A colleague of mine was in Thailand a few years back on a business trip. On her last day, her final meeting ran a little longer than planned. She was panicking slightly that she would miss her flight home and as she finally slipped into the back seat of the taxi, she asked the driver, “How long until we reach the airport?” The driver timidly answered with his polite Thai smile, “Sorry Ma’am, do you need to wash your hands?”
I remember laughing very heartily when I first heard this story.
Cultural Intelligence is the skill of interpreting cultural patterns and then adapting our communication to be more effective.
How can such a simple sentence be interpreted so differently to what was really intended? My colleague was really nervous that she was going to miss her return flight to the Netherlands, but the Thai taxi driver thought she needed to use a restroom. In some countries the word “toilet” can seem vulgar and therefore it isn't used. Even restroom was obviously not a word this taxi driver was confident using. So he kindly asked her if she needed to wash her hands, when in fact my colleague just wanted to know how long it would take to reach the airport.
Leading in business with Cultural Intelligence
So what does this have to do with cultural intelligence? If cultural intelligence (CQ) is the skill of interpreting cultural patterns and learning to adapt our communication skills accordingly, then this is a perfect example.
If we were brought up in a society that expects good communication to be clear and transparent, in a business meeting when we ask a simple question such as, “Will the delivery arrive on Thursday?” we expect a simple answer. "Yes it will"or "No I don’t think it will because… " But that “yes/no” answer is a pattern used by societies where it is considered acceptable behaviour to speak directly and actually it is also acceptable to use negative terms without creating discomfort or creating loss of face.
However, if we are dealing with somebody brought up in a culture where a direct, "no" can be considered rude or aggressive that “no” might never come and we are expected to learn a different pattern of communication. Imagine being in Qatar, Japan or Brazil. If you ask that such a “yes / no” question questions to a business associate whom you don't know well, it is likely that you will often receive an answer that could appear (in your ears) to mean "yes". You would need to spend quite some time interpreting what that, "yes" really means. So the first cultural intelligence skill here is to recognise the communication pattern and the second skill is adapting our communication to find out what the real meaning of the sentence could be.
4 steps to developing CQ
Cultural Intelligence allows us to learn the communication and behavioural patterns of certain societies and then apply different communication techniques accordingly.
There are 4 steps to developing Cultural Intelligence
Step 1: Drive
How driven (or motivated) are you to modify and adapt your communication to reach your goals? This is a question that only you can answer. How important is it to you that that delivery arrive on Thursday and what are you willing to do to find out the true answer?
Step 2: Knowledge
What do I know about the other culture? What do you know about that person’s cultural upbringing that can help you determine what their communication pattern means?
Let's go back to that simple question, "Will the delivery arrive on Thursday?" Is the person you are speaking to from a face-saving, indirect speaking culture where the word, “no” is not often spoken? Or have they spent most of their careers working in multicultural environments and ,“I’m trying my hardest” actually could mean that the delivery might arrive?
The pattern is just that; a pattern. It is not obvious (and certainly not a pattern) if only used once. The pattern becomes more obvious when several people of the same group use the same pattern. It can take several trials and discussions before you realise what the communication pattern is.
Step 3: Strategy
Once you have understood the communication pattern you are only half way there. You still have not worked out if the delivery is arriving on Thursday. This is where cultural self-awareness comes in. Ask yourself: "How do I usually communicate in such a situation? What do I need to do to figure out if the delivery is running late, lost somewhere, if the cargo truck has had an accident or if they are expecting me to pay off the customs officials to get the cargo into the country?"
In step three you create your strategy. This could sometimes be as simple as just asking an open question, for example, "What are the chances that the delivery arrive on time or what are the challenges that we are facing right now?" Or it could be a longer strategy. Do you need to leave the "group" meeting and invite your associate to drink a cup of tea maybe a beer in a trust-binding one-on-one discussion to be told what is really going on with the delivery?
Step 4: Put it into action
Whatever your strategy ends up being, step 4 is where you put it into action. This is where we sometimes have to come out of our comfort zone to learn what we are really capable of. If you are uncomfortable in this kind of "trust" creating one-on-one meeting, plan it out carefully.
Step 4 needs to be tried, analysed and tried again until it works and until you start to feel more comfortable. After each new action, ask yourself three questions:
- How dit feel?
- How did the other person react?
- Would I do it again the same way or should I change something?
Only at this point do we really start to develop cultural intelligence.
