What would it take for a business person to be successful overseas? According to an article in Harvard Business Review, it takes what they call a “global mindset.”
Global Mindset Requires Cross-Cultural Competence
The authors of this article suggest that there are three components to a global mindset – intellectual capital, psychological capital, and social capital. It means that cross-culturally successful people have smarts and intelligence to learn quickly (IQ), openness to other cultures (CQ), and ability to build relationships (EQ). I couldn’t agree more. HBR is only confirming what we cross-cultural professionals already know: You need to be interculturally competent to succeed in the current globalized world. Even the term “global mindset” can be interchanged for the term “intercultural fluency/competency” that I’ve used before in this blog.
High Cultural Quotient (CQ) Is a Key to Global Success
People with high IQ’s don’t necessarily make it in this world for a reason that has become obvious to the world with Daniel Goleman’s ground breaking book, Emotional Intelligence. We began to use the term EQ and we all know that we need people with high EQ’s in order to build healthy, strong relationships and teams. What’s interesting is the third component or the ability to understand, accept, and adapt to different cultures and their people. We could call this CQ or Cultural Quotient to denote one’s level of cultural or intercultural intelligence.
I see the influence of CQ playing out in front of my eyes everyday as I work with expats and foreigners living and working here in North Africa. Here we are, in an entirely different culture, among people who behave and think differently, communicating in multiple languages – French, Moroccan Arabic, Standard Arabic, Berber – that are not your own, and where social protocols significantly differ. The ones who thrive are the ones who have high CQ. The ones who do exceptionally well in their job performance are often the ones who have high IQ, EQ, and CQ. But without CQ, the person often go through difficult culture shock and withdrawal, often being secluded in the expat ghetto.
It’s a sad sight because we know that with little bit of training, change of attitude, and openness, the person could have had an entirely different kind of experience and impact. Preventing this type of loss can be translated into tens of million of dollars saved for an organization.
