Are you a talent development professional wondering which skill to focus on for 2024 for your teams?
In today’s interconnected global landscape, cultural intelligence (CQ) has emerged as a critical skill set for professionals to effectively navigate diverse environments. It enables individuals to foster understanding, create collaboration, adjust misalignments and help create a thriving team.
We’re not born culturally-intelligent, but the good news is that we can develop it. In fact we can continue developing it with each challenging situation we face. Let’s look at the four steps that can help you and your team overcome challenging situations that hinder achieving goals through miscommunication and misalignment.
Meet Sarah, a software engineer working on a multicultural team. She finds herself in a challenging situation with her colleague, Kayla, from a different cultural background. Despite their shared goals, communication barriers and misunderstandings have hindered their collaboration. Sarah has been working on an important document that needs to be sent to a client ASAP. Sarah sends an email to Kayla asking for her feedback before sending it to the client.
Kayla does not give Sarah the feedback. Sarah is stuck. She knows that Kayla is an expert on the subject matter and would really like to have her input before sending the document to the client. What has gone wrong?
Let’s work through Sarah’s situation using CQ.
When you find yourself in a challenging situation, ask yourself the following:
- How motivated am I to adapt?
- What do I know about the other person’s cultural influences?
- How do I usually behave and what is my code switching strategy?
- What is one action I can change?
Step 1: Drive – Motivation
How motivated is Sarah to adapt? She needs to change something to influence Kayla and convince her of the importance and urgency of this document. In this situation Sarah is very motivated because not only does she have a financial bonus at the end of the project, but she generally feels she will learn and develop her skills by applying new communication techniques. She knows she will improve collaboration and team spirit so that next time it won’t be so difficult to get the feedback.
Your motivation might change according to each situation you find yourself in. Some projects will motivate you to adapt and code switch and others won’t.
Step 2: Knowledge – Understanding the Other Person:
What does Sarah know about Kayla’s cultural background that can influence the way she communicates and behaves?
Sarah comes up with 3 points that influence Kayla’s behaviour.
- 1. Firstly, Sarah knows that Kayla works in a very relationship-oriented culture. In such an environment, it is usually vital to build a trusting relationship before giving feedback. For Kayla, giving a 5-line bullet point email just with feedback could come across as harsh. Kayla does not wish for Sarah to misunderstand these comments as criticism. This might ruin the relationship between the two for any future collaboration. Therefore, she prefers not to comment at all.
2. Secondly, Sarah also knows that Kayla likes to understand why she is being asked to work on something, rather than just do it because someone has asked her.
3. Finally, Sarah knows that Kayla is group-oriented. Kayla’s message was full of the word “I”. I need your feedback, I am writing this because … etc.”
Step 3: Strategy – Adapting and Bridging Differences:
Armed with this knowledge, Sarah devises a strategy to improve her interactions with Kayla.
She reflects on how Kayla might perceives her because of the way she writes her mails. She realizes that she might come across as rude, bossy and even arrogant.
Sarah identifies areas where she can adapt, an important one will be on how she will write her messages. She is going to spend some time building the relationship, being more group-oriented and use the “why” technique.
Step 4: Action – Implementing the Strategy
Sarah implements her strategy by putting her thoughts into actions. She decides to use TEAMS and the webcam instead of email to communicate, she explains why the document is so important and finally she decides to use the term we and incorporate collective words such as “our goal”, “what can we do together as a team to improve this document” and generally asks Kayla to work on the document together.
As a talent development professional, it is hard to know which skills to focus on for your team. When looking to create high-performance, and navigating the complexities of cross-cultural interactions, developing cultural intelligence is paramount. By following the four steps – Drive, Knowledge, Strategy, and Action – individuals like Sarah can effectively bridge cultural divides, foster inclusivity, and unlock the full potential of diverse teams. Embracing cultural intelligence not only enhances professional relationships but also cultivates a more enriched and impactful work environment where psychological safety thrives.
