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BEST PRACTICE

Knowing what makes groups tick is as important as Cultural Intelligence understanding individuals. Successful managers learn to cope with different national, by P. Christopher Earley and Elaine Mosakowski corporate, and vocational • .

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Knowing what makes groups tick is as important as understanding individuals. Successful managers learn to cope with different national, corporate, and vocational cultures.

BEST PRACTICE Cultural Intelligence

by P. Christopher Earley and Elaine Mosakowski

You see them at international airports like Companies, too, have cultures, often very Heathrow: posters advertising the global bank distinctive; anyone who joins a new company HSBC that show a grasshopper and the mes- spends the first few weeks deciphering its cul-

VED. sage “USA—Pest. China—Pet. Northern Thai- tural code. Within any large company there are land—Appetizer.” sparring as well: The sales force Taxonomists pinned down the scientific def- can’t talk to the engineers, and the PR people inition of the family Acrididae more than two lose patience with the lawyers. Departments,

ALL RIGHTS RESER centuries ago. But is so powerful it can divisions, professions, geographical regions—

TION. affect how even a lowly insect is perceived. So each has a constellation of manners, meanings, A

OR it should come as no surprise that the human histories, and values that will confuse the inter-

ORP actions, gestures, and speech patterns a person loper and cause him or her to stumble. Unless, encounters in a foreign business setting are that is, he or she has a high CQ. subject to an even wider range of interpreta- Cultural intelligence is related to emotional tions, including ones that can make misunder- intelligence, but it picks up where emotional

OL PUBLISHING C standings likely and cooperation impossible. intelligence leaves off. A person with high But occasionally an outsider has a seemingly emotional intelligence grasps what makes us natural ability to interpret someone’s unfamil- human and at the same time what makes each iar and ambiguous gestures in just the way of us different from one another. A person BUSINESS SCHO D

R that person’s compatriots and colleagues with high cultural intelligence can somehow A V would, even to mirror them. We call that cul- tease out of a person’s or group’s behavior tural intelligence or CQ. In a world where cross- those features that would be true of all people ing boundaries is routine, CQ becomes a vitally and all groups, those peculiar to this person or important aptitude and skill, and not just for this group, and those that are neither universal international bankers and borrowers. nor idiosyncratic. The vast realm that lies be- OPYRIGHT © 2004 HAR C

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Cultural Intelligence•••BEST PRACTICE

tween those two poles is culture. fully embody the habits and norms of their na- An American expatriate manager we know tive culture may be the most alien when they had his cultural intelligence tested while serv- enter a culture not their own. Sometimes, peo- ing on a design team that included two Ger- ple who are somewhat detached from their man engineers. As other team members floated own culture can more easily adopt the mores their ideas, the engineers condemned them re- and even the body language of an unfamiliar peatedly as stunted or immature or worse. The host. They’re used to being observers and mak- manager concluded that Germans in general ing a conscious effort to fit in. are rude and aggressive. Although some aspects of cultural intelli- A modicum of cultural intelligence would gence are innate, anyone reasonably alert, mo- have helped the American realize he was mis- tivated, and poised can attain an acceptable takenly equating the merit of an idea with the level of cultural intelligence, as we have merit of the person presenting it and that the learned from surveying 2,000 managers in 60 Germans were able to make a sharp distinc- countries and training many others. Given the tion between the two. A manager with even number of cross-functional assignments, job subtler powers of discernment might have transfers, new employers, and distant postings tried to determine how much of the two Ger- most corporate managers are likely to experi- mans’ behavior was arguably German and ence in the course of a career, low CQ can turn how much was explained by the fact that they out to be an inherent disadvantage. were engineers. An expatriate manager who was merely The Three Sources of Cultural emotionally intelligent would probably have Intelligence empathized with the team members whose Can it really be that some managers are so- ideas were being criticized, modulated his or cially intelligent in their own settings but inef- her spontaneous reaction to the engineers’ fective in culturally novel ones? The experi- conduct, and proposed a new style of discus- ence of Peter, a sales manager at a California sion that preserved candor but spared feelings, medical devices group acquired by Eli Lilly if indeed anyone’s feelings had been hurt. But Pharmaceuticals, is not unusual. At the de- without being able to tell how much of the en- vices company, the atmosphere had been mer- gineers’ behavior was idiosyncratic and how cenary and competitive; the best-performing much was culturally determined, he or she employees could make as much in perfor- would not have known how to influence their mance bonuses as in salary. Senior managers actions or how easy it would be to do that. hounded unproductive salespeople to per- One critical element that cultural intelli- form better. gence and emotional intelligence do share is, At Lilly’s Indianapolis headquarters, to in psychologist Daniel Goleman’s words, “a which Peter was transferred, the sales staff re- propensity to suspend judgment—to think be- ceived bonuses that accounted for only a small fore acting.” For someone richly endowed with percentage of total compensation. Further- CQ, the suspension might take hours or days, more, criticism was restrained and confronta- while someone with low CQ might have to tion kept to a minimum. To motivate people, take weeks or months. In either case, it in- Lilly encouraged them. Peter volves using your senses to register all the ways commented, “Back in L.A., I knew how to han- that the personalities interacting in front of dle myself and how to manage my sales team. you are different from those in your home cul- I’d push them and confront them if they ture yet similar to one another. Only when weren’t performing, and they’d respond. If you conduct you have actually observed begins to look at my evaluations, you’ll see that I was settle into patterns can you safely begin to an- very successful and people respected me. Here ticipate how these people will react in the next in Indianapolis, they don’t like my style, and P. Christopher Earley is a professor situation. The inferences you draw in this man- they seem to avoid the challenges that I put to and the chair of the department of or- ner will be free of the hazards of stereotyping. them. I just can’t seem to get things done as ganizational behavior at London Busi- The people who are socially the most suc- well here as I did in California.” ness School. Elaine Mosakowski is a cessful among their peers often have the great- Peter’s problem was threefold. First, he professor of management at the Uni- est difficulty making sense of, and then being didn’t comprehend how much the landscape versity of Colorado at Boulder. accepted by, cultural strangers. Those who had changed. Second, he was unable to make harvard business review • october 2004 page 2 This document is authorized for use only by vikash salig ([email protected]). Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Please contact [email protected] or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.

