For people who want regular personal or professional development advice from a qualified executive coach.
How to Develop Cultural Intelligence
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Have you heard the phrase "cultural intelligence" before? If you Google it you'll get a load of frameworks and definitions and training courses. There seems to be a bit of money in it. And it can seem a bit overwhelming. But at a basic level it just means, can you sense what's going on in your team, division, organisation...? Some of us do this more naturally than others of course. And some of us think we're good at it when we're not. If you ever hear anyone saying confidently that they know what everyone needs, they are probably wrong. Because you can't really understand a culture. It's not a machine. It's a living, shifting, changing, adapting thing. And it is subject to change under influences from within and without. So, don't feel bad if you can't confidently say you have a deep cultural intelligence yet. Just practice. And how do you do that? Come to my workshop on Friday and I'll tell you. Only joking. I hate that kind of sales technique where you are waiting for the pay off and it doesn't come. Let's try again... And how do you do that? Try to see what you are doing as being closer to gardening than manufacturing. Gardeners never say a garden is fixed, do they? You can't finish a garden. It's never solved. To be a good gardener, what do you do? You step into the garden. You look around. You pay attention. You see what needs weeding, what needs watering, what needs planting and what needs pruning. And the next day, what do you do? You step into the garden. You look around. You pay attention. You see what needs weeding, what needs watering, what needs planting and what needs pruning. Over time, you develop a better sense of the garden and how it works and grows. You'll never fully master it, but you don't need to. You just need to spend time working with it. And, while you do that, it is also working on you. Which is where the intelligence comes from. So, the moral of this story is, you can't do leadership from behind an inbox or spreadsheet. You do leadership by walking around. Have a great day, Stephen PS You really can sign up for my workshop if you want to. That bit wasn't a joke 😆 |
HeRO Chronicles
For people who want regular personal or professional development advice from a qualified executive coach.
What's the point of a newsletter like this? Don't unsubscribe yet!! There is a point, I promise... From my perspective, HeRO Newsletter is about sharing something I am passionate about: tips and ideas for personal and professional development. And I know that the majority of people like you read the majority of my messages. Because Kit, the platform I used, tells me. So clearly this is something you are interested in. But how do you actually benefit from what you read? I am going to tell...
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