Cultural and Contextual Intelligence

The same sentence lands differently in Dubai, Houston, Milan and Beirut. It lands differently with a board member of sixty and a team leader of twenty-eight. Leaders who have worked across countries learn this early, often painfully.

Cultural and Contextual Intelligence is the ability to read the unwritten rules of a setting and adjust your style to them, while your values stay the same. It covers national culture, but also the culture of a function, a generation and an acquisition you have just made.

The risk runs both ways. Adapt too little and you are effective only with people like you. Adapt too much and nobody knows what you stand for. The aim is a stable core with a flexible surface: the same principles, expressed in the language each audience can hear.

• Your style works well in head office and poorly in the regions.
• Younger talent leaves within two years.
• Integration of an acquisition has stalled on 'how we do things'.
• You hear 'interesting' and assume it means yes.