"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
Thomas Jefferson
In Singapore, working in a culturally diverse environment is inescapable. It’s not uncommon now to see a work team comprising of several nationalities, each of which bringing its unique values, culture and mental models of how things should or shouldn’t be. Even in the case of two parties with the same nationality, their individual mental model alone is enough to cause distortion to a decision making process or any given conversation!
Compounded by the multi-generational workforce that is ‘’superimposed” on a matrix organisational structure, we certainly see an increasing challenge for us to be effectively working together, much less thriving together.
Case in point: I recently observed a conflict in a team that was drawn out over months and months of escalation of tension. It had gotten to a point where the employees who were Asian no longer felt comfortable speaking up in meetings, or felt like their opinions mattered - because their views would be challenged by their European counterparts.
Upon further probing, it was revealed that no one had confronted or brought up some critical cultural differences, which were clearly contributing factors to those communication breakdowns. Instead, they attributed these communication differences to personality types and hierarchical roles, which had them applying inappropriate solutions to try to solve the problem.
Cultural intelligence, or cultural quotient (CQ), is increasingly becoming a much-discussed topic amongst leaders. As consultants, we have the most visibility of this need when we work with teams and their leaders. People have some inkling of cultural differences and their impact, but have not fully understood how cultural intelligence can be helpful to individuals, teams and the organisation.
According to David Livermore, author and expert on cultural intelligence, different studies have found that up to 40% of managers sent on foreign assignments end them early. In almost every case, cultural problems have been the cause of the early return. The cost of these adjustments can even go up to millions.
Since the high costs clearly highlight the importance of educating our employees early and sufficiently, how can we raise our cultural intelligence amongst the leadership team and role model behaviours that we want to encourage?
We first need to encourage real conversations that provide a platform for parties to understand others. The essence of an effective and real conversation rests on its authenticity. It has no pretense. Having real conversations requires us to be truthful, authentically share our thoughts and feelings, listen to others' thoughts and feelings and through all of this, stay connected with each other; which is all the more critical in the multicultural context that we operate in.
More than just toning down our inner voice, having a real conversation is also about having the courage to verbalise our thoughts and feelings explicitly so that the other party is given the opportunity to connect and empathise with us. Unless we surface our inner voice, the conversations that we have with others fall short of being real and authentic.
Here are some suggestions that would help us engage in a real conversations with others who are culturally different from us:
1) Listen not only to the points of differences but also points of similarity.
In a conversation with colleagues from another cultural heritage, it is often easier and faster for us to pinpoint differences and start thinking about how our cultures diverge. We've found that it’s helpful to note similarities in the way we do things, and use these as a conversation starter to dive deeper into mutual understanding.
2) Suspend our judgment and stay focused on listening.
When working in a multicultural setting, it’s easy to make certain judgments or have logical fallacies regarding what is unfamiliar to us. There are several reasons why we resort to listening to our inner voice instead of focusing on the actual conversation with others. It could be due to our strong mental model about what things ought to be, our possible defensive attitude against feedback given to us, our intention to drive a point across regardless of the reality out there, or our unvalidated assumptions about things that we‘re "so sure" about. Distortion happens when we begin to “listen” to our inner voice and shut out the message that's being relayed to us externally from the other party. Be aware of these judgments and strive to put them away quickly so that we can refocus on what is actually happening.
3) Ask quality questions to clarify points that you don't understand
A quality question begets a quality answer. There are seeds of brilliance waiting to be unseeded in every quality question, and when we ask more questions than we advocate our points, we allow for these generative conversations to happen.4)Be willing to connect with diverse perspectives.
When you find yourself being challenged with a judgment or assumption about another culture or way of working, stop and ask “what can I learn from this perspective”? I find that connectivity and empathy have a lot in common. The dictionary defines “connectivity” as the quality of being connected while the word “empathy” denotes the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. If we’re not able to empathise with opposing views presented by our culturally diverse colleagues, how are we able to share their feelings about certain issues, and understand why they have certain convictions? Furthermore, how can we then build deeper cultural understanding for ourselves?
When we practise the "quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger” principle of engagement with others, this world will certainly become a better place for all; particularly in the multicultural workplace where we spend so much of our time in. We have included a guide on how to practice Real Conversations below. Do download it and enrich yourself with this critical skill to increase your CQ!
