In this episode, Trisha interviews David Livermore, a true expert in the field of cultural intelligence (CQ). They discuss cultural intelligence - what it is and how it relates to the Shift. On the way, they talk about Dave's experiences of a culture he loves and a moment of shift he has experienced.

You can follow or connect with Dave on LinkedIn here, or explore his website here. You can find links to all the books he has written here, and the book Trisha quoted from - Leading with Cultural Intelligence is featured here where you can download a sample chapter.

To learn more about Cultural Intelligence, you can explore the CQ Centre resources here or the research here.

Please connect with Trisha via LinkedIn.

Hi, everyone. I'm Trisha Carter, an organisational psychologist and explorer of Cultural Intelligence. I'm on a bit of a quest to discover what enables us to see things from different perspectives, especially different cultural perspectives, and why sometimes it's easier than others to experience those moments of awareness, those real Shifts in perspective. For over 20 years, I've been working in the intercultural area, helping individuals and teams to build their cultural intelligence, their CQ.

And if I was to draw a timeline of my learning in this area. One of the key moments would be meeting my guest today. In 2011, I attended CQ Facilitator Training in Hong Kong with David Livermore. He's a researcher, a practitioner, an author, a thought leader in the area of cultural intelligence. I mean, technically, he's a social scientist. He's invited to contribute on many of the big stages in the world.

He's spoken to the UN. He speaks to many of the large corporates. But to me and to all of my inaugural CQ Fellows Society members, he's a mentor and a friend, someone who challenges us and encourages us in our field of work with cultural intelligence. Welcome, Dave and thank you so much for joining me here today.

Thank you, Trisha What a lovely introduction.

Thank you. Well, we're going to talk today about cultural intelligence, what it is, why we need it, and where does the process of shift fit into CQ? I want to start with a question about culture and cultures in general. So, Dave, what is a culture other than the culture you grew up in that you've learned to really love and appreciate?

Well, like you, I'm sure this is a tough question because there are so many, but I'll reduce it to one. And it's actually one that I didn't love in my first encounter. And it's India. And of course, within India, as we know well, there are dozens, I suppose one could argue hundreds of cultures. But to provide a little context for why I didn’t at first, have a love at first sight with India.

My first time there was when I was living in Singapore and travelled from orderly, pristine Singapore. And as soon as I was on the plane to fly to Delhi, it was like, Whoa, I am just overstimulated by the noise and the enthusiasm and the moving of, you know, luggage from one place to another. And then, of course, when I landed, it was a whole different level of multisensory stimulation.

So for me, it wasn't that I was turned off by it, but just like, Whoa, this is a lot. Now, that's the very thing I love about it. You know, the, the multisensory experience of so many scents and sounds and people and flavours and all that. So, yeah, I would have to say the Indian cultures as being such a rich, robust experience of things that are so other than my daily experiences is one that I’ve really grown to love.

Oh, that’s brilliant. When you were describing that, I was seeing colour in the.

Right spices, the clothing, everything. Yeah.

And then the festivals which celebrate colour as well. Yeah. I think coming up to Diwali as we as we record here. So I'm wishing all our Indian friends a joyous celebration. When we think about cultures, we we often think about our growth and our learning in that process. And you've just described that brilliantly in terms of your, um, experience with India.

And sometimes we have these moments of shift and in these shifts we can suddenly become aware of a new perspective. Have you experienced that and can you tell me about a time?

I sure have. And the time that I want to talk about is one that you've probably heard me talk about before, Trisha, and perhaps some of your audience has. This was actually an experience I had in China, a place that you know well from having spent time living there. And China was somewhat familiar to me as well. This wasn't my first trip there, but this particular visit, I was there for about ten days.

It was a very intense speaking schedule. So I was speaking 2 to 3 times a day every day, back to back through interpreters, lots of different places. I got into about the third or fourth day of this and I felt like I had started to find my stride. You know, I, I was through the worst of the jetlag.

My interpreter and I were finding a good cadence and most importantly, seemed like I was communicating in a way that was relevant for people. And I started my presentation on you know, third or fourth day with a story much like, you know, I'm doing with you right now. And I thought it was going well. What I didn't know was my translator was not translating the story, but instead was saying something like, So our speaker this morning is doing what a lot of Western guests do.

He's telling a story that he thinks is funny. And I go on and tell the next part of the story and she says, I've heard him share this a few times now, but I still don't really get the point of this story. And I go on till the next part of the story. And she says, But we don't want our esteemed guests to lose face.

