People Skills:

World Cultures

Cultural Intelligence (CQ)

Knowledge, Arts, and Skills

What is Culture?

Culture in general is concerned with beliefs and values on the basis of which people interpret experiences and behave, individually and in groups. Broadly and simply put, "culture" refers to a group or community with which you share common experiences that shape the way you understand the world.

The same person, thus, can belong to several different cultures depending on his or her birthplace; nationality; ethnicity; family status; gender; age; language; education; physical condition; sexual orientation; religion; profession; place of work and its corporate culture.

Culture is the "lens" through which you view the world. It is central to what you see, how you make sense of what you see, and how you express yourself.

Cultural Intelligence Defined

Cultural intelligence (CQ) is your capability to grow personally through continuous learning and good understanding of diverse cultural heritage, wisdom and values, and to deal effectively with people from different cultural background and understanding.

Buddha's Path To Liberation

From right understanding proceeds right thought;

from right thought proceeds right speech;

from right speech proceeds right action... More

Why Cultural Intelligence?

Cultural Intelligence (CQ) – a new domain of intelligence that has immense relevance to the increasingly global and diverse workplace.

Some aspects of culture are easy to see, the obvious things like art and music and behavior.  However, the significant and most challenging parts of other cultures are hidden.  These might include our beliefs, values, expectations, attitudes, and assumptions. "Our cultural programming in these areas shapes everything we do. Most importantly they help us to decide what is ‘normal’ in our eyes.  It is the perceived deviation by other cultures from our version of normality that causes the problems. In short, ‘us’ and ‘them’ lives on."¹

Cultural intelligence will help you manage effectively cross-cultural differences, in particular:

1. lower the cultural barriers caused by ‘us’ and ‘them’ and to allow you to predict what ‘they’ are thinking and how they will react to your behavior patterns

2. harness the power of cultural diversity.

In today's globalizing world, cultural intelligence is a necessary tool for every manager who deals with diverse teams of employees, customers, partners, competitors, government, and other business players.

Manager's Worldly Mindset

People tend to think of the world as an increasingly homogenous place but it is really a collection of worlds within worlds, with definite boundaries and edges. Just because a company sells products globally it may not take into account how those products are perceived and used in different cultures. Managers with a worldly mindset spend time in places where products are made, customers served, and environment threatened.²

6 Attributes of Successful CEOs

• The Cultural Fit. A candidate for a top job might look great on paper, but must be culturally compatible in order to build relationships and add true value. Often, hiring managers or boards emphasize the need to challenge old thinking and move in new directions. But if an executive is too far out of step with an organization, the resulting culture clash can overwhelm the benefits... More

9 Signs of a Losing Organization

3. Discouraging Culture: no shared values; lack of trust; blame culture; focus on problems, not opportunities; diversity is not celebrated; failures are not tolerated; people lose confidence in their leaders and systems... More

Corporate Culture

In six words, corporate culture is "How we do things around here."

Corporate culture is the collective behavior of people using common corporate vision, goals, shared values, beliefs, habits, working language, systems, and symbols. It is interwoven with processes, technologies, learning and significant events. In addition, different individuals bring to the workplace their own uniqueness, knowledge, and ethnic culture. So corporate culture encompasses moral, social, and behavioral norms of your organization based on the values, beliefs, attitudes, and priorities of its members... More

Cultural Intelligence and Innovation

One advantage of cultural diversity is the potential for  innovation arising from the presence of multiple perspectives.  Yet, it is  clear that not all multicultural teams/organizations are able to harness this benefit. Cultural intelligence (CQ) may enhance the likelihood of innovation success in culturally diverse teams/organizations. CQ facilitates the reconciliation of differences and conflict, and enhances the probability of arriving at culturally synergistic solution that embraces the ideas or interests of various parties.

Inspiring Culture

Do you want to encourage extraordinary performance from your people?  Do you want them to do great things?

If yes, then you must create an inspiring corporate culture to inspire and energize them... More

The Tao of Business Success

The Tao helps you achieve much more with much less effort. This effortless skill comes from being in accord with reality. You can't tell the singer from the song. You can't tell the dancer from the dance. When you are in harmony with the Tao, when you go with its current  of energy, your innate intelligence takes over, and the right action happens by itself.

The Tao teaches you the art of living and doing business. It gives you advice that imparts perspective and balance. It applies equally well to the managing of a large corporation or the running of a small business, to the governing of a nation or the leading a small team, to your personal development or to the coaching of others... More

Creating a Culture for Innovation

Virtually all companies recognize intellectually that innovation and culture are both important to success. Yet few have explicitly defined strategies for linking and influencing culture and innovation to achieve specific business goals. Most companies have default innovation cultures in which various values, norms, assumptions and beliefs all compete for influence over employees’ actual behavior. The dominant ones that win out ultimately shape the culture.

The question for leaders today isn’t if culture is important for success but how culture can drive successful innovation – and what, specifically, leaders can do to influence the kind of culture that leads to behavior that’s truly innovative... More

Modern Management:

12 Breakthrough Ideas for the New Economy

Source: Harvard Economic Review Executive summary by Anastasia Bibikova.

The best ideas related to the practice of management. If you know somebody has used them, don’t try to repeat. Simply consider them, debate them and let them inspire your own thinking!

1. Creativity Index: It was proved that every nation has it’s own creativity index – i.e. there are natural limits for creativity for every nation... More

Suggestion Systems: American-style vs. Japanese-style

The American-style suggestion system stresses the suggestion's economic benefits and provides economic incentives.

The Japanese-style suggestion system stresses the morale boosting benefits of positive employee participation... More

Managing Cross-Cultural Differences

Culture is often at the root of communication challenges. Exploring historical experiences and the ways in which various cultural groups have related to each other is key to opening channels for cross-cultural communication.

Becoming more aware of cultural differences, as well as exploring cultural similarities, can help you communicate with others more effectively. Next time you find yourself in a confusing situation, ask yourself how culture may be shaping your own reactions, and try to see the world from the other's point of view... More

 Case in Point  Izmocars

San Francisco-based Izmocars – a provider of Internet tools to the automotive industry –  suffered through multiple customer relationship management (CRM) failures before undertaking a successful effort, which was based on Siebel's OnDemand hosted sales force automation software. Izmocars blamed a variety of technical and cultural problems for its failed CRM efforts. The documentation and user input are the key to successful use of the new CRM system. Many smaller companies don't document their sales processes.

Confucius about Knowledge and Learning

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom... More