As I sit here on an overnight flight to Europe for a week-long developmental assessment center with a group of high-potential executives in a global manufacturing firm, it only seems fitting to reflect upon a series of webinars that I co-hosted last week with Paula Caligiuiri. In those sessions, Paula shared some key nuggets of wisdom from her new book - Cultural Agility:  Building a Pipeline of Successful Global Professionals.

So what does it mean to be culturally agile? In a nutshell, cultural agility is a leader’s capacity to work quickly, comfortably, and effectively in different cultures and with people from different cultures. In unfamiliar situations, these individuals are able to scan the environment, pick up important cues, and then act in a manner that is appropriate for that environment. And, in general, “appropriate” will be one of three possible behavioral responses - Cultural Adaptation (the leader adapts his/her behavior to local culture), Cultural Minimization (leader does not adapt to local culture), or Cultural Integration (a little of both). What is important about the culturally agile leader is that he or she not only senses which behavioral approach is appropriate, but can easily toggle between the three. For example, a culturally agile executive visiting work colleagues in Hong Kong may use an integrated behavioral approach during a strategy session with peers, then adapt to local cultural norms over a dim-sum lunch, but adopt more of a minimization approach when lecturing to an MBA audience at Hong Kong University in the evening. 

However, cultural agility is not just about knowing which behavioral response suits the situation. Culturally agile leaders also possess a set of characteristics – some innate (i.e., personality) and some acquired through experience – that comfort and help them perform effectively in global situations. For example, tolerance of ambiguity, adaptability, appropriate self-efficacy, and global experience/knowledge (e.g., a history of global travel, learning multiple languages) are all important components that mix and match and blend together in different quantities to create the culturally agile leader. 

So if culturally agile leaders are what global organizations want, how do they find them? Caligiuri argues that there are three ways that organizations should go about building that pipeline of culturally agile talent:

• Recruitment – Organizations routinely use brand positioning as a way to attract individuals whose personal values align with the organization’s value proposition. Global organizations should review their recruitment strategy and communications, with an eye toward maximizing the messages that will attract culturally agile or those who are predisposed to seek global positions.  HSBC, the global financial services giant, does an excellent job of communicating its global brand to customers and potential job applicants. Open just about any tab on HSBC’s website and you will find references to being a global provider and the value that its multicultural workforce brings to HSBC.

• Selection – Organizations can select individuals who are more likely to be culturally agile by screening for personality characteristics (as measured by the Big-5, for example) and by looking at work and personal history. My spouse, for example, epitomizes culture agility, having been wired for it from birth onward. Born in South Africa to a Scottish mother and South African father, she soon moved along with her family to Australia, then on the United States. Eventually she made her way to Mexico, New Zealand, back to Australia, and then Asia. For her, global travel is as natural as breathing. Global organizations can also look for individuals that have studied or been exposed to multiple languages, particularly at a young age. Research, for example, shows that those individuals tend to be more flexible, more creative in their thinking, and therefore more likely to be culturally agile as leaders. 

• Development – Finally, global organizations can promote agility by providing individuals with developmental activities (international travel, managing diverse teams, etc.) that are designed to promote awareness and build a repertoire of meaningful multicultural/global experience. Mentors and coaches (particularly when equipped with 360-degree feedback data) can also play a critical role in helping leaders hone their cultural agility.  The development of cultural agility does not happen over night. For example, a friend of mine with a US consumer packaged goods company recently completed a five-year rotation in which she headed up operations on four different continents. In her opinion, developing culturally agile global leaders requires more than just learning new languages. It requires sustained time on the ground, frequent interaction with locals, and a deep dive into the culture and customs.   

As I am nearing my destination and must power down, it is time for you, the reader, to reflect on your own experience and your organization. Do you have the characteristics that predispose you to be an effective and culturally agile leader? Is your organization doing what it can to attract, select and develop its future global leaders? 

Have you ever had one of those friends who could walk into a room of complete strangers and leave as fast-friend to everyone an hour later? Or, maybe you had the opportunity to travel internationally with a work colleague - perhaps an older or more experienced one - and always found that person to be at ease in unfamiliar situations, confident in his or her ability to figure out how to get from point A to point B, as well as how to interact with clients, prospects or work colleagues who may speak different languages and represent different cultural backgrounds.

These are the types of personal qualities that tend to define culturally agile leaders. I say “tend to” because no two are exactly alike but, in general, culturally agile are flexible, adaptable, and comfortable in novel situations. They are curious about others and confident that while they may not know everything about a situation, they can figure out enough to get by, and do so in a culturally sensitive and appropriate way.

For global organizations or those that aspire to be global organizations, the implications are fairly clear. Whether seeking leaders to relocate and manage high-profile international expansions or simply to remain in their home country while managing a team of geographically and culturally diverse colleagues, organizations would do well to place culturally agile leaders in those important positions.  

However, leaders do not act alone. The really good ones are effective because they empower, inspire, and support employees in order to deliver upon the organization’s value proposition.  Moreover, they do all of that within the context of the larger organization, leveraging its systems, processes, technology, and other functional areas. 

So taking a step back for a moment and thinking more holistically about global (or aspiring to be global) organizations, I would suggest that culturally agile leaders are an important component but that we should also think about the employee stakeholders and the extent to which they display cultural agility and a global perspective, as well as the overall organization (the enterprise) and whether it has the systems and processes in place to support effective and efficient global work. In other words, to improve an organization’s global effectiveness, we should address three levels:

• Leaders - In addition to having the basic KSA’s to do their job (wherever that takes place) globally, organizations need leaders that are culturally agile, possessing the characteristics that I described above and in a previous post. Interested readers can also refer to the recent publication by Paula Caligiuri – Cultural Agility:  Building a Pipeline of Successful Global Professionals.

• Employees - Not only should organizations select and develop culturally agile and globally minded leaders, they can do the same for their employees. This is important because employees are often the “face” of your organization. They interact more with external customers and are typically responsible for creating the very important first impression of your organization. So how do you create culturally agile and globally minded employees? I would suggest that the same characteristics that can be assessed and developed in organizational leaders can also be assessed and developed in employees. We also know from organizational climate research that leaders play an important part in shaping employees’ behavior through rewards, recognition, and by simply “walking the talk” with regard to what is important and valued.   

• Enterprise – Given that vision, strategy, and objectives start at the top, C-suite executives can also play a critical role in creating the right organizational culture, structure, and processes to achieve the firm’s global objectives in an efficient and effective manner. Employees and leaders at all levels look upward for important cues as to what is valued so communication that talks about globalization and emphasizes the value of a multicultural workforce, and so forth, can help set the right tone. In addition to talking about what is valued, however, C-suite executives can reinforce the importance of globalization by putting in place systems, policies, and structures that facilitate global work. Finally, they can solidify that position by putting feedback mechanisms in place and creating an environment where local experts (country-leaders, for example), have an opportunity to influence those systems, policies, and structures so that a one-size-fits-all approach does not rule the day.  
  

So it is worth it for organizations to think about global effectiveness at multiple levels. In subsequent posts, I will zero in on each level and talk about ways to assess and develop cultural agility and global effectiveness among leaders, employees, and across the enterprise.