The Cultural Intelligence Difference -Special eBook Edition

David Livermore

• Éditeur: AMACOM
• Année: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780814417072
• Sujet: Développement personnel
• Sous-sujet: Communication et prise de parole en public

Learn how to master the one skill you can't do without in today's global economy.

As an award-winning author and global business leader, David Livermore applies his social science and cultural intelligence (CQ) expertise to teach others how to thrive in increasingly multicultural workplaces and a globalized world. Now, in this essential book, he shows you how to leverage the benefits of cultural intelligence for themselves--including improved decision-making, negotiation, networking, and leadership skills--to gain a crucial advantage in the crowded job market.

In The Cultural Intelligence Difference, you'll explore:

• customized strategies for improving interactions with people from diverse cultures,
• new findings on the bottom-line benefits of cultural intelligence,
• and many examples of major organizations that use CQ to achieve success.

Most people know that some basic cultural sensitivity is important. But few have developed the deep cultural intelligence needed to truly bridge the cultural gaps that exist in every workplace.

The Cultural Intelligence Difference delivers a powerful tool for navigating today's work world with finesse--and success.

PART I

AN INTRODUCTION TO CQ

Cultural intelligence might sound like a really academic, intellectual topic. It is rooted in years of scholarly research conducted by academics in places around the world. But it’s easy to grasp, and the findings offer benefits to all of us.

In the next two chapters, you’ll gain insight into how cultural intelligence connects with you and your interests. And you’ll discover research findings that show how increasing your CQ will improve your effectiveness at whatever you set out to do in today’s borderless world.

CHAPTER 1

CQ FOR YOU

Your success in today’s globalized world requires an ability to adapt to a variety of cultural situations. Conventional wisdom has been telling us this for decades. But only in recent years have academics discovered a proven way to quantify and develop this ability. It’s called cultural intelligence, or CQ, and it’s defined as the capability to function effectively in a variety of cultural contexts. All kinds of people are discovering the possibilities that CQ opens up for them. But improving your cultural intelligence does require some commitment and intentionality on your part. Rest easy. The rewards are well worth the effort.

The world is shrinking. Today, we’re connected to people from around the globe more than ever before. Fifty years ago, you could have lived most of your life surrounded by people who looked like you, believed like you, and saw the world pretty much the same way you do. A few individuals still manage to pull that off. But most of us encounter and work with people who look, believe, and think in radically different ways from us. We’ve learned that we don’t need to become like whomever we’re with. But our effectiveness and success is largely dependent on our ability to adapt to various cultural contexts. When we learn to effectively and respectfully interact with people from diverse cultures, we strike a gold mine of opportunity for personal and professional fulfillment.

The shifting realities of our rapidly globalized world are well documented in best-selling books like The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman and One World by Peter Singer. Most of us are well aware that globalization and worldwide connectivity are lunging forward with racing speed. Here are a few examples:

• 1 billion tourist visas are issued annually, and the number keeps rising.¹

• General Electric calculates that 60 percent of its growth over the coming decade will come from the developing world, compared with 20 percent over the past decade.²

• 49 percent of U.S. kids five and younger are children of color.³

• China will soon be the number-one English-speaking country in the world.

• 67 percent of international air travel revenue is generated by Asian and Middle Eastern airlines, and the percentage is growing annually.⁴

• More than 1 million university students study abroad annually.

• 4.5 million North Americans participate in religious international mission trips each year.⁵

I doubt you’d pick up a book on cultural intelligence if you weren’t already convinced of our global and multicultural connectivity. But this is a book about you and your life in our borderless world. To what degree do you possess the capabilities needed to succeed in this cultural mosaic? Why do some of us succeed while others fail at cross-cultural effectiveness?

Intercultural success has little to do with your IQ or EQ (emotional intelligence). It’s primarily dependent on your CQ. Everyone has a cultural intelligence quotient (CQ), and we can all improve our CQ. This book, along with the corresponding online CQ Self-Assessment, will enable you to understand your CQ and give you the latest tested strategies for improving it.

WHAT IS CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE?

Again, cultural intelligence is the capability to function effectively across a variety of cultural contexts, such as ethnic, generational, and organizational cultures. CQ has some similarities with various approaches to cultural competence, but it differs in its specific ties to intelligence research. As a result, the emphasis is not only on understanding different cultures, but also on problem solving and effective adaptations for various cultural settings. By using the “intelligence” approach, the CQ model also acknowledges that your multicultural interactions are as much personal, individualized experiences as they are simply knowing about differences between Germans and Koreans. Even if you and I have the same cultural background, we’ll experience new cross-cultural situations differently according to who we are as individuals.

CQ is an overall capability you can take with you anywhere. You can benefit from its insights even if you’re experiencing a culture for the first time, unlike approaches that place primary emphasis on learning all the dos and don’ts of specific cultures. You can use CQ to become better relating to neighbors, classmates, and colleagues who come from another part of the world, or you can use it to increase the chances your meme goes viral throughout the world. You’ll evaluate your CQ a little later when you complete the online CQ Self-Assessment included with the print edition of this book.* High CQ doesn’t come automatically, but anyone can develop it.

