Using Certification to Expand Cultural Intelligence
How can we make our people Culturally Intelligent?
We get this question daily. It’s usually a leader in Human Resources, and they want to understand how to best deploy the Cultural Intelligence model in their organization. There is never a simple answer. Every client has unique challenges and organizational structure that makes implementing, learning, and developing Cultural Intelligence a puzzle. While we enjoy working on solving the puzzle together with our clients, we inevitably find the need to scale CQ efforts beyond leadership development or select teams with (*ahem) unique challenges.
As is often the case, the lack of an unlimited budget is the culprit. The cost of bringing in outside consultants to deliver workshops, coaching, and other learning and development services can quickly get out of hand when you are rolling out Cultural Intelligence to hundreds or thousands of employees. There are three key areas we discuss with clients who are planning a large-scale rollout.
- E-Learning
- Digital Resource Licensing
- CQ Certification
Let’s dive a little more into each one.
1. E-LEARNING
There are different levels of engagement that are required when we are focused on leadership versus first-line employees. Our E-Learning programs help bridge those gaps and help build a common language throughout the organization. When senior leaders are leading the charge and owning the language, it makes embedding CQ into an organization much easier. E-Learning is a great way to reach many first-line employees with relevant learning that aligns with the direction leadership is moving.
2. DIGITAL RESOURCE LICENSING
Two words, bulk discount. You can put your unlimited budget away. With a licensing agreement, our clients are able to reach more of the organization with our CQ Assessments for self-discovery and our E-Learning for building knowledge. Many of our licensing programs also include workshop materials, which are especially helpful when you consider the benefits of CQ Certification.
3. CQ CERTIFICATION
Why send one of the CQ Center’s facilitator out to your facilities to deliver workshops, when you have an excellent team of trainers on your team?
There are several reasons why you would bring us in. Maybe you could benefit from an outsider’s perspective. We recently had a client who has a CQ Certified facilitator on staff reach out to bring us in to deliver a workshop with a team of recruiters. Although they have an excellent facilitator on staff, it is someone whom they work closely with, and they needed an outside voice to engage their team. Another client runs a very lean learning and development team. They bring us into work with their engineering leaders and middle managers a few times a year seeking our expertise.
There are other clients who have decided to make an organization-wide commitment to deploying Cultural Intelligence.
For smaller deployments (typically under 1,000 employees) and pilot programs, we offer Public Certification, delivered all over the world by our traveling band of master facilitators. Participants from all types of organizations join with individuals in the education field, non-profits, faith-based organizations, and independent consultants participate in a deeply engaging certification program. This is ideal for building capacity for 1 to 6 team members.
When we have a need for a broader implementation (1,000+ employees), we offer In-House Certification. With this approach, we can dive deeper into the organization’s perspective and provide key insights relevant to the organization. This also allows our clients to set policies for how the certified status is defined and used by the people trained. Ideally, an in-house certification program involves 12-18 people per cohort.
Both public and in-house certification are composed of the same building blocks or “levels”:
- CQ Certification: Get equipped to use the CQ model, administer assessments, and debrief participants (pre-requisite for Train-the-Trainer programs).
- CQ Train-the-Trainer: Training to deliver our most popular workshop, Developing Cultural Intelligence, and access to exclusive learning materials.
- Unconscious Bias Train-the-Trainer: Training to deliver our interactive Unconscious Bias workshop and exclusive access to learning materials.
CONCLUSION
You can imagine there is a lot more to a comprehensive Cultural Intelligence solution. In our work, we collaborate with small, medium and large clients all around the globe, and we have found that no single approach or solution can capture the diversity of systems people have organized themselves around. You might call it a Company, Corporation, Konzern (German), or Sociedad (Spanish); we call them puzzles. Contact us today, and we can be your thought and solutions partner on your next puzzle!