Culture Class blog

Peter Muijres | Culture Class .org

A terrorist attack by radicalised Muslims in London during the holy month of Ramadan (Mai 26th – June 24th 2017) adds another reason to have a look at differences in the experience and different types of ‘love’. And this time from the perspective of the ancient Greek, who believed that one type of love cannot be all encompassing, regardless of how passionate and carried away you might be about your community, a romantic partner or even a god.

The ancient Greek identified many different gods and types of love, who were all living in coexistence. Of over 30 types of love, 7 are explained below.

Agape is the love of humanity. It’s the kind of love which makes us sorrowful when we hear of a crisis in another country or in our own. It makes us contribute our time, money, bodies to the good cause and makes us feel connected to people we don’t know simply on the basis of our shared experience as human beings.

Philia refers to the love which comes from shared experience. It’s the love we feel for the people we strive with to achieve a shared goal – our co-workers, the players in a football team, and the soldiers in an army.

The Philia most prized by the Greeks was the profound friendship that developed between comrades who had fought side by side on the battlefield. They considered themselves as equals, and would not only share their personal worries but also display extreme loyalty, helping one another in times of need without expecting anything in return.”

Pragma is the love which endures. It is the love between a married couple which develops over a long period, the love which endures in sickness and in health. It’s the care a child gives to a sick parent and the love which makes a friend care for her old school friend who has become vulnerable in later life.

In the 1950s the psychologist Erich Fromm made a distinction between ‘falling in love’ and ‘standing in love’. He said we spend too much energy on the falling and should focus more on the standing, which is primarily about giving love rather than receiving it. Pragma is at the core of this idea of standing in love.

About Philautia: there is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt. Philautia is the love we give to ourselves. This is not only vanity, like narcissism, but our joy in having self-respect and being true to our own values. If we have the strength to care for ourselves, we can in turn care for others.

“All friendly feelings for others, wrote Aristotle, are extensions of a man’s feelings for himself.” The message is that we must first ‘own’ ourselves by accepting our strengths and weaknesses, before we can give ourselves away again and love others. You can’t give away what you don’t own. But when you like yourself and feel secure in yourself then you will have plenty of love to give without fear, envy, greed, or having to prove yourself coming in the way. If you know what makes you happy, then you will be in a astronger postion to find a way of extending that happiness to those around you. If, on the other hand, you are uncomfortable with who you are, or harbour some self-loathing, then you will have little love to offer others”.

Ludus means flirting or playful affection. It’s the feelings we have when we test out what it may be like to be in love with someone – the fluttering heart and feelings of euphoria; the slightly dangerous feeling.

Eros means romantic and erotic love. This one is based on sex and powerful magnetism. It’s the one which can get us into the most trouble. It can turn into other kinds of love – like pragma – but it starts as romance and attraction.

Storge is the love members of a family have for each other. It’s the love a parent has for a child or a child has for a favourite aunty or uncle, the love a foster parent feels for the children in her care and the love a grandparent feels for the child adopted by his son and daughter-in-law.

When one kind of love grows and turns into a passion, other types of love are sometimes forgotten about. However, keep in mind that love is a quality and as such can’t be boxed in, measured or compared. One type of love may precede, change into or be a condition for the existence of other types of love.

Love turning into passion might make other types of love appear  inferior or less desirable. The ancient Greek show that love does not survive in isolation or can be understood within a hierarchy, but thrives in quality and diversity: in the qualities of the life that we share together.

By Peter Muijres – Culture Class

Never in human history have we hunted for so much data, information and knowledge.

Never in human history have we gathered so much that is useful but not used.

The gap between existing and applied information concerns all types of human activity: raising children, buying food, designing products, disposing of waste, caring for the sick, governing resources, creating art. What are the results of research and development worth if nobody can use them, except perhaps a select few?

Knowledge Mobilization is a complex and emergent process that focuses on making what we know ready for action to produce value. The term was coined by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) in the first years of this millennium. The need for knowledge mobilization has arisen from the complex knowledge production process that has consistently failed to translate the most useful evidence resulting from practice and research into everyday outcomes that could benefit our decision making.

Why does new and useful intelligence often end in a file, on a shelf or in a head instead of being made available to public benefit? Many factors contribute to the knowledge gap. Policies aimed at smothering conflicting interests and delay caused by bureaucratic hurdles are only two of them. The ‘information revolution’ appears to provide another explanation for the knowledge gap between knowing and doing . As a result of internet, the “expert” is no longer viewed as a dominant source of knowledge. The increased competition between sources of information has led to heightened confusion and anxiety, as to what is the “best” method of ensuring positive outcomes for the decisions we take.

What can we do to make knowledge available for application? Peter Levesque suggests that knowledge mobilization is led from the middle and for the purpose. The issues of power and control are central – especially in institutional settings. He argues that more important than content, are considerations of context, capacity, and a culture that supports the use, sharing, and co-creation of knowledge(s), in its many forms. Value is always created in exchange. Exchange can be in multiple forms that depend on context, capacity of individuals and organizations, the accessibility of content, and he culture that supports exchange and value production.

Some core questions include:

How do we integrate multiple sources of data, information and knowledge into our daily activities, whether they be consumer decisions, or high-level policy decisions?

How do we, collectively and individually, move from making decisions based mostly on emotions and opinions to making decisions based on individual as well as collective understanding?

How do we move from holding on to what we know rather than sharing it and acting on it in ways that are mutually beneficial?

Having useful evidence available to us in a timely fashion, in a format that we can use, is critical to the change from simply knowing to doing – and doing the best we can.

Knowledge Mobilization also includes active processes of creating linkages and exchanges between producers and users of data, information, and knowledge to engage in value-added activities. It includes a more entrepreneurial perspective than is often seen in disciplinary academic research and includes awareness of opportunities, key partnerships, market conditions, technological supports, and concepts of innovation.

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The Epigenetic Psychosexual Stages

Erikson believed that childhood is very important in personality development. He accepted many of Freud’s theories, including the id, ego, and superego, and Freud’s theory of infantile sexuality. But Erikson rejected Freud’s attempt to describe personality solely on the basis of sexuality, and, unlike Freud, felt that personality continued to develop beyond five years of age.

All of the stages in Erikson’s epigenetic theory are implicitly present at birth (at least in latent form), but unfold according to both an innate scheme and one’s up-bringing in a family that expresses the values of a culture. Each stage builds on the preceding stages, and paves the way for subsequent stages. Each stage is characterized by a psychosocial crisis, which is based on physiological development, but also on demands put on the individual by parents and/or society. Ideally, the crisis in each stage should be resolved by the ego in that stage, in order for development to proceed correctly. The outcome of one stage is not permanent, but can be altered by later experiences. Everyone has a mixture of the traits attained at each stage, but personality development is considered successful if the individual has more of the “good” traits than the “bad” traits.

Ego Psychology

Erikson’s theory of ego psychology holds certain tenets that differentiate his theory from Freud’s. Some of these include:

The ego is of utmost importance. Part of the ego is able to operate independently of the id and the superego. The ego is a powerful agent that can adapt to situations, thereby promoting mental health. Social and sexual factors both play a role in personality development.

Erikson’s theory was more comprehensive than Freud’s, and included information about “normal” personality as well as neurotics. He also broadened the scope of personality to incorporate society and culture, not just sexuality. Criticisms of his theories, in addition to the factors discussed in class, have noted that he did no statistical research to generate his theories, and it is very hard to test his theories in order to validate them.

