Managers can access talents from across the globe, but as they enjoy a more global market, they must also factor in global competitiveness Thus business leaders need to develop a more global perspective or mindset, which is cultural intelligence.
Globalization, which is understood as the integration of markets, capital, nations and technologies across individuals, groups and organizations has made the world seem smaller or faster to interact as the case may be. Businesses have to adjust to an increasingly globalized world where talents are sourced and collaborations are made across an almost borderless world. This is changing the yardstick and the criteria for measuring successful managers. Managers can access talents from across the globe, but as they enjoy a more global market, they must also factor in global competitiveness Thus business leaders need to develop a more global perspective or mindset, which is cultural intelligence.
Cultural intelligence is an “individual’s capability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings”. In an organization, the employees, talents, customers and stakeholders are world citizens who come from varied cultural backgrounds. Thus a leader needs to effectively guide the social interactions of all stakeholders, and take business decisions that will enhance value for all. This increased cultural sensitivity can begin during the training of managers. They should be taught to recognize the cultural landmarks, where to look for the essential manifestations of culture, how to recognize cultural differences and their influence on human behaviour as well as be attuned to all the subtle realities that have culture as either a proximate or remote cause. Managers should be taught to recognize stereotypes, control for them and thus create a synergy of cross-cultural resources towards growing business value.
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Some authors claim that the diversity of workers is a good thing in an organization because their varied backgrounds induce them to want to contribute qualities that together create a richer organization. Other authors, however, do not agree that diversity necessarily results in better teams, they state that individuals still tend to form ‘in-groups’, thus resisting attempts to ‘force’ them to be part of a ‘strange’ group. The only exceptions seem to be when the persons share a strong common passion for something, such as sports. Newcomers to any organization come from a broader national culture whose framework will greatly influence how they interpret messages and events, and how to integrate with persons from other national cultures to form a new organizational culture. This new type of work team, which is both diverse and dispersed, involves a lot of interaction between culturally different individuals who must work together to achieve common organizational objectives. Groups such as these need managers who are trained to communicate in a culture-centric manner.
Often time, the cause of stereotypes or a lack of shared meaning in communication can be found in the manner of the coding and decoding of messages, by both the sender and the receiver. Defective coding and decoding are most likely culture-mediated and both processes may suffer obstacles or interruptions, and these obstacles can be attributed to culture-mediated stereotypes. Improving awareness of stereotypes and minimizing its harmful influence in business communication can be achieved through interventions that improve the cultural intelligence of managers and team members. Two important interventions that can help achieve this purpose are Communication Congruence (CC) and Message Coding Congruence (MCC).
Communication Congruence (CC) is the ability of the message content to express the intended meaning. On the other hand, Message Coding Congruence (MCC) is the agreement between semantics and the signifier, a greater shared meaning between communicating parties. Specifically, the MCC model is a combination of three other models; Hofstede’s model of six cultural dimensions, Schein’s model of culture manifestation as well as Nieto’s model of the organizational communication process. These three models, which are the bedrock of MCC, will not be discussed here to avoid unnecessary digression. The core of the MCC model is that communicating parties (of different cultural backgrounds) need to improve their communication by increasing their cultural intelligence and their awareness of their cultural diversity while acting likewise.
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This will result in increased sensitivity to and accommodation of diversity. When cultural inconsistencies appear in organizations, leaders might find help in the MCC model as it will help by referring structures and processes back to the foundational principles to ensure conformity. These interventions can occur at any time in the life of an organization but can also proactively be a major part of the induction process or training of new team members and managers.
Awareness of other cultures and cultural stereotypes in one’s culture or in that of others would however not be enough, especially when efforts at controlling them do not yield the desired shared meaning. It must be linked to a better understanding of the organization’s foundational principles, identity and mission and ensure that structures and processes have not deviated from these over time. When people change jobs, they move from one organizational culture – and ‘ways of doing’ things – to another. They would have to adapt, change or abandon aspects or all of their previous organizational culture characteristics if they are to attain shared meaning with their new team members.
Edgar Schein recommends that members being prepared to work together in a new team should be ‘acculturated’ in a culturally neutral training environment which he calls a “culture island”. The increased cultural intelligence taught by the MCC model should contribute the same value as a cultural island more continuously and organically, with the additional benefit that the new culture understanding is anchored on the stable structure of organizational identity.
Dr Eugene Ohu
