Cultural Intelligence for today’s world - with Dr David Livermore

Cultural Intelligence for today’s world – with Dr David Livermore

Sarah Black: Hi everyone, welcome to the final episode of this series of the Athrú communications podcast, where we've been exploring how we can transform the way we communicate across culture and differences and how cultural intelligence can help us more effectively navigate today's multicultural and globalized world.

Now, if you've listened to any of the earlier episodes, you may have noticed that I've asked all my guests to suggest a book, podcast, blog, video, or some kind of resource. that could help us all build our cultural intelligence. And one author's name has come up repeatedly. Sometimes the same book, other books have been mentioned.

And that is David Livermore. David is an author, a social scientist, devoted the topics of cultural intelligence, global leadership, and several of his books have won awards. Most recently, he published the third edition of Leading with Cultural Intelligence. He's the founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center.

Director of the CQ Fellows, which I believe is the highest accreditation you can have as a cultural intelligence practitioner. And hope that I'm going to pronounce this right. The Amas Vakhani Visiting Professor in Global Leadership at Boston University. He frequently advises and speaks to leaders in Fortune 500 companies, non-profits and governments and has worked in more than 100 countries.

And he is my guest today. Dave, a huge and very warm welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. I cannot think of a better way to finish this season. So welcome.

David Livermore: Thank you, Sarah. Delighted to be here.

Sarah Black: And it's an absolute privilege and honour to speak to you. I've been reflecting a little bit in preparing for this conversation on the conversations that I've been lucky enough to have with people over the last couple of months in preparing this podcast and trying to draw together loosely some things to ask you about.

cording this in late February: 2025

David Livermore: Thank you, Sarah. Great question. What I love about the question is it makes the assumption that we haven't figured it out and the work is done. And that's one of the things that's always been important to us in the cultural intelligence research. We're continually iterating, even on the original origins, how do you assess this ability to work effectively with people who are different? There are a few different directions that I think are the future at a, let me start with the very pragmatic level, and then I'll, I'll sort of nerd out for a little bit if you don't mind, in terms of what we're looking at in terms of some of the research.

I would say part of what we're looking at in terms of the direction is, um, how does it apply to differences other than nationality? So, in one way, we've always said that cultural intelligence also applies to gender difference or age difference or socioeconomic, etc. But we don't really have a whole lot of robust research that's dug into it.

And in quite honestly, Yeah, absolutely. for me, myself, in a lot of the books that you just referenced, my default is to exemplify it based upon a Scottish and an American having a conversation. What are some of the differences? Oh, that's two aspects of our identity that we could talk about, but there are many others that we could look at.

So, I think one is to broaden the definition of what we mean by difference. Um, political differences, as to your point at the time that we're recording this are Getting worse rather than better in terms of, uh, just the vehemence that happens within them and how it informs our communication. So, yeah, I, I would say part of it is how does it more specifically predict how we relate to other differences - age, as I said, socioeconomic, uh, sexual orientation, fill in the blank. Can I keep going or do you want to stop?

Sarah Black: Oh, absolutely. If there's more keep nerd out as long as…

David Livermore: the next one's not. Yeah. Really nerding out, but it does have some nerdy applications to it. And that is to say, as you know, well, as someone who's really done a lot of your own work in cultural intelligence and certified in and et cetera, we've always sort of looked at how do you measure this as an individual skill set that Dave has or Sarah has, or like you said in our intro that Dave and Sarah sometimes don't have and have a lapse of And where I think a really important iteration of the research is, is what does a culturally intelligent team look like?

And what does a culturally intelligent organization look like? And the nerd part of it is, the early research says it's more than just the composite of the CQ of the people who are members of that team or organization. Like, let's think the best of us for a moment and say Sarah and Dave are on a team together.

They have the highest CQ. That doesn't automatically mean that the team of which their part has high CQ. So, I think that's a really interesting piece that we need to study. And it's sort of what we practitioners have been asking us about for a long time. Like I may be really cultural intelligent, but if I'm working in an environment that doesn't support that, the last thing I'll say, and this is where it's still not really nerding out, but it's where it's primarily an academic focus at this point is a lot of my work at Boston University that you referenced is really looking at what's the intersection between geopolitical complexity and cultural complexity and the two layer on top of each other.

And so how do you understand that, hey, maybe this is an issue that you have a Ukrainian and a Russian on the same team, and there could be some cultural value similarities, but there are these geopolitical differences that are manifesting themselves, or maybe not. Maybe they're like, you know, you're my, you're my, my fellow colleague, that isn't what defines me, etc.

So, yeah, that was a long answer to your question, but I think there are several things on the horizon that are. In the answer to what's next.

