The Netherlandsvsthe United Kingdom
オランダとイギリスNLUK
Seen from the Netherlands: each line below describes the United Kingdom relative to the Netherlands.
Culture Map: eight scales
Erin Meyer's eight scales, sorted by how far apart the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sit, largest gap first.
Filled dot: the Netherlands, where you are looking fromHollow ring: the United Kingdom
Where you will notice the difference7 scales
Evaluating
The United Kingdom gives negative feedback more indirectly than the Netherlands (3 steps)
The Netherlands −3, the United Kingdom 0, on a line from −3 (Direct negative feedback) to +3 (Indirect negative feedback).
Leading
The United Kingdom keeps more distance between boss and team than the Netherlands (2 steps)
The Netherlands −3, the United Kingdom −1, on a line from −3 (Egalitarian) to +3 (Hierarchical).
Deciding
The United Kingdom leaves decisions to the person in charge more than the Netherlands (2 steps)
The Netherlands −2, the United Kingdom 0, on a line from −3 (Consensual) to +3 (Top-down).
Disagreeing
The United Kingdom avoids open disagreement more than the Netherlands (2 steps)
The Netherlands −2, the United Kingdom 0, on a line from −3 (Confrontational) to +3 (Avoids confrontation).
Communicating
The United Kingdom leaves more to be read between the lines than the Netherlands (1 step)
The Netherlands −2, the United Kingdom −1, on a line from −3 (Low-context) to +3 (High-context).
Persuading
The United Kingdom wants examples and the conclusion before the theory more than the Netherlands (1 step)
The Netherlands +1, the United Kingdom +2, on a line from −3 (Principles-first) to +3 (Applications-first).
Scheduling
The United Kingdom treats plans as more flexible than the Netherlands (1 step)
The Netherlands −2, the United Kingdom −1, on a line from −3 (Linear time) to +3 (Flexible time).
Where you are close1 scale
Trusting
The Netherlands and the United Kingdom sit on the same step
The Netherlands −2, the United Kingdom −2, on a line from −3 (Task-based) to +3 (Relationship-based).
Hofstede: six dimensions
Scores from 0 to 100, sorted by the gap between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. They describe national averages, not either country's character.
Motivation towards achievement and success
The United Kingdom scores 52 points higher than the Netherlands (66 against 14)
The Netherlands 14, the United Kingdom 66, on a line from 0 (Consensus-oriented) to 100 (Decisive).
Individualism
The United Kingdom scores 24 points lower than the Netherlands (76 against 100)
The Netherlands 100, the United Kingdom 76, on a line from 0 (Collectivist) to 100 (Individualist).
Uncertainty avoidance
The United Kingdom scores 18 points lower than the Netherlands (35 against 53)
The Netherlands 53, the United Kingdom 35, on a line from 0 (Tolerant of ambiguity) to 100 (Avoids ambiguity).
Long-term orientation
The United Kingdom scores 7 points lower than the Netherlands (60 against 67)
The Netherlands 67, the United Kingdom 60, on a line from 0 (Short-term) to 100 (Long-term).
Power distance
The United Kingdom scores 3 points lower than the Netherlands (35 against 38)
The Netherlands 38, the United Kingdom 35, on a line from 0 (Low power distance) to 100 (High power distance).
Indulgence
The United Kingdom scores 1 point higher than the Netherlands (69 against 68)
The Netherlands 68, the United Kingdom 69, on a line from 0 (Restrained) to 100 (Indulgent).
What the sources say, theme by theme
Entries for the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, side by side on wide screens. Each keeps its own confidence label and citations.
Design & quality
Netherlands2 claims
Guido van Rossum created Python at CWI in Amsterdam. He names his frustration with ABC's lack of extensibility and the system administration needs of the Amoeba distributed OS group as motives. He started over the 1989 Christmas holidays and released 0.9.0 on 1991-02-20.
Well attested2 sources2009Datednl-design-1
According to Thomke (HBR, 2020), Booking.com runs more than 1,000 experiments at once and over 25,000 a year. Its internal rule is that anyone can test anything without management's permission.
