What is Cultural Intelligence?

What is Cultural Intelligence?

Posted by Pia Sharma on 16 June 2010 | 0 Comments

To be culturally intelligent means that you possess the conscious ability to adapt to and make sense of unfamiliar contexts and communication. You have the ability to empathize with the other party while still maintaining your own personal culture and view of the world. This entails that when practicing to be culturally intelligent, agile thinking, skills and abilities to interpret what is going on in different contexts are emphasized as opposed to knowledge of e.g. culture-specific traditions. The more traditional approach to enhancement of understanding and communication between cultures is to investigate specific cultures as a closed system that is separate from other systems, which in reality corresponds to national cultures. Each national culture - and its members - reflects a certain way of relating to, interpreting and communicating with the rest of the world. The more recent approach, also called the inter-active approach, to cross-cultural communication emphasizes culture as the product of interaction where new meanings and interpretations arise from meetings between people. Here culture is seen as being in a constant state of flux and its characteristics are negotiated on an on-going basis. The objective of investigating cultures as a closed system is to learn as much as possible about a 'foreign' culture in order to have successful meetings with its members, whereas the objective of the interactive approach focuses on dialogue competences in particular contexts. It can be useful to maintain the traditional approach to cross-cultural communication almost as a storage system that contains culture specific information that can be used as reference in in promotion of cultural awareness, while keeping in mind that the approach to cross-cultural communication has to be context-specific in order to avoid generalizations and stereotyping! So where do you begin if you want to increase your CQ? The basis for having successful cross-cultural interaction starts with yourself! Being culturally intelligent means first and foremost to be aware of your own culture! How do you interpret the world around you? What assumptions underlie your approach to communicating and negotiating with clients and colleagues? Without this awareness you can't fully empathize with and recognize similarities and differences in the various cross-cultural contexts in which you negotiate on a daily basis in a multicultural society! You are always welcome to contact PS Consulting to learn more about how to obtain a higher CQ!