Sarah Black: It's a fascinating answer for me, particularly as someone who grew up in Northern Ireland. So that last example. Yeah. And, and having worked a little bit in peace building and reconciliation in my time, I'm immediately drawn to that personally because it resonates, but I can immediately see the application of that. And quite often when I, when I first came to read and to begin to study cultural intelligence, I could see how it played into some of that work, that I'd seen and observed and been part of well, you know, what's interesting more difficult times.

David Livermore: Sorry. I was just gonna say, you know, what's interesting to me, by the way, it's very meta to be talking about culturally intelligent communication in real time with a communications expert. Like, gosh, are people with a list of this and get a life. This is the definition of culturally intelligent communication. He just interrupted her and talked over her. So, uh, at any rate, where was I going with that? No, I was just going to say, what's interesting to me is, there's, you talk about a situation like Northern Ireland.

We talk about Ukraine, Russia. We talk about all the stuff going on in the U. S. At this point, as it relates to D. I. And the current administration, the Trump administration, but it's also even on stuff that I'm not as client as inclined to look at because I'm a leadership development guy and organizational behaviour.

And that is things like tariffs and sanctions and how do they impact what's happening in the workplace both at a very real operational level but then also in terms of how we communicate. So, I think my default is to explain every conflict as cultural. And sometimes my colleagues who are economists or geopolitical analysts are too quick to explain everything as geopolitics.

And so, I'm really interested, what, what can we learn from each other? And of course, as you know, given even the context where you grew up, that these things are layered with culture, but of course there's other variables as well. Yeah, it's so often both and not either or just one thing. It's so complex.

Sarah Black: I'm interested as well because this comes up a lot in the work that I do in terms of communication and organizational culture. And it's interesting sometimes when I'm talking to people about cultural intelligence that quite often the aha moments for them. are not even about regional and national cultures, they're about organizational culture.

So, whether that's working with another business and going, Oh, wait, that's where the, that's where the conflict's coming in, is you just think, you see the whole world differently from us, or you're holding very different values about work and behaviour, or whether that's in an organization, almost functional culture.

I have been known to joke that I'm a communications professional married to an engineer. And, um, sometimes never the twain shall meet. But we do sometimes see that tension and it comes up a lot in communications, in conversations with communications professionals. And I'm curious about how much you think cultural intelligence applies or can be helpful to navigating those situations.

David Livermore: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. And I would also agree that in many contexts is it's as much the functional difference or the organizational culture difference, look at mergers and acquisitions and suddenly trying to put people together who might be from the same nationality, but you know, Whole Foods and Amazon is an example in the US that's often talked about where you had two very different organizational cultures.

So, yes, I think cultural intelligence does. Help both in its current iteration and in looping back to your what's next and probably the piece that I was most referring to nerding out on didn't actually go there is where most of the cultural intelligence research and this would be true of most work in intercultural communication and cultural competence refers to what we call as a horizontal diversity.

So that would be like, there's a person from Germany and there's a person from China and they're in it. What do we need to understand about their cultural value differences? The Hofstede work, the Ehrenmayer work, et cetera. And frankly, a lot of the cultural intelligence work. What if you have, three people who are all the same nationality, I'll even say the same gender, working together, um, do they have any status differences among them?

Of course they do, right? The role, socioeconomic, are they an Oxbridge grad, you know, what, what sort of background? And that's a piece also where I think cultural intelligence applies, but we need more research to look at how it applies. So, I think the model that no doubt you've talked about many times on your, your podcast, you know, what's the motivation drive? culturally intelligent wise, what's the knowledge? What's the strategy and what's the action applies as much and sometimes even more when you're talking about these kinds of organizational cultural differences in addition to nationality or ethnicity?

Sarah Black: Yeah, I think it's a fascinating, fascinating area. I'm interested in the status difference. Because one of the things I think is challenging, we talk, um, and this is not in conversations particularly with, with Trisha Carter in an episode earlier this season, about the value of perspective taking and how part of becoming more culturally intelligent is developing your ability to see different perspectives and to kind of hold them.

But I'm conscious then of sort of social power dynamics around that. And I'm curious as to what you think about the challenge of trying to navigate that if you feel very much the minority or underrepresented in a social situation. Is that just a time where you're like, this is beyond what cultural intelligence can help me with?

David Livermore: So are you saying the social power dynamics of if I'm marginalized and now I'm being asked to take on the perspective of…

Sarah Black: Yeah. Yeah. Trying to see the perspective of maybe someone who has a less than positive view of my situation or identity.

David Livermore: If I'm marginalized, I probably already know really well what their perspective is, because I've had to learn to understand that all of my life.

I wouldn't say it's irrelevant, though I could be said to have an optics issue. But what I would say is a key difference. My colleague, Lynn Van Dyne, one of the original researchers of the assessment of cultural intelligence and at the Cultural Intelligence She often says, and I like this as a rule of thumb, that in general, the person with the highest level of cultural intelligence is the one who has the most responsibility to adjust and adapt.

