Help with The Role of Cultural Values and Intercultural Communication
Chapter 4
CQ KNOWLEDGE (PART 1): KNOW WHAT DIFFERENCES MATTER
CQ Knowledge: What do I need to know?
Understanding cultural similarities and differences
Profile of a leader with high CQ Knowledge
Leaders high in CQ Knowledge have a rich, well-organized understanding of culture and how it affects the way people think and behave. They possess a repertoire of knowledge about how cultures are alike and different. They understand how culture shapes behavior.
Can we please eat something normal tonight?! Its the kind of question Ive heard countless times while traveling internationally with people. But this time, the question was coming from my four-year-old daughter! Our family was living in Singapore, and though Western food is readily available there, my wife and I love the local food. Looking straight into my daughters brilliant blue eyes, I quickly retorted, Emily. You want something normal? You cant get much more normal than rice. Do you know how many people eat rice in the world? Thats about as normal as you can get. Before I could go any further, my wife gave me the look. Now was not the time to go off on a cultural intelligence lecture with our kids. But I wanted my daughters to understand that normal is relative to our experience.
Ethnocentrismevaluating other people and their culture by the standards of our own cultural preferencesis found among people everywhere. Seeing the world in light of our own cultural background and experience is inevitable. But ignoring the impact of ethnocentrism on how we lead is the single greatest obstacle to CQ Knowledge.
Most of us tend to underestimate the degree to which we ourselves are a product of culture. Its much easier to see it in others. Emilys question made explicit a guiding assumption for many of us: My experience is whats normal and best. Nowadays, Emily and my younger daughter, Grace, enjoy all kinds of spicy, different foods, and theyre as quick to catch me in my cultural blind spots as I am them. Grace recently asked me, Shouldnt CQ mean you show more respect for my love of country music? Touch.
Is it really such a big deal to think certain kinds of food and music are normal and others are weird? Maybe and maybe not. But to remain unaware of how culture shapes the way people think and behave is not only foolish, its expensive. From Fortune 500 businesses to small and medium-side organizations around the world, research consistently demonstrates a high level of failure when expansion into international markets is done without an awareness of how people from other cultures think and behave.
After eight years of struggling in Germany, Wal-Mart sold its eighty-five stores there. Many journalists have theorized about what led to Wal-Marts failure given its huge success at home, but its widely agreed that its primary flaw was in ignoring the cultural differences between the United States and Germany. It tried to apply its success formula here in the States to a German market without modifying it. Whether it was the kinds of products offered, the ways items were displayed, the greeters at the entrance, or the policies used in the employee handbook, Wal-Marts stint in Germany seems to be a case study of what happens when greater attention isnt given to understanding the relevance of cultural differences. As a result, Wal-Mart filed a loss of USD $1 billion because of the failure in Germany and has since become much more adaptive and successful in other overseas markets.
Even if an organization never expands internationally, its impossible to be an effective leader without having some insight into how culture shapes the thoughts and behaviors of the people touched by your leadership. In fact, Edgar Schein, author of the bestselling book Organizational Culture and Leadership, says its impossible to separate culture and leadership. Schein says cultural norms significantly influence how you define leadershipfor example, who should get promoted, what success is, and how to motivate employees. He argues that creating and managing culture is all thats really important for leaders. According to Schein, The unique talent of leaders is their ability to understand and work with cultureboth the organizational and the socio-ethnic cultures they regularly encounter. Dont dismiss cultural understanding as simply politically correct, warm and fuzzy stuff. It will define your leadership.
The ability to understand and work with a culture doesnt just come intuitively. It requires a disciplined effort to better understand cultural differences. CQ Knowledge, the second capability of cultural intelligence, refers to our level of understanding about culture and the ways cultures differ. Its not that leaders with high levels of CQ Knowledge are walking encyclopedias of every culture in the world. Thats impossible. Instead, they possess a growing repertoire of knowledge about the macro patterns across cultures. And they can discern when something should be attributed to culture, and when its more likely a result of something elsesuch as a personality conflict or power struggle.
