What is cultural agility?
In a business sense, in the era of global expansion, “cultural agility is the ability to efficiently work, build trust, sell, negotiate and supervise across cultural barriers,” Verstandig says. If you don’t understand the culture you’re moving to, visiting temporarily or even speaking to over Skype or email, you won’t be able to build the trust and will not be successful. Verstandig’s organization trains employees on the cultural skills they need before moving to a new locale and provide support for partners or spouses accompanying the employee.
As a first step, he recommends looking inward before studying a new culture. He often has students begin with an exam, which he likens to a cultural X-ray, to test their own self-awareness and cultural biases. Let’s go back to our Seattle-China example. Some programs may just label you an American and tell you about the culture shock you’ll have in China, he says. But what if you were raised by an Italian father and Irish mother in a strict Catholic household? You won’t have the same “American” culture shock in China as someone else, he says. He begins the process with a very thorough cultural questionnaire and then provides the employee with very specific information taking into consideration thousands of international norms.