Cultural Intelligence•••BEST PRACTICE

his behavior consistent with that of everyone cases. Unfortunately, the client sent a new rep- around him. And third, when he recognized resentative to every meeting. Many came from that the arrangement wasn’t working, he be- different business units and had grown up in came disheartened. different countries. Instead of equating the Peter’s three difficulties correspond to the first representative’s behavior with the client’s three components of cultural intelligence: the corporate culture, Devin looked for consisten- cognitive; the physical; and the emotional/ cies in the various individuals’ traits. Eventu- motivational. Cultural intelligence resides in ally he determined that they were all punctual, the body and the heart, as well as the head. Al- deadline-oriented, and tolerant of unconven- though most managers are not equally strong tional advertising messages. From that, he was in all three areas, each faculty is seriously ham- able to infer much about the character of their pered without the other two. employer. Head. Rote learning about the beliefs, cus- Body. You will not disarm your foreign toms, and taboos of foreign cultures, the ap- hosts, guests, or colleagues simply by showing proach corporate training programs tend to fa- you understand their culture; your actions and vor, will never prepare a person for every demeanor must prove that you have already situation that arises, nor will it prevent terrible to some extent entered their world. Whether gaffes. However, inquiring about the meaning it’s the way you shake hands or order a coffee, of some custom will often prove unavailing be- evidence of an ability to mirror the customs cause natives may be reticent about explain- and gestures of the people around you will ing themselves to strangers, or they may have prove that you esteem them well enough to little practice looking at their own culture an- want to be like them. By adopting people’s alytically. habits and mannerisms, you eventually come Cultural intelligence: Instead, a newcomer needs to devise what to understand in the most elemental way what we call learning strategies. Although most peo- it is like to be them. They, in turn, become an outsider’s seemingly ple find it difficult to discover a point of entry more trusting and open. University of Michi- natural ability to into alien cultures, whose very coherence can gan professor Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks’s research make them seem like separate, parallel worlds, on cultural barriers in business found that job interpret someone’s an individual with high cognitive CQ notices candidates who adopted some of the manner- clues to a culture’s shared understandings. isms of recruiters with cultural backgrounds unfamiliar and These can appear in any form and any context different from their own were more likely to ambiguous gestures the but somehow indicate a line of interpretation be made an offer. worth pursuing. This won’t happen if a person suffers from a way that person’s An Irish manager at an international adver- deep-seated reservation about the called-for compatriots would. tising firm was working with a new client, a behavior or lacks the physical poise to pull it German construction and engineering com- off. Henri, a French manager at Aegis, a media pany. Devin’s experience with executives in the corporation, followed the national custom of German retail clothing industry was that they greeting his female clients with a hug and a were reasonably flexible about deadlines and kiss on both cheeks. Although Melanie, a Brit- receptive to highly imaginative proposals for ish aerospace manager, understood that in an advertising campaign. He had also worked France such familiarity was de rigueur in a pro- with executives of a British construction and fessional setting, she couldn’t suppress her dis- engineering company, whom he found to be comfort when it happened to her, and she re- strict about deadlines and intent on a media coiled. Inability to receive and reciprocate campaign that stressed the firm’s technical ex- gestures that are culturally characteristic re- pertise and the cost savings it offered. flects a low level of cultural intelligence’s physi- Devin was unsure how to proceed. Should cal component. he assume that the German construction com- In another instance, a Hispanic commu- pany would take after the German clothing re- nity leader in Los Angeles and an Anglo- tailer or, instead, the British construction com- American businessman fell into conversation pany? He resolved to observe the new client’s at a charity event. As the former moved representative closely and draw general con- closer, the latter backed away. It took nearly clusions about the firm and its culture from his 30 minutes of waltzing around the room for behavior, just as he had done in the other two the community leader to realize that “Ang-

