Cultivating Cultural Intelligence

a headline from this. Majorities in both parties view members of the other party as more immoral, dishonest, and closed minded than other Americans. This according to the Pew Research Center. It's a perfect time to bring up our next guest, David Livermore, the founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center, also the author of Digital Diverse and Divided, How to Talk to Racists, Compete with Robots, and Overcome Polarization. He joins us this afternoon via zoom from San Diego, so if

you're watching on YouTube, you'll see him right there. David, how are you? I'm great? Thanks to hey. I want to start with cultural intelligence, the concept of cultural intelligence, because it's actually a scientific model for people like myself who aren't familiar with it explain the concept and how it can help us see people who have opposing views. Yeah. Thanks, So you're certainly familiar, as are all your listeners with

i Q intelligence quotation. We all heard a lot about that for many years, and most of us are pretty familiar to with emotional intelligence, the scientific measurement of our ability to manage and detect the emotions of ourselves and others and really our working Cultural intelligence picks up right where emotional intelligence leads off and allows us to have that same kind of practical social interaction skill when we're dealing with someone from a different background and UH, as

as you may know, UH, this typically has been applied globally. How do I, as a North American interact with a counterpart in Asia? But as you mentioned in your lead in, UH, increasingly we're seeing that this is a skill that can actually help us bridge the divides within the US. So to that point, is cultural intelligence then just e Q or what is the nuance there? Yeah? Thanks Katie. Um, certainly there's a lot of correlation. We've looked at it

in the research. But emotional intelligence detects whether or not you I'm sorry, predicts whether or not you can actually interact with someone from a familiar cultural background. So we read the emotional cues. Oh, the silent treatment that means this. They're looking me in the eye, that means this. And with cultural intelligence, it helps us understand that we may be misreading cues if it's coming from someone who has

a different orientation. So certainly appropriate to see similarity, but it it takes our emotional intelligence a step further when we're viewing someone that we may perceive, as Tim just mentioned as immoral and dishonest and says, hang on, wait a second. Maybe I'm reading too much into the raised voice or the silent treatment. It may mean something entirely different. But maybe it's not just about the silent treatment or the raised voice. Maybe it's about somebody's you know, fundamental

beliefs that you know, let's say that. And you know, we live in a world that's more polarized than in previous generations. I mean, this is no longer like Jimmy Carter versus Ronald Reagan territory. Here, right, you have a group of people who deny that the election was free and fair, and you know, are are essentially willing, you know, for lack of a better term to to die on that hill? Does this method allow people who have views

that are that strong? Uh? Actually, you know, be able to communicate and have real conversations with people who don't necessarily believe that. That's my hope, and that's that's the early findings that we're seeing from the research on it. So, um, I'll be the first to say it's it's not a

silver bullet, is not a panacea. But as you know far better than I living in the news industry, I mean, pick the week and we have a new divisive issue and as you noted, we've we've gone from just having disagreements about different ideas to now I can't even view you as a fellow human being. So I think what the cultural intelligence work does is similar to when I'm working with my counterpart in Iraq or China. I have to slow down first and say, okay, wait, but you're

my fellow human being? How do we start with that? And cultural intelligence allows us to do something as simple as when someone makes a claim about the election not even being legitimate, to stop and say would you be open to a different perspective on that? And if they aren't, then yeah, there's probably no point in exercising anymore breath. But I find typically people will at least give nodding a cent. Okay, sure, give me your different perspective on it.

So I'm hopeful that it at least helps us to to deescalate some of the hyper rhetoric and emotion to actually find it. Maybe we have a little bit more in common than we think we do. Fold this into the hybrid environment that we live in right now, between working remotely and interacting in person, it feels like it's harder to read some one and exercise EQ over zoom and we only have about forty five seconds and then

we'll be back. Yeah, so exactly. I think the digital context further exacerbates this, and that's why emotional intelligence is even harder to exercise when you're trying to read the cues of someone just through a zoom call, especially if it's a friend of color or a colleague of color who has just heard about the George Floyd murder and now they have to suddenly jump on a zoom call and interact about next week's projects. So these things are

hard enough to do in person. But I think you're right, Katie, that the hybrid environment amplifies the challenge. Well, sit tight, David, because we're gonna do some news and then we're gonna come back with more. David Livermore is the founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center. He's also the author of the new book I haven't in my hand right here, Digital Diverse and Divided, How to talk to racists, Compete with Robots,

and Overcome Polarization. Really want to hit on the other side here, political ramifications here, if politicians are going to take any lessons from this and be less of ice. And then also of course the um automation element here and talking about the future and competing with those robots. I want to get back to David Livermore. He's the founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center, the author of the new book Digital Diverse and Divided, How to Talk to Racists,

Compete with Robots, and Overcome Polarization. He spent a lot of time consulting, traveling around the world. He's spoken to executives at companies like Ali, Baba, BMW, Google and more So he's got a really good idea of what the modern workplace is missing and also what it's trying to strive for and trying to achieve. David joins us this

afternoon and once again on the via zoom from San Diego. David, That's where I really want to start, is is how we apply these lessons professionally and we think about ourselves in the workplace. Um, I don't want to get to the automa automation yet and talk about robots yet, but I want to talk about using these lessons to to become you know, better employees, to become better at our jobs.

