“I don’t understand these people!”

My German friend and I had just come out from an unsuccessful business meeting in Indonesia years ago, and he was yelling out his frustration in competition with the noisy millions of mopeds passing us on our way to our humid and humble hotel room.

“We have an excellent product, we can all make money - so what is it they want?”

It took me another three months in Indonesia to come up with an answer (but by then my friend was already back in Berlin):

The Indonesian people want to be successful in business just like the Germans, the Americans or the Chinese - each of us just travel a different road to get there. Cultural Intelligence is the ability to carve a common highway where different cultures can travel together towards the same exit.

Cross-cultural negotiations
According to a report from the two researchers Marcelle E. DuPraw and Marya Axner cultural differences can be cooked down to six fundamental patterns:

1. Different Communication Styles

2. Different Attitudes Toward Conflict

3. Different Approaches to Completing Tasks

4. Different Decision-Making Styles

5. Different Attitudes Toward Disclosure

6. Different Approaches to Knowing

The two researchers suggest that we should use their list to “ask ourselves how culture may be shaping our own reactions, and try to see the world from others' points of view”. That’s indeed what gaining cultural intelligence is all about.

For many businesses leaders cultural awareness and dialogue is considered a “soft” area that can be taken lightly compared to the “hard” areas like market research and marketing strategies adding measurably value to the bottom line.

But cultural Intelligence can become an extremely hard issue when business negotiations begin between real people in real time on location. One might think the difficulties only come into play when negotiating with people from another country far away. Cross-cultural negotiations, however, might very well start in your own living room.

Who are we?
Professor Horacio Falcao from INSEAD says in an interview that it is a huge misconception to see cultural differences based upon nationality only. Things like gender, religion, race, education, rural, urban, age, and many other elements are serious players when we try to understand the cultural background of another human being.

Our worst enemy is assuming that based upon a seemingly common cultural background we know another person well enough to negotiate successfully. “The first assumption you should have is that every negotiation is a cross-cultural exercise”, the professor says. Think about that next time your wife asks you to do a chore in the house. 

The definitions
According to the cultural researcher Geert Hofstede

"culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another." 

There are many other definitions, but one thing is certain: the subject of gaining cultural intelligence, cross-cultural awareness, and intercultural competence has become synonymous with globalization. For the modern business leader to succeed in a competitive 21^st Century cross-border environment it requires high levels of CQ - cultural intelligence – and global leadership competence.

The two authors Chen Oi Chin, Ph. D & Lisa P. Gaynier, M. A. warns in their 2006 research paper Global Leadership Competence: A Cultural Intelligence Perspective about being “color blind:”

“It is evident that no company can afford to neglect the cultural context of leadership and that no manager has the luxury of ignoring cultural differences. In fact, the western value of color blindness, while well-meaning, is misguided, because the unexamined assumption underlying color blindness is hat paying attention to color is inherently unfair, possibly racist, “I just see people as people”, when in fact in the opposite may well be more valuable.”

Being culture blind
In a multi-cultural environment like the US the warning of color blindness – or culture blindness - is very real. We are raised both morally and intellectually to accept the American melting pot simmering with immigrants from all over the World.

Our politicians and legal system have implemented rules and regulations that try to even out whatever cultural differences might exist in both in our working and private lives. We are taught to embrace all people. Yet while the intentions seem good at heart the danger exists that we forget to utilize those same cultural differences as an advantage both privately and in our workspace.

Being culture blind is not the same as understanding other cultures. The leader who embraces cultural intelligence is bound to not only carve, but to race down the fast lane of our common cultural highway toward global success.

First published on Linked 2 Leadership October 18, 2011