Build Your Cultural Agility

Book excerpt: The investment in global collaboration technology now exceeds US$45 billion. Professionals who work across cultures face some of the most cognitively, psychologically and emotionally difficult challenges, regardless of whether they work virtually or in person. And they often face these challenges without the help of a corporate guide. Build Your Cultural Agility is that guide. This book offers strategies to help you develop into a successful global professional, one who can comfortably and effectively work in and with people from different cultures. This book helps you leverage your natural strengths while providing suggestions for developing cultural agility competencies. Build Your Cultural Agility focuses on nine specific competencies that comprise cultural agility: three self-management competencies (tolerance of ambiguity, curiosity and resilience), three relationship-management competencies (humility, relationship-building and perspective-taking) and three task-management competencies (cultural minimization, cultural adaptation and cultural integration). Within each chapter, the author provides a case example of that competency in action, explains why the competency is critical for success, offers a self-awareness exercise to help you determine your level of proficiency and concludes with suggestions for self-development.