So when I cue you, laugh very enthusiastically at the part that he thinks is funny. And sure enough, I say it and the whole room erupts with laughter. And I'm like, Yes, this is what we mean by cultural intelligence. And it was only a few days later when I shared the story again, and someone in the audience afterwards said to me, Are you aware of what's happening when you're sharing your introductory anecdote?

I'm like, No. And I would like to tell you that when they informed me, that was automatically when the shift happened, like, Oh, okay. And quite honestly, when I first heard it, I was ticked off. I felt stupid, I felt defensive. I wasn't sure I could trust my interpreter anymore. And, you know, perhaps we'll get into it more with our conversation.

But over time, there was a shift in my thinking about what was behind why they weren't interpreting it, how I could learn from that, ways that I could apply it to future experiences. So that's now I laugh about it, but at the time was a painful shift.

I was just thinking there was pain there. Yeah, Yeah. And it's it's interesting because I've heard some variations on that story from other people. So maybe it's something that interpreters are trained to do to sort of support the speakers.

Yeah, no, that's an interesting point. And likewise because I've shared the story a few times, I too I've had people say, Oh yeah, that reminds me of a story like and sometimes I've had interpreters say, you had a really good interpreter because they were interpreting what they knew you wanted to get across. Again. That was not the way I felt at the moment.

But you're right, I think, I mean, to demonstrate the whole point of your podcast and so much your work, it's a maybe, maybe there's a shift in the way that I can think about this.

Yeah, Yeah, that's right. And yeah, so it's, it's not necessarily a moment of joy and delight. When you discover something new.

Yeah. And you know, I didn't think about this consciously, but I think about the contrast between the two experiences I shared with you. India was maybe not initially, but it was pretty quick delight like, Oh, okay, this is. The China experience., and it was a delight for a long time and, you know, still feel conscious when I go to speak in some of those kinds of settings of what's the fine line between me being me versus what I know might be the more preferred style of communication in that environment.

Yeah, and I can imagine there might have been some lingering in the back of your mind. Is the interpreter interpreting what I'm saying right now?

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Isn't it interesting how quickly we go to distrust? Because that's exactly what happened to me. I don't know if I can trust them to communicate. And especially, you know, I don't want to rush too far ahead, but I hadn't I wasn't totally clueless, Trisha! I had sat down with the interpreter ahead of time because people often say, oh, they she didn't understand it, Right.

I know she understood it. We you know, I asked her to share with me back with me. In retrospect, you know, at the risk of already sharing that, the punchline, she had been indirectly saying to me, please don't use that story. But I was like, No, no, no, trust me, this one's great. The crowds always love it. And that's where the Shift happened, I started to be like, oh, there was there was a concern.

And actually I think the concern was it was a self-effacing story, which would work well in many Western environments. But for them, not only might be losing face for me, but for the audience, for the organizers, the very first thing they hear from this guest is a way that he failed.

Yeah, yeah. They may have needed something different, but you're right. We're jumping ahead because we have to acknowledge that some of the people who are listening to our conversation may not be may not be as informed about cultural intelligence. So you've got a depth of expertise in the area. Indeed, that's why you were actually in China at the time. You started as a researcher.

You founded the CQ Centre. You've authored a number of books and I will put all the links in the show notes so that people can dig deeper if you're all interested. But how did you start off? How did you get into this field?

I've always been fascinated by cultures and, you know, my my parents are Canadian, moved to the US right before I was born. And so, you know, it's similar to your own New Zealand Australia, a lot of affinity between them, but still differences and so even as a kid was kind of observing these differences in my family and extended family versus all my classmates and that but where where the more specific interest in culture and cultural intelligence emerged was early on in my career.

I kept being tasked with roles to do things internationally and in particular was being asked to work on behalf of a youth development organization and to take our curriculum global. And as I began to do that, people around the world, even in New Zealand, White South Africa, etc., are like, okay, but you're exporting a very American curriculum to us.

I'm like, What? No, this is like broad philosophical concepts or principles. And so that's what started to piqued my interest. Like, okay, even things that feel like they're supposedly trans cultural principles are rooted in culture. So how do I dive into that? This seems like a really interesting area. So that that was some of the earliest kind of foray into it.

