Books about Intercultural Communication mentioned on Absolutely Intercultural

Culture as the software of the mind
Gert Hofstede's books are often the starting point for discussions about intercultural communication and one of his most useful metaphors has been Culture as the Software of the Mind which we have stretched to the limit in several shows and still not found it wanting. For example you can compare living in a new culture to getting a major upgrade. The change from Office 2003 to 2007 comes to mind here. The change was so major that there were many strong reactions against Office 2007. I witnessed one colleague who insisted that 2003 be restored until she got some training in using 2007! That same kind of disorientation can happen when you try to function as you did before in the new culture. Deadlines, timekeeping, attitudes to authority; all are very different and can make you feel very uncomfortable.

Cultural Intelligence
In 2009 there was a rash of books trying to extend the culture concept by applying it to the emotional intelligence approach. I was able to speak with Elizabeth Plum from Denmark and David Livermore from the US who have both developed the idea. Plum is very much on the culture general rather than the culture specific side of the fence and she looks at culture in its widest sense so that it is not just nationality and ethnicity which comes into play but many other aspects such as gender, age, religion and work field. Her background as a psychotherapist led her to recognise the huge part which emotions play in the field of intercultural communication especially when things go wrong and we start feeling insulted, angry or puzzled.

Having talked with Elisabeth Plum about her version of Cultural Intelligence I next got in touch with the Cultural Intelligence Center in the US to find out about how their approach differs or not. I talked with David Livermore who has a very interesting background in preparing missionaries for foreign placings. In the case of the CIC there is a very deliberate attempt to align themselves with the other intelligences and they follow the same framework of action, knowledge and emotion and strategy. It is the strategy factor which differentiates the CIC brand of Cultural Intelligence with that of Elisabeth Plums, where strategy equates to awareness about what you are doing and why. The CIC approach is based on international research and they do talk of a cultural quotient which means that they have tools which give you a score for your cultural intelligence level at the end. When I expressed doubts about this numerical approach, David Livermore was quick to reassure me that, unlike IQ which seems relatively fixed during an individual's lifetime, CQ is flexible and you can be trained or train yourself to improve your score. David Livermore's book, called 'Leading with Cultural Intelligence', is about how cultural intelligence can be applied to business situations so this approach should become better known.

Another Practical tool
One of the most interesting aspects of Cultural Synergies' Tom Verghases's book 'The Invisible Elephant', work is the development of a so-called Cultural Mirror, a tool which can be used to map where one stands on nine factors of intercultural difference. These include some of the well-known ones such as group versus indvidualism but also include some new factors such as shame versus guilt.