Stage 1 – Basic Trust vs. Mistrust

Developing trust is the first task of the ego, and it is never complete. The child will let mother out of sight without anxiety and rage because she has become an inner certainty as well as an outer predictability. The balance of trust with mistrust depends largely on the quality of maternal relationship.

Stage 2 – Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

If denied autonomy, the child will turn against him/herself urges to manipulate and discriminate. Shame develops with the child’s self-consciousness. Doubt has to do with having a front and back — a “behind” subject to its own rules. Left over doubt may become paranoia. The sense of autonomy fostered in the child and modified as life progresses serves the preservation in economic and political life of a sense of justice.

Stage 3 – Initiative vs. Guilt

Initiative adds to autonomy the quality of undertaking, planning, and attacking a task for the sake of being active and on the move. The child feels guilt over the goals contemplated and the acts initiated in exuberant enjoyment of new locomoter and mental powers. The castration complex occuring in this stage is due to the child’s erotic fantasies. A residual conflict over initiative may be expressed as hysterical denial, which may cause the repression of the wish or the abrogation of the child’s ego: paralysis and inhibition, or overcompensation and showing off.

The Oedipal stage results not only in oppressive establishment of a moral sense restricting the horizon of the permissible, but also sets the direction towards the possible and the tangible which permits dreams of early childhood to be attached to goals of an active adult life. After Stage 3, one may use the whole repetoire of previous modalities, modes, and zones for industrious, identity-maintaining, intimate, legacy-producing, dispair-countering purposes.

Stage 4 – Industry vs. Inferiority

To bring a productive situation to completion is an aim which gradually supersedes the whims and wishes of play. The fundamentals of technology are developed To lose the hope of such “industrious” association may pull the child back to the more isolated, less conscious familial rivalry of the Oedipal time. The child can become a conformist and thoughtless slave whom others exploit.

Stage 5 – Identity vs. Role Confusion (or “Diffusion”)

The adolescent is newly concerned with how they appear to others. Ego identity is the accrued confidence that the inner sameness and continuity prepared in the past are matched by the sameness and continuity of one’s meaning for others, as evidenced in the promise of a career. The inability to settle on a school or occupational identity is disturbing.

Stage 6 – Intimacy vs. Isolation

Body and ego must be masters of organ modes and of the other nuclear conflicts in order to face the fear of ego loss in situations which call for self-abandon. The avoidance of these experiences leads to isolation and self-absorption. The counterpart of intimacy is distantiation, which is the readiness to isolate and destroy forces and people whose essence seems dangerous to one’s own. Now true genitality can fully develop.

The danger at this stage is isolation which can lead to sever character problems. Erikson’s listed criteria for “genital utopia” illustrate his insistence on the role of many modes and modalities in harmony:

mutuality of orgasm with a loved partner of opposite sex with whom one is willing and able to share a trust, and with whom one is willing and able to regulate the cycles of work, procreation, and recreation so as to secure to the offspring all the stages of satisfactory development.

Stage 7 – Generativity vs. Stagnation

Generativity is the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation. Simply having or wanting children doesn’t achieve generativity. Socially-valued work and disciples are also expressions of generativity.

Stage 8 – Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Ego integrity is the ego’s accumulated assurance of its capacity for order and meaning. Despair is signified by a fear of one’s own death, as well as the loss of self-sufficiency, and of loved partners and friends. Healthy children, Erikson tells us, won’t fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.

Good deeds are extra rewarded during Ramadan, the holy month. This year, the Islamic State jihadists’ chief propagandist, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, took the occasion of Ramadan at heart to wish for death and disaster and the holy month to become “a calamity for kuffars”. Almost as a birthday wish. ‘Kuffar’ is a highly derogatory Arabic term used to refer to non-Muslims. With Ramadan coming to an end and terror attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait, an old question emerges again: ‘How do being good and violent go together?’

Questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’ have tormented witnesses of violence of all times. Although anger and disgust make it very tempting to demonise the offenders all together, regardless of whether they are Nazis or jihadists, this response won’t further our understanding and won’t make any change at all. Informed communication across cultures might be more helpful to change, but depends on our ability to stand back, observe and understand before jumping to conclusions in order to get a more comprehensive picture. Many explanations may exist of why normal people keep turning into (normal) beasts, time and time again… below you will find another one.

In spite of what people tend to believe (especially about themselves), life`s complexity is barely understood. Human intelligence, even in its most brilliant form, simply lacks the capacity to come even close to understanding life`s complexity. Too many questions simply remain unasked and therefore unanswered. Similarly, psychodynamic processes within a person involve many contradictions and aspects that do not appear to make sense. Preserving blind spots and an unawareness of what we don’t know may take the edge off, but does not diminish the glowing source of existential uncertainty in the end.

In spite of and perhaps exactly because of this confusion, achieving feelings of ‘purity’ and ‘consistency’ are much valued yet very difficult to achieve. A ‘Truth’ one can believe in provides existence with a feeling of structure and meaning. Achieving such a state requires an armoury of distorted perceptual and cognitive processes, rooted in personal and cultural backgrounds that help to maintain the inner balance and consistent sense of self.

As a patient once explained: “I know what I believe must be right, because it feels right. If what I believed in was wrong, it also would feel wrong. It couldn’t feel “right”, if it wasn’t right. As simple as that but totally spot on. Phenomena are put into an order and every feeling of right or wrong indicates that a side is chosen and a view confirmed. Of course, the feeling is based on an assumption, but why would you bother if it feels right?

The human operating system is well able to contain tolerate confusion. However, the problem starts when life comes in between while we were having other expectations. Especially when people are still wondering about the answers to life’s questions, as every rebellious youngster does, then persistent probing will readily surface the many contradictions involved in life’s game. If a challenging but sensible peer then shows interest in who you are and try to be, then marketing psychology provides an answer where life doesn’t. The more unsure a potential customer feels about which product to choose, the more his preference will steer toward the common brand.

Choosing sides is one way to escape confusion and contradiction. In the words of the ‘shadada’, the Islamic State printed on their flag: “Islam is a monotheistic religion and Muhammad was its one true prophet”. Committing to one ‘Truth’ can be a trusted way out with prescribed recipes against potential doubt and contradiction. “Say to them: ignorant people do you bid me to worship others than God?” (‘Ibn Jarir, Ibn Abi Hatim, Tabarani’ – Surah 109). Lingering in disturbing nothingness would seem a bit silly, right after you suddenly see a path uncovered that gives you the answer to the confusion, doesn’t it? 

Also puritan Christian monks had their way of dealing with doubt and life`s contradictions. Some monks even chastised themselves for having ‘impure thoughts’, like feeling physically attracted to someone else. Proactively taking responsibility and punishing yourself for thoughts that distract you from purity and Truth, serves multiple benefits:

God may not punish you anymore after you already did so yourself.

You might discourage your mind from having more impure thoughts.

The pain of punishment may further distract and out rule the intense negative emotions they may experience as a result of “crossing the line”, similar to contemporary self mutilators. In modern times, people usually beat themselves up with harsh self-criticism over their mistakes.

The process of choosing sides, passionately accompanied by a pinch of disgust, piercing eyes, pointing fingers and the use of words like ‘normal’, ‘never’ or ‘crazy’ may look aggressive and independent, but it isn’t. Opponents have to choose or be made to choose another side in order to complete a complementary relationship.

