Six skills of culturally agile people

- Cultural agility, or the ability to work comfortably and effectively with people from different cultures, has been named as one of the most critical professional competencies needed today. Did you know that it's also one of the most unnatural competencies to develop? We can fix that. I want you to think about some firsts, a first day of work, a first date, a first time on a plane. You might recall feeling a little nervous or anxious, even if it was something you really wanted to do. That nervous reaction when something is new is normal. It's just your primitive brain giving you a warning that it can't predict the situation because it's new. Our body's early warning sign that something is new usually lasts about as long as it takes for our brain to believe that it says hey, I've assessed the situation and decided you're safe. It's the primitive equivalent to gee, there isn't a hungry lion waiting for you in the new office, and no, your new colleagues aren't going to drive you out of the village. This experience of novelty is important to understand why we need cultural agility. When we're in situations that our brains perceive as novel we end up making some rather predictable mistakes. Situations are novel when they're new to you. Starting a new job, trying a new food, or even meeting someone for the first time are all novel experiences. We tend to make subjective judgements in a fraction of a second. Definitely not enough time to understand the new place or the new person. By the time our thinking brain catches up we believe we know what's going on. Too late, we don't. In many cases we guess incorrectly because we just didn't have enough information. If a situation is very unfamiliar we're kept in a heightened state of anxiety and stress. When the anxiety and stress get too high we naturally seek out familiarity. This is the reason there's comfort food in every culture and expatriate communities in almost every country. Familiar things subconsciously free up some bandwidth, but limit our ability to interact with new people and places. The six cultural agility skills we discuss in this course will help you get a handle on your primitive brain, and prevent you from making those predictable mistakes. The first one is curiosity. This will give you a greater awareness of the possible differences you might have otherwise missed. The second is tolerance of ambiguity. This will help you slow the perceptions your primitive brain is making. Next, we have resilience, which will help you be more comfortable with the missteps you might make. The fourth is humility, which will help you understand that you'll need to learn how to be successful in each new context. Relationship building is the fifth. It will help you foster social support and a sense of belonging in situations of novelty. The last is perspective taking, which will help you see situations through another person's lens. Even if you can master just a few of these you'll become more comfortable and effective when working in new contexts and with people who are different from you, whether it's generational, racial, national, or professional. Success with cultural agility will lead to success in your career and in life.