Quantum Cultural Intelligence and Managerial Problem Solving

Gebhard Deißler

Quantum Cultural Intelligence

and

Managerial Problem Solving

Quantum cultural intelligence is balance. It is a natural consequence and characteristic of a structurally, functionally and psychologically balanced human being of whatever cultural background. And it s the condition and the enabler of harmonious interpersonal relations that are free of mutually destructive tendencies and therefore condition a peaceful society and fruitful socio-cultural environments at the interpersonal, intergroup and intercivilisation level; planetarily. – Conversely, conflict results from the absence of quantum cultural intelligence, manifesting for example as fundamentalism, which wants to impose its values unilaterally and demands only others to adapt and carry the load of interfacing and coexistence without making the least effort of adaptation itself or ethnocentrism, which assume its superiority to other cultures. Cybernetic thinking, which is the ability to look quantum optically by adopting diverse cultural filters in order to evaluate a cultural interfacing situation in a culturally multiperspectivistic way is a step in this direction. But quantum cultural intelligence integrates and transcends cybernetic intelligence as will be shown in this exposé, as it additionally formulates axioms for the management of intercultural relationship management. - For these and other reasons quantum cultural intelligence is the precondition for a third millennium civilization if is to be different from previous eras with their untold human suffering due to the absence of such intelligence.

Interculturalism does not look thoroughly enough at man in order to bring about any sustainable change. I am aware that I am questioning the validity of the prevailing intercultural approach, however, with the legitimate aim of, if possible, enhancing it so as to provide a more effective instrument for meeting the challenges of our era after the experience of recent human history. That history was based on mental forms of monism, which were unable to appreciate situations from multiple standpoints and therefore led to antagonisms due to the fact that, based on Aristotle, opposite positions in the same space exclude each other mutually.

Dilemma theory, as introduced by Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner is a first rational approach to cutting the Gordian knot of dilemmas. It deals with business dilemmas. But our world is full of unreconciled situations beyond business that seem to be irreconcilable due to a structural variable prevailing in man. First and foremost it is his structural duality that produces energetic antagonisms that have to be integrated not only physiologically but also intellectually and emotionally. Physiological and mental duality and ensuing dialectics with regard to value preferences are powerful obstacles that stand in the way of reconciliation. Based on force field analysis assumptions it would not make so much sense to fight this duality, because it is the primal human irreversible condition on which so called cultural programming in its diverse shapes is superimposed. Rather than trying to reduce the constraining factors it might therefore be advisable to increase the driving factors. How is it possible to increase them if structural psycho-physiological duality is an irreversible aspect of phylogeny?

In spite and precisely because of the physiological-psychological and moral ethical duality of man one can look at the situation from another structural standpoint which conditions man at an even more fundamental level and which constitutes, one might say, his first quantum cultural condition in the sense that it is determined by the integration of a set of male and female genes that underpin his very biological existence and have psychological implications. It is a condition so fundamental that it conditions all other conditions of man that emerge from it. As the foundation of his spiritual psycho-physiological edifice it has an impact on the layered, hierarchically organised noetic-psychosomatic duality as I have called in other papers. The constitutional biological duality can be impacted by the noetic-psychosomatic command and control hierarchy, where the superordinate layers of man’s psychosomatic architecture have an integrative impact based on the physiologic law of functional subordination and structural integration. The biological foundation of the entire edifice is, in a way, a fourth level of his threefold holistic human architecture.

1. Noetic
2. Psychological
3. Somatic
4. Biological

And as a fundamental dimension that biological level underpins the entire edifice: It can not only be addressed by the psychological mental level in order to impact it in one way or the other, but this impact in turn affects the human hierarchical architecture bottom to top. So, the fourfold noetic-psycho-somatic-biological architecture appears to be a control, integration den developmental cybernetic circuit. I have multimodelled the totality of the psychological edifice of the intercultural manager in the global management context in an architectural (and other metaphors) - the Transcultural Profiler -, which are represented and the master model of the transcultural profiler briefly described on the subsequent pages. The fourth level – the biological level as discussed in this paper has been added later as a fundamental explanatory variable of practical managerial relevance.

Multimodel of the Psychological Architecture in Context

Nr. Dimensions MANADALA DOME APOLLO

1 cosmic interface centre point cosmic interface space interface
2 Noetics centre lantern escape
3 Potentialization-Actualization Dynamism (Operationalization stage)
4 Ethics sphere 1 arc 1 command
5 Evolution sphere 2 arc 2 instruments
6 Indiv. culture profile sphere 2 arc 3 connector
7 Societal culture profile sphere 3 pendentive tanks
8 Communication style sphere 4 windows rockets
9 Corporate variables sphere 5 walls connector
10 Interc. Mgmt comp. square 1 foundations tanks
11 Trust square 2 base booster rockets
12 Planetary interface outer sphere geological interface ground supp. interface

THE 12 D TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT MODEL/PROFILER

(the reference model of this exposé)

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

LEGEND OF THE TRANSCULTRAL PROFILER

D1

Cosmics: The Cosmic environment interconnection. The biological and mental roots of life.

D2

Noetics: The highest psychological control, subordination and integration function.

D3

Operationalization: (Potentialization) – Actualization process

D4

Ethics: Altruistic-allocentric, sustainable approach that thinks and acts in terms of each players long-term interests.

