Customer Reviews

Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success

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To succeed in today's highly complex global business environment requires much more than meets the eye. Yes, it helps to know the local language or whether to kiss, bow, or shake hands. Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands (The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More than 60 Countries) But as David Livermore, Ph.D., explains in his lively "Leading with Cultural Intelligence" this is just the tip of the iceberg of what is required. What he offers is a practical, deeply-researched framework for managing the rest of the iceberg, the majority of which lies below the waterline. It's the part that most business people overlook -- that invisible part that sinks ships and sinks relationships.

Dr. Livermore not only is academically grounded but personally experienced in the science and art of choreographing and improvising crosscultural relationships. He has done consulting and training with leaders in 75 countries across the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe and his book is chock full of stories from those experiences as he uses them -- with candor and humor -- to add color commentary to the four-dimensional cultural intelligence(CQ)model he presents.

Any organizational or functional leader, manager, or entrepreneur thinking about or already doing business globally needs to pack this book along with their Ambien, Berlitz phrase book, and PDA.

The boundaries between countries and cultures blur more each day. After all, you can buy a Starbucks latte at the airport in Guam or Shanghai. Advances in communication, the Web and global expansion have made the world even smaller. But don't be fooled, cautions consultant and trainer David Livermore. You can't do business in São Paulo the same way as in Munich, even if you are drinking the same latte. Livermore doesn't teach the customs and habits of various cultures. Instead, he provides a four-step framework for navigating cultural contexts. He identifies the four elements of CQ: "drive, knowledge, strategy and action." Each one calls upon a set of skills you can apply whether you're trying to relate to your teenager's Goth friend, negotiate with a Mexican executive or open a new office in Israel. getAbstract thinks anyone who deals with people from varied cultures - and who doesn't - will find this cross-cultural leadership guide as essential as a passport.

This book is a great start to kick start your thinking process about thinking cross culturally. But don't let it be the end all - you need to go overseas and experience it and put the things you learn from this book into practice!

I stumbled on a reference to this book while reading a newspaper article on cultural blunders reported by small companies looking to do business abroad. Having spent my youth in Western Europe and then much of the last 25 years in companies doing business abroad in all major world markets, I've had to jump across cultures all my life so the topic was particularly interesting to me. But I had never come across any book or publication that would provide a comprehensive framework on the topic.

Overall, I feel this is a must-read for anybody looking to improve his or her cross-cultural competence. The book is based on the theory of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) and translates the theory into a practical four-step process to help us develop our CQ skills and improve our cross-cultural leadership techniques. The other theme that runs through the book is the positive relationship that exists between the acquisition of CQ and leaders' effectiveness.

I found the chapter devoted to the five scales used to measure core cultural values among nations particularly useful. But, as others have commented, I also found some of the advice offered rather obvious (go to the movies, eat out, learn a new language, etc.). The writing can be wordy at times and some editing for conciseness would help.

Also I wish examples cited in the book had gone beyond the personal experience of the author and explored recent business transactions or product launches where national and organizational cultures were important considerations (e.g., the merger of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler, or the localizing of a consumer internet product from its initial base in the US to other countries).

The book isn't perfect. But there doesn't seem to be much else available and you should definitely read it if you are serious about improving your cross-cultural skills.

Gone is the day in business that we interact on a daily basis with people who live on the next block. Now it's the next county, the next state, the next country. My brother-in-law's career illustrates the differences in business today. He works for a large oil company and has worked in Hawaii, Houston, San Francisco, Italy, Seoul, Korea and now Nigeria. How does someone like this fluently move between cultures? Read Leading with Cultural Intelligence to find out how to be a successful leader in today's global environment. Today's business world is totally flat - learn how to navigate this new business landscape successfully.

I believe Livermore's book is an excellent introduction to the subject, but I find it a bit too basic.
It is an easy book to read, it flows in front of you, but I missed some more examples.
As I said, if you are just now learning about the subject, this is a book you should read.