CHAPTER 7

THE POWER OF CQ

I’m an eternal optimist. I believe anyone can change. And I’m driven by the crazy idea that the world can truly become a better place. This isn’t blind idealism. I’ve seen it happen again and again—one interaction at a time—as people discover that “different” doesn’t have to equal threatening or bad.

First and foremost, I’ve seen this in myself. I’ve moved from a pretty myopic perspective on the world to a broadened appreciation for diversity. Some of the changes have come slowly and painfully and others more quickly and easily. And our research on cultural intelligence has proven that everyone can improve their CQ. Granted, increased CQ comes more easily to some than others. But a desire to increase your CQ, combined with a plan to use some of the strategies covered in the last several chapters, is proven to strengthen your CQ. And increased CQ allows each of us to make the world a better place.

The skeptics roll their eyes. People have been feuding forever. Tribalism and ethnocentric behavior are common vices across all people and times. But humanity also has an unusual track record for changing history. CQ is rooted in the fundamental belief that people can change. You. Me. Everyone.

The power of CQ lies in its ability to foster transformation. There are several strengths associated with the overall nature of cultural intelligence. Let’s take a closer look at them.

INTEGRATION

One of the most significant discoveries from our research on CQ is the importance of all four capabilities. One without the others can derail you. I’ve encouraged you to focus on the CQ capability where you scored lowest on the CQ assessment. But eventually, we have to get back to thinking about all four capabilities together because excessive attention on one CQ capability at the expense of others may actually result in increased cultural ignorance. All four CQ capabilities are interrelated.

If you have a deep understanding of cultural differences (high CQ Knowledge), it doesn’t mean you can apply your knowledge to developing an effective plan (CQ Strategy). Or if you’re very confident in your ability to work in a different culture (high CQ Drive), but have very little cultural understanding (CQ Knowledge), your confidence could actually get you into trouble rather than helping you.

Here’s how this might look practically. A traveling business-woman with high CQ Drive and Action might fully engage in a lot of hands-on experiences as she travels across cultures—seeing the sights, eating the local foods, and exploring things off the beaten path. However, without high CQ Knowledge and Strategy, she won’t fully learn from these experiences because she lacks the observational skills and conceptual understanding to transform her experience into knowledge that can guide her in future cross-cultural encounters. In a similar way, someone with high CQ Knowledge and Strategy who lacks CQ Drive may gain cultural insights through books and observations but refrain from seeking real interactions that provide more holistic experiences and deeper learning that can be applied to future interactions and work.¹

The good news is, given the interrelationship of the four CQ capabilities, by giving attention to one, you may simultaneously enhance another. For example, gaining a stronger understanding of cultural differences via CQ Knowledge can help you feel more in control by learning more about the culture. The planning that is part of CQ Strategy also helps you develop a sense of control and equilibrium. And the repertoire of behaviors gained through CQ Action gives you more options for how to engage with a diversity of individuals. Gaining some control over your circumstances in cross-cultural situations will enhance your CQ Drive—and quite possibly, the other CQ capabilities, too. The four distinct yet integrated capabilities of CQ are a crucial part of the CQ difference.

PROGRESSION

Another strength lies in the developmental nature of cultural intelligence. CQ isn’t a static or fixed capability. It’s based on the premise that our capabilities in cultural intelligence are continually morphing and progressing. The four capabilities don’t always develop in one particular order. It can be helpful, however, to think about them as four steps toward enhanced overall cultural intelligence. The most likely progression of the four CQ capabilities is shown in Figure 7-1.

Figure 7-1 CQ capability progression.

Then it’s back to Step 1. As others respond to our behavior, the cycle starts over. Our experiences (CQ Action) shape our motivation (CQ Drive) for future interactions.

The four-step cycle is something that can be applied at a macro level in thinking through your overall development in CQ. Or it’s a cycle you can run through on the fly when preparing for a cross-cultural encounter. For example, imagine Sana using this prior to her first interview with Robert:

Step 1: CQ Drive
What’s my motivation for adapting to the culture of Indianapolis, this company’s culture, and the culture of my potential boss? (In part—to get a job!)

Step 2: CQ Knowledge
What do I need to know about these cultures? (e.g., What’s their experience with Arab Americans? What’s the dominant religious subculture here?)

Step 3: CQ Strategy
What’s my plan? (e.g., What questions should I ask? How can I dispel the assumptions that might be made about me as a Muslim?)

