the simple gestures of people that indicated politeness and respect. We might think of culture as influencing behavior, but this book argues that culture can penetrate our thinking.

Nisbett contrasts how eastern and western cultures think differently about context, the individual vs. the group, and our relationship to the environment, among other differences.

In our age of the Internet, cultural differences on the surface may be… show more.

To understand China we must understand how its people think, and how the Chinese people think differently from Westerners. In this book, Nisbett not only presents the elements Westerners often overlook when studying East Asian culture but also details the psychological difference between Chinese and Americans. This is book is recommended to anyone who wishes to thoroughly comprehend Chinese and Chinese culture.