Cultural Waste

While developing the most efficient methods like Lean, Kaizen or others, the blindness to a different cultural logic of doing things is stunning. Therefore, here is a book presenting Cultural Waste!

‘Cultural Waste’ refers to the losses produced in the collaboration between people with a different cultural logic, in cross-cultural collaboration in general, in academic collaboration and scientific innovation, and in Joint Ventures and Mergers and Acquisitions between companies with different cultures.

Cultural logic underpins everything we do but is not universal. Efficiency, leadership, ownership, decision-making mean very different things in different cultural contexts. Cultural waste is produced in four areas: communication, collaboration, time and planning, and relationships.

Detecting cultural waste means opening opportunities for improvement. Cross-cultural collaboration is a process of continuous improvement.

The visual thinking tools presented in this book help to detect and understand cultural waste. The Cultural Quantum® Five Step Method helps to eliminate and prevent cultural waste and to reach sustainable cross-cultural collaboration.