Six Cultural Intelligence Profiles - Essay Example

Six Cultural Intelligence Profiles 1. Christopher Earley and Elaine Mosakowski distinguish six cultural intelligence profiles: provincial, analyst, natural, ambassador, mimic, or chameleon. They are based on the usage of three components of CQ: head, body and heart. The provincial is the most losing of the profiles. The authors suggest that it can be “quite effective when working with people of similar background”, however, it is not appropriate in the cross-cultural setting. The analyst profile represents a rational approach to dealing with people and different cultures’ rules. Quickly realizing that he is in a foreign territory, the analyst elaborates a variety of learning strategies, which help him, step by step, grasp the nature of patterns at work and master necessary behaviors for successful interaction. The natural profile is the one demonstrated by some people, led by their intuition. Such people simply feel others. After interacting with a representative of a foreign culture for several minutes they intuitively know the right pattern of behavior. However, this ability develops with time and experience and sometimes it may let you down. Certainly, intuition is a good advisor in business, yet it is necessary to use your head and body as well, basing your work on systematic learning. The ambassador style is the most widely used one. A person, following this behavioral pattern, “convincingly communicates his certainty” of belonging to a new culture even if he knows nothing of it yet. Confidence is found to be a very powerful instrument of cultural intelligence. However, this style is often based on analytical observations and systematic learning, just as it happens in the analyst profile. Besides, the authors emphasize the necessity of having humility to know what you don’t know. It is very dangerous to avoid underestimating cultural differences and it is important to be able to accept one’s ignorance. The mimic style is based on body control. The mimic has “insight into the significance of the cultural cues he picks up”. Mirroring foreign partners’ gestures, speech and mimicry, the mimic makes his guest feel at ease, facilitating communication and building trust. The style has obvious advantages and to my mind should be mastered (at least to a certain degree) by all the managers. The representatives of NLP explain how this works. The NLP technologies, permitting to acquire the necessary skills, are widely used in the world of business. Finally, chameleon style is characterized by high levels of all three CQ components. As it is clear from the name, the chameleon is a person able to behave in a new culture even more effectively than some natives do. This is achieved due to both insider’s skills and outsider’s perspectives. However, this style is rarely met among managers. The survey revealed that only about 5% of the managers belonged in this category. Most of managers represent a hybrid of different styles with two or more types, where the ambassador-analyst hybrid prevails. Certainly, the chameleon style is the best of the profiles. Yet, we should be realistic. In most cases, the three components are not developed in the equal degree. Then a manager may acquire some skills with the help of special training. The hybrid of the ambassador-analyst style should certainly be supplemented with the mimic skills. It is also necessary to develop one’s intuition and learn to listen to one’s heart. The best combination for the manager is the highest possible development of the three CQ components going together with his readiness to learn and adapt further. 2. Early and Mosakowski offer a training program to cultivate one’s CQ components. The program includes six steps. At first, one is to examine his CQ strengths and weaknesses in order to establish a starting point for development efforts. This can be done with the help of self-assessment instrument worked out by the authors, “an assessment of a person’s behavior in a simulated business encounter” or “360-degree feedback on a person’s past behavior in an actual situation”. Then a person is able to select special training focusing on the weak points: acting classes attendance, reading of cases studies and common principles distilling, etc. Step 3 presupposes the application of the received training through mastering simple activities such as greetings or transactions, which can help in dealing with more demanding activities such as giving a performance appraisal to an employee. At the fourth stage the individual learns how to organize his personal resources to support the adopted approach, identify people in the organization with the skills to conduct this training, assess the workload and the time available for CQ enhancement. Now the person is ready to enter the cultural setting that is to be mastered. His task is to learn how to coordinate his plans with others basing on his CQ strengths and weaknesses. The final step includes reevaluation of the newly adopted skills and the effectiveness of their application through feedback from colleagues. If necessary a person may undergo some additional training. To my mind the program is wonderful. The authors offer specially designed exercises that help to evaluate one’s ways of thinking and behaving. The program can be helpful in both cross-cultural and mono-cultural setting. If we look at a usual modern workplace we’ll see representatives of different cultures and world-views. Most of the countries have multi-cultural societies, so ethnic minorities are widely represented even within the same cultural setting. Immigrants of different generations may have various degrees of assimilation. Globalization and international business complicate the issue. However, the modern approach to human resources tends to view any work-place as culturally diverse, including every employee, even in case those are representatives of the same race and ethnicity. Employees may practice different religions and possess different values and ideals. They may have different ways of acting and thinking. A good manager should be able to use the human resources to their utmost potential. He is to find common language with all the people in a firm and to organize people in a team. As a rule, creation of a mono-cultural team represents a very difficult task. The essence of the offered training is to teach managers how to deal with other people. I think that technologies proposed can be useful even in mono-cultural setting. So I would certainly buy the cultural intelligence training program. Read More