In this chapter and the next one, well review the most important cultural knowledge you need to lead with cultural intelligence. Our research reveals two subdimensions of CQ Knowledge: cultural-general knowledge, which includes understanding cultural systems, values, and language differences; and context-specific knowledge. Because this is a leadership book, well focus on context-specific knowledge about leadership. These subdimensions are the basis of the strategies well cover for developing CQ Knowledge. First, well learn how to see culture and its role in the way we think, behave, and lead. Next, well examine the role of language in how we understand and lead across cultures. Then, well review the most relevant cultural systems and values that need to be understood. Finally, well examine ten cultural value dimensions. Given the volume of information relevant to CQ Knowledge, the material is divided across two chapters. In this chapter, well look at the first three ways to develop CQ Knowledge: (1) see cultures role in yourself and others, (2) understand different languages, and (3) review the basic cultural systems. The fourth elementlearn about cultural valueswill be discussed in Chapter 5.
HOW TO DEVELOP CQ KNOWLEDGE
1. See cultures role in yourself and others.
2. Understand different languages.
3. Review the basic cultural systems.
4. Learn about cultural values (Chapter 5).
Key Question: What cultural understanding do I need for this cross-cultural assignment?
See Cultures Role in Yourself and Others
The path toward improving CQ Knowledge begins with seeing the influence of culture on everything we think, say, and do. Culture is defined as the beliefs, values, behaviors, customs, and attitudes that distinguish one group from another. Or as some more simply put it, Its the way we do things around here.
One time my friend Vijay took me to a cricket match in Delhi. I had tried watching cricket before but I was always confused. But Vijay was a great teacher. As we watched the game in the sweltering heat, he started to explain the basic rules, the use of the wickets, the way scoring happened, and the ultimate goal of getting each bats-man on the opponents team out. Not only was the game starting to make sense, I actually felt myself getting drawn into the excitement of the competition. I would have been a sorry sight if I had actually tried to get out on the field and play. But I had a better understanding of what was going on while the cricket pros played their game.
Despite the emphasis of many leadership courses and books on strategic planning and rational decision-making processes, many seasoned executives lead from the gut. As pointed out earlier, this works surprisingly well when leading in a familiar culture. Its not that theres no strategic thinking behind what these executives are doing. Instead, the graduate school of experience has programmed their subconscious to quickly arrive at decisions based on understanding theyve gained throughout the years. The challenge comes when a leader relies on that same implicit understanding for making decisions related to different cultures. It might be like a football player jumping in to play cricket assuming theyre playing football.
By growing your CQ Knowledge, you can better understand things you may otherwise miss when moving into a new cultural context. This involves understanding the rules, albeit often unspoken, that are behind the behavior and assumptions in a particular culturewhether thats an ethnic group, an organizational culture, or the subculture of a political party or religious group. The objective of the acquired understanding isnt to become like the people in that cultural group or to be able to play their games. The goal is to understand and appreciate the rules behind their lives and society so that you can effectively lead.
Lets consider a few of the different layers of culture we experience as leaders. National culture, such as French or Chinese culture, is the layer of culture that most powerfully shapes behavior. We may not think of ourselves as overly influenced by our national culture until we travel abroad. Then suddenly we find ourselves identifying with other people from our country more than we do when were home. Though many subcultures exist within most countries, national culture is the cultural orientation that most significantly shapes how most people think and behave.
Next is the influence of different ethnic cultures. Ill repeatedly note the danger of making broad generalizations about all people from a particular country, and this is partly because of the diversity within most domestic contextswhether its Zulus and Afrikaans in South Africa; ethnic Chinese, Indians, and Malays in Malaysia; or African Americans and Hispanics in the United States. Most leaders have some consciousness of the ethnic diversity within their own country, but they may need to grow their awareness of the diversity that exists elsewhere. Leaders outside the United States are often perplexed by what appears to be an overly sensitized concern about racism and prejudice in the United States related to the African American subculture. And the very fact that we refer to that subculture as African American rather than black is confounding to many non-U.S. leaders. But if youre going to be working in the U.S. context, its important to understand the long history that helps explain the values, behavior, and customs of African Americans compared to the dominant Anglo culture in the United States.