Throughout the last ten years, most of the discussion about cultural intelligence has been buried in academic journals. Some of these studies are really fascinating; unfortunately, most of us never see them. For example, one study found that an individual with multiple international working experiences, even if those experiences were relatively brief, is likely to have higher CQ than an individual who has lived overseas for several years in one or two locations.⁶ And neurological studies find that the brain gets wired differently depending upon one’s intercultural experiences, which in turn impacts the way the individual approaches problem solving and day-to-day work.⁷ These kinds of findings have significant implications for how individuals and organizations maximize global opportunities. We’ll look at many more of these findings in the chapters that follow.

During the last couple of years, CQ has started to go mainstream. Growing numbers of leaders in business, government, and nonprofit organizations are realizing the benefits that come from this intelligence-based approach to adapting and working cross-culturally. And many corporations, government agencies, and universities are tapping into the CQ difference to achieve results. A few specific examples are included in Chapter 7.

Your cultural intelligence is made up of four different capabilities, each of which is assessed in the online CQ Self-Assessment.

1. CQ Drive (motivation) is your interest and confidence in functioning effectively in culturally diverse settings. This often gets overlooked. Without the ample drive to take on the challenges that inevitably accompany multicultural situations, there’s little evidence you’ll be successful.

2. CQ Knowledge (cognition) is your knowledge about how cultures are similar and different. The emphasis is not on being an expert about every culture you encounter. That’s overwhelming and impossible. Instead, to what extent do you understand some core cultural differences and their impact on you and others?

3. CQ Strategy (meta-cognition) is how you make sense of culturally diverse experiences. It occurs when you make judgments about your own thought processes and those of others. Can you plan effectively in light of cultural differences?

4. CQ Action (behavior) is your capability to adapt your behavior appropriately for different cultures. It involves having a flexible repertoire of responses to suit various situations while still remaining true to yourself.

Together, these four capabilities make up your overall cultural intelligence quotient. The online CQ Self-Assessment will reveal which of these capabilities is strongest and weakest for you. But what’s your best guess? As you read the four descriptions, which one seems like it’s the strongest for you? What about the weakest? After you complete the CQ Self-Assessment, you’ll be able to tap into pinpointed strategies that are proven to enhance your CQ. Before you do so, here’s a bit more about the CQ model.

WHAT DOES HIGH CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE LOOK LIKE?

Despite its academic origins, cultural intelligence is pretty easy to grasp. Everyone can improve their CQ. I want to help you become more successful as you pursue the things most important to you in our borderless world. Having a high CQ doesn’t mean exhibiting flawless behavior in cross-cultural settings. Instead, it is personified by people with a strong sense of their own cultural identity. They know who they are and what they believe, but they’re equally interested to discover that in others. And individuals with high CQ have an integrated view of the world that appreciates both the similarities and differences among people. Rather than being threatened by differences, they look for what they can learn from them.

Here’s one way of thinking about the progression from low CQ (1.0) to high CQ (5.0):

1.0—You react to external stimuli (what you see and hear, etc., in a new cultural context) and you judge it based on what that means in your own cultural context.

Example: You observe that some individuals are silent during a meeting and you presume they’re using the “silent treatment” to demonstrate they’re bored and upset.

2.0—You begin to recognize other cultural norms. You’re motivated to learn more about how cultures differ.

Example: You observe that some individuals are silent during a meeting and you wonder if remaining silent means the same thing in their culture as it means in yours.

3.0—You begin to accommodate other cultural norms into your thinking. You can explain how culture impacts the way people might respond differently to the same circumstances.

Example: You observe that some individuals are silent during a meeting and you decide to explore whether their silence is a form of respect, as it is in many cultures.

4.0—You adapt and adjust your thinking and behavior to other cultural norms.

Example: You observe that some individuals are silent during a meeting and you intentionally ask for their input, believing they might consider it disrespectful to offer it unless invited to give it.

5.0—You automatically adjust your thinking and behavior when you get appropriate cues, sometimes subconsciously.

Example: You observe that some individuals are silent during a meeting and, almost without thinking about it, you offer them alternative ways to offer input; you’re subconsciously aware that their cultural background typically uses silence as a form of respect.

Nobody behaves flawlessly in cross-cultural interactions. And frankly, the mistakes we make are often the best teachers for improving our CQ. But with experience and intentional effort, we can move toward the CQ 5.0 description where we begin to automatically accommodate a variety of behaviors and strategies into the ways we work with people from different cultural backgrounds. As you grow your CQ, you’ll gradually be able to interpret the behavior of people from unfamiliar cultures as if you were an insider in their cultures.

Low CQ is often easier to spot because faux pas are more interesting to talk about. For example, the Dairy Association led a wildly successful marketing campaign throughout the United States built on the slogan, “Got Milk?” Unfortunately, when the campaign was exported to Mexico, the translation read, “Are you lactating?”⁸

People with low CQ will dismiss the seismic influence of culture on themselves and others. They may use overly simplistic approaches to working cross-culturally and make statements such as, “People are people. A smile and kind word work anywhere.” Fur...