I would say for me that changes when we're talking about vertical diversity or perspective taking that I actually think the person with more status has far more responsibility to adapt even in this perspective taking because I can go through the rest of my day as a white, straight, middle aged male and probably not have to take the perspective at all of literally the guys I see walking across the street who are from just south of the border in Mexico, you know, but they sure know well how they're supposed to behave with people like me in my neighbourhood, etc.

So I think that's the element where it applies, but it applies differently, where I'm going to push hard. On the importance of perspective taking for those who have higher status and maybe even allow the marginalized to opt out at times and say you know what maybe for the sake of your own mental health you're like yeah, it's not the healthiest thing for me right now to stop and ask what that individual has a negative perception he thinks about people like me.

Sarah Black: Yeah, no super interesting thank you

David Livermore: What's your own sense?

Sarah Black: Oh um I think some of that is about the need to protect mental health and well being, and sometimes even physical safety in conversations, I'm trying to understand that and I think, I promise I do have other friends apart from Tricia Carter, I know I talk about her a lot, but Tricia interviewed a very good friend of mine.

David Livermore: If you're only going to have one friend, I mean, that would be a really good choice.

Sarah Black: I mean, she's pretty awesome. She introduces me to great people, that's why I have other friends. But Tricia did a really interesting couple of episodes on her podcast, The Shift, with a very old friend of mine, the Reverend Dr. Gary Mason, who's been very involved in peacekeeping in Northern Ireland. And I think about some of what he said about sitting down with people who were kind of beyond the pale to a lot of society and having those conversations.

I don't know if that's so much about perspective taking as much as being in a position where the risk the reward ratio or the risk and the potential of what was at stake was You know, got you past to be able to see different perspectives, and I think he's very interesting to listen to about that in in quite extreme situations, but I think I'm conscious sometimes my own privilege and where I sit in the world and say it's, you know, respect to take is very important, but there are times when you feel that you are not safe in society or not well represented.

Um, or their identity is under threat where, as you say, it's, it's just not worth trying to understand why people don't value you or don't value your identity or your background or your history or just don't value you when you feel that way. And that's when I think it's, it's almost too much of a psychological leap to try and see that other person's perspective.

I think that can be a huge burden. So, it's, I think, trying to see how power and status and also systemic. The social issues around us and one of the things that I enjoyed very much reading last year was digital diverse and divided one of your books that I feel doesn't get quite enough attention, but I really enjoyed it and it provoked a lot of thought for me was.

How cultural intelligence helps us navigate an age in which, you know, it's all calling out and cancel culture and the rush to react. And I'm curious about what you think about that.

David Livermore: Yeah, you know, if I can share a brief anecdote related to that. So, you referenced our CQ fellows program and you've interviewed several of our CQ fellows and we had our annual retreat in the US last November, literally over election day, which was a great cultural intelligence in terms of my planning. But regardless, and it was interesting once we knew the outcome, there were some individuals among our fellows who were like, we're CQ fellows.

We need to process this. We need to work through it and simultaneous. And this is anecdotal. I'm not ready to make any broad claims from this, but I had US interviews. People of colour saying to me, please tell me we're not going to process this right now. I'm not ready to do this like it feels way too fraught with uncertainty.

And regardless, I'm sure we had people in the group that were on myriad sides, if you will, of the election. But to your point that there was a part of me that would very much default to my fellow Hello. Fellows who were like, let's process this like that's what it means to be culturally intelligent. And I think to your point, the whole, don't be too quick to react.

It was this mindfulness of for right now, those individuals who are feeling like let's please not we're probably not first and foremost, like I'm here as a CQ fellow, let me have a really ideological intellectual conversation about this instead, like, what just happened, you know, or whatever, like, you know, what am I going home to?

So yeah, yeah. I, I really appreciate that, you know, value added perspective that you share there that I do think goes beyond CQ but bring some of the work and emotional intelligence together with it.

Sarah Black: Yeah, I think it's a really interesting intersection of thinking about inclusivity, thinking about, social norms and conversations and systemic issues and where we lean into CQ and empathy and all of those things together. It's um, it's the kind of, it's the sharp end of a lot of what we do.

David Livermore: A challenge related to it right now is given the very anti DEI rhetoric, not only in the U. S., but as you know well, going across the shores to other places. And I was just talking to someone who, they're no longer DEI director, but you know, I don't know what the chosen term is they have in their company right now, but they were saying to various senior leaders, “Hey, this is just a good time to check in?”

With the people on your teams who are from marginalized groups and they're like, what, what do you mean? Like, do I just walk up to a person of colour and go, are you okay? No, it's more of a sixth sense, like just be alert to the fact that they may not be ready to, on the next teams meeting process, DEI, et cetera, but you give them a little bit more bandwidth, um, for all the processing.

