Cultural Intelligence and Its Advantages for Business

Not only the development of global industry, now the working environment is also increasingly diverse. Every company involves people from various places and different backgrounds to work together.

Cultural differences are not only limited to ethnicity, religion or nationality. Many situations place employees at different age gaps. It can also affect different assumptions and behaviors at work.

An increasingly developing situation also encourages a company to be able to understand various cultures well. In a work environment, there are practical ways to build and improve for business success.

What is Cultural Intelligence?

Based on a book written by Professors Christopher Earley and Soon Ang in 2003, the concept of Cultural Intelligence is the ability to adapt to a new culture. Cultural Intelligence is also known as Cultural Quotient (CQ) which is a derivative of IQ.

CQ refers to a person's skills to relate and work effectively in diverse cultural situations. The ability to cross cultural boundaries and transcend cultural sensitivities and awareness. Such skills are necessary to successfully realize one's goals while in diverse cultures.

An individual who has CQ is not only aware of different cultures. However, they also know that cultural influences are complex and interconnected. In addition to the importance of culture, it is undeniable that factors such as business roles and individual personalities can also influence behavior in a group.

Cultural Intelligence Composition Components

Companies have a distinctive culture that is often crucial for new hires to learn in the first few weeks. Even large companies suffer from subcultural debates such as sales who can't talk to engineers or publicists who lose patience with the legal.

Each department, division, profession, and geographic area has a distinctive constellation of manners, meaning, history, and values. People who have just joined will definitely feel confused and even lost if they don't have CQ with the following components.

1. Heads

It refers to knowledge and understanding that comes from observation and research. You need a strategy to gather new information. In addition, the strategy is to recognize the understanding of a culture. It will allow you to customize decision-making and communication.

2. Body

The next component can be interpreted as the process of translating cultural information into action. This is the clearest way because one person's CQ can be seen by others. Form is shown through gestures, body language, and the way a person carries out culturally important tasks.

3. Hearts

Finally, one needs self-internalization to have a high CQ. You need to be sure of yourself, not afraid to make mistakes, and confident enough to keep growing as you face new cultural situations. This is what is addressed by the "heart" as one of the last components.

The Relationship of Cultural Intelligence To Business

A business that has a high-performance organizational set-up enables a competitive advantage to survive and grow over time. This is one way to keep doing the things that matter.

Businesses that can promote diversity and inclusion have superior appeal. What's more, today the world has exponentially increasing connectivity across all business sectors and individuals. The biggest growth prospects consist of breaking into new markets at home and abroad.

With the possibility of global collaboration becoming increasingly important to business success, CQ is more important in our everyday lives than ever before. Businesses with culturally savvy staff have more potential to achieve goals in global competition.

Through the cultural-based business context that exists in global competition, big problems can no longer be solved by one person, one culture, or even one continent. Effective way of solving problems has to do with effective cross-border collaboration.

The Advantages of Cultural Intelligence for Business Competition

Gaining CQ adds a competitive advantage to a business by improving communication, collaboration, teamwork, and overall performance. A culturally intelligent and adaptive leader will be able to notice differences and capitalize on them instead of allowing them to become disharmony or conflict.

Radically, communication technology has changed the face of 'global business' which is no longer owned by only a few large companies. Even smaller companies and individuals can enter the global market thanks to the innovation brought about by its technological breakthroughs.

Not limited to the business sector, the boundaries between the private, public and NGO sectors have also faded. This has an impact on environmental diversity which is increasingly difficult to understand without guidance from experts who are accustomed to dealing with cultural diversity.

The wider business opportunity to compete is accompanied by the creation of a new culture that can be utilized by an organization. If utilized properly, this will have a positive impact on business development. In addition, decision-making can also be done with a broader perspective for the relevant competition.