Cross-Cultural Synergies

16/06/2025

Good stuff, would like to try some …

06/03/2025

Which Marco Di Renzo store has this blouse plse? I’m looking for it in black … Spreitenbach Shoppi Tivoli or Langstrasse, ZH?

29/05/2019

Another eye-opening and insightful WBECs session today, this time with David B. Peterson: The DNA of VUCA: Coaching Leaders to Deal with Chaos, Complexity, and Exponential Change.
Lots of takeaways and lots of further research and self-learning ... https://www.facebook,com/wbecs/

There'll be another session @ 7pm CEST (Swiss) today talking about Best Practices for working with Organizational Coaching Programs with him and David Goldsmith. You need to register to attend live.
http://wbecs.com/summit

Register for free today and join the world's leading online event for coaches. Learn from over 40 of today's top thought leaders in the coaching industry.

28/05/2019

A person with "high emotional intelligence (EQ)" grasps what makes us human and at the same time what makes each of us different from one another. For instance, she would be very good at helping to activate or bring out introvert members of a team so that their contributions are acknowledged too when working in a team with a lot of extrovert or outgoing personalities.

A person with "high cultural intelligence (CQ)" can somehow tease out of a person’s or group’s behavior those features:
** that would be true of all people and all groups => universal characteristics
** that are peculiar to this person or this group => personality attributes idiosyncracy or profession-related (HR vs. Engineers)
** that are neither universal nor idiosyncratic => cultural identity (geographic) based on where they grew up, went to school, were socialized etc.

The vast realm that lies between those two poles ie. 3rd point, is culture.
https://hbr.org/2004/10/cultural-intelligence

An American expatriate manager, with considerable EQ but without sufficient CQ, leading a design team that included two German engineers, might empathize with team mates who got lambasted by the Germans who aggressively criticized their ideas. This manager might conclude that Germans in general are rude and aggressive.

A modicum of cultural intelligence would have helped the American realize he was mistakenly equating the merit of an idea with the merit of the person presenting it and that the Germans were able to make a sharp distinction between the two. A manager with even subtler powers of discernment might have tried to determine how much of the two Germans’ behavior was arguably German (national culture) and how much was explained by the fact that they were engineers (training or profession-related).

But without being able to tell how much of the engineers’ behavior was idiosyncratic (or training related to their professions) and how much was culturally determined, he or she would not have known how to influence their actions or figure out how easy it would be to do that.

While emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence are related, CQ builds upon the foundation of EQ to take into consideration not just thoughts and feelings, but also the perspectives from other cultures and backgrounds.

28/05/2019

but it picks up where emotional intelligence leaves off.

28/05/2019

Cultural intelligence
is related to emotional intelligence,

28/05/2019

We need it for doing
business in
the 21st Century

28/05/2019

What is
Cultural Intelligence?
(CQ)

28/05/2019

Just came off an insightful WBECs webinar with Dr. Daniel Goleman (emotional intelligence, EI or EQ) who discusses the importance of managers having EI to lead their teams to better business performance. The ideas are backed by neuroscience studies and business data supports the observation that executives with high EI are better leaders.

As a cross-cultural consultant, I very naturally popped the question of 'what he thought of the importance of cultural intelligence or CQ in the 21st century of global business'. He replied that they are not mutually exclusive, not a case of "either ... or" but both ends of the same spectrum.

Indeed culture is so powerful it can affect how even a lowly insect is perceived. So it should come as no surprise that the human actions, gestures, and speech patterns a person encounters in a foreign business setting can be subject to a wide range of interpretations, including ones that can make misunderstandings likely and cooperation impossible.

But occasionally an outsider may demonstrate a seemingly natural ability to interpret someone’s unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures in just the way that person’s compatriots and colleagues would, even to mirror them.

This is what we call that "cultural intelligence" or CQ. In a world where crossing boundaries is routine, CQ becomes a vitally important aptitude and skill, and not just for international bankers and borrowers.

Definition of CQ repeated here: Cultural intelligence: an outsider’s seemingly natural ability to interpret someone’s unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures the way that person’s compatriots would.

05/02/2019

Year of the Pig 2019

24/09/2018

Lovely little video from CCTV of acrobatic silhouettes of male & female dancers portraying familiar symbols (culled from various legends) of this much-loved Chinese festival celebrated in China, SE Asia and various diaspora communities around the world: the Jade Rabbit stoking his cauldron, Chang Er flying to the moon, mooncakes, a pagoda, a temple, the Great Wall, agricultural tools.