Cultural Intelligence: A Key Skill for Success
Diversity is becoming the norm in everyday life. However, introducing global delivery models without a proper understanding of intercultural differences can lead to difficulty, frustration, and reduced productivity. Priyanka Sharma and Thena Barry say that in our diverse world, we need teams with people who can cross these boundaries, communicate effectively, and build the diverse networks necessary to avoid problems. We need to learn about cultural intelligence (CI) and cultural quotient (CQ). CI is the ability to relate and work effectively across cultures. CQ is the cognitive, motivational, and behavioral capacity to understand and respond to beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals and groups. Together, CI and CQ can help us build behavioral capacities that aid motivation, behavior, and productivity in teams as well as individuals. Priyanka and Thena show how to build a more culturally intelligent place with tools and techniques from Leading with Cultural Intelligence, as well as content from the Hofstede cultural model. In addition, they illustrate the model with real-life experiences and demonstrate how they adapted in similar circumstances.
A director of QA at Davita, Priyanka Sharma is helping bring quality engineering to support next generation QA. With more than seventeen years of engineering experience, Priyanka focuses on building frameworks and cultural intelligence strengths. She is passionate about quality upstream and servant leadership. In her career, Priyanka has had several opportunities to build global teams from the ground up.
Thena Berry is a manager of BA at Davita. In her twenty year career as a technical communicator, Thena has worked across multiple industries. In every endeavor she focuses on building effective processes for getting the right information to the right person at the right time.