Cultural intelligence is an outsider’s seemingly natural ability to interpret someone’s unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures the way that person’s compatriots would.

Why does increasing your cultural quotient makes good business sense?

Most people who don’t really interact with clients outside India, believe increasing their cultural quotient is not important.

Research shows that we have a definite bias, conscious or unconscious towards people that are like us viz race, color, skin, values, traditions, age etc. This is well documented in the work done by Harvard Professors:

People with a common nationality or people from the same region tend to gravitate towards each other. Anyone that has lived or studied abroad will vouch for this. We see this phenomenon at the work place all the time: a shared cultural/regional heritage is usually a reason for immediate bonding.

Every home, every organization and every country has a distinct “culture”. If a person is more comfortable interacting with like minded people ie people with a similar age & education profile, socio-economic background and those that hold matching views, they find it difficult to work in a diverse e

If you see merit in embracing diversity and improving your cultural quotient, there are 3 simple strategies that will help:

1. Embrace diversity; not just tolerate it:Step out of your comfort zone & learn about other cultures. Travel to off-beat locations, talk with people that are different from you, make an effort to know those you have little in common with

2. Appreciate the reasons behind the customs and traditions. To outsiders, some customs and ways of functioning may seem odd because they see what is happening on the surface. They don’t know the reasons behind the tradition. Once you develop an

3. Suspend judgement: Become aware of differences&appreciate them. When we see life through our mind lens, we often look down on things that are different from the way we work.. We pass judgement and like or dislike things.

4. Be sensitive to the customs and traditions. Mirror them through your actions

Is consumption really an accurate measure of development or happiness?

The world over Growth & Development is measured by GDP, which is defined as the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods & services produced within a country’s borders in a year.

Roughly translated: the more we consume as a society, the more developed we are & corollary the happier we should be.

Bhutan has a different measure for Development: Gross National Happiness (GNH).

The 4 pillars of GNH are good governance, sustainable development, preservation & promotion of culture & environmental conservation.

Are the Bhutanese happier than the rest of the world? Is the Index a Political gimmick? This is debatable.

What is important is, there is the thought of moving away from “material consumption” as a measure of development. Economic development is critical but is it the only indicator of development?

Happiness is a function of how satisfied I am with what I have, not how much I consume.

If I look at how much I have, instead of how much I should have, it will definitely lead to happiness, everything else remaining the same, ceteris paribus.

The CEO of an infrastructure management company headquartered in the US had an interesting observation to make about his company culture. During a recent conversation with me, he said“2/3rd of our workforce is extremely conscious of hierarchy. They won’t question or voice opinions in front of seniors. The other one third is fairly egalitarian in their views. They stand up for their beliefs & question when required. This situation creates a disconnect within the organization”

What determines if a team member will blend into different cultures easily? 3 simple questions will determine the answer

1. Is the person motivated to learn about other cultures? Does he/she have a diverse circle?

2. Is the person able to suspend judgement while viewing differences in culture or is the person more comfortable with like-minded people?

3. Does the person mirror through actions the values &customs around them?

If the answer to these questions is “yes”, this person will find it fairly easy to blend into different cultures.

What are some steps you have taken to enhance your culture quotient?

I wish for the touch & feel of a live meeting with colleagues but was really impressed with the results from a virtual quarterly meet up of a Logistics company

I recently had a conversation with a C-suite executive from this company. He spoke about the tools they used for a recent meeting & how much they were able to achieve in a short period

Agenda: to decide new services to be added, address issues the company faced due to the Pandemic

1. Break out rooms to brainstorm: Each group was asked to come up with their ideas on how new services could be added to the current ecosystem

2. White board for ranking: All the ideas were plotted on a cost and potential benefit matrix. The combined group debated on where to place each idea on the grid. This helped narrow down the choice to 5 ideas

3. Polls for getting opinions: Instead of guessing what colleagues thought about the existing ideas, a poll was conducted to see where the majority opinion was

Within 2 hours the entire process of generating new idea, ranking them & getting final opinion on most suitable ideas was wrapped up.

I’m all for the human element but was impressed with the results accomplished in such a short span of time.

