In the first half of 2024, I worked with more than 80 clients with intercultural profiles who were either moving abroad or stepping into roles with a strong multicultural management component. Increasingly, high-achieving executives are enjoying at least one assignment in a foreign country during their careers, and even more leaders find themselves managing teams comprising multiple nationalities and diverse cultural backgrounds.

Given that many of my ex-pat clients leave on assignment abroad over the quiet summer months of the school holidays, this August I thought I’d share a few of my favourite books on the subject of intercultural awareness. All four are accessible and entertaining (and therefore beach-friendly!) but they are also spot-on in their analyses of cultural adaptation and their countries of focus.

1. The Culture Map, Erin Meyer

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in interculturality. Filled with anecdotes, examples and tales from the coalface, it explores eight culture map scales that enable interculturalists to compare and contrast different countries’ approaches to subjects such as hierarchy, communication and conflict.

2. Watching The English, Kate Fox

One area in which I specialise is working with people who need to adapt to working methods in the UK, either because they are moving there or because they are managing British nationals. This surprisingly funny book by a prominent Cambridge anthropologist takes a long, hard look at why the English are the way they are – their motivations, fears and behavioural codes. It’s a fascinating read for anyone coming into contact with the English, and a real eye-opener for the English themselves. I spent my time reading it exclaiming, “Oh, gosh, yes, I totally do that…” Greater self-awareness guaranteed!

3. Impossible City, Simon Kuper

I finished reading this excellently chosen birthday present a few weeks ago, having inhaled it in about three sittings. It is an insightful and extremely up-to-date look at today’s Paris and the life of an ex-pat in the city of light. Accurate, profound and touching, the book skillfully sidesteps all of the usual clichés about Paris to become a love letter to the writer’s adopted home. Packed with information about how things work and the hidden codes in Paris, and often by extension France, it’s now on my must-read list for all clients moving here.

4. French Children Don’t Throw Food, Pamela Druckerman

I highly recommend this funny and fresh look at parenting à la française by American journalist, Pamela Druckerman. For anyone moving to France and either bringing their kids or planning to have kids here, it explores and explains everything from the committee that decides school lunch menus to no-school Wednesdays and the vital importance of goûters in French life. Particularly fun when read in conjunction with Impossible City as Druckerman and Kuper are, in fact, married.

Are you a leader or top executive moving abroad or managing multicultural teams? Are you starting a project with foreign partners or clients? Would you like to learn more about the kinds of cultural adaptation that can help you become more effective, communicate with greater ease, and get the results you want? Working with an expert intercultural coach with over a decade of experience supporting intercultural profiles from around the world will give you an advantage and make your dealings with foreign partners, clients and colleagues more effective and productive. Contact me to find out more about working together.