The excellent and good to look back on and see those, I guess, points of interest that sort of sparked your journey along the way. So when we talk about cultural intelligence, as that is a thing, if you like, let's start at the beginning. What is it? And I guess as part of that, why do we need it? You've demonstrated a little bit what got you in there, which may have been a bit about what you need it, but what actually is it?

So the definition that you and I use and the people we work with is the capability to relate and work effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds. What that means in lay terms is the ability to work with anyone from anywhere and why do we need it? Yes, I immediately defaulted in my examples to you to India, China, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, because my default is to think internationally.

But increasingly for any of us we have an abundance of need for it right within our own context. Different racial and ethnic cultures, generational cultures, different political cultures, different ideologies, religions. So it's ultimately about how do we take the the ideas of emotional intelligence, of understanding and detecting our emotional state and other social intelligence. How do you get along well with others and doing it when suddenly someone comes from a different background where the rules and norms might be different than yours?

And it's interesting to see how we are automatically attracted often to the people who are like us. When we think about people with high cultural intelligence, I'll often say to people, you know, you've probably seen people like in your workplace walk into a room and there are different groups of people, and often we naturally move to the groups that are like us.

But the people with high cultural intelligence are comfortable going to any group and comfortable with with any of the different tribes, if you like, that exist within both the workplace and in society. So I think when we think about people at work, how does cultural intelligence benefit I guess people in, you know, what's the what's the main driver for organisations to say, hey, we need we need to improve our skills in this area?

I think you just said it really well because at work, I don't get to say who in the room do I want to go work with? I'm assigned to be part of a work team. So I would say one of it is just team performance, team productivity and that of course, there's all kinds of reasons why organizations want to pay attention to it in terms of the diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging conversation, that awareness of diversity, inclusion, bias, all those things is important, but cultural intelligence gives you the skills to actually work effectively with people from different backgrounds and then, you know, many of the companies that we work with are very interested in how does

it relate to the bottom line? And while I would be very careful and not say there's this immediate causation between causation and I'm sorry, between cultural intelligence and in bottom line profitability, but we definitely have studies that link to things like employee engagement, customer satisfaction, productivity products that actually address a pain point that a customer has. So I as you could I could go on all day long in terms of why businesses would care about it.

But if you're if you're working in today's diverse globalised world, you need people who have the cultural intelligence to do that.

Yeah, absolutely. And often the people I'm working with, it's more apparent to them because they're often at that point of the organisation saying, will you move to and work there? And so the need is more intense and they can see and recognise, I guess, where they where they might want to develop. When we look at C.Q we're thinking about four different areas.

So the research shows those four different areas are key to increasing our capabilities. Can you tell us more about those areas?

David

So yes, the cultural intelligence model is made up of four different capabilities that predict whether or not we're going to be able to work effectively when we move abroad or work in a diverse team. And the first one of those is what we call in Lay term CQ Drive. And this is just do you have the motivation interest?

Are you able to go into a room and go out of your comfort zone and seek out people who are different than you? The second piece is the one that your listeners would probably be most familiar with, that they've done a cross-cultural management course or diversity training, and that's CQ Knowledge. To what degree do I just understand how people are different in part as related to their cultural background?

So these would be things like communication styles, preference for hierarchy or not orientation toward task versus relationships and knowledge about that. The third one CQ strategy and the more technical term that you and I really like to geek out over is metacognition. And that's can I take that motivation and that understanding and translate it into a level of awareness, thoughtfulness, sense making and plans and strategies that will actually be effective.

And then the final one action, CQ Action is the behavioural flexibility. Can I adapt? Can I go to China and can I speak in a way that adjusts the typical Dave style but doesn't go so far that I'm like, now, they didn't even hear a presentation from Dave. They should have had generative A I just take my talk and put it into Mandarin or something.

So those four are really the bedrock of everything we do in cultural intelligence.

Yeah, I was looking back over your book leading this cultural intelligence, and there's a phrase in there that that leapt out at me and it says CQ Strategy is what makes the difference in whether the understanding we gain from CQ Knowledge has any benefit to how we lead. In fact, mounting research shows that too much knowledge about cultural differences without the more sophisticated thinking that comes from CQ strategy can actually be a handicap because it leads to overconfidence and real world ignorance.

And that's really interesting, isn't it, when you think most people are driven to pick up knowledge and that's often the first thing that people think of doing.

And it's the easiest thing to do, right? Like I can read a book, I can attend a workshop, I can watch a YouTube video, and I would say, and I didn't know you were going to share this quote, so this wasn't planned, but I would say in part unknowingly I was describing myself in that passage in the China incident because I if you would asked me if I felt cocky about how much I knew about China, I would say no.