Nazis needed Untermenschen and Jihadists cannot do without kuffars like a see-saw cannot do without its counterweight. In order to rise to a (self-acclaimed) superior status, a single and elevated truth is relied on as a strong anchoring point. A ‘bad’ side is needed as a counterweight to feel superior to.

People like to become better persons, better than themselves and better than others. The prettiest princess in the country cannot accept a second queen who is just as pretty in order to be undisputed number one. Although there can only be one prettiest princess, the presence of the little princesses loosing the competition and ending up disappointedly standing in her shadow is required and appreciated. In this stage, life`s inconsistencies are projected onto the others out there, like the kuffars of today.

As soon as the challenge is levelled over to others, the conflict no longer lives within. Taking your frustration and anger out of yourself and out on to others, then becomes a justified, purifying, and self-sacrificing act. Jihadists, just like other gangsters, need violence for love to exist. Developing the self-compassion that people need to stop inviting everyday violence to return into their life is one answer to a phenomenon as complex as life itself.

By Peter Muijres

“Management is doing things right; Leadership is doing the right things”

In 1989, Stephen published his #1 best-seller: ‘The 7 habits of highly effective people’. The book sold over 15 million copies and is became a classic in management literature. The message is outlined below and is followed by some notes.

Covey presents his teachings in a series of habits. The habits build onto each other and are expected to become an integrated part of one’s character, manifested as a progression from dependence via independence to interdependence.

Dependence: the paradigm under which we are born, relying upon others to take care of us.

Independence: the paradigm under which we can make our own decisions and take care of ourselves.

Interdependence: the paradigm under which we cooperate to achieve something that cannot be achieved independently.

The first three habits focus on self‐mastery, that is, achieving the private victories required to move from dependence to independence. The second three habits focus achieving public victory, aimed at realising effective interdependence. The seventh habit is one of renewal and continual improvement, that is, of building one’s personal ‘production capability’ or the ability to produce. 

Habit 1: Be Proactive Focus on the things you can actually do something about. Change starts from within, and highly effective people make the decision to improve their lives through the things that they can influence rather than by simply reacting to external forces.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind Begin everything you do with a clear picture of your ultimate goal. Develop a principle‐centered personal mission statement. Extend the mission statement into long‐term goals based on personal principles.

Habit 3: Put First Things First Manage your life according to your needs and priorities. Spend time doing what fits into your personal mission, observing the proper balance between production and building production capacity. Identify the key roles that you take on in life, and make time for each of them.

Habit 4: Think Win‐Win Integrity: Stick with your true feelings, values, and commitments Maturity: Be considerate of the feelings of others Abundance Mentality: Believe there is plenty for everyone. Seek agreements and relationships that are mutually beneficial. In cases where a “win/win” deal cannot be achieved, accept the fact that agreeing to make “no deal” may be the best alternative. In developing an organizational culture, be sure to reward win/win behaviour among employees and avoid inadvertantly rewarding win/lose behaviour.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood Learn how to communicate clearly and listen to others. Stephen Covey presents this habit as the most important principle of interpersonal relations. Effective listening is not simply echoing what the other person has said through the lens of one’s own experience. Rather, it is putting oneself in the perspective of the other person, listening empathically for both feeling and meaning.

Habit 6: Synergize “Two heads are better than one.” Through trustful communication, find ways to leverage individual differences to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Through mutual trust and understanding, one often can solve conflicts and find a better solution than would have been obtained through either person’s own solution.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw Allow yourself to grow by maintaining a balanced program in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. Take time out from production to build production capacity through personal renewal of the physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual dimensions.

To be effective, one must find the proper balance between actually producing and improving one’s capability to produce. Covey illustrates this point with the fable of the goose and the golden egg. In the fable, a poor farmer’s goose began laying a solid gold egg every day. The farmer soon became rich and greedy. In order to obtain all of the eggs immediately, he killed the goose and cut her open. By attempting to maximise immediate production with no regard to the production capability, the capability will be lost.

However, Covey’s paradigm also raises some questions. One may wonder whether conditions for character development are both as universal and as timeless as he suggests. On the internet, character seems half as important as the ability to assume a personality. An ability to tune into and manage change has become a key asset of the effective manager in an international environment.

Covey already notes that much of the success literature tends to overvalue independence, encouraging people to become liberated and do their own thing. The reality is that we are interdependent, and the independent model is not optimal for use in an interdependent environment that requires both leaders and team players. Internationalisation has added cultural variations and international dimensions to for example self-management skills and leadership styles.

Since 1989, where, with whom and how information is shared, decisions made, and identities negotiated has also dramatically changed. In fact, changes have happened so quickly and rapidly that the majority haven’t had the time yet to comprehend and come to terms with what has actually been going on and left behind.

Covey’s book ‘The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness’ (2004) addresses some of the changes and how it may have outdated some of the ideas behind the seven habits. He claims that effectiveness does not suffice in what he calls “The Knowledge Worker Age”. He proclaims that “the challenges and complexity we face today are of a different order of magnitude.” Becoming great has become dependent on finding your voice and inspiring others to do the same.

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The creative process could be said to consist of five phases or states of mind. Each phase feeds into another and they do not need to follow a sequential order.

Inspiration – Generate a large number of ideas

This is the research or idea-generation phase. The process is uninhibited and characterised by spontaneity, experimentation, intuition, and risk-taking. Many people wonder where creative people find their good ideas. The answer is, in amongst a huge pile of bad ones. Creativity is like mining for diamonds, most of what you dig is thrown away, but that does not make the digging a waste of time. If you ‘cannot think of anything’ you are having difficulty with this inspiration phase, perhaps because you are too self-critical, or expect good ideas to come too quickly. In the field of the creative arts the inspiration phase is often associated with a search for an individual voice, and with an attempt to conjure up deep feelings of (for example) empathy, spirituality, or an intense identification with the subject matter. This is not a phase in which to be negative or worried about form, practicality, rhyme or quality. You should be rejecting at least 90% of your initial ideas. Let yourself off the leash! If most of the ideas you create are workable, then you did not take enough risks. This phase is like brainstorming.

Clarification - In which you focus on your goals.

Key questions are:

What am I trying to achieve here?

What am I trying to say?

What exactly is the problem I am trying to solve?

What would I like the finished work to be like?

And in more open ended work:

How could I exploit the ideas I have had?

Where could this idea take me – what could I make of it?

The aim here is to clarify the purpose or objective of the work. It is easy to lose your sense of direction while dealing with detailed difficulties in creative work. So you need occasionally to disengage from these obstacles and ask “what exactly am I trying to do?”

If you ‘get stuck’ in the middle of a project, then rather than dreaming up a stream of alternatives you need to clarify where exactly you want to go. How to get there is then often straight-forward, or even blindingly obvious. Clarification gets you out of the mire, but it is also required when say, an artist or designer agonises between two or more equally attractive approaches. Such decisions require a clear sense of purpose. If you feel lost, stuck, bogged down, confused, or uncertain about how to proceed, then clarification is what you need. In this clarification phase you have your eye on the ball, you are being strategic and logical, focussing on how the finished work will look. It is very common for those inexperienced in creative work to fail to clarify. Clarification is a process, not an event. It should take place at frequent intervals while you work.