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Diagnosing Your Cultural Intelligence los” were not comfortable standing in such close physical proximity. These statements reflect different facets of cultural intelligence. For each set, Heart. Adapting to a new culture involves add up your scores and divide by four to produce an average. Our work with overcoming obstacles and setbacks. People large groups of managers shows that for purposes of your own development, can do that only if they believe in their own it is most useful to think about your three scores in comparison to one another. efficacy. If they persevered in the face of chal- Generally, an average of less than 3 would indicate an area calling for improve- lenging situations in the past, their confidence ment, while an average of greater than 4.5 reflects a true CQ strength. grew. Confidence is always rooted in mastery of a particular task or set of circumstances. Rate the extent to which you agree with each statement, using the scale: A person who doesn’t believe herself capa- 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree. ble of understanding people from unfamiliar cultures will often give up after her efforts meet with hostility or incomprehension. By Before I interact with people from a new culture, I ask contrast, a person with high motivation will, myself what I hope to achieve. upon confronting obstacles, setbacks, or even If I encounter something unexpected while working in a failure, reengage with greater vigor. To stay new culture, I use this experience to figure out new ways motivated, highly efficacious people do not de- to approach other cultures in the future. pend on obtaining rewards, which may be un- I plan how I’m going to relate to people from a different conventional or long delayed. culture before I meet them. Hyong Moon had experience leading ra- When I come into a new cultural situation, I can cially mixed teams of designers at GM, but immediately sense whether something is going well when he headed up a product design and de- + or something is wrong. velopment team that included representatives from the sales, production, marketing, R&D, Total ÷ 4 = Cognitive CQ engineering, and finance departments, things did not go smoothly. The sales manager, for ex- ample, objected to the safety engineer’s at- tempt to add features such as side-impact air It’s easy for me to change my body language (for bags because they would boost the car’s price example, eye contact or posture) to suit people from excessively. The conflict became so intense and a different culture. so public that a senior manager had to inter- I can alter my expression when a cultural encounter vene. Although many managers would have requires it. felt chastened after that, Moon struggled even

I modify my speech style (for example, accent or tone) ved. harder to gain control, which he eventually did to suit people from a different culture. by convincing the sales manager that the air eser bags could make the car more marketable. Al- + I easily change the way I act when a cross-cultural encounter seems to require it. rights r though he had no experience with cross-func- tional teams, his successes with single-function ÷ teams had given him the confidence to perse- Total 4 = Physical CQ vere. He commented, “I’d seen these types of disagreements in other teams, and I’d been able to help team members overcome their dif- I have confidence that I can deal well with people from ferences, so I knew I could do it again.” a different culture. ublishing Corporation. All How Head, Body, and Heart Work I am certain that I can befriend people whose cultural backgrounds are different from mine. Together At the end of 1997, U.S.-based Merrill Lynch I can adapt to the lifestyle of a different culture with acquired UK-based Mercury Manage- relative ease. ment. At the time of the merger, Mercury was I am confident that I can deal with a cultural situation vard Business School P a decorous, understated, hierarchical com- + that’s unfamiliar. pany known for doing business in the manner of an earlier generation. Merrill, by contrast, Total ÷ 4 = Emotional/ was informal, fast-paced, aggressive, and en- motivational CQ trepreneurial. Both companies had employees pyright © 2004 Har Co harvard business review • october 2004 page 4 This document is authorized for use only by vikash salig ([email protected]). Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Please contact [email protected] or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.