Step 4: CQ Action
Can I adapt accordingly? (Should I shake Robert’s hand? How should I respond to the question of how long I’ve lived in the United States?)

A company can also use this four-step process to think about a firm-wide initiative. Robert’s company can use it to think about the potential acquisition by the Middle Eastern company:

Step 1: CQ Drive
What’s our motivation for understanding Middle Eastern culture?

Step 2: CQ Knowledge
What do we need to understand about the cultures involved to make a decision?

Step 3: CQ Strategy
What’s our negotiating plan in light of the cultural differences?

Step 4: CQ Action
How should we adapt while still retaining our core values as a company?

This four-step progression of developing CQ is the primary way I apply CQ to leaders in my book Leading with Cultural Intelligence. Nobody ever “arrives” at perfect CQ. It’s an ongoing journey. But as we continue to work through these four steps in lots of different scenarios, adapting to various cultural situations will become more natural.

TENSION

Intercultural work is full of paradox and contradiction. An ability to hold things in tension is absolutely essential for effective adaptation cross-culturally.

•   Be yourself. Adapt to local cultures.

•   Retain your brand. Adjust to local tastes.

•   Fight corruption. Respect cultural norms.

•   Unify your team. Embrace diversity.

•   We’re all the same. We’re all different.

The cultural intelligence model not only allows for holding contradictions in tension but also creates a way to lean into the insights and opportunities that can be created by tension. Tension is something we often resist, but tension doesn’t have to be bad. Think about your favorite movies. They inevitably involve stories with some sort of trouble and conflict for various characters that needs to be resolved. Tension makes stories more interesting and forces creativity. In multicultural settings, tension often develops as people from various cultures and perspectives become intertwined. This can derail a project and relationship or it can be the very thing that enriches it. CQ draws on the strengths of tension as a creative force for innovation.

The growth of multiculturalism and globalization brings us rising levels of complexity and nuance. The ability to hold tension is absolutely essential. Fundamentalism—strict adherence to one’s view of the world as the only right way—is essentially a refusal to live in tension. It’s an unwillingness to even consider a different perspective, much less reformulate one’s view. In contrast, a culturally intelligent posture holds in tension a commitment to personal values and beliefs with an appreciation and respect for other’s values and beliefs, even when they conflict with your own. And this is more than just tolerance. It will probably mean accommodating for some shifts in your personal values and beliefs.

As noted several times, CQ includes yet transcends the traditional intercultural approaches that emphasize comparing people from different national cultures. These simplistic generalizations of how people behave based on their countries of origin can be helpful but must be held loosely in order to see each individual in light of who they are personally. CQ promotes this kind of complex thinking, which is “evoked by situations where two contradictory statements may be both true or where a statement may be true and not true at the same time, or when formal logic remains insufficient.”²

The culturally intelligent individual holds in tension the assets and liabilities of hierarchical, top-down leadership vs. egalitarian, flat leadership models. He or she appreciates the strengths and weakness of love marriages vs. arranged marriages. Both approaches can be positive and both can become negative. CQ allows us to hold polarities in tension rather than simply trying to reduce or dismiss the tension. CQ will help you embrace the tension of the opposites.

REFLECTION

To a strong degree, the power of CQ also lies in its use of reflective thinking. Over the last several years, a great deal has been made about harnessing the power of reflection. Just as a mirror allows us to adjust our external appearance, reflecting on our thoughts and experiences is a key way of adjusting our internal assumptions and behaviors. Reflection is a skill that helps us structure meaning around our experiences. As human beings, we can’t stop thinking. Every moment is filled with all kinds of impressions. As we sort through the barrage of impressions that come our way daily, we order some into the background and bring others into sharper focus. This occurs through reflective thinking.

Donald Schon is one of the foremost experts on the role of reflection in the workplace. Schon looked at how professionals think in the course of their everyday work. In his study of the way architects, psychotherapists, engineers, town planners, and managers operated on the job, he describes the process as reflection-in-action.

Professionals can’t just problem solve. They also have to do problem setting. Problem solving asks, “How do we build this?” Problem setting asks, “What is the right thing to build?” The goal isn’t just to find answers, but to form hypotheses that help explain a problem in the first place. This is a highly generative activity that requires a synthesis of reflection and action (another tension!). Problem setting is unlikely to come on the fly but only through the kind of reflective discipline elevated by the CQ approach. Reflective practice is most strongly connected to CQ Strategy—learning how to interpret observations and plan in light of them. But it’s woven throughout the overall CQ model as well.