I came across this remarkable story of the turnaround of Denmark’s biggest energy company. They moved from Black to Green energy,during a crisis&are one of Europe’s most valuable energy companies.

In 2012, Danish Oil & Natural Gas, slid into financial crisis as the price of natural gas plunged by 90%. The board hired Henrik Poulsen, as the new CEO. Some leaders would go into a crisis-management mode, lay off workers till prices recover, Poulsen recognized the moment as an opportunity for fundamental change.

“We saw the need to build an entirely new company,” says Poulsen. He renamed the firm Ørsted. “It had to be a radical transformation; we needed to build a new core business & find new areas of sustainable growth. We looked at the shift to combat climate change& we became one of the few companies to wholeheartedly make this profound decision, to be one of the first to go from black to green energy.”

Today, Ørsted is the leader in offshore wind power.The transformation has propelled the company’s market value to US$30 billion.

The lesson for me is: it is possible to serve both interests of shareholders &society; you just need to have the vision &the determination to see it through

What are your lessons?

40 Years of Stanford Research Found That People with This One Quality Are More Likely to Succeed

In the 1960s, a Stanford professor named Walter Mischel conducted the Marshmallow Experiment. It went like this.

Children (aged 4-9) were left in a room with 1 Marshmallow. The researcher said, if they waited 15 minutes, they would receive 2 Marshmallows. The researcher left the children alone in the room for 15 minutes.

Some children waited for 15 minutes to receive the 2 Marshmallows, some did not.

The interesting part of the study came several years later, when these children grew up as adults. The researchers conducted follow up studies for over 40 years and tracked each child’s progress in a number of areas.

The results showed that the children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having

1. higher academic scores,

2. lower levels of substance abuse,

3. lesser marriages ending in divorce,

4. better responses to stress,

5. more job stability and higher career trajectories

6. generally better scores in a range of other life measures.

Resilience is defined by the ability to remain patient, stay the course & continue working, even when the going is tough.

Important question to ask ourselves:

1. Are we able to resist the first Marshmallow and reap the rewards of delayed gratification?

2. Do we have the patience to stay the course for the grand prize?

3. Are we resilient to the pressures of instant gratification that will often tempt us?

I recently came across this story of a final year student B. Sc. Student from Bangalore that took her final exams, a day after she gave birth to a baby boy.

Giving birth is one of the most painful, joyful, challenging, life changing experiences that a woman goes though. For most of us, just surviving the first week is an achievement.

After reading this article, I marvelled at the determination and the sheer grit of the 20 year old that did this.

As the gritty girl sat to write her examination, her mother and new born infant were housed in the next room. She got up every 30 minutes, accompanied by an attendant to feed the baby.

To me, it was a story about “How I can do it?” as opposed to “How difficult it is?”. Often I have seen, when we decide to DO something, larger than ourselves, in pursuit of an inspiring goal, the entire eco-system comes out in support

What was heartening to see was the support she received from the college & her family.

It’s the story of exemplary willpower and unwavering support that her family and the college authorities gave, to keep alive the dreams of this extraordinary woman.

Read on…

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/she-wrote-exam-a-day-after-delivering-baby/articleshow/72407448.cms

When the chips are down, teams look towards their leaders for direction. How a leader responds determines the future of the organization and its defining culture.

I saw Mission Mangal recently & realized the opening scene is modelled around a famous incident that took place when Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was faced with the SLV-3 failure.

Prof. Satish Dhawan took upon himself the failure of theSLV-3 Mission at a public Press conference. A year later, after a successful launch heattributed the success of the subsequent Mission to his team.

Dr Kalam said “I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organisation owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience,”

To my mind, this is a brilliant example of leading from the front and of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership at work.

This incident had a huge impact on Dr. Kalam’s mind and shaped his persona as a leader. He referred to this incident several times during his Presidency and subsequently too.

This is a favourite anecdote at Shradha HRD. One we quote quite often during our programs on Emotional Intelligence for Leaders. It is rare to have a leader that is secure enough to give credit to the team for successes and accept responsibility for failures himself.

https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/chandrayaan-2-landing-how-abdul-kalam-dealt-with-the-failure-of-isro-first-satellite-launch-slv-3-in-1979-1596787-2019-09-08

Are you convinced that Work From Home is really the way forward?