Cultural Intelligence•••BEST PRACTICE

of many nationalities. Visiting Mercury about urn, an autonomous division of GM. He was six months after the merger announcement, not able to adjust to Saturn’s highly participa- we were greeted by Chris, a Mercury person- tive approach to teamwork—he mistakenly as- nel manager dressed in khakis and a knit shirt. sumed it would be as orderly and deferential as Surprised by the deviation from his usual uni- Chevy’s. Eventually, he was sent back to form of gray or navy pinstripes, we asked him Chevy’s truck division. what had happened. He told us that Merrill The analyst methodically deciphers a for- had instituted casual Fridays in its own offices eign culture’s rules and expectations by resort- and then extended the policy on a volunteer ing to a variety of elaborate learning strategies. basis to its UK sites. The most common form of analyst realizes Chris understood the policy as Merrill’s at- pretty quickly he is in alien territory but then tempt to reduce hierarchical distinctions both ascertains, usually in stages, the nature of the within and between the companies. The inten- patterns at work and how he should interact tion, he thought, was to draw the two enter- with them. Deirdre, for example, works as a prises closer together. Chris also identified a broadcast director for a London-based com- liking for casual dress as probably an American pany. Her principal responsibility is negotiat- cultural trait. ing contracts with broadcast media owners. In Not all Mercury managers were receptive June 2002, her company decided that all units to the change, however. Some went along should adopt a single negotiating strategy, and with casual Fridays for a few weeks, then gave it was Deirdre’s job to make sure this hap- up. Others never doffed their more formal at- pened. Instead of forcing a showdown with the tire, viewing the new policy as a victory of managers who resisted, she held one-on-one carelessness over prudence and an attempt by meetings in which she probed their reasons for People who are Merrill to impose its identity on Mercury, resisting, got them together to share ideas, and whose professional dignity would suffer as a revised the negotiating strategy to incorporate somewhat detached from result. In short, the Mercury resisters did not approaches they had found successful. The re- their own culture can understand the impulse behind the change vised strategy was more culturally flexible than (head); they could not bring themselves to the original proposal—and the managers more easily adopt the alter their appearance (body); and they had chose to cooperate. been in the Mercury environment for so long The natural relies entirely on his intuition mores and even the body that they lacked the motivation (heart) to see rather than on a systematic learning style. He language of an the experiment through. To put it even more is rarely steered wrong by first impressions. simply, they dreaded being mistaken for Mer- Donald, a brand manager for Unilever, com- unfamiliar host. rill executives. mented, “As part of my job, I need to judge How would you behave in a similar situa- people from a wide variety of cultural back- tion? The exhibit “Diagnosing Your Cultural In- grounds and understand their needs quickly. telligence” allows you to assess the three facets When I come into a new situation, I watch ev- of your own cultural intelligence and learn eryone for a few minutes and then I get a gen- where your relative strengths and weaknesses eral sense of what is going on and how I need lie. Attaining a high absolute score is not the to act. I’m not really sure how I do it, but it objective. seems to work.” When facing ambiguous multi- cultural situations that he must take control of, Cultural Intelligence Profiles the natural may falter because he has never Most managers fit at least one of the following had to improvise learning strategies or cope six profiles. By answering the questions in the with feelings of disorientation. exhibit, you can decide which one describes The ambassador, like many political appoin- you best. tees, may not know much about the culture he The provincial can be quite effective when has just entered, but he convincingly commu- working with people of similar background nicates his certainty that he belongs there. but runs into trouble when venturing farther Among the managers of multinational compa- afield. A young engineer at Chevrolet’s truck nies we have studied, the ambassador is the division received positive evaluations of his most common type. His confidence is a very technical abilities as well as his interpersonal powerful component of his cultural intelli- skills. Soon he was asked to lead a team at Sat- gence. Some of it may be derived from watch-