The other culture most consistently encountered by leaders is organizational culture. One of the things I love about my work is the chance to experience so many diverse cultures across different industries and organizations. Spending one day with Cokes executives and the next day with Facebooks can make me feel like I should have had a passport to move from one place to the nexteven though I havent left the country. The same is true when presenting to a group of executives at Samsung as compared to Hyundai. I have to further shift my thinking before presenting to a group of academics and yet again before talking with a group of faith-based leaders. CQ Knowledge includes growing our understanding of the distinct ways organizations celebrate successes, motivate teams, and share their stories.
Each of us is part of several other subcultures, including cultures organized around generational differences, sexual orientation, regions across a country, and religions. Consider the cultures of which you are a part and the ones that most strongly influence how you lead. We arent merely passive recipients of culture in any of these contexts. Culture isnt something that just happens to us; were also active creators of it. Many leaders inherit organizational cultures with unhealthy practices and dysfunctional behavior throughout the company. Its extremely challenging to change an organizational culture but it can be done. And we play a role in morphing and adapting the other cultures we belong to as well.
One of leaders most important roles is to be conscious of how culture shapes their behavior and that of others. Take, for example, Giovanni Bisignani, who recently stepped down from a decade as CEO and director general of the International Air Transportation Association (IATA), the trade association for over 90 percent of commercial airlines globally. One could easily mistake Bisignanis bright-eyed, affable nature as simply that of a nice guy who has had a lot of global experiences. Hes one of the warmest people Ive ever met. Within seconds of talking to him, he puts you at ease, makes a personal connection, and starts telling stories about tea with Mrs. Gandhi and his favorite travel spots. But this hospitable, gregarious character is a ferociously determined leader who loves a challenge and is relentlessly focused on driving change and bringing about results. The impact of his ten years of leadership at IATA is more than impressive:
Since 2004, he saved the air industry $54 billion.
He reformed a dusty, near obsolete organization into the largest Citibank customer in the world.
He improved the ease by which we travel through e-ticketing, bar-coded boarding passes, and self-service check-in kiosks. More important, hes led air travel to become the safest mode of transportation in the world.
He built collaborative initiatives between some of the most unlikely partners: competing airlines, democratic presidents and dictators, big guys like Lufthansa and little guys like Air Zimbabwejust to name a few.
He moved IATA from being an organization led and dominated by Europeans and North Americans to one in which 60 percent of its members are from developing countries and more than 65 percent of its revenue is from the Middle East and Asia.
Giovanni understood the ubiquitous role of culture in every interaction and negotiation, and as a result, he led monumental change to one of the hardest hit industries of the twenty-first centurythe air industry. And hes been a catalyst for some of the most unlikely cross-border collaborations. This is a guy who has dinner with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano one evening and heads off to Iraq the next day to help Iraqi Airways get the airplane parts they need to fly passengers safely. Giovannis cultural understanding is the compass that gives him the direction he needs when stepping into any meeting.
Not every leader is as convinced as Giovanni about the relevance of cultural understanding. Jeff, a U.S. sales manager from a billion-dollar manufacturing company, talked to me a week before making his second business trip to China to visit a couple of factories in Guangzhou.
Jeff was very animated as we talked. With his legs constantly moving up and down and his fingers nervously tapping on the table, he said, Okay, no offense. But doesnt this whole cultural thing get a little overplayed? I mean, people are people and business is business. Ill probably have to eat some weird food next week, but otherwise, I dont see what the big differences are.
I resisted jumping in for the moment and listened as Jeff carried on with his line of reasoning. Continuing with what seemed like a lot of nervous energy, Jeff said:
The way I see it, everyone is just trying to find a way to make a decent living and get ahead in life. I dont care whether youre Chinese, Mexican, or American, people are pretty much the same everywhere. They care about their kids, like you and me. They know you have to be aggressive to survive in this global market. And everyone wants to get ahead. The marketing strategy might need to adapt a little bit, but I think manufacturing is manufacturing and selling is selling wherever you go. Either youre cut out for it or not!
