Reference no: EM133351394

In the article, Cultural Intelligence in Organizations, it breaks down the differences between individuals who are idiocentric and those who are allocentric. The biggest difference between the two are that those who are idiocentric have a wider range of experiences which have allowed them to be less stuck within the customs of their specific culture while those who are allocentric tend to stick to their culture's standard practices. The main aspect of this article was training to overcome ethnocentrism, which is the feeling that what is "normal" in their culture is or should be normal everywhere. As a professional, you have to be able to suspend judgement of others upon the initial meeting. You have to be able to place yourself in the shoes of other cultures to better understand the norms of their cultures and ultimately, realizing that in doing so, you can understand more about your own culture. The example used in the article I thought was extremely beneficial and should be used more. "For instance, one Iowa teacher told her students that those who have dark eyes are "better" than those who have blue eyes and for 3 days imposed norms of discrimination commonly found in American society. Then, to give all the students a taste of discrimination, the persons with blue eyes were pronounced to be "better" than those with brown eyes. The experience produced intense emotions. The students realize how distressing it is to be discriminated against and felt sympathy for the victims of discrimination. (Triandis)" Although the measures were extreme, the results had a life-lasting impact stating that even many years after this experiment, these students were more tolerant of minorities than their fellow students who did not do this experiment.

I think that this article will help me in my professional life because I aspire to become a Real Estate agent. In this field, there are a wide array of cultures that I will experience that will be completely different than me. In order for me to help families find their dream homes, I will have to be able to put my judgements to the side and be able to comprehend their wants and needs. It would be unprofessional and unbecoming of me to assume that if a customer is Hispanic that they would only want to look for homes in areas that are predominately Hispanic or for a certain style home because I feel like that would fit their culture. I think that having a high cultural intelligence and being welcoming and willing to learn about other cultures are essential for Real Estate agents to be successful.

The topics I would focus on if I were doing a professional seminar for cultural intelligence are deriving enjoyment from culturally diverse experiences; having a rich, well-organized understanding of culture and how it affects the way people think and behave; and, improving knowledge about language and communication norms. I think that if you are not finding some type of enjoyment from learning about other cultures then it means you are too set within your own to learn something new. It should always be exciting to see the world through different lenses. I think that in order to be a good agent, I would need to have an understanding of the cultures I may be working with because I would never want to be offense or disrespectful. These are also three topics that I scored the lowest on in my initial CQ, I have been actively working on improving these for myself and have learned the importance of them within this timeframe.