You’re talking to a person from a different culture, and he doesn’t look you in the eye. Is it a cultural difference or a personal quirk? How do you know, and how do you deal with it?

Guiding her colearners through such real-life scenarios is Ling Ling Tai, who Culture Spark Global, where she helps organisations and people become better at cross-cultural collaboration.

In her workshop titled Reduce Cross-Cultural Barriers, Ling Ling unpacks the concept of cultural intelligence and how we can tap into it to reduce the friction of cross-cultural differences of any business interaction and drive business outcomes.

Why does cultural intelligence matter?

In simple terms, culture is about what people do and how they do it. Understanding culture and its seminal role in how people think, work and relate is the first step toward harnessing the potential of cultural diversity within any organisation. This requires having cultural intelligence (or CQ).

Cultural intelligence matters because of:

• Diverse markets - Fortune 500 companies expect their greatest revenue streams to come from emerging markets comprising of people around the world. As a result, organisations need to know how to design products and services that meet the needs of increasingly diverse customers.
• Diverse workforces - The growing diversity of the workforce can be an asset when internal diversity and cultural intelligence  is used strategically, and firms can reach diverse markets more effectively. A diverse workforce provides first-hand insight into how customers think.
  

Cultural intelligence is malleable, and Ling Ling believes everyone can improve their CQ through a variety of proven strategies.

What you’ll learn in this class

In the interactive workshop with Ling Ling, colearners can gain a better understanding of:

• Recognising the importance of communicating and collaborating across cultures.
• How to reset your mental programming using a Cultural Intelligence Framework around cognition, metacognition, motivation and behaviour.
• How to draft a continuous development plan to improve your cultural intelligence.
  

Sign up here to join Ling Ling’s class on Reduce Cross-Cultural Barriers, part of a 4-class series in our Communicate with Clarity learning track.