Discuss how cultural strategic thinking plays a part within your current organization or an organization that you are familiar with.

During my time as a Marketing Manager in Stryker, I spent the very first week of work in Kalamazoo (MI, USA) for training, and when I went back to Italy, I had daily interactions with peers from UK, Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands, and with a mix of different nationalities including Americans and Australians in the European Headquarter in the Netherlands. So I can say, that being aware of cultural differences and paying attention to how things were done differently by people in a culture different from mine, was a critical issue since day one.

The same is going to be true in my next role in Sydney, Australia where I will be Italian, in a team made of Irish, and English people. I do not know yet how cultural strategic thinking will play its role there, as that depends from how different the professional culture will be, and what elements of that culture I will have to absorb to be effective.  

 

What two specific cultural strategic thinking techniques have you observed within your team?

In Stryker, we never had a formal training in dealing with different cultures, nevertheless, it was remarkably easy to connect and communicate with colleagues from different cultures. After this week readings, in hindsight, I can say that we did unknowingly use some cultural strategic thinking techniques. I can recall the following from the ones mentioned by Cultural Intelligence for Leaders (2012):

Thinking, Being, and Staying Positive. We had a robust can-do culture, and as the marketing team, we were working to turn-around our division results. The leadership style was emphasizing the “results” and “learning” themes according to the Groysberg, Lee, Price, & Cheng (2018) model. Results because there was a good deal of pressure on showing improvements since the new team was established, and learning because although the division was not new globally, it was new in many countries, including in part for the European Headquarter. We understood not everything was perfect, and we knew each of us had to work hard training and influencing local sales forces, which were often focused on more lucrative and better-established product lines from the company. These understanding creating that we were all in learning mode, contributed to our positive interactions and to minimizing conflict. A positive attitude helped us through the difficult moments we faced daily, and I can see now how it made the group more productive, consistently with the findings of Cameron’s (2011) research, and of Seppala (2015) and Seppala and Cameron (2015).

Active Listening. This cultural strategic thinking technique was widely adopted by our group of European Marketing Managers. The reason our group found active listening somewhat natural to implement, possibly comes from the common sales background which is a requisite for marketing roles in the Medical Device industry. Active listening is Sales 101, and although it can be practiced differently in various cultures, like in low-context cultures as for example Italy, Germany, and the US versus high-context cultures such as Asian ones, the point, according to Crockett is to become a “sensitive, patient cross-cultural listener” (2011).

Did you see evidence of Cultural Intelligence (CQ)?

Livermore (2011) in his video, described culturally intelligent people as those demonstrating:

CQ Drive – an interest and motivation in cross-cultural issues; in our group some of us had that interest but not all. For example, one of the managers at the European Headquarter, in Amsterdam, was really happy about this experience in the Netherlands, and learning about the different European cultures, however, another American manager there, couldn’t wait to go back to Chicago, hardly hiding any interest for different cultures. Although the latter was still doing a great job with all of us, you could tell his heart was somewhere else.

CQ Knowledge – a good grasp of cultural similarities and differences; since we didn’t complete any cross-cultural awareness course, we were mostly driven by our previous experiences, generalizations, and stereotypes.

CQ Strategy – an ability to be aware and plan in light of cross-cultural issues; we did pay attention to what we were saying to each other, and we tended to use a low-context communication style, to be as direct and transparent as possible. Doing so, was hardly classifiable as a communication plan, but it was a bit of unwritten rule/strategy.

CQ Action – the capacity to appropriately adapt their behavior for various cross-cultural scenarios. We kept our communications positive at all times, and that was the action that seemed the best for transferring messages across.

 

Using the article you read and your text discuss some of what you observed, both in terms of positives and deficits and discuss how CQ could have been improved.

In our group, CQ could have been improved by raising the awareness of cultural diversity rather than expecting us to figure how to interact with each other. When talking about culture, people tend to polarize and become defensive of their values and behaviors, thinking that eventually “others will adapt.” However, ignoring each other cultural differences can be tolerable, and non-detrimental to an organization, only when limited interactions and accountability are demanded, as it was in our case 90% of the time.

In this week reading material Earley & Peterson describe cultural intelligence as consisting of three elements: “metacognition and cognition (thinking, learning, and strategizing); motivation (efficacy and confidence, persistence, […]); and behavior (social mimicry, and behavioral repertoire)” (2004, p. 105). Earley and Ang described CQ in functional terms as “an individual’s capability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings” (2003).

In this perspective, I can say that there was evidence of some cultural intelligence, especially in the motivational part. I believe that we were motivated to be reliable to each other since there was a strong dependability culture in the organization. However, it wasn’t that difficult to understand each other, since we didn’t come from radically different cultures. The cognitive part was not really developed, and neither the behavioral part, since we interacted mostly over the phone and by email. It mainly was about communicating with respect, asking politely for a favor, and avoiding talking over each other. We could have improved CQ through formal training that would have involved analyzing each of our CQ dimensions: cognitive/metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral, so to have a final report about what we could have improved.

  

References

Cameron, K., Mora, C., Leutscher, T., & Calarco, M. (2011). Effects of positive practices on organizational effectiveness. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47(3), 266–308.

Crockett, R. O. (2011). Listening Is Critical in Today’s Multicultural Workplace. Retrieved September from https://hbr.org/2011/03/shhh-listening-is-critical-in

Cultural Intelligence for Leaders. (2012). Saylor Academy. Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0.

Earley, P. C., & Ang, S. (2003). Cultural intelligence: Individual interactions across cultures. Stanford University Press.

Earley, P. C., & Peterson, R. S. (2004). The Elusive Cultural Chameleon: Cultural Intelligence as a New Approach to Intercultural Training for the Global Manager. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 3(1), 100–115.

Groysberg, B., Lee, J., Price, J., & Cheng, J. (2018). The leader’s guide to corporate culture. Harvard Business Review, 96(1), 44–52.

Livermore D. (2011). The Cultural Intelligence (CQ) Difference [Video File]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=x2C7Mfft9OY

Seppala, E. (2015). Positive Teams Are More Productive. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/03/positive-teams-are-more-productive

Seppala, E., & Cameron, K. (2015). Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/12/proof-that-positive-work-cultures-are-more-productive