Evaluation – A review phase in which you look back over your work in progress. 

In the evaluation phase you examine your work for strengths and weaknesses. Then you need to consider how the work could be improved, by removing weaknesses but also by capitalising on its strengths. Then there will probably need to be another perspiration phase to respond positively to the suggestions for improvement. Perspiration and evaluation phases often alternate to form a cycle.

Hardly anyone gets things perfect first time. Creative people adapt to improve. Many people dislike the evaluation phase at first. However, highly creative people are nearly always inveterate revisers. They tinker with work that would make others gape in delight. Actually this evaluation phase can be very rewarding, and no work of real merit will be produced without it. If Shakespeare and Picasso found they had to revise their efforts, then I expect even you will need to!

Distillation - In which you decide which ideas to work on.

Here ideas from the inspiration phase are sifted through and evaluated usually in the light of the findings of a clarification phase. The best ideas are chosen for further development, or are combined into even better ideas. This is a self-critical phase. It requires cool analysis and judgment rather than slap-happy spontaneity. However it should not be so critical as to inhibit productivity entirely. Remember, the ideas you have had are only ideas, not complete solutions – you must not expect too much of them. It is where the ideas can take you that counts, not the ideas themselves.

Incubation - Leave the work alone, though you still ponder about it occasionally, leaving it ‘on the surface of your mind’.

Many brilliant ideas have occurred in the bath, or in traffic jams. If you are able to stop work on a project for a few days, perhaps to work on other things, this will give your subconscious time to work on any problems encountered, it will also distance you somewhat from your ideas so that you are better able to evaluate them. ‘Incubation’ is particularly useful after an ‘inspiration’ or a ‘perspiration’ phase, or if a problem has been encountered. Creative people are often surprisingly patient and untidy, and are content to let half-baked ideas, loose ends and inconsistencies brew away in their sub-conscious until ‘something turns up’.

Whenever Sir Isaac Newton had a particularly thorny problem he always worked on it just before he went to sleep. He said “I invariably woke up with the solution”.

Perspiration - In which you work determinedly on your best ideas.

This is where the real work is done. You are involved in determined and persistent effort towards your goal, this will usually involve further ‘inspiration’ ‘distillation’ and ‘clarification’ phases.

Perspiration usually involves a number of drafts separated with clarification and evaluation phases. Uncreative people often accept the first draft as completion. Very creative people often go over and over a piece until it is too their liking. Matisse for example produced over 20 versions of his ‘Pink Nude’. The end result is child like simple, and paradoxically spontaneous looking. It is surprising to people who do not understand the creative process that a talented person like Matisse should need so many ‘drafts’. But such strategies are common in very creative people.

Ever wondered what determines the success of expats on their assignment abroad? In 1985, Mendenhall coined a model that provided an answer that became even more comprehensive after other people contributed to it  Preceded by ‘anticipatory adjustment’ factors, the model lists four (sets of) factors leading to three areas of success, and is mediated by positional factors.

The model ended up as shown in the featuring image (Shaffer et al., 1999). Chances of success on an expatriate assignment were directly linked to adjustment and divided into three areas:

adjustment to work,

adjustment to interacting with host nationals, and

adjustment to the general environment.

As one may expect, success or failure in one area tends to spill over and may benefit or compromise achievements in other areas.

Although it might have been interesting to look at how success is determined by ‘job factors’ and supportive mechanisms related to ‘organisational factors’, we won’t do so now. ‘Anticipatory adjustment’ addresses intriguing aspects like expat expectations, intercultural training, and selection criteria. However, these and also ‘positional factors’ as mediating factors are going to be set aside for another time, clearing the floor for individual and non-work related factors leading to expat adjustment and success.

Individual factors break down into three sets of skills: self-oriented, other-oriented and perceptual skills.

The self-oriented dimension constitutes three skills:

1. Reinforcement substitution: the ability to find replacing interests and joys.

If the presence of food and friends made you passionate about organising Sunday barbeques in Australia, but you can’t do that anymore in England, then perhaps joining a cooking club is able to fill that gap and relieve the loss.

2. stress reduction: the ability to recuperate from stress.

This skills helps you to deal with unpredictable, ambiguous relationships and to prevent developing a depression. For example, take a time-out to do a comforting activity with a recuperating effect, like yoga or writing, in times of stress. Not to confuse with people who remain safely within their comfort zone, a cycle of engagement and withdrawal enables you to balance to which extent you are exposed to external stressors in the process of leaving your comfort zone.

3.  The third individual skill is technical competence.

The better a person has adjusted, the more likely it will benefit his performance on the job. At the same time, good performance bolsters confidence and improves the process of intercultural adjustment as well. However, a common and very costly mistake HR managers is to only look at the technical performance of employees and presume they will perform abroad as they do at home.

The other oriented dimension describe abilities to develop new relationships and a willingness to communicate.

Having host national friends (or lovers) may add greatly to your cultural experience in several ways. A local friend can introduce you to the local way of life and help you to recognise, understand and appreciate the cultural differences. Trying to make local friends is a bit like trying to learn to speak the local language. Not only does it demonstrate a positive degree of international orientiation and intelligence, your attempts to blend in also show you are a ‘low maintenance friend’, someone unlikely to cause public embarassment or other problems. Host national friends may start taking you to the non-touristic places that show you what it is really all about after people have dropped their social masks.

However, do note that a genuine other-oriented interest is not necessarily displayed by easy solutions or culturally inappropriate behaviour. Memorising the words: “machtig, prachtig, tachtig” (in Dutch respectively: mighty, splendid, eighty), does not turn every second Egyptian street vendor into ‘mi frem’ (my friend). Asking where the city of Holland is located within the nation of Amsterdam, doesn’t necessarily back your display of interest, and neither does yelling local jokes out loud, intruding into people’s breathing space and laughing hysterically at people in an attempt to create ‘commonality’.

The perceptual dimension purports a non-evaluative attitude and the ability to make correct intercultural attributions. Other people’s responses to the culturally insensitive behaviour described in the previous paragraph should activate an alarm in the perceptual circuit of the expat operating device. Research has shown that learned cultural differences in perceptions and evaluations of social behaviour, often lead people from different cultures to misinterpret each other. However, understanding why host nationals do what they do, and learning about other people’s responses, also helps strangers to predict the reception and appreciation of their own behaviour and expressed opinions by others.

Of the non-work related factors, the first is ‘cultural toughness’. Cultural toughness reflects country specific variables that facilitate acculturation to a particular setting. For example, the more important it is to prevent ‘loosing face’ to happen, the more important it becomes to tread lightly while learning about cultural faux-pas. Nowadays, this dimension is better known as ‘cultural distance’, a term coined by Hofstede (1980). Being in host countries with cultures similar to your home culture increase your chances of adaptation and success.

The second non-work related factor, suggested by Black in 1991, is ‘adjustment of spouse’. The expat on assignment may do fine, but may still have to choose between cutting their assignment or their marriage short, because their spouse wants to go home. Spouses may be less drawn into the host culture and challenged to incorporate cultural differences into their personal life-style. Moreover, for western wives, cultural restrictions in societies with an explicit gender division may make adapting extra ‘culturally tough’. Unsatisfied social and emotional needs motivate spouses to go back home and make their partner join them.

