Ebrahim AlhamedFrameworks Library

m.07 · II · Influence & Lead · Communication, Confidence & Credibility

Social Styles, Grice & the Culture Map

My world is not your world. Adjust for both.

The core idea

Communication is not what you say; it is what lands. Three tools help it land: knowing your default social style (and your audience's), honouring the four maxims of useful speech, and adjusting for where on the culture map the listener sits. Miss any of these and you will be sending signal into a room that cannot receive it. — after Hardy, Grice & Meyer

The hero diagram

The four social styles.

Assertiveness on one axis, responsiveness on the other. You default to one of four.

2×2 matrix Two-by-two matrix with assertiveness on the horizontal axis and responsiveness on the vertical axis, showing four quadrant positions. Amiable Expressive Analytical Driver responsiveness people task assertiveness asking telling

Frameworks in this module

Named ideas to remember.

You cannot not communicate · Watzlawick
even silence is a message
Presence is the first message you send.
Social Styles 2×2 · Merrill & Reid
Analytical · Driver · Amiable · Expressive
Adapt to your listener's style, not yours.
Grice's 4 Maxims · Grice (1975)
Quantity — say as much as is useful · Quality — be truthful · Relation — be relevant · Manner — be clear
Break one and the message corrodes.
Culture Map · Meyer
Communicating (high/low context) · Evaluating · Persuading · Leading · Deciding · Trusting · Disagreeing · Scheduling
Your "direct" is someone else's "rude". Re-calibrate.

How to apply

Before your next high-stakes message.

  1. Identify your default style and theirs. Analytical talking to Expressive? You will bore them. Flip it.
  2. Check each of Grice's maxims. Is this the right amount? True? Relevant? Clearly said?
  3. Place the listener on the culture map. High-context? Less explicit. Hierarchical? Go through levels.
  4. Optimise for what is heard, not said. Sit in their chair for 60 seconds before you click send.

Key reading · Meyer · The Culture Map

Eight scales, one compass.

Meyer's research with multinational teams shows eight reliable dimensions on which cultures differ — not in values but in communication defaults. You can be the best communicator in Amsterdam and the worst in Tokyo using the exact same words.

What is important is not what is said, but what is heard.

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