Is this a sustainable, permanent solution for the future?

Most friends and colleagues that I have recently spoken to, are really looking forward to coming back to the office. The novelty of working from home seems to have worn off. Colleagues cite several reasons for wanting to come back to work:

1. They miss the connect of being with people

2. Coordination, especially across locations often becomes a challenge

3. Technology glitches often end up wasting valuable time

4. Training new members that join the team is particularly difficult

Most CEOs across the world feel that permanent work from home is not a sustainable option for the future.

However, there have been some valuable lessons from the Work From Home experience:

1. Minimum outages due to extraneous reasons: when there are contingencies like bad weather, lockdowns, shutdowns etc, it is now possible to continue business as usual

2. Measuring productivity of WFH possible: after the lockdown, there is a clear system in place to track output. This makes it easier for companies to be more flexible with Work From Home if someone is sick with a cold, needs to just be at home

3. Limited Work From Home to promote Gender inclusion: For most Indian companies a 4 day work week at office would have been unthinkable. The lockdown has shown staggered working is possible & productive. For working mothers, this could be a tremendous retention tool

This article gives the pros and the cons of Work From Home.

Read on…

https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2020/05/07/ceos-want-employees-in-the-office.html

A story to inspire you to just HANG ON…

Organic Chemistry was not on top of my list of favourite subjects at school but there was 1 experiment I loved doing in the lab…The Titration experiment.

I loved guessing which drop is going to turn the mixture pink. It was fascinating!

Reading the much read story about Kentucky Fried Chicken reminded me of this experiment

At 65, Colonel Sanders was broke, lived in a tiny house &lived off of $99 social security checks. He decided things had to change &thought about what he had to offer. His friends raved about his chicken recipe.

He left Kentucky and travelled to different states to try to sell his recipe. He told restaurant owners that he had a mouth-watering chicken recipe. He offered the recipe to them for free, just asking for a small percentage on the items sold.

He heard NO over 1000 times but didn’t give up. He believed his chicken recipe was something special. He got rejected 1009 times before he heard his first yes.

With that one success Colonel Hartland Sanders changed the way Americans eat chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC, was born.

What I find fascinating about this story is..

1. At 65, most people think about retirement. Colonel Sanders decided to challenge himself & make it count.

2. Most of us would have given up long before we reached a 1009 rejections but he persevered on

For all of us that are struggling at this time… you never know, which drop is going to turn the tide in your favour, which chance meeting, which interview…HANG ON

In an attempt to overcome gender-biased hiring, a vast majority of symphony orchestras in the US revised their hiring practices from the 1950s. Many orchestras opened up their hiring process to a range of candidates, rather than only hiring musicians who were handpicked by the conductor.

A number of orchestras adopted “blind” auditions whereby screens are used to conceal the identity and gender of the musician from the jury. In the years after these changes were instituted, the percent of female musicians in the five highest-ranked orchestras in the nation increased from 6 percent in 1970 to 21 percent in 1993.

Gender biases in hiring continue even today.

I recently attended a Women Entrepreneur conference. There was a lady, a successful venture capitalist that was delivering the keynote address. While talking about biases at the workplace, she related a story that stayed with me for many days.

In a previous job with a Fortune 500 company, the HR team conducted an experiment. They sent 2 CV’s for the same job description for a fitment check. The interesting part of the experiment was that the CV actually belonged to the same person…the name on 1 CV was male and on the other was female. The fitment results for the CV which had the male name was much higher than the CV that had the female name.

The biggest challenge is that most people are unaware of their biases. You cant really improve a condition you don’t even know exists.

Building Awareness of Unconscious Biases’ and making the Hiring process “Objective” and “Neutral” is key to promoting  Gender Diversity !!!!!

Do we really need to go back to a physical office or is Work from Home the best way going forward???

This was a question that would have been a no brainer before the pandemic hit us. Permanent Work from home was really not an option for most.

The question now is…is permanent #workfromhome the best option?

Like a lot of us, I spent 3 months #workingfromhome and I must say I did enjoy the downtime I got because of no commute.