If you only travel to major cities, stay in global hotel chains, and interact with locals who have been trained how to serve international travelers, its easy to believe the world is pretty much the same everywhere. And theres some merit to Jeffs point that all people share some basic universal characteristics. But the way we express and approach those universal characteristics varies widely across cultural and individual differences. A leaders ability to distinguish between whats universal, whats cultural, and whats personal is one of the most important indicators of cultural intelligence. This discernment stems from growing your CQ Knowledge. As you gain a better understanding of cultural norms, you know whether youre experiencing something that is unique to an individual or typical of most individuals from the culture involved.
The iceberg is a familiar metaphor used when talking about the powerful influence of culture (see Figure 4-1). In my version of this metaphor, I place the universals shared across all humanity at the tip of the iceberg. As Jeff noted, there are a few universals that are true for most everyone and these are things we can readily see. But when you go a bit deeper, you find a slew of differences attributable to varying cultures and individual personalities. This is an important point of understanding. Well refer back to these three categories of human behavior (universal, cultural, and personal) throughout the book, but heres a brief explanation.
Universal
I love to sit in a busy train station or shopping center and watch all the people. Even in a faraway place where I dont know anyone, I can feel a level of connection simply by watching what appears to be a father with his children, a fellow traveler with her bags, or a couple laughing together. I relate to all these things. We share basic human needs. And emotions such as fear, joy, and disappointment are common to everyone. Acknowledging what we have in common can be the first step toward making the foreign seem more familiar. But its only the tip of the iceberg.
Figure 4-1. Three Categories of Human Behavior
Cultural
If I sit in a train station and watch a stranger with his kids, I can experience a form of connection as a dad, but if I make assumptions about what their relationship should look like, Ive moved into questionable territory. Or to use the earlier analogy, interpreting cricket using the rules of football would lead to misunderstanding and confusion. I might think I understand and be entirely wrong.
As noted in Figure 4-1, certain aspects of a culture are visible. The way people drive, the local currency, religious symbols, or the way a business images itself are things that can be observed and identified. These are the visible cues about cultural differences that exist in any culture. But the most important points of understanding are the beliefs, values, and assumptions that lie beneath the surface of whats visible. As represented by the iceberg, beneath the surface are the beliefs, values, and assumptions that drive behavior.
If Jeff fails to see the profound differences between the way a Chinese business partner and an American one thinks and behaves, hes sure to hit all kinds of roadblocks and will unlikely see lasting success working cross-culturally. Ignorance about the cultural differences that abound in the multicultural workforce around us puts us on the pathway toward ineffective, irrelevant leadership.
Consider the Chinese concept of guanxi as an example of why Jeff needs to realize that a people are people approach is an insufficient rule of thumb for guiding his interactions in China. Guanxi refers to the connections and resulting obligations between two individuals. It exists between Chinese families first and foremost, but its also found among classmates and professional colleagues because of a shared history together. When adopting guanxi, individuals loosely keep track of the favors given and the debts owed between one another. Given the underlying presence of guanxi in most Chinese relationships, Jeff would be wise to learn the significance of the gifts his colleagues in Guangzhou may give him as a way to establish and build a relationship together. The same actions done at home might appear to be bribery or little more than just a token gesture. But misunderstanding what this means in China could derail everything Jeff was sent there to do.
Talk to most anyone who has worked on getting a deal in China and he will tell you stories about people who insisted on getting him drunk. In a culture where guanxi can make or break you in business, getting drunk with a potential business partner is often viewed as a crucial way of solidifying that relationship and showing that you are, in fact, friends. First, business dinners usually start with an invitation. Typically, the person doing the inviting should be of at least the same leadership level as the person being invited. Furthermore, the person doing the inviting pays for dinner. Chinese individuals who follow more traditional norms will make the dinner invitation in person or by phone, not by email or text message. Email is considered too impersonal, and it allows a tangible record of those with whom you do business.
