Serving with Eyes Wide Open - Part XIV
I’m almost finished with the series of blog posts on the book Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence by David A. Livermore. Today I’m pealing back the last chapter in the section on “Sharpening Our Focus and Service with Cultural Intelligence (CQ)”. The chapter is called “Actions Speak Louder than Words: Behavioral CQ”. Here are the high points:
- - “Behavioral CQ is the extent to which we change our verbal and nonverbal actions when interacting cross-culturally. Everything from how fast we talk to what we talk about is part of behavioral CQ. Cultural taboos such as pointing or talking with our hands in our pockets are some of the endless actions included in observing behavioral CQ. Behavioral CQ is being sensitive and appropriate with our actions and behavior as we engage in a new culture. Again the point isn’t to act as chameleons wherever we go. Rather, in an attempt to empathetically relate to our fellow human beings, we want to learn how to interact in meaningful and appropriate ways.”
- “Our ability to actually draw upon all the other CQ factors and act appropriately is behavioral CQ.”
- “The biggest problems for most short-term mission teams are not technical or administrative. The biggest challenges lie in communication, misunderstanding, personality conflicts, poor leadership, and bad teamwork. These are all parts of behavioral CQ.”
- “…flexibility and adjustment is the crucial competency that accompanies behavioral CQ…The goal is reducing misunderstanding more than it is mimicking others’ behavior.”
- “…the most important trait to develop for behavioral CQ is adaptability.”
You’ve got to be flexible. That’s the key. And you can’t simply change behavior without changing preparations, priorities, and attitudes first. To really succeed with behavior CQ, you need the other three components: knowledge, interpretive, and perseverance. Livermore sums it up perfectly with the last paragraph of the chapter:
“Our tendency is to use all our energy trying to change behavior, but we can’t possibly anticipate the endless situations and encounters that will arise. So the full-orbed approach of CQ is essential to getting our actions to speak a message that lines up with the glory of God.”
That’s a good way to close out the cultural intelligence section of Serving with Eyes Wide Open. I’ll be back tomorrow with a few closing thoughts on a book that is most definitely required reading for anyone interested in serving cross-culturally through short-term missions.
