Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Navigating The World With Cultural Intelligence

Cultural intelligence is still a term in its infancy. It refers to being able to navigate businesses and organizations in alignment with cultural factors in a given situation to achieve results. It is more comprehensive than just doing what is acceptable in a cultural context. Rather, how can businesses and organizations achieve results in a way that is respectful of how business is conducted in that particular culture, or empower employees in a way that is effective for a particular culture and/or geography?

Today’s organizations and leaders operate in a global environment, while simultaneously needing to meet distinct local needs. The contemporary workforce and customer base profiles a diversity of backgrounds and nationalities. Yet, the gap between theory and practice of global leadership remains very large as we look at different ways to lead people in this globally complex world.

The most common aspect of training on cultural intelligence is knowledge of cultures, i.e. information specific to country and regions, and general knowledge about how cultures work when we are in the midst of multiple cultures at the same time. This gives some frameworks and builds confidence in interactions. Then there are specific skills or competencies such as curiosity, open-mindedness, humility and cross-cultural communication that are demonstrated in specific, reliable behaviors that create ease and build trust.

Through both deep observation and practice at CDL, we believe the critical basis of cultural intelligence is mindfulness or paying attention. Again, if we bring it back to ourselves, we prefer to spend time with people we respect and trust. The capacity to be aware of our own behaviors and continuously learn from their impacts is the cornerstone of cultural intelligence. People with high cultural intelligence also have high emotional intelligence. They practice consistent behaviors for different situations, and act with integrity even while adapting and growing. With mindfulness, leaders grow the ability to be themselves, while allowing the space and respect for others to be themselves.

The challenge to facilitate the varied priorities of different cultures requires an understanding of how each prefers to do business. Learning every custom or tradition of a culture is advantageous, yet the relationship will evolve from mutual respect. Have you thought about the points below in your leadership?

• Understanding Business Cultures
• Identifying the Business Values – the “How” you do business.
• Distinguishing Individual Cultures
• Finding the Values in Each Culture

Each individual and the relationships between individuals are complex. Global leadership, at its best, makes room for each person to manage complexity effectively. Yet the premise of the values and behaviors in each organization either surfaces these attributes, or hampers them. What behaviors are you choosing to surface in your organizations?