However, even after cherry picking this model and enjoying all it has to  contribute to expatriate effectiveness, a few critical comments need to be made. The model ignores the psychological dimensions of the transition process and poorly reflects the fluid dynamics in systems affecting humans in progress. The cultural bias is apparent in its overemphasis on the individual and it’s analytical-catagorical design. Much needs to be improved and contributed from other angles and perspectives to realise a model that is transculturally comprehensive.

By Peter Muijres

Negotiation is a give-and-take decision-making process involving interdependent parties with different preferences and interests. Negotiations may take place during a sales process, between a therapist and a patient, between business partners, and even between what your heart wants and your head says. Feelings like to undermine effective negotiation and patience and persistence may improve it, making your children at times more successful negotiators than your spouse. Communication is key in negotiation and intercultural communication differences may complicate an international negotiation process.

Key features of negotiation are that each party has certain expectations regarding the outcome of the negotiation process and is willing to modify their position. Negotiation may be used to reach an agreement or compromise, ‘beat’ the opposition, make a point, or settle an argument. Negotiation styles tend to vary between cultures with masculine cultures inclined towards beating the opposition and Nordic and Scandinavian cultures towards agreement and compromise. People generally enter a negotiation process more easily than they think they do or like to admit.

There are two types of negotiation. ‘Distributive negotiation’ is about getting the biggest share of the pie at the expense of others. The drive to beat others in negotiation is fuelled by the drive/incentive and perhaps by  the threat system too and  is likely  to provoke feelings of competition, anger or distrust in the other party. (Read post240715: ‘the compassionate mind’ for more information).  ‘Integrative negotiation’ is concerned with creating a win-win situation. This is done during a process where the parties cooperate to maximise value in order to best serve the interests of all. A win–win negotiation demands more creativity, flexibility and relies on a trusting relationship more, than distributive negotiation does.

Although, a win-win negotiation benefits all, it should not be taken as a sign of weakness and an invitation to push you over. Greed, fear, ignorance and impatience may cause one party to loose confidence and suddenly turn to a win-loose compromise. The prisoner’s dilemma, known in game theory, explains why individuals do not cooperate, even when it is in their best interests.

The risks in international business explain why in many countries in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere, a good relationship is a condition prior to entering a negotiation process. Until a trusting personal relationship has grown between the different parties, no business is going to happen between the companies they represent. This also means that when there is no such thing as speeding up the negotiation or simply sending another person to represent the company. A new negotiator would have to invest in a good relationship all over again.

A proper understanding and appreciation of cultural nuances help to improve the relationship by adapting your communication and negotiation strategy. The cultural nuances include:

Language and non-verbal behaviour

Values

Thinking and decision making processes

Failure to prepare for cultural differences will weigh down on a negotiation process that is already challenging by itself. Stress may push negotiators back into their initial negotiation and cultural default positions and dramatically increase the risk of getting stuck.

A handful of guidelines may help you to attend to the cultural nuances and keep the negotiation process ‘unstuck’: flowing and fruitful.

Thinking in terms of ‘interests’, rather than ‘positions’. Don’t let rejection push you into a ‘position’ modus.

If your proposals are rejected by them, don’t start justifying and defending them.

If you can’t accept their proposals, then don’t just bluntly reject them. Think about possible interests involved and ask them why your proposals won’t work for them and what exactly makes their proposal valuable to them. Use that information for your next move.

Common interests first. Common interests strengthen the relational basis that helps to overcome conflicting interests at a later stage together.

Use time to our advantage. Although decisive action is recommended once an opportunity window has opened, windows tend to open differently around the world. Allowing yourself or the other party an occasional time-out may help to make you look more reliable, considerate and committed. It may further signal your confidence in the sound judgement of the other party or it may actually buy you some time to collect any additional information you might need. Quick, American style judgement and decision making is not a ‘natural’ display of intelligence, enthusiasm and confidence everywhere.

Power play. Each party has real and attributed power. Experienced negotiators may try to influence your decision by making you believe they are holding more power than they actually do. However, the opposite may happen too. Britons display a tendency to understatement and self-deprecation, however impressive their achievements may be. Cultural norms about the display of real power vary considerately.

Communication is key. Negotiation is communication (and communication is culture). Experienced negotiators are not the typical extraverts, but keen observers and listeners busy with interpreting behaviour and collecting information to their advantage. Digging into Watzlawick’s five axioms of communication, described in post301214, will help you come to terms with communication. A future blogpost will explain the interpretation of body language in more detail..

Thus, collecting information and preparation is key to effective communication, before and during any negotiation process and particularly the international ones. Determining goals, pitfalls and conditions is one; determining your communication and negotiation strategy is another part of proper preparation. Select a knowledgeable and appropriate negotiation team, discuss in advance who is going to do what at the negotiation table and when, prepare your team and adapt the negotiation setting for the cultural differences in etiquette, body language, verbal communication and decision making styles; and make sure to complete the follow up procedures and practices to maximise your chances of eventual pay-off.

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Culture Class  provides training in personal effectiveness, culture and communication skills. 

Communication is ever present feature of all human interaction. The five axiomas of communication, formulated by Paul Watzlawick and colleagues help to describe the processes of communication that take place during interaction and help to explain how a misunderstanding may come about.

The five axiomas are:

1. One cannot not communicate. The first axiom shows that everything one does is a message: “Activity or inactivity, words or silence all have message value: they influence others and these others, in turn, cannot not respond to these communications and are thus themselves communicating” (Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson, 1967, p. 1). This is true only however if the parties are “in the presence of another” (Watzlawick & Beavin, 1967, p. 4). This can cause problems in the relationship system though. For example, if one doesn’t want to communicate and inadvertently communicates this fact it may anger the other party.

2. The second axiom, states that there are both “content and relationship levels of communication” (p. 1). Content refers to the actual subject matter of what is being discussed. The relationship level of a communicative act has to do with how the two communicators view one another and how they convey it. As Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson (1967) put it, “All such relationship statements are about one or several of the following assertions: ‘This is how I see myself…this is how I see you…this is how I see you seeing me…’” and therefore determines “how this communication is to be taken” (pg. 3). Watzlawick and Beavin (1967) describe the relationship level as “information about this [content level] information” (p. 5).

3. The third axiom is concerned with how participants in the system punctuate their communicative sequences. In a communicative event “every item in the sequence is simultaneously stimulus, response, and reinforcement” (Bateson & Jackson qtd. in Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson, 1967, p. 4). Therefore, one can interpret an act as being a response, while the other can interpret it as being a stimulus creating conflicting punctuations, and “no one participant’s behavior can be said to cause the other’s” (p. 7).

4. The fourth axiom is that communication can be both digital and analogical. The digital code is what the person says, what the words actually mean, while the analogical code has to do with how something is said or the nonverbal cues that go along with it. This means that someone can convey two opposing messages at once, which may cause problems.

5. Finally, the fifth axiom is concerned with the communication being either symmetrical or complimentary. This simply means that either the participants in the system are on equal ground with regards to power relations, or one of them is over the other. Conflict can arise when either wants the status quo to change.

 By Peter Muijres – Culture Class

Increased global activity has led companies around the world to seek new markets for their products, new sources of raw materials, as well as new, more cost-effective locations for manufacturing. According to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2006, transnational collaboration will be of decisive importance in an increasingly global competition. Expatriates are employed for reasons such as transfer of expertise, facilitating entry into new markets, or development of international management competencies.