Attested1 source2020nl-design-2
United Kingdom3 claims
The GDS Government Design Principles (published 2012, updated 2025) include "Start with user needs," "Do less," and "Iterate. Then iterate again." Iterative development is an official principle of the public sector.
Well attested1 source2025gb-design-1
Point 8 of the GOV.UK Service Standard is "Iterate and improve frequently." It states that a service is never finished and that maintenance such as bug fixes is not enough.
Well attested1 sourcegb-design-2
According to a 2023 NAO report, there have been 11 cross-government digital strategies in the past 25 years. The Police National Computer, introduced in 1974, is still in use.
Well attested1 source2023gb-design-3
Failure & risk
Netherlands2 claims
ING moved to a Spotify-style structure of squads and tribes in 2015. In a McKinsey interview (2017), it described each tribe writing down its results and biggest learnings every quarter and celebrating both successes and failures.
Attested1 source2017nl-failure-1
According to Thomke (HBR, 2020), only about 10% of Booking.com's experiments produce positive results; the other 90% or so do not support the hypothesis. The company runs its experiments on that assumption.
Attested1 source2020nl-failure-2
United Kingdom4 claims
The GDS Way incident management standard requires incident reviews to follow a blameless post mortem culture.
Well attested1 sourcegb-failure-1
GOV.UK publishes incident reports, such as one on increased error rates on 5 January 2022. A former GDS staff member wrote in 2018 that publishing them builds trust and an atmosphere where people can learn safely.
Well attested2 sources2022gb-failure-2
In a 2019 blog post, the London fintech Monzo explained that it runs on-call with two people and records every incident. The Pragmatic Engineer warns against "blameless buck-passing," where blame is shifted while claiming to be blameless.
Well attested2 sources2019gb-failure-3
In the Post Office Horizon scandal, testimony that Horizon was "robust" was used despite bugs in the Fujitsu system, and more than 900 people were wrongly convicted. The Court of Appeal found that the Post Office had in effect reversed the burden of proof.
Attested2 sourcesgb-failure-4
Feedback & code review
Netherlands2 claims
Erin Meyer cites the Netherlands as an example of giving negative feedback directly on her Evaluating scale, and of open disagreement on her Disagreeing scale. Her book says "the Dutch manager learns always to be honest and to give the message straight."
Attested1 sourcenl-feedback-1
Some expat guides link Dutch directness to polder-model consensus building, explaining that speaking your mind freely is a precondition for reaching agreement.
Thin1 sourcenl-feedback-2
United Kingdom3 claims
Meyer writes that the British deliver negative feedback less directly than Americans and far less directly than the Dutch. She describes frequent understatement using downgraders such as "a bit" and "slightly."
Attested1 source2014Datedgb-feedback-1
The Anglo-Dutch translation guide that Meyer cites reads "With all due respect" as "I think you are wrong" and "Very interesting" as "I don't like it." The guide is half a joke, and its authorship is disputed.
Attested2 sources2014Datedgb-feedback-2
A study of 44,000 pull requests across 20 projects that compared acceptance rates with the developer's country HDI (Furtado et al., 2020) placed UK developers in the group with the highest acceptance rates.
Attested1 source2020gb-feedback-3
Hierarchy & decisions
Netherlands3 claims
Meyer cites the Netherlands, along with Denmark and Sweden, as an example of an egalitarian culture on her Leading scale. A study guide to The Culture Map places it on the consensual side of the Deciding scale, alongside Sweden and Japan.
Attested2 sourcesnl-hierarchy-1
A study in Contemporary Management Research (2018) analyzed data from 808 managers using structural equation modeling. It found that polder values, reaching pragmatic agreement through consultation and debate, strongly shape the leadership styles Dutch managers prefer.
Well attested1 source2018nl-hierarchy-2
Woldendorp and Keman (2007) reviewed Dutch corporatism from 1965 to 2000 and argue that the polder model has been overrated. Bargaining between the social partners was tough, and the rate of central agreements was low.