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Cultural Intelligence•••BEST PRACTICE

ing how other managers have succeeded in agers and try to convince them that the larger comparable situations. The ambassador must community of Lahore would be hurt if poten- have the humility to know what he doesn’t tial investors came to view it as full of business- know—that is, to know how to avoid underes- people unconcerned with a company’s sol- timating cultural differences, even though vency. Nigel’s Saudi upbringing had made him doing so will inflict a degree of discomfort. aware of Islamic principles of personal respon- The mimic has a high degree of control over sibility to the wider community, while his Brit- his actions and behavior, if not a great deal of ish origins tempered what in another person’s insight into the significance of the cultural cues hands might have been the mechanical appli- he picks up. Mimicry definitely puts hosts and cation of those tenets. Throughout the negotia- guests at ease, facilitates communication, and tions, he displayed an authoritative style ap- builds trust. Mimicry is not, however, the same propriate to the Pakistani setting. In relatively as pure imitation, which can be interpreted as short order, the managers and the family mocking. Ming, a manager at the Shanghai re- agreed to terminate operations. gional power authority, relates, “When I deal Many managers, of course, are a hybrid of with foreigners, I try to adopt their style of two or more of the types. We discovered in our speaking and interacting. I find that simple survey of more than 2,000 managers that even things like keeping the right distance from the more prevalent than the ambassador was a hy- other person or making eye contact or speak- brid of that type and the analyst. One example ing English at a speed that matches the other was a female African-American manager in person’s puts them at ease and makes it easier Cairo named Brenda, who was insulted when a to make a connection. This really makes a dif- small group of young, well-meaning Egyptian ference to newcomers to China because they males greeted her with a phrase they’d learned You will not disarm your often are a bit threatened by the place.” from rap music. The chameleon possesses high levels of all “I turned on my heel, went right up to the foreign hosts simply by three CQ components and is a very uncom- group and began upbraiding them as strongly showing you understand mon managerial type. He or she even may be as my Arabic would allow,” she said. “When I’d mistaken for a native of the country. More im- had my say, I stormed off to meet a friend.” their culture; your portant, chameleons don’t generate any of the “After I had walked about half a block, I reg- ripples that unassimilated foreigners inevitably istered the shocked look on their faces as they actions must prove that do. Some are able to achieve results that na- listened to my words. I then realized they must you have entered their tives cannot, due to their insider’s skills and have thought they were greeting me in a outsider’s perspective. We found that only friendly way. So I went back to talk to the world. about 5% of the managers we surveyed be- group. They asked me why I was so angry, I ex- longed in this remarkable category. plained, they apologized profusely, and we all One of them is Nigel, a British entrepreneur sat down and had tea and an interesting talk who has started businesses in Australia, about how the wrong words can easily cause France, and . The son of diplomats, trouble. During our conversation, I brought up Nigel grew up all over the world. Most of his a number of examples of how Arabic expres- childhood, however, was spent in Saudi Ara- sions uttered in the wrong way or by the wrong bia. After several successes of his own, some person could spark an equivalent reaction in venture capitalists asked him to represent them. After spending about an hour with them in dealings with the founder of a money- them, I had some new friends.” losing Pakistani start-up. Brenda’s narrative illustrates the complexi- To the founder, his company existed chiefly ties and the perils of cross-cultural interactions. to employ members of his extended family The young men had provoked her by trying, and, secondarily, the citizens of Lahore. The ineptly, to ingratiate themselves by using a bit VCs, naturally, had a different idea. They were of current slang from her native land. Forget- tired of losses and wanted Nigel to persuade ting in her anger that she was the stranger, she the founder to close down the business. berated them for what was an act of cultural Upon relocating to Lahore, Nigel realized ignorance, not malice. Culturally uninformed that the interests of family and community mimicry got the young men in trouble; were not aligned. So he called in several com- Brenda’s—and the men’s—cognitive flexibility munity leaders, who agreed to meet with man- and willingness to reengage got them out of it.

