What happened to executive planet

Questions to Consider as You Read • What types of attitudes do business professionals need to communicate effectively across cultures? • How can business students learn about and prepare to work with members of other cultures? • How can understanding cultural dimensions help business professionals work cross-culturally? • What advantages accrue to companies with a global mentality? • What is the value of global leaders?

Companies depend on business professionals who can manage across cultures. Com- panies such as Coca-Cola sell more products abroad than they do locally. In fact, Coca- Cola sells more drinks in Japan alone than in the United States. In Chapter 2, you read about emotional intelligence (EQ), your ability to manage emotions in interpersonal situations. Similarly, cultural intelligence (CQ) is a measure of your ability to work with and adapt to members of other cultures. Like EQ (but unlike IQ), CQ can be de- veloped and improved over time with training, experience, and conscious effort. 5 Business professionals with high CQ understand differences and similarities be- tween and among cultures. Culture includes the shared values, norms, rules, and

Developing Cultural Intelligence LO4.1 Describe

characteristics of cultural intelligence, its importance for global business leaders, and approaches to developing it.

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behaviors of an identifiable group of people who share a common history and com- munication system. There are many types of culture, such as national, organizational, and team. We discuss principles of intercultural communication in this chapter in the context of national cultures, which tend to be more permanent and enduring than other types of culture. The norms and values of national cultures are instilled in young mem- bers through a shared language, shared history and traditions, school systems, and political and economic systems. When working with members of other cultures at the home office or abroad, business professionals with high CQ are skilled at forming goals, discussing and succeeding on joint projects, resolving differences, and negotiating mutually beneficial outcomes. They understand new markets and can develop global plans for marketing and supply chain management. When people with high CQ encounter unfamiliar situations, they implement a variety of the skills displayed in Table 4.2 and discussed throughout the chapter. 6 Developing cultural intelligence is more than possessing favorable attitudes toward members of other groups. It also requires developing skills and knowledge. In this sec- tion, we focus briefly on several characteristics of cultural intelligence.

Respect, Recognize, and Appreciate Cultural Differences Cultural intelligence is built on attitudes of respect and recognition of other cultures. This means that you view other cultures as holding legitimate and valid views of and approaches to managing business and workplace relationships. Ghosn, when first sent to Japan from France to turn around Nissan, demonstrated this view of cultures:

People who try to impose one system onto another only wind up destroying it. This has never been our strategy. If Renault had wanted to do that, they would have picked anyone but me, because I’m completely convinced of the opposite course. Nissan had to be changed from the inside. If you’re French and you come to Japan, you have no chance, zero, of budging the system an inch. I’m convinced of this. My conviction is both human and professional, and it’s bolstered by the experience of having lived on several continents. Right from the beginning, I told them: “You’re not missionaries. You’ve come here not to change Japan but to straighten out Nissan with the men and women of Nissan. We’re the ones who have to assimilate with them—it’s not up to them to adapt to us.” 7

In recent years, many public and educational campaigns have focused on embrac- ing diversity. In this book, we refer to diversity as the presence of many cultural groups in the workplace. Business professionals with high cultural intelligence em- brace diversity as a moral imperative and as a means to achieve higher performance. A great deal of research has examined the role of cultural diversity in the workplace. These studies have shown that a mix of cultural groups in terms of national culture,

TABLE 4.2

Cultural Intelligence in the Workplace

Characteristics of High Cultural Intelligence

• Respect, recognize, and appreciate cultural differences. • Possess curiosity about and interest in other cultures. • Avoid inappropriate stereotypes. • Adjust conceptions of time and show patience. • Manage language differences to achieve shared meaning. • Understand cultural dimensions. • Establish trust and show empathy across cultures. • Approach cross-cultural work relationships with a learner mind-set. • Build a co-culture of cooperation and innovation.

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ethnicity, age, and gender leads to better decision making. 8 Nissan, like many com- panies, has recognized the moral and business value of diversity and explicitly states this on its website:

At Nissan, we believe that diversity is a source of strength. . . . Nissan is committed to diversity to ensure that we meet the diverse needs of our customers and achieve sustainable growth for all stakeholders. Each and every employee will respect diversity and take full advantage of it. . . . We believe that embracing and leveraging this cultural diversity gives us a competitive advantage. 9

Be Curious about Other Cultures As a college student, you are in a stage of life that gives you unique opportunities to acquire cross-cultural experiences. Consider the following options: studying abroad, learning a language, developing friendships with international students on campus, and taking an interest in and learning about a particular culture. 10

Study Abroad Living in another culture is perhaps the best approach to learn- ing about one. It allows you to immerse yourself in another way of living—to observe and experience up close how members of another cultural group communicate, work in groups, manage relationships, celebrate successes, and deal with disappointments. When asked, “What’s your best career advice to young graduates?” Quintin E. Primo III, co-founder and chief executive of Capri Capital Partners, responded in the follow- ing way:

Leave the country. Get out of here. That’s what I tell everybody—just go. I don’t care where you go, just go. Because the world is changing. It is no longer acceptable to speak only English if you are 25 and younger. . . . You have little chance of being successful if you speak only one language. If you don’t understand Islam, you’re in trouble because Islam comprises somewhere between 1.6 billion and 1.8 billion people, and there are markets that are untapped that need to be tapped. So you’ve got to get out of your front door, get out of the comfort and quiet of your home, and your safety zone, and step into a pool of risk where you have no idea what the outcome is going to be. Out of it all, you will have a much broader understanding of the world’s cultures, and you will have a much clearer idea of how the world perceives our culture, and all the value, and the benefits, and the beauty of our culture. There is nothing more important. I don’t care where you went to business school. I don’t care whether your grades were good or bad. You have to leave the country.” 11

As freshmen, most university students express a desire to study abroad and even be- lieve that they will have an opportunity to do so before they graduate. However, just 3 to 5 percent of university students actually do. 12 So, if you want to study abroad, make it a p