Attested1 source2007Datednl-hierarchy-3
United Kingdom3 claims
In Meyer's 2017 HBR chart, the United Kingdom sits in the same egalitarian and top-down quadrant as the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Attested1 source2017gb-hierarchy-1
In the public sector, the service assessment against the Service Standard acts as a de facto gate. According to DfE guidance, a service can fail its assessment if it does not publish new source code without a good reason.
Well attested1 sourcegb-hierarchy-2
The NAO (2023) identifies as a problem that many digital decisions in government are made by generalist leaders without technical expertise.
Well attested1 source2023gb-hierarchy-3
Communication & docs
Netherlands2 claims
On her Communicating scale, Meyer lists the Netherlands with the United States, Canada and Australia as examples of low-context (explicit) cultures.
Attested1 sourcenl-communication-1
The practical guide NL Compass says that Dutch workplaces take meeting agendas seriously and that fixing schedules in advance is the norm.
Thin1 source2026nl-communication-2
United Kingdom3 claims
According to a book summary, the United Kingdom is on the low-context side of Meyer's Communicating scale but relies on context more than the United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Thin1 sourcegb-communication-1
"Make things open: it makes things better" is one of the government design principles, and publishing new source code is point 12 of the Service Standard. GDS explained the benefits of coding in the open in a 2017 blog post.
Well attested2 sources2017gb-communication-2
In 2015, Inside GOV.UK published a blog post describing what happens when something goes wrong on GOV.UK.
Well attested1 source2015Datedgb-communication-3
Work & careers
Netherlands2 claims
Eurostat reports that actual weekly hours in the main job were 32.1 in 2024, the shortest in the EU (EU average 36.0). The main reason is the high share of part-time work; men in full-time work averaged 38.4 hours (2025).
Well attested2 sources2026nl-work-1
CBS reports that 52% of employed people worked from home at least sometimes in 2023. In the 2022 EU comparison, 12.7% worked from home most of the time, lower than in Finland (23.1%) or Ireland (25.3%).
Well attested1 source2024nl-work-2
United Kingdom4 claims
According to the ONS, full-time workers averaged 36.6 actual hours per week in 2024. The figure covers all occupations, not only engineers.
Well attested1 source2026gb-work-1
In the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2025, 31.9% of UK respondents work fully remote and 25.8% work hybrid leaning flexible. Median salaries were $136,141 for engineering managers and $108,913 for back-end developers, about 60 to 70% of US levels.
Well attested1 source2025gb-work-2
Making 20 or more people redundant requires collective consultation. Consultation must start at least 30 days before the first dismissal for 20 to 99 redundancies, and at least 45 days before for 100 or more.
Well attested1 sourcegb-work-3
In a 2022 four-day week pilot (61 companies, about 2,900 employees), 56 companies continued afterward and 71% of employees reported less burnout. Most participants were small companies, and the pilot was not limited to tech.
Attested1 source2023gb-work-4
Open source & community
Netherlands2 claims
On 2018-07-12, Guido van Rossum stepped down as Python's BDFL in a python-committers post titled "Transfer of power." He named no successor and left it to the core developers to decide how the project would be governed.
Well attested1 source2018nl-oss-1
ING brought the Spotify model to a large bank, organizing about 350 squads into 13 tribes (McKinsey, 2017).
Attested1 source2017nl-oss-2
United Kingdom3 claims
According to Octoverse 2024, the UK has more than 4 million developers on GitHub, up 19% year over year. Octoverse 2025 projects about 11 million by 2030.
Well attested2 sources2025gb-oss-1
- GitHub Octoverse 2024 (2024)
- GitHub Octoverse 2025 (2025)
An estimate by the industry body OpenUK (2023) attributes 27% of the UK tech sector's gross value added in 2022 to open source.
Attested1 source2023gb-oss-2
The public sector has made publishing code the default. The Skills Funding Agency reused GOV.UK's Smart Answers code and finished in under a week work that would otherwise have taken at least two months.
Well attested1 source2017gb-oss-3