Cultural Intelligence and Understanding Other People in Business - Research Paper Example

and # 1500 words Part One: Cultural Intelligence and Understanding Other People in Business In a world that has gone global in just about every type of business, understanding other cultures becomes an essential part of knowing who the customer is and how to relate so that business can get done and sales can be made. This is called cultural intelligence (Engle and Nehrt 35). Indeed, when hired by a company to work with overseas clients, there is the chance that an employee, particularly one with linguistic skills, will be sent over to live in foreign lands in order to facilitate business deals and operations (Peterson 2). As in playing a game of chess, knowing how to plan several moves ahead and anticipate what move your opponent could make accordingly, is essential to winning or the success of a goal. Culture, as defined by Brooks Peterson (2004), is a composition of several aspects of a people. “Culture is the relatively stable set of inner values and beliefs generally held by groups of people in countries or regions, and the noticeable impact these values and beliefs have on the peoples’ outward behaviors and environment (Peterson 17).” Understanding values of a society does not always mean that a person will act according to those values, given a certain set of circumstances. As Japanese children are trained early on to work together in a group and value this aspect of working, this may not actually occur in a business situation unless the right elements of understanding the goal and who does what, is precisely defined for them. Themes can be viewed as big themes such as famous actors, or little themes, such as the latest trend in android phones. In the United States, technology and new media are considered little themes and Angelina Jolie is a big theme. For the French, foreigners who can speak French while in their country, will fare much better than the Americans, who float from one town to the next, asking who can speak English. It is a certain type of snobbery that the French have about foreigners being in their country (Peterson 25). The ‘Big Five’ personality traits used in determining cultural intelligence, as proposed by both Peterson (2004) and in the work of Engle and Nehrt (2012), are neuroticism versus emotional stability, extraversion, openness to experiences, agreement versus antagonism, and conscientiousness versus undirectedness or lack of focus (Engle and Nehrt 36). In having these attributes, a person is able to adjust and assimilate with another culture without standing out as a sore thumb, thus providing a company the opportunity to work with others on a global basis. Americans, however, in business situations, are more readily adaptable to other cultures than those who have cultures that are not so heavily integrated as is found in the United States (Earley and Mosakowski 139). As many Americans, particularly in large Northeastern cities, come from foreign countries or at least grew up in a family with a non-American background, it is easier to assimilate other cultures than those people who come from a predominantly one-culture world in their country. As global companies move their businesses to Southern states in the U.S., this trend is also growing here as well. Different styles of how to approach a joint project between two global countries, one, French and one, American, may show that Americans are ready to move ahead while the French prefer to have all the details worked out and the numbers in place before even taking the first step (Peterson 54). Some of this could be put down to the fact that governments work differently from one country to the next and therefore, have learned to work according to the criteria presented by regulations and government restrictions. Working this side out, takes a bit of doing, depending on which country the project will actually be implemented in (Earley and Mosakowski 140). In choosing those with cultural intelligence for positions of conducting projects with foreign companies, it is shown through research that those who are older and have attained more life experience, particularly those with higher education, are the best for this type of position. Having experienced more over a lifetime, sets the stage for adapting more easily with other cultures (Engle and Nehrt 41). Part II: Qu’est-ce que c’est? When the French and Americans Work Together In some respects, the differences between the French and the Americans can be interpreted by the bird which represents each country. The American bald eagle represents the free spirit that flies high in the skies, searching for new horizons, ever watchful for either the enemy or food for the next meal. The bird for France is the rooster which wakes the village up every morning, reaffirms the beauty and grace of the French people and maintains an overbearing attitude to everyone else not associated with the village (Asselin and Mastron 11). This could also represent what it is like when Americans and the French work together on a project. One is ready to charge ahead (Americans) and the other is content to first lay out all the pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle. Every piece must be in place before anything starts up. Americans can be straight-forward, open and direct, while the French tend to be more emotional in expressions of anger or happiness, which can be somewhat disconcerting to the Americans. However, put Americans together with the French in a bar, along with some good wine, and cultural differences may align up after a few glasses of good French wine. It is also very true that the French support family values and this is also true of American conservatives as well (Krugman web). Over many years, providing children of many countries, including the United States, with an education in French, meant the ability to communicate with a number of countries in the European sector. Indeed, one could easily get around in Italy if able to speak French. French was considered the language of the nobles and aristocrats of Europe. This changed after the Revolution in 1789 when the French aristocratic society (read beheaded) was nearly eliminated and the idea of education as the determinate of a man’s status became more important than bloodlines (Asselin and Mastron 19). Latin was also an often-learned language in the European countries, mainly because of the heavy influences of the Vatican and its Popes in upper circles of government in nearly every European country. In recent decades, French as a second language in the American lower schools, has now been replaced with Spanish. Latin is rarely taught unless specifically selected in college. Indeed, where Catholic Americans could get together with the Catholic French in a French church, a Latin mass would be a touching point of commonality. Now, that no longer exists. The differences between the French and the Americans, in a more historical perspective, is that the French have a wealth of history which reaches back many centuries, while the Americans are only 300 years old as a nation. While there is the sense of the Western cowboy and open plains, both of those cultural aspects are already gone for the most part. They live more in the minds of those who live in areas where this was a strong tradition. Therefore, when French CEOs give presentations in a meeting about some new area where a project is to begin working, much of the information will be presented on a historical timeline of the place in question, citing history and culture of the area rather than presenting aspects of the project at hand (Asselin and Mastron 22). American CEOs would do the presentation in an entirely different way, perhaps presenting an architect’s drawing of how the building will look when it is done, or how the machine will look when all the parts are gathered and assembled. Consequently, the difference is that the French incorporate the past and bring it forward into the present and the future. Americans, who really do not have a past consisting of more than a few hundred years, tend to move right forward to the future because there is no past to talk about (Hall and Hall 179). The future is always the focal point. There is also the political touchiness of the French as regards the Americans, which stem from the time of de Gaulle during World War II and also present-day politics regarding the Americans’ involvement in the Iraq and Afghan wars as not right, siding with the Germans and Russians against the American position. While the French, particularly the French youth, may like many of America’s trends and technological developments, it is also viewed as dehumanizing the French youth, even causing the French youth to abandon their French heritage. Therefore, Americans dealing with the French in business ventures, may have to use kid gloves and smooth feathers when dealing with a certain amount of mistrust the French have for the Americans. Not all people like the superior new kid on the block just because he may be smarter, or more wealthy, and willing to put money where his mouth is. Resources Asselin, Giles and Ruth Mastron. Au Contraire! Figuring Out the French. Boston, MA: Intercultural Press. 2010. Earley, P. Christopher and Elaine Mosakowski. Cultural Intelligence. Best Practice. Harvard Business Review, 139-146. October 2004. Available from Engle, Robert L. and Chadwick C. Nehrt. Antecedents of Cultural Intelligence: The Role of Risk, Control, and Openess in France and the United States. Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 13(5), 35-47. 2012. Available from Hall, Edward T. and Mildred R. Hall. Understanding Cultural Differences: Germans, French and Americans. Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Krugman, Paul. French Family Values. The New York Times Online, Op-Ed. July 29, 2005. Available from Peterson, Brooks. Cultural Intelligence: A Guide to Working with People from Other Cultures. Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. 2004. Print. Read More