Sarah Black: I feel like cultural intelligence helps you develop that sixth sense a little bit because you're thinking of, I think, thinking about other people.

David Livermore: Yeah, that would be my own.

Sarah Black: And how you engage with other people and communicate with them.

David Livermore: Right and I think that's one of the things we've really aimed to do with cultural intelligence is that it's a more dynamic agility rather than um, Oh, walk up to all the black Americans on your team and ask them X, like, well, you may survey three different black Americans and they're going to have three different opinions about how they want you to check in with them.

And to your point, with cultural intelligence and perspective taking, hopefully you already know those team members that can start to read their body language, et cetera.

Sarah Black: Yeah, and also know where you can go with them in that relationship, because with some of them, maybe you could walk up and go, Hey, like, I feel like this might be tough for you.

David Livermore: Absolutely.

Sarah Black: Because you've done well enough to know that that's how you lean in. I think one of the challenges when I think of, of teams that I've worked with in internal comms in big organizations is that we're moving in with AI and other technology into a world where we can kind of hyper personalize things and we expect experiences to be personal because we have the technology to do that.

But I think without the cultural intelligence piece that could go horribly wrong. Because, you know, we don't, we're not perspective taking in our personalization. Um, one last question, if I may, which is about artificial intelligence. Do you think that there are ways that cultural intelligence can help us navigate the new world of AI?

David Livermore: Absolutely. I mean, there's the repeated cautions of using a cultural intelligence filter as you receive content from the LLM models because of the biases, etc. But that's nothing novel that I'm adding to the conversation. As you know, from some of the things that I've put out recently, I actually think we can begin to train our AI models in cultural intelligence, even if it's iterative training in an episode that we're going to chat GPT or whatever tool.

So, okay, you just gave me feedback on how to do this performance review with someone who just came off family leave. Um, you assumed it was a female. It actually isn't, you know, don't be biased. Give me something that's not gender biased in terms of feedback, et cetera. So I think the, you know, everyone talks about, it's all about the prompt.

Well, add to the prompting cultural intelligence. And then I sometimes say to people like. Similar to if let's say I don't know you from anyone, Sarah, other than I know that your origin is from Northern Ireland. And if I just say, tell me everything I need to know about Northern Ireland. Hopefully, I'm still going to bet that about like, okay, that's one source point.

I'm sure I would come to find out a very good source point. But I would say, you know, don't be fearful of asking it. What are some things I should bear in mind when I'm dealing with my Japanese colleague, but then I'm As you would any time fact check it and find out, okay, does this apply to the colleague that I'm talking about?

And is this really outdated stereotypes, etc. So basically, we have to apply our CQ to how we use a I and then actually interjected in the way that we even prompt AI.

Sarah Black: Yes, I think it's fascinating and I think, I'm sort of working for a little bit of a theory that I think we can use this, the cultural intelligence framework, even just to think about how we think about the future of work in an AI world.

What do we need to know? What's going to motivate us and what's going to motivate other people? What are the fears around AI? So, yeah, that's, I'm working quietly on that. My AI keeps changing, which is very difficult, but I think it's a really interesting lens to think about. What the workplace of the future might look like.

David Livermore: You know, it's interesting about that Sarah is the very origins of CQ or in the era when everyone was freaking out about jobs being outsourced to China and, you know, in this new iteration, it's weight and jobs are being outsourced to AI.

So I think there's a lot of ways to your point that we could think about even the cultural intelligence needed to interact with AI, as well as the broader social shift in the future of work that's happening with it. It's an interesting time to be alive, isn't it? Yeah, that's one way of putting it. I've been saying that my whole life.

Sarah Black: Um, Dave, I have asked every guest to recommend a book podcast resource. And as I've mentioned, your name has come up, but what would you like to recommend to our listeners?

David Livermore: I just recently read Michael Morris book Tribal. Michael is a professor at Columbia University. contributed to some of the early research on cultural intelligence, but this is not a book explicitly about cultural intelligence.

He really has done some robust research on the tribal instincts that we all have and actually, um, charges, uh, Organizations and even political leaders that instead of running from tribal instincts to figure out how to leverage them with a lens toward cultural intelligence and building a more unified world.

But yeah, that would be mine. It, it does have some heavy research, but it's very accessible. So I think Morris tribal is. a recent book that I would highly recommend.

Sarah Black: Excellent. Thank you. I have already purchased it, but I haven't started yet. I'm looking forward to digging in.

David Livermore: I think you'll enjoy it. Dave, thank you.

Sarah Black: I could talk to you for like the next three days, but I won't. I promise. Um, thank you so much, um, for finish this, this season in a way that I've exceeded all my expectations. I'm very grateful.

David Livermore: Thank you, Sarah. Thank you so much. Delighted to be here.

Sarah Black: Thank you.