Some of these foreign ventures succeed, but many do not. A high percentage of expats fails to meet expected standards of performance abroad. Studies have found that as much as 40 to 55% of expats ‘fail’ to adjust to living and working abroad and many cut their assignment short. Out of the American expats who stay at their international assignments, approximately 30 to 50% are considered ineffective or marginally effective by their firms and do more harm than good.

The costs of expatriate ineffectiveness and turnover are intimidating. Studies on American companies have shown that every early return of a manager costs companies as much as $250,000 to $1 million per individual, depending on the level of the manager and the urgency of their replacement. The direct costs of failed expatriate assignments to U.S. firms are estimated at over $2 billion a year, the costs of psychological suffering, damaged corporate reputations and lost business opportunities not taken into account.

The multiple and sudden losses and challenges that expats are faced with make them a particularly vulnerable group. Challenges may include a loss of language, social support network, possessions, knowledge of laws and rules, and of geographical orientation. Expats who feel out of touch with local customs and conduct, and who are unaware of culturally accepted styles of communication and problem solving may feel unable to prevent embarrassing or frustrating incidents with host nationals whilst living and working abroad. The inability of expats to adjust to the demands of an international business environment has been identified as a primary cause of international business failures.

Intercultural training addresses the demand for an interculturally competent workforce. It makes sure that expats set off and return with realistic expectations and it provides them with the knowledge, skills and attitude they need to develop rewarding collaborative relationships and to meet standards of functioning abroad.

Various independent studies have confirmed the effectiveness of intercultural training. Empirical evidence has shown that intercultural training helps expats to develop important intercultural skills, to facilitate intercultural adjustment, and it improves their professional performance and their well-being. Intercultural training is an indispensable prerequisite for the return on investment that organisations increasingly seek in international ventures and an expatration of their staff and provides a bedrock they can rely on in times of global opportunities and change.

Culture Class develops and provides intercultural training and coaching for expats

http://cultureclass.org

Written by Peter Muijres – http://ift.tt/1snIiXT

The last blog post was about the question how the availability of words in different languages facilitates people to express things. Right now, this emphasis will shift towards the question whether a language is able to express cultural uniqueness and what implications this would have for cross-cultural communication.

‘Intranslatable’ foreign words are often quoted and explained to show there is nothing special about the culture that generated them. The Swedish word Mångata, is popular for example, meaning: the road-like reflection of the moon on the water. Next one; the Spanish sobremesa is the leisurely time spent at the table together after people have finished eating. Easy. Next, one: utepils means enjoying a beer outside in the sun. Next one in line is the Japanese Komorebi. English language might need several words to describe the effect of sunlight filtering through leaves where the Japanese need only one, but in the end we are talking about the same thing, aren’t we?

That remains a question. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that words that exist only in one language expresses an unique experience particular to that culture, because the meaning of words determines what we are capable of thinking of. At the other hand, the structuralist approach in linguistics, proposes that the words in a language are like the holes in a fishing net. Each language group throws the fishing net in its own way over a surface, which represents reality. Although the net and the holes will always fall differently, and different words cover different aspects and dimensions, the reality underneath stays basically the same. The methaphor is used to illustrate that people all have a similar experience of reality, although the words they use to catch this reality may differ.

What does this mean to cross-cultural communication? Structuralists might argue: ‘communication between cultures is possible because people understand the words they use in the same way‘. Cultural differences are superficial and no experience is exclusive to people in one culture, the structuralist view holds.

At the other hand, cultural relativists, like Sapir and Whorf, might argue that ‘communication between cultures goes wrong all the time, because people understanding the words they use in different ways’. The latter suggests that people from different cultures make sense of reality differently and should therefore be understood in their own terms. —

An abilty to explain something (‘erklaeren’) and having an interpretative understanding (‘verstehen’) are two different things, Max Weber once explained. By now, you might have a notion of what utepils is. However you still have no idea what it means to live through a long, dark Scandinavian winter and the mindset, social setting and joyful expectations of spring and summer that the Norwegians tend to associate with ‘enjoying a beer in the sun’. Understanding the meaning of a word means something different than understanding that meaning in its cultural context. Let’s sink our teeth into two examples.

The German word ‘Fingerspitzengefuehl’ literally translates as ‘fingertips feeling’. The concept describes a certain strategic awareness, tact and intuition that allows for a quick responding to situational changes. The description might have drafted a picture by now, but it probably won’t include the almost geek-like joy and satisfaction that fingertips feelers may derive from observing how all particles in an incomprehensible scheme ingeniously work together to produce the tangible, hoped for result. A commitment to understand what needs to be done, why and in what way fosters a carefully cultivated mindset of punctuality, discipline and critical curiousity on a level where skills turn into art. Famous for their attention to detail, planning and punctuality, a missing cultural context would fail to make understandable why Germans were among the first to come up with a word for ‘Fingerspitzengefuehl’.

The opposite of planning is delicately caught by a word the Portuguese came up with: desenrascanço. Literally meaning “disentanglement”, desenrascanço refers to improvised, ad hoc solutions that prevent the problem from getting completely out of control and without a solution. Should it make you frown or smile? Although you may have an idea of the translation of desenrascanço, developing cultural sensitivity requires a context.

Desenrascanço is normally used to express an ability to solve a problem without having the knowledge or the adequate tools to do so, by use of imaginative resources or by applying knowledge to new situations. Portuguese people are said to strongly believe it to be one of their most valued virtues and a living part of their culture. There is a distinct pride and pleasure involved in the resourcefulness associated with the ability to handle unexpected situations and is not to be confused with an endorsement of amateurism, irresponsibility and lack of planning.

This brings us back to the original question: is a language able to express cultural uniqueness and what implications would that have for cross-cultural communication? The purpose of raising questions such as these is not to end up with a final answer that should be copied and applied across situations indifferently.

One post on cultureclassblog mentioned that picking up easily on new languages indicates cultural intelligence, because it shows an ability to recognize and apply subtle culture specific meanings in communication. What did the American expat, who refused to speak anything but English, communicate by stating : “If English was good enough for Jesus, it surely is good enough for me”? Speaking in the same language is no guarantee for being on the same page.

More important than the content of words is your view of self, others, your relation to others and the world that you communicate. Relationships depend on communication and over 80% of it happens non-verbally. Attending to mind whether another person really understands and feels understood may not seem necessary at times, but may contribute something else  within a context where borders are crossed and opportunities created together.

Cultureclass.org provides intercultural and communication skills training.

Written by: Peter Muijres - www.cultureclass.org

Everyone who speaks more than one language surely has experienced the feeling of being ‘lost in translation’. In one language, you may know exactly what you want to say, but the very same expression just doesn’t translate from one language into another. Those who have to translate struggle with this on a daily basis. People sometimes say a language is ‘rich’ when it has a great vocabulary to pick from, but what does ‘rich’ actually mean? How do numbers of words and their meaning enable people in a specific context to piece together a message in different languages? The next two blogs seek for answers to these questions.

Some languages may count more words than others, but cultural factors skew the interpretation of those numbers. Cultures differ in what people consider and accept as ‘official’ language. For example, to be included in an English dictionary, a word like ‘LOL’ (Laughing Out Loud) simply has to exist. Russians, however, feel that dictionaries should reflect only ‘proper’ words representative of the official language. Dictionaries are one of the main resources of people learning about a language. Not including words in a dictionary means limiting access to a number of words and their meaning and makes a language appear less voluminous or ‘rich’ than it actually is or should be.