How can we do that? Yeah? Well, on the one hand, and the workplace is where this becomes a really interesting dynamic because it's perhaps the one place where we don't have the option to run into our echo chambers and just say that I'm going to do things my own way and not interact with anyone who thinks differently than me. And we see non examples from what groups like base camp try a year or so ago when they forbid

any discussion of sensitive topics and didn't work. Real well, yeah, this is the Silicon Valley startup base Camp, you know worker productivity software, right, And what wasn't like something like thirty percent of their their workforce resigned immediately when they told them you can't talk about sensitive topics at work.

So so somehow, you know, I think the organizations that are doing this right are creating space for it, but also not just sitting around and having conversations about, you know, the election or Black Lives Matter or reproductive rights or whatever the topic tends to be that week, but instead saying, hey, we're all oriented around some kind of similar goal that we're trying to accomplish in the workplace, and then using

the first perspectives to actually better accomplish that goal. So I think it's kind of this dynamic tension of allowing space for some of the conversation to exist around some of these potentially polarizing topics, but not getting stalled in the gridlock and telling people you're going to have to learn to work and adapt with other people who feel differently than you so that we can meet the milestone

that we're all trying to accomplish. Do you have any examples of corporations who are really nailing it when it comes to using cultural intelligence and creating space for those diverse perspectives. Yeah, great question, Katie. And of course with the large fortune five hundred, it's always scary to to share one because the minute I do know be a non example come up in in the news, but but

a couple that come to mind. Uh So Tim mentioned that we've done quite a bit with Google, and Google was kind of leading the way, and this a number of years ago, where you know, they've had their principle where several people within Google are given their time to innovate anywhere within the company. But when they actually got engaged in recruiting people from the Asia Pacific market, they would interview people and ask them, you know, if you

were hired, how would you use that. It's kind of like, uh, whatever the boss told me to do. And to Google's credit, they knew they were going to miss out on a core part of their corporate DNA if they suddenly said, okay, we'll get rid of that principle here, but also knew that they had to kind of adapt the way that they were going to work with individuals who might be more hierarchical or risk averse. So that may seem a bit adrift from the question in terms of polarization, but

that I've watched them over the years. Then apply that more broadly to then, how do we create space so that our employee resource groups UM you know, these groups that many organizations have that allow different groups from marginalized groups to to find deffinity, to be more than just a support group, but to actually be a source of education of here's some of the things that you want to understand about black people in tech, or about your gate colleagues who are trying to find a way, even

if they're working in Silicon Valley in a very progressive place socially, some things that they might be encountering that

you are. So that's that's one example that comes to mind. Hey, David Um, you know, it's hard to quantify this stuff, but in the wake of George Floyd's murder in we had a lot of companies really look internally and say they were going to make big changes, and just based on your own travels and what you're talking to executives about, you know, we don't hear that as much right now.

And I'm wondering if you think that some of the changes, if they and that they announced, are those actually sticking, Like, are their cultural changes happening at these companies in the US and around the globe. Yeah, you're gonna hate this answer, but it depends right Like, what what company are we

talking about. So feel free to name names. Sorry you feel free to name names, but well, I was gonna say that there are many in the diversity space that are very discouraged, saying it was all about optics they put out their social media post and now it's On the other hand, I'm sitting with some people in the C suite who are like, God, no matter what I do, it's never enough. And you know, far be it from me to be the guy who's going to like defend

the well paid executives. But you know, sometimes I'm trying to be a dissative voice with some of the diversity space is saying, but do you understand what else is on their plate, like that the potential lawsuit that they're fighting off, or these supply chain issues of one of your previous guests was just talking about. So I'm actually optimistic. I think the conversation has moved forward. I think there's some great strides that are being made. Yeah, some some

have dissipated and they've walked away from it. Um. Some are very nervous that it's presented by the diversity experts as a ongoing journey that's never done. Um. But I think for the most part, it's here to stay. There was a course correction that happened, and that you know, particularly as we look at things like quiet quitting and the great resignation that particularly millennials and gen z are saying, if I have an option, I'm not going to work

for a company that's not committed to this. And David, I want to go back to the title of your book because the sort of first item in that list there is how to talk to racists and how how should one do that in a professional workplace. Yeah, well, it's definitely not saying you're a racist, right, because I've never seen that result in someone going, oh, you're right. Thanks for pointing that out. And I should also qualify

that I'm not I'm not assuming anyone particular group. There there's times I'm racist and I need to be called out on it. So I would say for me, for the most part, it's engaging in kind of a conversation, kind of using something like that question I used before, like would you be open to a different perspective on

what you just said? And specific example, I was just recently talking to a professional colleague who was just informally catching me up on some things and some people that we both knew, and he made the comment, um, yeah, I don't know if you heard that. So and so just married a woman in South Africa. She's she's black, but she's beautiful. And I'm like, oh, excuse me, she's black,

but she's beautiful. And we have enough personal relationship alongside a professional one that after a moment, I just said, Hey, can I just point out to you something that you just said? And he responded, as many of us probably what initially was very defensive, like, oh, what You're going to use me as an example now in your next book? Right said yes, no. But in an interview radio, yeah, Hey David, Um we we unfortunately to leave it there.

We're out of time, but this has been a great conversation. We really appreciate you taking so much time in joining us this afternoon on Bloomberg Business Week. David Livermore is the founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center. He consults with companies around the world. He's also the author of the new book Digital Diverse and Divided, How to talk to racists, compete with robots, and overcome polarization. The book is out now that is Gonna do It for Bloomberg Business Week.

A big thank you to Katie Grayfeld and the entire crew here at Bloomberg Radio