What's Your Curiosity Quotient?

by William R. Dodson

21 June 2002

A client recently asked to know about the "business values" of Chinese so he could "make a relationship with them." I delicately explained that he would need to do the opposite to succeed in business with the Chinese: he would need to make a relationship with his foreign counterparts first to realize their business values. It's important to other cultures, too, to make build a personal relationship first before getting down to business: Latin American, Arab and Southeast Asian countries come immediately to mind.

The question most managers who aspire to the international arena is: so how do I make a relationship with people from cultures I know little -- if anything -- about? The answer is simple: be curious about them. After all, they want to know you.

A couple years ago I worked up a cross-cultural concept I call the Curiosity Quotient. The Curiosity Quotient is the degree to which an individual engages someone from another culture by asking about their culture and their personal history and perceptions within the context of the culture with the intention of genuine relationship.

Nancy Southern, Ed.D traveled to China in the late 1990’s to research organizational change issues. She did not speak Chinese language. However, she wrote in her paper “Transformative Learning Across Cultures Creating Opportunities for Learning and Relationship through Communicative Competence” (International Association of Facilitators, Annual Conference, 1998) , “I was amazed at how my conversations with people in China seemed to establish a much closer, authentic relationship than the conversations with people in the United States. I believe that difference was the openness to learn ... This shared intention of learning and discovery created a space where we could be open, truthful and trustful with each other. It enabled us to share our very different individual and cultural worlds and begin to create a world in which we could participate equally and fully together.”

I have found the same constructive response to open curiosity when I have traveled and worked in European, Asian and Latin American countries. I've even had the same results with foreign nationals in America. I simply ask, "Where are you from?" and my counterpart transforms their presumption of me as a hide-bound, provincial American into a world traveler, a contributing émigré, a citizen of the world. We both are elevated to a lofty aerie from which we can view the global village from on high, and solve -- at least within the greatness of our own minds -- the problem of why cultures can't seem to see eye-to-eye.

Curiosity about the Other is a major catalyst in engaging the Other, fully, without judgment. Once each of the parties becomes a student of the Other's ways and history and dispositions, and stops teaching the Other about how the other should behave, true relationship has a chance to bud, and hopefully to flower. Curiosity -- especially if it becomes mutual -- does not posit one individual over another, or one better or smarter or more powerful than the other. Instead, curiosity normalizes relationships. It allows parties to step out of their respective domains and to co-create a third world from which they can examine and comment on and share with the Other what they value. 

But there is a certain way in which you must be curious. During one enthralling conversation with a dark haired, dark eyed woman clearly of Middle Eastern descent, I asked her, "Are you Lebanese?" Suddenly the room grew dark and a cold wind blew through the passage from whence I'd come, signaling there'd be no return for me through that exit. "No," she said in a deep, throaty way, "I'm Israeli." After which she went on to tell me of her time as an Israeli soldier. Talk about a conversation killer. So, don't ask probing questions -- even if you're 100% sure your counterpart is from Lithuania; the open, non-invasive sort of questions are the best -- the kind that allow a person to unfold their personal histories at their own pace. Curiosity precludes presumption.

Trust is essential to any successful business transaction. If you're from a country that establishes trust first through contractual agreement, then you'll need to adapt your opening moves in countries where that approach breeds distrust. You'll have to spend time at the outset fostering a personal relationship with your foreign business partner. Be curious about your counterpart to show you care about them and your relationship with them to prove they can trust you in a business deal. 

In the least, you'll find business and pleasure co-mingling in exciting, rewarding ways.

William R. Dodson is Managing Director of Silk Road Advisors, L.L.C., a management consultancy that builds and improves working relationships across cultures. He is the international business editor of the American Management Association’s (AMA) MWorld Journal of Management, and writes the weekly column “The Cultured Business”, found at www.silkrc.com and at the Global Perspectives section of the AMA’s member website. He can be reached at sradvisors@gmail.com or +1 (847)722-7817.