Unlike during most Western business dinners, business itself is usually the least talked about topic during a Chinese business dinner. If anything, its saved for a sliver of time at the end of dinner, although at that point, most of the people involved are so drunk that no real business decisions can come out of it. But dont think this means its a waste of time. The point of the dinner is to solidify relationships. Its a big part of determining whether youre trustworthy and to see how you behave when you arent sober enough to filter what you say. Expect personal questions and dont be afraid to talk about your personal life. And if you keep drinking, it will be seen as a symbol of friendship. The more you drink, the more pleased your cohorts will be, because it shows youre willing to get drunk with them, just like you would with your friends. The Chinese believe that drinking together deepens and strengthens friendships because it loosens people up and helps relieve misunderstanding, no matter how tense the situation might be. Granted, there are certainly times when excessive drinking will be used to wear you down. But the primary orientation behind this practice is social.
If Jeff assumes that going out for dinner and drinks is optional, similar to what it might mean in many other cultural contexts, he can be blindsided. There may be health or religious reasons why Jeff decides he cant fully participate in this drinking scene. But he at least needs to make that decision being consciously aware of the meaning behind it. Well further address how to use this kind of cultural understanding to effectively lead when we get to CQ Strategy and CQ Action.
For now, the point is to see the relevance of cultural differences to how we lead and do business. A former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and the United Arab Emirates told me that during his career he had witnessed a continual stream of U.S. salespeople moving in and out of the Persian Gulf to sell their goods and services. All too often he saw North American sales reps losing opportunities to their British, French, or Japanese counterparts because they tried to use the same sales pitch from home in the Middle East. Meanwhile, their counterparts from other countries spent more time learning about the local culture and even the local language. As a result, they secured contracts lost by the North Americans. This might not be any more true of North American sales reps than sales reps from other countries but the point is that learning about cultural markets has a direct connection to generating sales.
Culture is everywhere. It shapes how you lead and it influences how others perceive your leadership. As you better understand the relevance of culture, youll be much better equipped to assess situations and make decisions that are appropriate for your organization and the individuals involved.
Personal
At the deepest level of the iceberg are individual differences. Leaders functioning at the highest levels of cultural intelligence are able to see when the behavior of others is a reflection of their cultural background and when its idiosyncratic behavior from one individual. There are ways I behave that are consistent with how most North American men behave. Im task-oriented, independent, and I prefer clear, explicit communication. And there are characteristics of me that would be unfair to generalize to other North American men, including my insatiable wanderlust and the intensity with which I approach most anything I do. A culturally intelligent leader will learn to identify the personal quirks and characteristics of individuals versus those that fit cultural norms. The best way to do so is by understanding cultural systems and valuessomething explained later in this chapter and the next. By learning these broad cultural norms, you have a way of knowing whether a behavior is consistent with cultural tendencies or idiosyncratic.
A recent study asked people in seventy-two nations to share their predominant images of the United States. The winners: war and Baywatch! In a post-9/11 era, it takes little guessing to figure out why many people in the world equate the United States with war. As for Baywatch, its the most exported U.S. television program in the world, quickly being crowded out by Friends, which is now in syndication every hour of the day somewhere in the world.
Many of my U.S. friends are very conflicted about our military interventions, and I dont know many Americans who watch, much less like, the characters on Baywatch. But that doesnt change the fact that some people will make assumptions about people from the United States that are entirely off base. And the same thing happens everywhere. Not all Chinese leaders want to take people drinking and not all Millennials are looking for flexible work schedules.
The reverse is also problematicthat is, observing an individuals behavior and generalizing it to an entire culture. One Canadian leader who managed a Sikh Indian employee told me, One of the things Ive noticed about Sikhs is they dont like to travel. Every time I ask Mr. Singh to attend a meeting out of town, he comes up with an excuse. When I asked her whether she had observed this among other Sikh employees, she said Mr. Singh was the first Sikh shed hired. But she had assumed it was a cultural thing because who wouldnt want to get out of London, Ontario, every once in a while at the companys expense. She presumed any unfamiliar, inexplicable behavior she observed must have been related to his cultural background.
Later, well note the value of using cultural norms and values as a starting point for understanding others. But caution is always needed. Cultural intelligence is required to discern between whats universal, whats cultural, and whats personal. Once we understand the impact of culture, were ready to understand the middle layer of the iceberg: languages, cultural systems, and cultural value orientations.
