PREFACE

The number one predictor of your success in today’s borderless world is not your IQ, not your resume, and not even your expertise. It’s your CQ, a powerful capability that is proven to enhance your effectiveness working in culturally diverse situations. And CQ is something anyone can develop and learn. Research conducted in more than thirty countries over the last decade has shown that people with high CQ are better able to adjust and adapt to the unpredictable, complex situations of life and work in today’s globalized world.¹

CQ or cultural intelligence is the capability to function effectively in a variety of cultural contexts—including national, ethnic, organizational, and generational. It’s a whole new way of approaching the age-old topics of cultural sensitivity, racism, and cross-border effectiveness. And it will open up a whole new world of possibilities for you. The purpose of this book is to improve your cultural intelligence. Welcome to The CQ Difference!

I never actually left the continent until I was in college, but I’ve been intrigued by cultural differences for as long as I can remember. My parents moved from Canada to the United States shortly before I was born. Multiple times a year we made treks across the Canadian border to visit my grandparents and cousins. I was intrigued by the different money, the varied ways of saying things, and the different foods that existed on just the other side of Niagara Falls. Once I started kindergarten, my American classmates laughed when I said “mum” or “eh.” And my Canadian cousins accused me of becoming an arrogant, flag-waving American. With youthful patriotism I rebutted, “Well at least we don’t still bow to the queen!”

Many years later, I’ve had the privilege of traveling all over the world. The excitement of getting on a plane has long dissipated, but landing in a new place hasn’t. Few things get my adrenaline flowing like scouting out a new place, roaming the streets, eating the local food, and soaking in everything I can. Like anyone who has traveled internationally, I’ve made more than my fair share of cultural gaffes and blunders. But those are some of the best ways I’ve gotten better at working and relating cross-culturally.²

Cultural intelligence, however, runs so much deeper than discovering new foods, languages, and currencies. It strikes right at the core of our beliefs and convictions. My journey from my Canadian-American home to a life of worldwide travel has been fun and fulfilling. The journey of rethinking my faith, ideals, and opinions has been much more disorienting and painful, albeit deeply rewarding in its own way.

Like many people, I grew up with an insulated view of the world. Our family’s social network revolved around people like us. We associated with people who looked like us, shared our religious beliefs, affirmed our political perspectives, and defined success and failure like we did. We were convinced our way was the one right way to view the world.

But the more I encountered people who saw the world differently from us, the more suspect I became of our way being the only right way to interpret reality. I began to wonder, Can’t we still live out our values and convictions without automatically presuming our way is what’s right and best for everyone?

I’m forty-three now. The simplistic categories of “us” versus “them” don’t work for me anymore. To be sure, this is an ongoing journey for me. I don’t know how to think about the world without some set of universal morals, whether it’s the preservation of life, caring for our young, or apprehending evil oppressors. But the more I encounter the diversity of the world, the more challenged I become with how I arrive at my own points of view. I’m not interested in some vanilla tolerance that just nods in agreement with everything I hear. Instead, let’s have a rigorous debate with a true openness to hearing one another’s ideas and perspectives. CQ is more than just a technique for cross-cultural work. It transforms the way I teach, parent, watch the news, discuss issues, work with colleagues, and grow in my friendships.

I’ve tried to write a book that provides simple strategies for improving your CQ. The strategies themselves are things any of us can apply and use. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that underlying these strategies is a willingness to undergo a transformation in how we see ourselves, the people we encounter, and the world at large. This kind of change takes many years and can be disorientating, frustrating, and painful. However, the benefits far outweigh the cost.

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We begin in Chapter 1 with a brief introduction of how cultural intelligence is proven to help you succeed in the midst of the cultural challenges and demands of our rapidly globalizing world. Chapter 2 will give you an overview of the cultural intelligence research and its origins.

With the purchase of the print edition of this book, you also have access to the CQ Self-Assessment.* To date, this is the only academically tested CQ assessment in the world. You can take the assessment at any time, but I recommend you do so after reading Chapters 1 and 2.

Chapters 3 to 6 provide dozens of proven strategies for improving your CQ. Previous books about cultural intelligence, including my own, have mostly focused on what CQ is. This one is devoted to how you can improve your CQ. After completing the online CQ Self-Assessment, you can better determine where to begin work on increasing your CQ based on your highest and lowest scores. The strategies in this section are all things I’ve used and personally benefited from. But that’s not why you should pay attention to them. They are important strategies because they have emerged from rigorous research conducted by academics around the world.

Chapter 7 describes the power of CQ by synthesizing the key strengths of the CQ approach and sharing some inspirational stories of individuals and organizations who are harnessing the power of CQ in their multicultural pursuits. Growing numbers of organizations and leaders are using these findings to increase their effectiveness in reaching their bottom-line objectives and as a way to make the world a better place. That’s what compels me to give so much of my energy to the cultural intelligence work. I truly believe that if you use the strategies in this book, you’ll not only survive the challenges of our twenty-first-century world, you’ll thrive in the midst of them and tap into the possibilities waiting to be discovered in our changing world. That’s the CQ difference!

Welcome to the emerging domain of cultural intelligence. It’s a whole new way of seeing the world.