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Cultivating Your Cultural hance their CQ. Intelligence Step 1. The individual examines his CQ Unlike other aspects of personality, cultural in- strengths and weaknesses in order to establish a telligence can be developed in psychologically starting point for subsequent development ef- healthy and professionally competent people. forts. Our self-assessment instrument is one ap- In our work with Deutsche Bank, we intro- proach, but there are others, such as an assess- duced a program to improve managers’ work ment of a person’s behavior in a simulated relationships with outsourcing partners in In- business encounter and 360-degree feedback on dia. We developed a two-and-a-half day pro- a person’s past behavior in an actual situation. gram that first identified a participant’s Hughes Electronics, for example, staged a cock- strengths and weaknesses and then provided a tail party to evaluate an expatriate manager’s series of steps, which we outline below, to en- grasp of South Korean social etiquette. Ideally, a manager will undergo a variety of assessments. Step 2. The person selects training that fo- cuses on her weaknesses. For example, some- one lacking physical CQ might enroll in acting Confidence Training classes. Someone lacking cognitive CQ might Helmut was a manager at a Berlin- so that some subsequent reversal would work on developing his analogical and induc- based high-tech company who partici- not paralyze him. To enhance his moti- tive reasoning—by, for example, reading sev- pated in our cultural-intelligence train- vational CQ, we asked him to list ten eral business case studies and distilling their ing program at London Business activities he thought would be part of common principles. School. Three months earlier, he had his daily or weekly routine when he re- Step 3. The general training set out above is been assigned to a large manufacturing turned to Munich. applied. If motivational CQ is low, a person facility in southern Germany to super- By the time Helmut returned to Lon- might be given a series of simple exercises to vise the completion of a new plant and don for his second training session, he perform, such as finding out where to buy a guide the local staff through the had proved to himself he could manage newspaper or greeting someone who has ar- launch. Helmut came from northern simple encounters like getting a coffee, rived to be interviewed. Mastering simple ac- Germany and had never worked in shopping, and having a drink with col- tivities such as greetings or transactions with southern Germany; his direct reports leagues. So we suggested he might be local shopkeepers establishes a solid base from had been raised in southern Germany ready for more challenging tasks, such which to move into more demanding activi- and had worked for the local business as providing face-to-face personnel ties, such as giving an employee a perfor- unit for an average of seven years. appraisals. Even though Helmut was mance appraisal. Helmut was good at developing new skilled at analyzing people’s behavior, Step 4. The individual organizes her per- learning strategies, and he wasn’t bad he doubted he was equal to this next set sonal resources to support the approach she at adapting his behavior to his sur- of hurdles. We encouraged him to view has chosen. Are there people at her organiza- roundings. But he had low confidence his analytic skills as giving him an im- tion with the skills to conduct this training, and in his ability to cope with his new col- portant advantage. For example, Hel- does her work unit provide support for it? A re- leagues. To him, southern Germans mut had noticed that Bavarians were alistic assessment of her workload and the time were essentially foreigners; he found extroverted only with people familiar to available for CQ enhancement is important. them “loud, brash, and cliquish.” them. With strangers they could be as Step 5. The person enters the cultural set- To capitalize on his resourcefulness formal as any Prussian. Realizing this ting he needs to master. He coordinates his and build his confidence, we placed allowed him to respond flexibly to ei- plans with others, basing them on his CQ Helmut in heterogeneous groups of ther situation instead of being put off strengths and remaining weaknesses. If his people, whom we encouraged to en- balance. strength is mimicry, for example, he would be gage in freewheeling discussions. We By the time he was asked to lead a among the first in his training group to ven- also encouraged him to express his quality-improvement team, he had con- ture forth. If his strength is analysis, he would emotions more openly, in the manner cluded that his leadership style must first want to observe events unfold and then of his southern compatriots, and to unfold in two stages—commanding at explain to the others why they followed the make more direct eye contact in the the outset, then more personal and in- pattern they did. course of role-playing exercises. clusive. On his third visit to London, Step 6. The individual reevaluates her newly Helmut’s resourcefulness might have Helmut reported good relations with developed skills and how effective they have impelled him to take on more ambi- the quality improvement team, and the been in the new setting, perhaps after collect- tious tasks than he could quite handle. members corroborated his assessment. ing 360-degree feedback from colleagues indi- It was important he get his footing first, vidually or on a casual focus

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Cultural Intelligence•••BEST PRACTICE

group that was formed to discuss her progress. flounder? Our anecdotal and empirical evi- She may decide to undergo further training in dence suggests that the answer doesn’t lie in specific areas. tacit knowledge or in emotional or social intel- In the sidebar “Confidence Training,” we de- ligence. But a person with high CQ, whether scribe how we applied these six steps to the cultivated or innate, can understand and mas- case of Helmut, one of five German managers ter such situations, persevere, and do the right we helped at their employer’s behest as they thing when needed. coped with new assignments within and out- side of Germany. Reprint R0410J • • • To order, see the next page Why can some people act appropriately and or call 800-988-0886 or 617-783-7500 effectively in new cultures or among people or go to www.hbr.org with unfamiliar backgrounds while others

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