CQ highlights the importance of reflection before and after an intercultural encounter and reflection in the midst of the encounter. Schon argues that alongside reflection-in-action, there is also a place for ancillary, outside-of-practice learning that enhances a practitioner’s capacity to think in doing.³ Working and relating in multicultural contexts requires solving unexpected problems with unpredictable solutions. We need to learn to reflect in the midst of action and create space to step aside from our constant movement to contemplate, reflect, and prepare for future action.

Many of our twenty-first-century cultures place little value on slowing down to take the time to reflect, particularly in the business context. But cultural intelligence is integrally connected to a disciplined effort to reflect in the midst of and outside of our frenzied multicultural work.

INSPIRATION: SUCCESS STORIES

One of the things I love about being part of the cultural intelligence movement is the variety of inspiring individuals and organizations I get to encounter. One day I’m working with a large pharmaceutical company that is wrestling with how its increasingly global operation fits with its conservative, Midwest U.S. roots. The next day I’m with the U.S. Department of Justice thinking about how CQ helps it promote justice and apprehend enemies without perpetuating ethnic stereotypes. And yet another day I’m interacting with a charitable organization working in Haiti.

I have little interest in academic research that doesn’t make a difference in the world. But individuals and organizations around the world are using the findings from CQ research to improve their lives and to make the world a better place. Entrepreneurs, teachers, parents, and artists are incorporating CQ into their work. Colleen, a business coach, finds that CQ is the ideal complement to the psychological tools she uses to help expats assimilate into a new culture (or to reenter their own culture when they get back home).

Rising Indian rock star Wilbur Sargunaraj is using his concert platforms to inspire and teach fans about CQ so that they not only tolerate different cultures but embrace cultural differences and learn from them. Habib, a CEO of a multimillion-dollar Middle Eastern firm, is using CQ to improve the way his company does mergers and acquisitions. Florence, a relief and development worker in South Africa, has described CQ as the single greatest learning tool she’s encountered to help her work successfully with culturally diverse NGOs and her fellow Africans across southern Africa.

Thousands of organizations around the world share inspiring reports of how CQ is helping them in a variety of ways, including human resource policies, marketing initiatives, negotiation practices, and new business opportunities. But the most inspiring success stories come from organizations that are integrating CQ all throughout their work. Many groups are doing so but here are a few specific examples.

The International Air Transport Association

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is headquartered in Geneva and Montreal, but its personnel represent 140 different nationalities and work in 74 countries. IATA is the primary voice of the airline industry to government and media. It provides technical support and training to the 230 airlines that are members of IATA. Despite the international breadth of IATA’s staff and work, the corporate ethos of the organization has traditionally been biased toward Western ideas and practices, with limited appreciation of important fast-growing markets in other parts of the world. IATA faces the same problems many other organizations around the world have faced:

•   How do we operate in markets we don’t fully understand?

•   Where do we find leaders able to grow local business, communicate with headquarters, and manage local teams effectively while implementing global processes, initiatives, and strategies?

The traditional solution to these problems has been to send out experts from the corporate headquarters (Western expats) to set up and manage branch offices around the world. In more recent years, companies are sending Singaporean-born Chinese or British-born Indians to work in places like China and India because of a belief that managers with this kind of bicultural background can uniquely bridge both worlds.

IATA has taken a different approach by developing what it calls the I-Lead Program—Intercultural Leadership Engagement and Development. Each year, IATA’s top management team selects twenty high-potential individuals from its workforce to be in I-Lead. Half the group are from traditional markets like Western Europe and North America with individualistic and low power-distance national cultures. The other half are from emerging markets that feature collectivist and high power-distance cultures such as China and India.⁴

Each of the twenty I-Lead participants is paired up with one other person in the group to co-lead a team of junior, high-potential employees in different locations and work on a real-life business project that is relevant to IATA. Essentially, ten IATA teams around the world are being co-led by one Western and one non-Western leader who work extensively on a set of deliverables in addition to their regular job responsibilities. Each pair of participants is assigned one senior executive as sponsor and one as coach to support and guide them along this program. At the end of the six-month period, the teams present their project results and cross-cultural lessons learned to IATA’s top executive team. The business innovations that have emerged from this program have translated into increased profitability for IATA and its member airlines. Have you noticed the move away from “swiping” your boarding pass when you board the plane to scanning bar codes—a more efficient way to board passengers and collect the necessary data? Airlines and airports around the world are implementing bar code boarding. This idea emerged from an I-Lead project.

