www.hbr.org 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 • cultures. Reprint R0410J 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. 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 subcultures 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 culture 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 harvard business review • october 2004 page 1 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 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 management 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.