New Year, New Perspectives: Cultivating CQ in 2025

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[00:01:01] Trisha: For those who've listened to earlier episodes, you'll know that cultural intelligence CQ is the capability to be effective in situations of diversity. It's made up of four areas. Motivational, the drive. Cognitive, the knowledge. Metacognitive, the strategy. And behavioral, the action. And each of these capabilities helps us operate effectively in diverse contexts.

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[00:01:53] Trisha: Like many of you, I'm looking ahead at the year and thinking about what I want to focus on. What I hope to achieve and where I'd like to grow. Unsurprisingly, cultural intelligence is top of mind as I dream and plan. One quality I deeply admire in experts in the CQ field, many of whom are featured in earlier episodes, is their ability to reflect. They think about their interactions. They consider assumptions they might have made and they explore how they could have acted differently. This reflection helps them learn and grow in their ability to relate well with others.

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[00:02:57] Trisha: So I'm applying research on behaviour change, starting small and creating tiny nudges to support my own agency and choice. Here's my plan. I've chosen a specific time and day each week to journal. Not every day, I'm aiming for something that is more realistic. My only requirement is to pick up my notebook and write the date, and then see what happens next.

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[00:03:49] Trisha: My good friend and colleague Sarah Black, Who focuses on helping communications and PR professionals increase their CQ and you may have heard her in episode nine. you can go back and listen to her if you'd like to. we were recently discussing how CQ can help us. as we come to work with AI and can help us enhance our understanding of AI. She's preparing for a conference presentation on this topic.

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[00:04:38] Trisha: And one of the things that those of us in the CQ field are very aware of is that AI can produce weird perspectives. And by weird, I'm talking about Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic, W E I R D viewpoints, which is one of the risks of research in the social sciences that was outlined by Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan in their research.

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[00:05:28] Trisha: AI can give us quick answers, but it can't foster the deep metacognition needed to process and understand diversity at a meaningful level. My focus for 2025 will be learning how to use AI in a culturally intelligent way and guiding others to do the same.

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[00:06:07] Trisha: My granddaughter will be at the tail end of gen alpha, and we know that we can all benefit from working together with other generations in multi generational teams. with all of us learning together. And this ties beautifully into CQ. Learning to appreciate and bridge generational differences is another way we can use and expand our cultural intelligence.

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[00:06:56] Trisha: Here's a few ideas to get started. For drive, you could identify one cultural aspect you're curious about and learn more about it. For knowledge, you could read a book or an article about cultural norms in a region unfamiliar to you. Or plan a trip, and at that point you'd probably be using all four of the capabilities.

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[00:07:39] Trisha: And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss future episodes. In the year ahead I'll be exploring CQ and AI, multi generational teamwork, and the art of cultural reflection, as well as diving deeper into the research into CQ and related research areas. I hope you'll join me on this journey.

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