All the I-Lead participants meet together from around the world for one week at the beginning of the program and again at the end. The launch workshop is held in an important emerging market and is attended by the CEO. Everyone participates in a CQ Multi-Rater Assessment, which includes both a self-assessment of their CQ capabilities and assessment by a select number of coworkers and a supervisor. When they come together, they receive their feedback report and talk about how to interpret the findings. And they experience a week of experiential learning about culture and its impact on how they lead on behalf of IATA around the world. In addition to pairing up with another I-Lead participant to manage a team together, each participant will be teaching cultural intelligence to their project team back at their home office, which, in turn, enhances the degree to which they internalize the material.

Guido Gianasso, IATA’s vice president of Human Capital, reports that this program has been one of its most profitable leadership development initiatives. A recently completed empirical study on the more than 200 past I-LEAD participants supports the conclusion that the program has significantly improved all four of their CQ capabilities. The program has helped IATA build bridges across different cultures and has played a direct role in the growth of the business in emerging markets.

Canadian Armed Forces

Military leaders have been discussing the importance of cultural understanding and adaptability as long as any group has. But the Canadian military’s experience in Afghanistan is playing a key role in its renewed focus on the importance of culture and CQ. The Canadian Forces are integrating CQ throughout their operational, strategic, and tactical imperatives. Defense researcher and retired Lieutenant-Commander Karen Davis writes, “CQ is an essential contributor to the ability to determine adversarial intent; to work effectively across joint, interagency, multinational and public domains (JIMP), to access and exercise whole of government (WOG) approaches, and to negotiate the demands of interrelated defence, diplomacy, and development (3D) objectives.”⁵

A great deal of CQ is needed by the coalition forces working in Afghanistan. For example, many Afghan village women are seen only by their family members. They rarely leave their homes, and when they do, they cover their faces so no man except their husband can see them. So when male coalition soldiers march into villages and barge into homes to search for explosive devices, there’s little cooperation—not to mention a huge insult and offense to the locals.

Canadian Forces are changing this approach. When possible, female soldiers go into the village to form bonds with the women and children. They talk to them about education and explain how the coalition effort will provide opportunity for Afghan children to go to school and have opportunities rather than joining up with insurgency armies. In describing this experience, Canadian Corporal Melissa Gagnon said, “The [Afghan women] actually smiled when we came in. It seems like there may not have been women [soldiers] here before.”⁶ When female soldiers aren’t available, their male counterparts are talking with village men first so that the Afghan women have time to cover their faces before the men come into their homes to do searches.

This more culturally intelligent strategy treats the Afghans with respect and dignity. And it’s also a more successful strategy in terms of the military mission. But it doesn’t stop here. As noted by Karen Davis, “The development of CQ across the Canadian Forces is dependent upon reflection, dialogue, continuous learning, lessons learned, and most importantly, the application of adaptable and innovative critical analyses to cultural challenges and dilemmas.”⁷

People to People

The People to People movement was begun in 1956 by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, who believed that direct interaction between ordinary citizens around the world could promote cultural understanding and world peace. Today, Eishenhower’s mission is carried out by People to People Student Ambassadors and the People to People Ambassador Programs. More than 400,000 Americans have traveled with People to People Ambassador Programs to seven continents around the world. The organization focuses primarily on using educational travel to develop cultural intelligence and social consciousness in children and adolescents. Youth travel on People to People delegations led by classroom teachers who volunteer their time because of their commitment to nurture CQ in youth. They believe CQ will enhance young people’s opportunities personally and their ability to make the world a better place.

Cultural understanding and engagement have been core values for People to People Ambassador Programs long before CQ became a formalized concept. For over fifty years, the organization has been a leader in doing educational travel in a socially conscious way. Today, the executives at the company are integrating the CQ research and model into their work from top to bottom. They don’t believe that sending individuals overseas automatically translates into improved CQ. Instead, they intentionally design the program to enhance CQ:

•   The process begins with a careful selection process in light of a young person’s motivation for traveling abroad (CQ Drive).

•   Next, leaders and delegates are prepared through a series of online and in-person training modules (CQ Knowledge).

•   Leaders then prepare their delegates by giving them journals and providing specific prompts to help them become more aware of and alert to cultural differences (CQ Strategy).

•   Itineraries are developed with the use of a local guide to think about how to best behave while interacting with the various cultures encountered (CQ Action).

