Cultivating Cultural Agility

When a furniture manufacturer complies with drastic safety regulations in some countries and not others, the offense felt by the seconds immediately and lastingly damages the company’s image.

When this same brand sets up its stores in new countries, it now knows how to adapt its furniture and kitchen utensils to the host country’s customs. Cultural Intelligence provides essential knowledge to marketers to avoid hurting a national honor, to a manager newly appointed in a new country to seem indifferent and arrogant when he thinks he is leaving autonomy to his teams, or even to diplomats to interpret the cryptic or straightforward communication from their counterparts.

However, the permacrisis into which we have entered on the same level as the COVID pandemic is revisiting at an unequaled speed socio-cultural knowledge such as geopolitical balances and professional conversations such as family exchanges.

Even within our societies and organizations, conversations ignite as soon as “well-being,” diversity,” end of the month,” and “end of the world” are called up.

This is how Cultural Agility makes the contributions of Cultural Intelligence it’s own and enriches them with those of the psychology of emotions and the social sciences. Faced with the permacrisis and the complexity of intercultural relations, Cultural Agility strengthens the flexibility and resilience dear to the reed of the fable.

Here are six techniques for cultivating Cultural Agility in a changing and complex context.