1. I was able to spend quality time with family & friends (over a video call)

 2. Complete some value add tasks that would not previously have been possible in the office-home-office grind

 3. Enjoy the increased “me” time

However, if this were a permanent state of affairs& I could only communicate with my team over a video call, here’s my take on it:

1. I can’t build “Social Capital” over a video call. The conversation is mostly transactional (There is a reason Face to Face communication is considered the richest medium of communication)

 2. I can’t have informal coaching conversations over a video call. (Formal sessions through a blocked calendar have their utility but conversations over a cup of coffee are priceless)

 3. I can’t reach out and “be there” if someone really needs the help. (In a physical setting its much easier to help someone tide over a particularly difficult phase)

 4. Lastly and possibly most importantly, I can’t replicate the joy of being a part of a team.

 An interesting take on Work from Home:

Read on….

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/big-mood/the-things-you-cant-do-on-video-call/

I came across this incredible story of Deepika: Domestic Help by Day, Stand-Up Comic by Night

The story is an ode to #resilience and #womenpower. However, for me there was another take-away; about the people that helped Deepika on her journey.

In her tedious routine of earning money for her family of five, cooking for five homes and travelling by local train, Deepika finds humour—the kind that she shares when she takes the stage at stand-up comedy shows.

Deepika was supported by:

1. Sangeeta Das, at whose home Deepika works, who arranged a talent show for the “bai log.”& encouraged her to take her jokes to the stage. No one usually does that, right?

2. Rachel Lopez, who works with the Hindustan Times, spotted Deepika at her first show and knew she had a good future in comedy. She connected her to Aditi Mittal.

3. Aditi Mittal, an established comic in India, recognisedDeepika’s talent. She took her to shows where she performed and mentored Deepika. Gradually, they shot an episode of ‘Bad Girl’ together.”

Deepika is an immense talented,incredible Woman with huge reserves of resilience but she was helped in her journey by 3 Women that went out of their way to help her discover and reach her potential.

What would the world look like, if we could help 1 Deepika?

Read on….

https://www.thebetterindia.com/153761/deepika-mhatre-mumbai-domestic-help-stand-up-comedian/

During “Move Up”, a program series to empower women managers at a Global Consulting Company, a participant stood up and said the following:

“Even with the best intentions, I am unable to control my emotions when I perceive that someone is being unfair to me. I wish I could do something about my reactions. I’m just stuck with this issue.”

To me, this came across as a plea for help& not someone looking at finding excuses for their behavior. The lady was extremely talented & had done very well in her career so far. She felt this was a major stumbling block in her life.

We discussed the concept of Neuroplasticity and the research that now shows; we are not stuck with the brain we are born with. Science believed our brains were hardwired at birth. Now we can we can “will”our mind to change.

This was no longer about will power& #selfawareness, but was something that had been demonstrated through actual documented research.

The key to making this change is to pay attention to what you wanted to change. When you pay attention to “what” you want to change & you focus your mind on it, this can actually result in physical changes to the brain structure & make what you want, actually come to life.

In other words, when you envision your end goal, you — and your brain — can work towards recreating it real life.

Read on for some exercises to “Change the Shape of your Brain”…

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/deepak-chopra-sanjay-gupta-simple-trick-to-training-your-brain-for-success-according-to-neuroscience.html

Science is now proving that this is possible to do.

Philosophers have talked about the power of thought for centuries. Now we see evidence in research labs about “our inner ability to transform ourselves”.

Our habits, patterns, addictions (i.e. checking your smartphone when your hands are idle, nervous gestures etc) get ingrained into our brains, which strengthen the neuropath ways for this type of behavior.

The things you repeatedly do are the things that get strengthened in your personality. It becomes a part of your mental make up because you establish stronger neural connections through practice.

So ask yourself:

What behaviors do I want to reinforce?

What do I want to do in this lifetime?

As we develop new skills and continue to work at a desired behavior, changes occur both functionally and structurally within our brains. This is now proven through research.

All it takes to rewire your brain for success is a strong commitment and a lot of practice.

But it’s worth it, don’t you think?

Read on….

https://blog.myneurogym.com/neuroplasticity-train-your-brain-for-success