Does a considerable amount of words with the same or a similar meaning indicate some meaningful hotspot in a given culture? Researchers supporting the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, introduced by Sapir and Whorff, say it does. The language we speak and the words that are part of it or not reflect and affect our view of the world. The many words Eskimos have for ‘snow’ is well known cliché, we owe to the work of anthropologist Franz Boas (1911). Also, the 300 Arabic words for ‘love’ are sometimes brought up to suggest that the entire group of native speakers is more inclined towards poetry and love. ­

However, one critical question is how you define a ‘word’. Some Eskimo languages have different words and word endings to differentiate between where the snow is, how much it is or where it goes. Frans Boaz (1911) provides examples: Aput means ‘snow on the ground’; qana means ‘falling snow’, and qimiqsuq means ‘drifting snow’. Other languages simply add an adjective or few describing words to say what the snow is doing, rather than coining a different word. More differential words do not necessarily add more meaning than word combinations.

But sometimes having many words , does reflect and foster a bigger awareness of the nuances entailed in whatever that concept is. Those among us who have learned to identify and appreciate snow in all its varieties and settings, are more likely to know and use specific words to describe those differences as well, adding depth to conversation.

Consider the variations in meaning of the synonyms of the adjective ‘mean’ offered by Merriam-Webster online. ‘Mean’ suggests small-mindedness, ill temper, or cupidity <mean and petty satire>. Ignoble suggests a loss or lack of some essential high quality of mind or spirit <an ignoble scramble after material possessions>. Abject may imply degradation, debasement, or servility <abject poverty>. Sordid is stronger than all of these in stressing physical or spiritual degradation and abjectness <a sordid story of murder and revenge>. Provided your conversational partner is able to grasp the subtle meaning you are trying to convey to the same extent, the more different synonyms may help to communicate the subtle nuances of a message to others who understand too.

Having more words at your disposal does entail a psychological advantage by enabling wordplay. Wordplay lets air into messages that might otherwise become overly earnest. The English, well known for difficulties with earnestness, employ wordplay in almost every other heading in the British tabloids. A play of word also facilitates rephrasing of points of view, which is a powerful therapeutical tool to help people take a different perspective at things.

Words are such powerful precision tools that it doesn’t hurt to have more of them – provided that you know how to use them and others still understand you. However, especially when words travel across cultural borders, the meaning of words is at risk. The next blog will concentrate on the impact of culture on the creation, context and export of words.

Literature:

Boas, F. (1911). Handbook of American Indian languages, pp. 25-26.

Whorf, B.L. (1949). “Science and Linguistics” Reprinted in Carroll 1956.

Everyone who speaks more than one language surely has experienced the feeling of being ‘lost in translation’. In one language, you may know exactly what you want to say, but the very same expression just doesn’t translate from one language into another. Those who have to translate struggle with this on a daily basis. People sometimes say a language is ‘rich’ when it has a great vocabulary to pick from, but what does ‘rich’ actually mean? How do numbers of words and their meaning enable people in a specific context to piece together a message in different languages? The next two blogs seek for answers to these questions.

Some languages may count more words than others, but cultural factors skew the interpretation of those numbers. Cultures differ in what people consider and accept as ‘official’ language. For example, to be included in an English dictionary, a word like ‘LOL’ (Laughing Out Loud) simply has to exist. Russians, however, feel that dictionaries should reflect only ‘proper’ words representative of the official language. Dictionaries are one of the main resources of people learning about a language. Not including words in a dictionary means limiting access to a number of words and their meaning and makes a language appear less voluminous or ‘rich’ than it actually is or should be.

Does a considerable amount of words with the same or a similar meaning indicate some meaningful hotspot in a given culture? Researchers supporting the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, introduced by Sapir and Whorff, say it does. The language we speak and the words that are part of it or not reflect and affect our view of the world. The many words Eskimos have for ‘snow’ is well known cliché, we owe to the work of anthropologist Franz Boas (1911)1. Also, the 300 Arabic words for ‘love’ are sometimes brought up to suggest that the entire group of native speakers is more inclined towards poetry and love. ­- Boas, Franz. 1911. Handbook of American Indian languages pp. 25-26.

However, one critical question is how you define a ‘word’. Some Eskimo languages have different words and word endings to differentiate between where the snow is, how much it is or where it goes. Frans Boaz provides examples: Aput means ‘snow on the ground’; qana means ‘falling snow’, and qimiqsuq means ‘drifting snow’. Other languages simply add an adjective or few describing words to say what the snow is doing, rather than coining a different word. More differential words do not necessarily add more meaning than word combinations.

But sometimes having many words , does reflect and foster a bigger awareness of the nuances entailed in whatever that concept is. Those among us who have learned to identify and appreciate snow in all its varieties and settings, are more likely to know and use specific words to describe those differences as well, adding depth to conversation.

Consider the variations in meaning of the synonyms of the adjective ‘mean’ offered by Merriam-Webster online. ‘Mean’ suggests small-mindedness, ill temper, or cupidity <mean and petty satire>. Ignoble suggests a loss or lack of some essential high quality of mind or spirit <an ignoble scramble after material possessions>. Abject may imply degradation, debasement, or servility <abject poverty>. Sordid is stronger than all of these in stressing physical or spiritual degradation and abjectness <a sordid story of murder and revenge>. Provided your conversational partner is able to grasp the subtle meaning you are trying to convey to the same extent, the more different synonyms may help to communicate the subtle nuances of a message to others who understand too.

Having more words at your disposal does entail a psychological advantage by enabling wordplay. Wordplay lets air into messages that might otherwise become overly earnest.  The English, well known for difficulties with earnestness, employ wordplay in almost every other heading in the British tabloids. A play of word also facilitates rephrasing of points of view, which is a powerful therapeutical tool to help people take a different perspective at things.

 Words are such powerful precision tools that it doesn’t hurt to have more of them – provided that you know how to use them and others still understand you. However, especially when words travel across cultural borders, the meaning of words is at risk. The next blog will spend more words on discussing the interplay between word meaning, cultural context and the export of identities in more depth and detail.

Literature

Whorf, B.L. (1949). "Science and Linguistics" Reprinted in Carroll 1956.

Written by: Peter Muijres

Around a decade ago a few people spearheaded the introduction of anew concept: ‘cultural intelligence’, also called ‘cultural quotient’ or ‘CQ’. Ang, van Dyne, Earley and Livermore were among these people and introduced CQ to help understand and predict why some expats adjust better than others to communicating with people from different cultures and living in a new environments.

CQ is more concerned with the personal potential to adapt, not merely with the outcomes in terms of cultural competencies. Therefore, proponents claim that CQ is able to measure and predict expatriate performance more precisely1 than cultural competence based measures. The concept of CQ seeks to line up with cognitive, social and emotional forms of intelligence . However, the differential CQ is different because it is not confined by specific cultural borders.1,2 In fact, CQ is concerned with the capability to identify and reconcile cultural differences.

CQ comprises four parts: cognitive (CQ knowledge), metacognitive (CQ strategy), motivational (CQ motivation) and behavioural (CQ action).