But I had already been teaching lectures in the university setting about the norms of Chinese culture and going in. I knew that I needed to dress more formally than I would going to Silicon Valley. I knew that I needed to be paying attention to hierarchy and named the dignitaries that were in the room. I knew not to do like Dave's like flying all over the place, typical speaking style, but I had kind of missed out on this piece that I mentioned earlier that I well, if I rewind, I would say when I felt defensive, as I said, when I first heard that my interpreter wasn't translating it and my first thought was, you know,

why didn't they just tell me and upon reflection, and here's where secret strategy comes in. I'm like, she was telling me like, Oh, maybe there's something else you could share at the beginning. Oh, I wonder if people would like to hear it. No, this is a great way to start. So I was being told. So lest I be like, well I can't trust them

It's like, no, actually I was being told I just maybe had too much knowledge to be able to actually be aware in the moment of the fact that they were saying, Please don't share that story, okay, you're going to share it. So I'm not going to translate it for you.

It feels it feels a little bit like sometimes when we do have the knowledge, there can be almost, almost risks. And we've talked in the past sometimes about how I don't want people to to feel the risks too deeply because you want people to be confident. And, you know, that's another part of the capability of drive. And so there's this balance between recognising the risks and holding onto your self-efficacy and your confidence.

And I think maybe there's an element of of the strategy component in that one as well. Yeah

That's a really rich insight, Trisha, because I think you're right. It's it's a fine line behind between we can scare people so much that they're like, I'm not going to go anywhere or say anything to, you know, boost them up, just go be yourself. I'm like, No, no, not not all of yourself. Tone it back a little bit.

Yeah. So in our next episode, I want us to dive a bit more deeply into this because because the CQ strategy point is where the Shift happens. And I think, you know, there's lots of things we can do to support and encourage that. But can you tell us a bit more about, you know, what is that CQ strategy and where then those moments of shift would sit?

Yes. So, you know, metacognition, which is I mentioned, is the technical term for what we're getting at is is quite literally translated thinking about thinking, which for people like you and me is like, Oh yeah. And for many practitioners it's like that didn't make it any more clear. But what we're really getting at with the CQ strategy is an ability to do what many of us would think of of reflection.

Can I step back and be aware of doing it? And perhaps even before that, you know, the research looks at there's three different sub dimensions of what we measure in CQ strategy Planning, Awareness and Checking. And the planning is in light of my current awareness of myself and my context and my knowledge, how do I anticipate what's going to happen?

The awareness that’s you're really appropriately highlighting here is in the midst of the interaction. What's going on? How am I picking up on the cues, what does it mean that people are looking at me or not looking at me or or saying, please don't share that story, etc.. And then the other piece that I think really helps transfer the awareness in to future situations is that final step of checking is afterward.

I don't know that I was even consciously trying to exercise my metacognition at the moment, but by default I started to do some checking after this experience and talking to some other people. So why do you think that story was so problematic? What? What might I have missed? And well, it didn't help me for the, you know, speaking events that I had there where I looked like a fool or at least put my interpreter in a difficult spot.

There were future places where I could actually transfer that. And that's one of the things that both the research and the applied aspect of cultural intelligence has looked at is instead of just being so isolated, like, okay, now I have a really good understanding of this Aboriginal practice or of this practice in Korea. Can I actually take some of the awareness and apply it to something that I'm doing in China, even though the two are very different cultural contexts?

And to get more concrete about that, it's one of the ways that cultural intelligence has actually been used practically by some of the defence forces that we've worked with around the world, where they've said, you know, our individuals need to be up to speed on many different cultures. We can't possibly just teach them about the one place they're going to be deployed to.

So can we teach them a capability that will allow them to be aware and pick up cues in Afghanistan so that when they're deployed to Somalia, they can apply some some similar insights to it?

Right. There's a lot of depth to this, and that's why we decided to make this two episodes. And so we're going to call it a day here and pick this up again in another episode. As I said previously, Dave has written a number of books on this and if you want to learn more, I highly recommend that you start with leading with cultural intelligence.

I'm going to put that in the show notes and we can add also some other information about what we've been speaking about today. Some of the resources from the CQ Centre that define cultural intelligence. So thank you so much, Dave. And to all of you listening, if you want to keep going deeper, join us again next week. Thank you, Dave.

Thank you, Trisha.