Cultural Strategic Thinking

Cultural Intelligence for Leaders (2012) states “cultural strategic thinking is your ability to think and solve problems in specific ways when you are in unfamiliar cultural settings and to understand this thinking, it is important for you to comprehend the two elements that make up this foundational piece of cultural intelligence: cognition and metacognition” (p. 80). The text adds “as related to culture, you can think about cognition as the complete knowledge and experience you have gained about cultural situations and your interactions within those situations” (p. 81) and “metacognition (thinking about thinking) is the knowledge you have of your own cognitive processes (your thinking) and your ability: to control these processes through various strategies, such as organizing, monitoring, and adapting; to reflect upon the tasks or processes you undertake; and to select and utilize the appropriate strategies necessary in your intercultural interactions” (p. 83).

To discuss how cultural strategic thinking played a part within an organization that I am familiar with, I will mention one intercultural situation that I faced when working in a multi-cultural setting. This situation happened some time before when I was working for one humanitarian non-governmental organization. The team I was assigned to work with consisted of many nationals as well as many foreigners some of whom were professionals and the others volunteers. The team that was composed of different professions shared the same common objective - providing timely response to the acute drought situation in an organized manner. Once the team was in action, we familiarized ourselves with each other and it became a common experience to dine and spend our leisure time together. We ate and refreshed in the same local restaurants. It took me no time to observe the cultural differences that existed within the team. It is normal or common in our culture (the nationals) for someone to pay the collective bill. When the bill is of substantial amount, part of the group arbitrarily but voluntarily shares a portion to settle the bill. Our cultural norm has its way of monitoring these events so that one person is not losing when the other is reluctantly enjoying the free meal. Everybody is well aware that if he/she is exempted from paying or sharing the bill this time, he/she is expected to volunteer the next time we meet. A person who intends to use this cultural norm to his/her advantage will be alienated from the group. In the contrary, the foreigner’s (most were the same nationals) culture in this regard is very individualistic. In their culture, every individual is expected to pay the exact amount that he/she owes to the restaurant. They are reluctant to ask for their own bill (totally conceived as unethical in our culture) or even if the bill is settled through contribution, they forward an amount that exactly matches their use even to the nearest penny. In addition, they were also not at ease when someone settled the entire bill including theirs. If someone intends to do this, he/she must first communicate with them to tell them that they were invited and must get their approval. I will refer this knowledge to the ‘cognition’ part of cultural strategic thinking where we process information and develop awareness of the cultural fact that existed in the team.

Awareness of cultural fact is not sufficient by its self and to be equipped with metacognitive skills is critical for members to acquire new information concerning the cultural issues present in their team. The cultural difference that we witnessed (metacognitive knowledge) was a shock at the beginning and everybody in the team, most probably, developed his/her own assumptions and strategies to deal with it. On part of the nationals, we perceived the situation as if it came out of greed. Because the foreigners were paid much more in comparison, we thought that they were shying away from the collective bill due to immense intentions to save on income. On part of the foreigners, they taught that someone is covering the bill because he/she is embezzling funds or due to the person’s intention to impress and win their attentions. Our initial internal responses (metacognitive experience) were frustration and disappointment. However, in due course, when we come to acquire new information about each other’s culture through reflection and deliberately nurtured a positive attitude & feeling toward our learning, we all realized that our entire assumptions were incorrect. We started developing mechanisms (metacognitive strategies) for controlling our thinking activities to ensure that we are meeting our goals. As a strategy, we opted for a hybrid culture that addressed both cultures and that served well in our intercultural interactions. We adopted some of the elements in their culture and they did the same. It became the group’s collective norm. Taking care of the group’s bill by an individual was unanimously accepted and it was no more a surprise (or an invitation) because members learned to say “it is my turn”. In doing so, I can say that as culturally intelligent leaders we were able to practice metacognition. In summary, we achieved good results because what we did was important. Cultural Intelligence for Leaders (2012) emphasizes that it is important to: “apply strategies that focus your attention on the goal at hand; search for, and derive meaning from, cultural interactions and situations, and adapt to the situation when things do not pan out as they are expected; and monitor and direct your own learning processes by establishing high motivation for learning the metacognitive process” (p. 85).

Cultural strategic thinking is essential because it is this higher strategic thinking that enables us to process the new information and reinterpret it in a new situation; by training our mind to think at a higher level, we create new maps of cultural situations, which will help us to function more effectively (Cultural Intelligence for Leaders, 2012, p. 93). There are techniques/ideas that can help us to increase our cultural strategic thinking. The two specific cultural strategic thinking techniques that I have observed within my team include peer learning and gaining cultural knowledge. Through peer learning, team members were able to create a language for how they process cultural interactions and solve problems. According to Earley & Peterson (2004) “there are at least three internal (to the team) issues confronting multinational teams as they develop and build momentum—establishment of goals and common purpose, clarification of roles played by team members, and delineation of rules for conduct and interaction” (p. 111).  In my team, I believe that our shared day to day humanitarian goal of saving lives helped us to create opportunities and conceive our cultural differences as inferior. Therefore, it took us little time to comprehend to one another’s culture. Cultural Intelligence for Leaders (2012) states “if you come across a situation in which a cultural fact seems to contradict what you know, take the time to learn about the difference and the nuances related to that cultural fact” (p. 90). In my belief, the working environment also fostered positive attitude that enabled its members to be keen, considerate, and passionate to review the situation and gain cultural knowledge in understanding the whole picture. As a multinational team, we needed “to resist focusing initially on our differences and to have strong motivational discipline because many unstated practices and assumptions might need to be set aside and etiquette violations overlooked” (Earley & Peterson, 2004, p. 112).

These and others are to some extent evidences of positives in Cultural Intelligence (CQ). However, my example (two cultures) falls short to address “the challenges confronting multinational organizations exacerbated by the increasing prevalence of teams made up of individuals from many nations and where managers are moved from one location to another, making country-specific knowledge less relevant and inadequate” (Earley & Peterson, 2004, p. 100). Emphasizing on values and focusing heavily on cognitive or knowledge based information and awareness of the target culture might also not be sufficient in all situations. Since acquiring specific cognitive knowledge for all countries is impractical it will be mandatory to provide team members (managers) with the metacognitive skills that they can use in all new situations and cultures. Cultural Intelligence (CQ) can be used to address these deficits if it is deployed in its totality. According to Earley & Peterson (2004) “at its core, CQ consists of three fundamental elements: cognition and metacognition (thinking, learning, and strategizing); motivation (efficacy and confidence, persistence, value congruence and affect for the new culture); and behavior (social mimicry, and behavioral repertoire)” (p. 105). In my example, we can see evidence of the first element (cognition and metacognition) being exercised by team members. However, CQ could have been improved if team members were trained on the other two elements namely: motivation and behavior to adequately address the deficits and benefit from an all-inclusive approach to CQ. Earley & Peterson (2004) argue that “in cultural intelligence (CQ), adaptation is not only knowing what and how to do (cognitive), and having the wherewithal to persevere and exert effort (motivational) but also having the responses needed for a given situation in one’s behavioral repertoire (behavioral) (p. 108).

References

Cultural Intelligence for Leaders (2012). Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0. Retrieved September 06, 2018, from: https://2012books.lardbucket.org/pdfs/cultural-intelligence-for-leaders.pdf

Earley, P. & Peterson, R (2004). The Elusive Cultural Chameleon: Cultural Intelligence as a New Approach to Intercultural Training for the Global Manager. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 3(1), 100-115. Retrieved September 14, 2018, from: https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/325635/mod_book/chapter/166065/BUS5211Unit02RA.pdf