As well as rooting the overall program and experience in this developmental approach, each day of a delegation’s itinerary incorporates these elements as well. For example, a group preparing to visit the Vatican will consider the following:

•   What’s our motivation for learning more about the Vatican (CQ Drive)?

•   What do we need to learn before we go and while we’re there (CQ Knowledge)?

•   How should we plan to behave? To what should we remain alert (CQ Strategy)?

•   What behavior should we adapt in order to respect the cultural norms (CQ Action)?

People to People Ambassador Programs look at how CQ informs their programs. In addition, the leadership is using it throughout the organization as a whole. Individuals in the program office are being assessed and trained in cultural intelligence, students who participate in the overseas trips are being assessed in CQ before and after they travel, and the educators who lead the trips are being trained in how to maximize the educational trips as a way to enhance the CQ of students over the long haul. In addition, the company supports an online forum, www.societyforglobalcitizens.com/, to foster ongoing interaction about issues related to cultural intelligence and global citizenship long after a trip abroad.

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Nanyang Technological University (NTU), a leading research university in Singapore, is often referred to as the MIT of the East. It’s no surprise that the business school has integrated teaching and assessment of CQ throughout its undergraduate and graduate programs, given that some of the leading researchers of CQ teach there. Undergraduate students in the business school work together in multicultural teams, assess one another’s CQ, and create a plan for developing their CQ in the areas where they need it most.

MBA students at Nanyang Business School travel abroad on short-term study missions to places like Vietnam or Ireland. The students are paired up with classmates from different cultures (an easy task given the diversity at the university), and they’re tasked with setting up meetings with businesses based in the country they’ll visit. They have a series of assignments to apply CQ as they encounter multinational firms, and they develop a long-term CQ development plan for themselves and their work in business. The business school draws heavily on CQ assessments to show accrediting bodies like the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) how the university’s programs enhance students’ global competency.

Nanyang Business School’s commitment to cultural intelligence is one of the things attributed to putting it among the top hundred business schools in the world and among the top ten schools in the region.⁸ CQ is being adopted at other schools and departments of the university as well. Singapore’s National Institute of Education is based at NTU and is equipping the nation’s teachers with CQ as a key set of capabilities needed for twenty-first-century classrooms. And plans are under way for every incoming freshman to take a course in CQ. Additional expressions of CQ exist throughout the administration of the university and in numerous other departments.

* * *

Hundreds of other individuals and organizations are incorporating the findings of CQ into their work. Large companies such as Bank of America, Barclays, and IBM, government agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice and the Swiss legislature, universities such as University of Minnesota, Georgetown, and Stanford, and charitable organizations such as the Red Cross and World Vision are just a few of the organizations tapping into the benefits associated with the CQ difference.

APPLICATION

The greatest strength of CQ lies in its application to our lives, relationships, and work in today’s global, interdependent world. I have little interest in ideas that don’t actually go anywhere. Throughout the book, I’ve been encouraging you to identify where you’ll begin work to improve your CQ. Use the following questions to give you an overview of your CQ action plan.

CREATING YOUR CQ ACTION PLAN

Leverage Your Strengths

Circle your strongest CQ capability (based on your scores from the CQ Self-Assessment):

How can you leverage this strength?

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

What can you do next week to tap into this strength?

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Manage Your Weaknesses

Circle your weakest CQ capability (based on your scores from the CQ Self-Assessment):

What can you do next week to address this weakness?

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Strategies to Improve Your CQ

We’ve reviewed the following strategies for improving your CQ.

Circle the one or two strategies you’ll begin using immediately.

Put an * next to the strategies you’ll come back to in four to six weeks.

MOVING FORWARD

We can’t navigate today’s globalized world using old maps. And it won’t help to simply update the names and colors of our old maps. They were made for a different world. CQ gives us a new map for navigating the terrain of today’s globalized world.

The CQ map includes some familiar features of previous maps such as learning about cultural values and studying a new language. But CQ transcends those features. Cultural intelligence is an integrative, progressive approach that prepares us for an onslaught of multicultural twists and turns. CQ calls us to be authentically true to our personal and organizational values while also learning to respect, defer, and learn from the values and concerns of others.

To improve your cultural intelligence is to embark on seeing the world in a whole new way. It’s at times painful and even fear-invoking, but the rewards are well worth it. It’s amazing what happens when we’re willing to move beyond our differences to see one another first and foremost as human beings. Then, from our common bond as humans, we can learn from our differences. That’s the power of CQ. That’s the CQ difference.