Willow Creek GLS--David Livermore on Cultural Intelligence

(Notes from the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit)

I want to share a story with you.  I was in China speaking for 10 days straight and on the 3^rd day I’d started to find my stride. I started my presentation well and didn’t know my speaker wasn’t translating my story. The translator was actually cuing the audience when to laugh.  I thought I was culturally relevant!  Often our mistakes teach us more than our successes.

Cultural Intelligence=Capability to work and relate effectively in culturally diverse situations

Described by—

1)   CQ Drive—your level of interest, persistence, and confidence during multicultural situations; can I see the situation through the eyes of the others?  Exercise perspective taking—can I see their perspective?

2)   CQ Knowledge=Your understanding about how cultures are similar and different—studies done about how Christians in different cultures view Jesus’ teachings—in story of prodigal son, why does he end up in the pig pen: Russians—he ended up there because it was a famine;  Tanzania—because no one gave him food; Americans—because he squandered the wealth he’d been given (the actual text supports each of these perspectives) The benefit of different voices is the various perspectives we gain.  Maybe convene a diverse group of leaders to discuss a leadership topic together.

3)   CQ Strategy—Your awareness and ability to plan for multicultural interactions.  Many times what happens is we don’t teach strategy. You make the situation worse if you just teach diversity with no strategy. Before doing a routine task sketch a brief plan about how to approach this with an unfamiliar culture and make adaptations.

4)   CQ Action—your ability to adapt without going too far

To Adapt or Not?—

1)   Is it a ‘tight’ or ‘loose’ culture?—how much difference will it make if I adapt or not?

2)   Will adapting compromise the organization or me?—sometimes the cultural norm may be something I’m unwilling to do because of my values

3)   Will retaining the differences make us stronger?—too much adaptation may be patronizing or harmful

Diversity doesn’t always lead to innovation. Homogenous teams generally innovate better than diverse teams unless the leaders have high cultural intelligence. 

How do you know what your Cultural Intelligence is? Visit culturalIQ.com/gls for one complimentary self-assessment.

Everyone who desires to can improve their cultural intelligence.