Understand Different Languages
A few years ago, the Dairy Association led a wildly successful marketing campaign throughout the United States built on the slogan Got Milk? Unfortunately, when the campaign was exported to Mexico, the translation read, Are you lactating? There are countless other examples like this. A U.S. software company suffered from having the name of its industry translated as underwear when launching internationally. A European company couldnt succeed selling its chocolate and fruit dessert called Zit in the United States nor could the Finns who attempted to sell Super Piss, a Finnish product for unfreezing car door locks. These examples are humorous but the challenge of language goes beyond funny translations. Microsoft experienced a great deal of resistance from many regions around the world in response to its icon My Computer, which assumed everyone owned his or her own computer. And Microsofts mail and trash icons looked nothing like the mailboxes and trash bins used in most places globally.
Read almost any book on effective leadership, and youll learn about the essential role of consistent, clear communication. Clarity is one of the universal leadership skills desired by followers from all cultures. And communication, whether creating a marketing campaign, drafting a memo, or casting a vision, is ubiquitously tied to culture. Some say language and culture are one and the same, pointing to the reality that Eskimos have several different words for snow and very few to describe tropical fruits. The reverse is true in some tropical contexts. Language and culture evolve together as people live in relationship to their surroundings. As we grow in CQ Knowledge, we need to understand some basics about communication and language and their relationship to culture.
Some flippantly quip, English is becoming the lingua franca of international business. But in actuality, English is just one of the major languages of world trade and the mother tongue of only 5 percent of the worlds population. Leaders who speak more than one language have an advantage over those who dont because when youre fluent in a language, speaking and thinking in that language becomes an automatic, subconscious action. Not only can we more easily communicate with others who speak that language, we also gain a heightened ability to see how they label the world. It provides a way to understand whats going on that is much harder to grasp when done through translation. Jaguar, the British automobile maker, discovered the importance of language when it began in-house German-language studies to help increase its competitiveness in Germany against Mercedes and BMW. A year after doing so, Jaguars sales in Germany jumped 60 percent.
If you speak only one language, consider signing up for an introductory course or hiring a tutor to learn a foreign language. Chances are, you wont have to look far to find someone who can teach you the basics. Or you could get a Skype pen pal with whom you can regularly communicate in another language for free. While becoming fluent is a great ideal, just the process of learning another language significantly contributes to growth in CQ Knowledge. You might find yourself innovating and leading in new ways simply as a result of learning a new language. And being able to say even a few words in a counterparts native tongue speaks volumes.
Language understanding can be an issue even when working within another English-speaking context. Different expressions and terms are frequent points of confusion among North Americans, Brits, Indians, and Australians.
Similar communication challenges exist when moving from one organization or profession to the next. An academic talking with a group of business executives needs to translate academic terms into words that communicate effectively in the corporate context. I often encounter people who work in professional cultures that are unfamiliar to me, such as medical professionals, biochemists, or automotive manufacturers. I immediately observe the difference between the cultural intelligence of those individuals who can talk to me about their work using language I understand versus others who use all kinds of trade lingo that means nothing to me. Doctors and nurses with CQ Knowledge have to adjust their verbal and nonverbal language when talking about a diagnosis with family members versus doing so with medical peers. With CQ Knowledge, we understand that our words stem from a variety of the cultural contexts that shape who we are.
I chair the board of a nonprofit organization. This nonprofit was extremely successful during the first seven years of its existence. But then for the next three years its activity and bottom line began a steady decline. One of the things a consultant observed in talking with several of the staff and constituents was an unusual aversion toward anything that sounded corporate or institutional. In fact, one business leader who observed this nonprofit described the organizational culture as having antibodies in its system toward anything that sounded remotely corporate. Our board was in the midst of seeking a new leader for the organization, and part of applying cultural intelligence was to change the title of the primary leader from CEO to team leader. Of course, if the sole change made was in the title on the job description, the aversion toward corporate culture would be addressed only momentarily. But this shift in language was the first step toward develop
