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Cultural Savvy Critical for Future Business

Cultural Savvy Critical for Future Business

by Erin Green

 

In the global marketplace, skill in cross-cultural interactions can make or break an organization, its leaders and its workforce.

 

"For a long time we've known that IQ isn't enough for people to succeed in the workplace, so we've heard lots about practical intelligences, like emotional intelligence, work intelligence [and] social intelligence, " said David Livermore, executive director of the Global Learning Center and author of Leading With Cultural Intelligence. "One of the things we found in our research was that those other forms of intelligence assumed a cultural understanding. "

 

Livermore called this understanding cultural intelligence (CQ) and said there are ways talent managers can develop the CQ of their organizations, starting with an assessment of employees' cultural understanding. If a manager starts out lacking cultural intelligence, it can be improved over time, he said.

 

"One of the things that's different about CQ from what's sometimes believed about IQ is it's believed to be malleable," Livermore said.

 

Initial steps to build CQ include encouraging international travel, developing cross-cultural teams, reading international news sources or even reading novels or going to movies that take place in different cultures, he said.

 

Talent managers can also make it a priority to hire for cultural intelligence, although that practice has its limitations. In some cases, managers assume if they hire a more diverse slate of candidates that they are doing enough to build cultural intelligence. "As one of them, I would say that white males need to have cultural intelligence as well," Livermore said. "It's not enough to just say, 'Oh, we've diversified in terms of our demographics. '

 

"So the hiring practices would certainly be a piece of it. And of course training and developing strategic plans, thinking about marketing and all those things in light of the different cultures that they're trying to reach out to."

 

Instilling cultural intelligence into a company's corporate culture offers benefits, Livermore said, including enhanced performance in the global market; better decision making, particularly regarding international aspects of business; and an increased likelihood of international expansion.

 

"There are some softer benefits, too," he said. "There was a greater prevention of burnout among [employees] who did a lot of international travel. There was a greater sense of personal satisfaction and the overall sense that they were actually engaging with people from different cultural backgrounds with a higher degree of dignity and respect."

 

Despite the recession, managers will continue to tackle globalization and an increase in cross-cultural interactions for the foreseeable future.

 

"The demand for internationalization and the growth of emerging markets is continuing to grow," he said. "One of the things that we found in a study was that 90 percent of executives from 68 different countries said that cross-cultural leadership was their top management challenge.

 

 

[About the Author: Erin Green is a senior editor for Talent Management magazine.]

 



 
Shravan Shetty
Career Analyst|Executive Coach|Facilitator
Twitter: consultshravan