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The first step to reaching full impact in your global calls in this age of less travel and more home-office, is to use cultural intelligence. Our business world seems to shrink day by day. When you look at your agenda in the morning it likely says:
- 07:30 am meeting with Japan
- 11:00 am with Switzerland
- 6:00 pm with the USA
We have conversations and discuss business strategies, on a daily basis, with people all over the globe. Yet, do we modify the way we describe our thoughts and strategies depending on whether we are speaking to a North American rather than a Korean? Have we learnt how to create a strong business relationship with a Finn, a Qatari and a Brazilian?
Today, more than ever before, our daily activities require us to be ever so alert about very different mindsets. If you want to reach full impact in your global calls, you need to switch off autopilot and consciously prepare your meetings in advance, according to the mindset of the people you are expecting to deal with. One way to do that is to use Cultura Intelligence.
What is Cultural Intelligence?
Cultural Intelligence is the skill of being able to interpret unspoken codes of culture and then switch our communication styles accordingly, so that we become more effective with the person with whom we’re dealing and therefore reach our goals
There are two parts to that statement above. Firstly, we need to learn to read the “unspoken codes”. That might entail understanding when a “yes” means a “no”; how to know whether the question being asked is used to display interest or displeasure, or perhaps knowing when a smile or a laugh is hiding loss of face or embarrassment.
The second part of the statement refers to modifying our communication. Without that adaptation, we often struggle in really reaching the impact we were hoping for. If you are successful in reading the unspoken code but persist on using the same communication and behaviour you started with, it becomes much harder to reach your goals.
Let’s look at an example of how to use cultural intelligence.
Asia-Pacific Conference call
Julie works for a multinational organisation in Western Europe where each colleague is responsible for a different world region. She has recently started a new role as Head of Asia Pacific. Once a month, Julie has a conference call with the managers and teams in her region, Australia, Vietnam, Japan, etc. It’s her responsibility during each call to learn what the best practices are from each team.
Julie prepares her meetings meticulously, practising the exact questions she will ask the group and then how she will distribute the information afterwards. What Julie hasn’t prepared, is how to understand the unspoken codes that the various cultural norms might influence.
Julie comes out of her first few meetings feeling as though she has not achieved what she wanted. Her goal is to supply her manager with the best practices from the region. The Australian team supplied her one and she may have received one or two other results. However, she is missing quite a few, namely, the Japanese best practices, and Japan is an important market for her.
Julie wonders to herself, why is it that she can rarely get the information she needs from the Japanese market?
Cultural intelligence can help you decipher the unspoken codes
Why is Julie not effective in communicating her request to the Japanese team? Let’s look at how Julie can use Cultural Intelligence (CQ) to figure our what she needs to do.
Step 1 of CQ is Drive. Is Julie driven? Yes, she is. She is motivated to modify her communication and behaviour to reach her goals.
Step 2 of CQ is Knowledge. This is a very important aspect. What does Julie know about the Japanese culture? Well, Julie has learnt through reading up on Japan, that Japanese people are usually collectivist, or group-oriented. This could mean that a colleague is not willing to show or share their personal opinion. They would usually rather express the opinion of the team. Therefore in Julie’s case, the Japanese team likely need to have a team meeting after each call to discuss what they have heard in the meeting and then be able to give their opinion on the subject as a team at a later date.
Lack of knowledge about cultural norms and values can lead us to false negative judgments
It is usually easier to read the unspoken codes if we have acquired an understanding of the different cultural values of the people we are dealing with. Without that knowledge we are often prone to rely on our biases and start judging our counterparts negatively. In this case, Julie might erringly think that the Japanese team members are not speaking up because they are not experienced enough or don’t understand her or that they are just plain shy.
Step 3 of CQ is Strategy. Once Julie feels she knows why the team is not speaking up, she then needs to create a strategy that will allow the Japanese team to display all their knowledge and talk about their best practices. There may be several different ways of doing this and each individual should determine what would work best for them.
Step 4 of CQ is Putting the strategy into Action. Once the strategy has been decided, put the thoughts into action and see what happens. The action can be verbal or non-verbal. It could be a different manner of asking questions or a distinct approach to writing emails. It might be as simple as transforming the method of building trust with the team.
I don’t have enough hours in the day to go through all of that
Well, yes, it can seem a little long-winded, but what happens if you don’t take the time to think through your strategy? Are you prepared to risk missing your desired goals and not reaching full impact in your global conference calls?