Cognition and meta-cognition are concerned with what information is collected and how it is processed. For example, a woman with a well-developed CQ knowledge, is aware of her personal and interpersonal experiences during everyday interactions, when they happen and how she responds. Sensitive to the responses of others and her effectiveness, she might then use information to adjust her learning strategy or her communication or problem solving style to fit the demands of the situation.

An American tourist who did not show this behaviour, was once spotted with his wife in a quiet backstreet bar in Amsterdam. He was very happy and excited about being in Holland and really felt like making some new friends on the spot. However, his loud and expressive communication style, considered obnoxious and disruptive by the Dutch visitors, only met with resistance. However, he did not reconsider and trying something else but decided not to give up. Instead, he became louder and more enthusiastic in increasingly desperate attempts to win the interest of his potential new friends.

As a part of CQ, ‘motivation’ describes a person’s level of initiative and effort: how much does he or she try to adjust to his or her new environment? Persistence, efficacy, self-confidence, affinity with the new culture, personal objectives, goals and the level of effort required, are all players in the motivation to engage with people from different cultures. Although the strategy of the American tourist did not render any new Dutch friends, he definitely deserved credits for his motivation.

CQ behaviour describes the ability to develop culturally appropriate behaviour and responses. Observing and imitating the behaviour of local role models (social mimicry) is a powerful method to acquire the culturally appropriate behaviour that facilitates effective communication. Picking up easily on new languages is considered a good indicator of culturally intelligent behaviour1, because it demonstrates an ability to recognize subtle culture specific meanings and use that in communication.

Although CQ does not provide a unique and exciting new perspective model, it has several positive sides. One of the most powerful ones is that the CQ model seeks to answer the training needs and connects with other models and theories. Many frameworks within the intercultural field, especially those developed before the 1980s, did not consider other theoretical models, research findings, field experiences or training needs.

CQ takes notions of cultural psychology and cognitive psychology into account by paying attention to how information is selected and processed and affecting the self-concept. The influence of Bandura’s social learning theory, for example, is visible in the attention for social mimicry as a social learning strategy. CQ might further complement our understanding of human intelligence by including the ability to think ‘outside the box’, including the reinvention of problem solving and communication strategies under different conditions.

The association of CQ with other types of intelligence provides a familiar reference that may foster general acceptance, but CQ seems a pretty mainstream and hardly innovative model nonetheless. In spite of an interest in other models and practical applications, the concept sticks with determining traits and capabilities of the individual. Host national views, expat experiences, the steps and stages in the process, the dynamics at play during the process receive less or no attention.

CQ makes a constructive step towards connecting theories, HR interests, and outside the box survival. Then again, the model itself makes sure to stay within the comfort zone of an established Western science. Perhaps it’s the lack of something new, bold and thought provoking, the ‘out of the box’ model seems to promise but not make true.

http://ift.tt/1snIiXT – Cultureclass provides training and coaching that helps in- and expats develop the personal and intercultural skills they need to succeed today.

Suggested reading:

(1) Earley, P. C. (2002). Redefining interactions across cultures and organizations: Moving forward with cultural intelligence. Research in organizational behavior, 24, 271-299.

(2) Earley, P. C. & Ang, S. (2003). Cultural intelligence: An analysis of individual interactions across cultures. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

(3) Earley, P. C., Ang, S., & Tan, J. S. (2006). CQ: Developing cultural intelligence at work. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Written by: Peter Muijres – Culture Class

Around a decade ago a few people spearheaded the introduction of anew concept: ‘cultural intelligence’, also called ‘cultural quotient’ or ‘CQ’. Ang, van Dyne, Earley and Livermore were among these people and introduced CQ to help understand and predict why some expats adjust better than others to communicating with people from different cultures and living in a new environments.

CQ is more concerned with the personal potential to adapt, not merely with the outcomes in terms of cultural competencies. Therefore, proponents claim that CQ is able to measure and predict expatriate performance more precisely1 than cultural competence based measures. The concept of CQ seeks to line up with cognitive, social and emotional forms of intelligence . However, the differential CQ is different because it is not confined by specific cultural borders.1,2  In fact, CQ is concerned with the capability to identify and reconcile cultural differences.

CQ comprises four parts: cognitive (CQ knowledge), metacognitive (CQ strategy), motivational (CQ motivation) and behavioural (CQ action).

Cognition and meta-cognition are concerned with what information is collected and how it is processed. For example, a woman with a well-developed CQ knowledge, is aware of her personal and interpersonal experiences during everyday interactions, when they happen and how she responds. Sensitive to the responses of others and her effectiveness, she might then use information to adjust her learning strategy or her communication or problem solving style to fit the demands of the situation.

An American tourist who did not show this behaviour, was once spotted with his wife in a quiet backstreet bar in Amsterdam. He was very happy and excited about being in Holland and really felt like making some new friends on the spot. However, his loud and expressive communication style, considered obnoxious and disruptive by the Dutch visitors, only met with resistance. However, he did not reconsider and trying something else but decided not to give up. Instead, he became louder and more enthusiastic in increasingly desperate attempts to win the interest of his potential new friends.

As a part of CQ, ‘motivation’ describes a person’s level of initiative and effort: how much does he or she try to adjust to his or her new environment? Persistence, efficacy, self-confidence, affinity with the new culture, personal objectives, goals and the level of effort required, are all players in the motivation to engage with people from different cultures. Although the strategy of the American tourist did not render any new Dutch friends, he definitely deserved credits for his motivation.

CQ behaviour describes the ability to develop culturally appropriate behaviour and responses. Observing and imitating the behaviour of local role models (social mimicry) is a powerful method to acquire the culturally appropriate behaviour that facilitates effective communication. Picking up easily on new languages is considered a good indicator of culturally intelligent behaviour1, because it demonstrates an ability to recognize subtle culture specific meanings and use that in communication.

Although CQ does not provide a unique and exciting new perspective model, it has several positive sides. One of the most powerful ones is that the CQ model seeks to answer the training needs and connects with other models and theories. Many frameworks within the intercultural field, especially those developed before the 1980s, did not consider other theoretical models, research findings, field experiences or training needs.

CQ takes notions of cultural psychology and cognitive psychology into account by paying attention to how information is selected and processed and affecting the self-concept. The influence of Bandura’s social learning theory, for example, is visible in the attention for social mimicry as a social learning strategy. CQ might further complement our understanding of human intelligence by including the ability to think ‘outside the box’, including the reinvention of problem solving and communication strategies under different conditions.

The association of CQ with other types of intelligence provides a familiar reference that may foster general acceptance, but CQ seems a pretty mainstream and hardly innovative model nonetheless. In spite of an interest in other models and practical applications, the concept sticks with determining traits and capabilities of the individual. Host national views, expat experiences, the steps and stages in the process, the dynamics at play during the process receive less or no attention.

CQ makes a constructive step towards connecting theories, HR interests, and outside the box survival. Then again, the model itself makes sure to stay within the comfort zone of an established Western science. Perhaps it’s the lack of something new, bold and thought provoking, the ‘out of the box’ model seems to promise but not make true.

Literature:

1. Earley, P. C. (2002). Redefining interactions across cultures and organizations: Moving forward with cultural intelligence. Research in organizational behavior, 24, 271-299.

2. Earley, P. C. & Ang, S. (2003). Cultural intelligence: An analysis of individual interactions across cultures. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

3. Earley, P. C., Ang, S., & Tan, J. S. (2006). CQ: Developing cultural intelligence at work. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.