Cultural Intelligence: People Skills for Global Business

• Offers a new way of thinking and being that will allow the reader to thrive in any cultural situation-not just a laundry list of culture-specific protocols
• Filled with interesting, sometimes amusing, stories illustrating cultural intelligence (and lack of intelligence) in action
• Applies the core concept of cultural intelligence to important managerial challenges, such as decision making, leadership, negotiation, managing teams, and career management

Globalization means that managers need to be prepared to do business with people from all kinds of cultures-not only abroad, but at home too. But it's just not possible for managers to learn the particular customs and traits of every culture they might be doing business with. Cultural Intelligence teaches a specific set of techniques that will enable managers to function effectively in any culture. Thomas and Inkson do not provide a list of specific cultural dos and don'ts. Instead, they show how to acquire the kinds of universal global people skills that will allow managers to adapt quickly to, and thrive in, any cultural environment. Everybody has heard of IQ, the measure of the ability to reason. More recently people have become familiar with EQ-emotional intelligence. Cultural intelligence, or CQ, is a new idea that builds on these earlier concepts, but that incorporates the capability to interact effectively across cultures. Cultural Intelligence helps readers acquire a basic understanding of the wide-ranging effects of culture on behavior. They will discover how to disable the ""cultural cruise control"" that makes them unaware of how their own culture affects their perceptions, and instead learn to pay careful attention, in a reflective and creative way, to cues in cross-cultural situations. Over time, readers will develop a repertoire of behavioral skills appropriate to different intercultural situations and will be able to choose the right ones for a given interaction. Illustrated throughout with real-life stories depicting what is and is not culturally intelligent behavior, Cultural Intelligence will help businesspeople become more effective in making decisions, communicating and negotiating across cultures, leading and motivating others who are culturally different, and managing their international careers.

Kerr Inkson is Professor of Management at the Auckland campus of Massey University, New Zealand.