D5

Evolution: Phylogenetic development stages 1-6/Intercultural Development stages 7-12

1 sensory level: human developmental stage of perception
2 active level: human developmental stage of action
3 affective level: human developmental stage of affection
4 analytic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the intellect
5 synthetic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the Ego and the social group
6 universal level: human developmental stage that goes beyond Ego and synthesis
7 stage 1 denial: unable to identify cultural differences
8 stage 2 defence: recognition of cultural differences but tendency to evaluate other cultures negatively to one’s own
9 stage 3 minimization: recognition of superficial differences (objective culture) such as customs and habits, while holding the view that all cultures are essentially the same
10 stage 4 acceptance: Recognition and appreciation of cultural differences in behavior and values; considering them as logical and coherent solutions in different contexts.
11 stage 5 adaptation: development of communication skills that facilitate intercultural communication; cybernetic thinking
12 stage 6 integration: internalization of a bicultural or multicultural perspective; intercultural facilitator. (section based on Milton Bennett and Dr. Thérèse Brosse).

D6

ICP The Individual culture profile: Individualization of one's mental software by these variables

1 family
2 religion
3 education
4 language
5 profession
6 class
7 gender
8 race
9 generation
10 neighbours
11 friends
12 region.

D7

NCP National Culture Profile: Acquired through primary, secondary and tertiary socialization

1 Power distance: indicates the extent to which a society accepts the unequal distribution of power in institutions and organization
2 Uncertainty avoidance: refers to a society's discomfort with uncertainty, preferring predictability and stability
3 Individualism/collectivism: reflects the extent to which people prefer to take care of themselves and their immediate families, remaining emotionally independent from groups, organizations and other collectives.
4 Masculinity/femininity: reveals the bias towards either masculine values of assertiveness, competitiveness, and materialism, or towards feminine values of nurturing and the quality of life and relationships
5 Long-term orientation: refers to the extent to which past, present or future oriented attitudes, thought patterns, bahaviours and values are preferred' (Hofstede 5D-model, source: Bartlett, Ghoshal and Birkinshaw, Transnational Management 2003)
6 Universalism-particularism: seeks to discover one's prime allegiance to rules and rule-bound classifications or to the exceptional, unique circumstances and relationships
7 Individualism-communitarianism: measures the extent to which managers see the individual employee and shareholder as paramount, their development, enrichment, and fulfillment; or to what extent the corporation, customers and the wider community should be the beneficiaries of all personal allegiances
8 Specific-diffuse: measures the tendency to analyze, reduce and break down the field of experience or to synthesize, augment, and construct patterns of experience
9 Neutral versus affective: this concern the legitimacy to show emotions while at work
10 Inner-directed - outer-directed: concerns the 'locus of control.' Is it inside each of us, or outside in our environments to which we must adapt?
11 Achieved-ascribed status: refers to whether status is conferred to people on the basis of what they have achieved or because of what they are
12 Sequential-synchronous time: has to do with whether one sees time as passing in a sequence or coming round again and again' (THT 7D-model, source: Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, Managing People Across Cultures 2005).

D8

Communication styles profile

1 High context-low context: is information in the explicit code or is it implicit in the person?
2 Controlled-free information flow: must be informed versus are already informed
3 Monochronic-polychronic: one thing at a time versus many things at a time
4 Private space-public space: privacy and territoriality versus open space, supportive of networking
5 Concise-elaborate: not talkative versus loquacious
6 Context-centered – person-centered: relevance of speaker and role relations between the parties versus relevance of speaker and the bridging of the communication gap
7 Direct-indirect: cooperativeness. say briefly and clearly what is true, relevant and needed versus indirectness and circumlocutions
8 Affective-neutral: appropriateness versus inappropriateness of expressing emotions in a professional context
9 Abstract-concrete: refers to how concrete one can be in communicating one's ideas?
10 Private-public information space: how healthy is it to give access to personal information in building business contacts?
11 Linear-circular: how linear can you be in conveying your point?
12 Intellectual-relational: the intellectual style can confront ideas but deals with relationships delicately, whereas the relational style deals with relational issues directly, and ideas more indirectly. (Based on Hall and Hall and N. Ewington, TCO London and Univ. of Cambridge).

D9

Corporate Management Profile: further conditions the national and individual culture profile

1 Specialist job: different functional environments condition different perceptions and attitudes
2 Level of hierarchy: attitudes and bahaviours differ on the board compared to the shop floor
3 Training: the professional ethos of an engineer and a business manager differ
4 Orgnizational culture: either Hofstede's UAI-PDI matrix based classification of implicit organization models as tribe/family, pyramid, machine and market: Alternatively THT's classification as Guided Missile, Eiffel Tower, Family and Incubator organizational patterns based on the dimensions equality-hierarchy and person-task
5 Operating field: depending on the availability of resources and supplies companies may be more or less centralized and controlled
6 Scale of operations: big companies tend to be more formalized than smaller ones
7 Institutional environment: In different societies ownership is either personal or by impersonal, shifting shareholders (1-7 are based on Hickson and Pugh, International Management 2001)
8 Leadership style: exploitative autocratic, benevolent autocratic, participative, democratic (Hodgetts and Luthan, International Management) alternatively, situational-contingent leadership: directing, influencing, collaborating, delegating based on the task-relationship orientation matrix (Hersey, Blanchard, Situational Leadership)
9 Management style: factual, intuitive, analytic, and normative
10 Motivation: based on Hofstede's UAI-MAS matrix this typology exists: Achievement of self or group and esteem, achievement and belongingness, security and esteem, and security and belongingness
11 Stages of corporate development: N. Adler's multinational, global, international, transnational stages, alt. Ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric
12 Cultural distance: CAGE analysis: cultural, administrative, geographic, economic distance.

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