Serving with Eyes Wide Open

by David A. Livermore

  Be aware of your own assumptions, ideas, and emotions as you engage cross-culturally.

  Look for ways to discover the assumptions of others through their words and behavior.

  Use all your senses to read a situation rather than just hearing the words or seeing the nonverbals.

  View every situation from several different perspectives by using an open mind.

  Create new categories/paradigms for seeing things.

  Seek out fresh information to confirm or disconfirm new categories.

  Use empathy to try to identify.[115]

  Stepping back to think reflectively and question our assumptions is one of the biggest needs in short-term missions work. Suggestions like the ones above are a good start, but we need more guidance and help in nurturing this area that is so desperately lacking in much of our short-term work. Here are some ways to begin the process.

  Stimulate Your Imagination

  Stimulating our imaginative capacity is one of the most important ways to nurture CQ Strategy. Stories, narratives, myths, tales, and rituals capture aspects of the world in ways not readily available through more traditional, bullet-point approaches to understanding cross-cultural differences. The dimensions we considered in nurturing CQ Knowledge—individuality, power distance, and event time versus clock time—are essential starting points for interacting effectively cross-culturally. However, reading fiction and biographies of people from various cultures will also help us see the more subtle assumptions and paradigms underlying cultural values. Stimulate your imagination by reading novels and biographies about and by people in the places you’re going. Before going on your short-term missions trip, ask multiple people who live there about their favorite novels or movies. Use those to get into the mental programming of the culture.

  Even if you make annual treks to the Czech Republic and want to focus all your cross-cultural understanding on the Czech context, spend some time reading pieces about and by people in other cultural contexts as well. Reading narrative pieces from a diversity of cultural perspectives will further enhance your ability to interpret cultural cues and recognize differences. Few things enhance CQ Strategy as does this kind of reading.

  If this kind of literature is new to you, let me recommend a few books. Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner is one of the best books I’ve read. While you may not be taking a short-term trip to Afghanistan, the story written by this Afghan is sure to challenge your cultural assumptions in many areas. Or try reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake: A Novel to gain perspective on the different assumptions Indian couples, even Indian Americans, use in naming their children. I’ve made several references throughout this book to Richard Dooling’s White Man’s Grave. The language and witchcraft in Dooling’s story are not for the lighthearted, but it’s a compelling picture of life in West Africa. Of course, there’s also much to be gained from the true stories of Brother Yun in The Heavenly Man or Nelson Mandela in The Long Walk to Freedom.

  Reading novels and memoirs related to cross-cultural situations is one of the most powerful ways to nurture our minds to think creatively and reflectively. In addition, we can stimulate our imagination by simply forcing ourselves to do routine things differently. Taking an alternate route to work, ordering a different kind of coffee, and changing the order of our morning routine will impact our ability to think outside the normal paradigms of our lives.

  As you can see, nurturing CQ Strategy has implications that far surpass the journey of our short-term missions trip. It’s the opportunity to begin viewing the world around us in new and significant ways.

  Open or Close Your Window

  Another way to nurture CQ Strategy involves adjusting the way we interact with others. Successful communication depends on accurately reading the cues of those with whom we interact. Introverted people reveal little and tend to keep the windows into their lives closed as they interact with others. Others who are more extroverted reveal more of themselves and keep their windows open. Most of us tend to keep our window relatively small when we’re in new and unfamiliar situations. In contrast, we tend to share more of ourselves when we’re with familiar people and in places where we feel safe and comfortable. With certain individuals and in certain settings, even the gregarious and extroverted are wise to open less of themselves. In other situations, even the painfully introverted need to open up more as a way to interact appropriately. This communication skill is important anytime we interact with others, but it’s especially important for cross-cultural conversations.

  While personality differences exist throughout cultures, cultures as a whole have a style of relating and communicating that they deem most appropriate. The person with a growing measure of CQ Strategy learns how to read cues from both individuals and a culture at large. In knowing how much of ourselves to reveal, we are not trying to be a chameleon or to be whatever we think another person wants us to be. Instead, we are learning to interpret cues in order to adapt our communication and behavior in a way that puts the other person at ease. Envision yourself as a mirror to the people with whom you’re speaking. What’s the cadence of their speech? How loudly do they talk? What’s their body language? By adjusting your behavior to mirror theirs, they’ll automatically feel more comfortable. “This doesn’t mean, of course, that you should be disingenuous. Rather, it shows that you’re particularly sensitive to other people’s emotional temperaments. You’re just tweaking your style to ensure that the windows remain wide open.”[116] Practice this in your next conversation.

  Journal

  One of the most valuable tools for nurturing CQ Strategy is journaling. Some people journal quite naturally, while others find it incredibly difficult. Much of my research on short-term missions has included both my own journaling and the journals of other short-termers who graciously allowed me to read their thoughts. Participants most often wrote about what they did each day, along with some prayer requests. That’s a good start to journaling, but it’s only the beginning of learning to journal as a way to nurture an ability to interpret cues in cross-cultural interactions.

  Equally important in describing our observations is thinking about the meaning behind those observations and experiences. Writing allows us to understand our lives and others in ways that few other things do. It forces us to slow down and become aware of our surroundings. Journal writing enhances our ability to interpret the barrage of cues surrounding us during our short-term trips.

  Commit to spending some time journaling on your next trip. Do it before you leave, while you’re there, and after you come home. Do more than simply record the events of each day. Describe things that make you uncomfortable. Write down questions that come to mind. What insights are you gaining? What are you seeing about yourself, others, and God? How might your faith be different if you had grown up in this culture instead of at home? Read your journal out loud to someone you trust. Journaling like this can be a vital source of cultural intelligence for you.

  Immerse Yourself Cross-Culturally

  At the risk of missing the obvious, few things have the ability to nurture CQ Strategy like actual cross-cultural experiences. As we’ve seen countless times in this journey, experience alone doesn’t ensure growth in our ability to interpret what’s occurring cross-culturally. In fact, if we fail to engage with a reflective spirit whereby we question the assumptions of ourselves and others, immersing ourselves cross-culturally can actually be a detriment to improving CQ. We can end up perpetuating erroneous assumptions and stereotypes in others and ourselves by failing to engage in CQ Strategy. Jake’s experience as a missionary kid will be either an asset or a liability to his overall CQ, depending on whether he exercises CQ Strategy.

  When we seek to understand and question whether we truly understand, we begin to progress in using our cross-cultural experiences themselves as a way to nurture CQ Strategy. Hands-on experiences in different cultures are extremely effective ways to learn about cross-cultural dynamics and differences, especially when co
mbined with CQ Strategy. There’s benefit both to continued exposure to the same place and to a variety of experiences in many different contexts. If a person’s CQ Strategy is high, multiple experiences in diverse settings yield some of the greatest growth in overall cultural intelligence.[117]

  Don’t limit your thinking about these kinds of immersions to the encounters that happen when you’re on a short-term missions trip. Cross-cultural encounters abound all around us. Watch the Spanish channel for a while, eat at a Thai restaurant, attend the Irish festival in a nearby town, interview a nearby seasonal farming worker, or watch BBC news online. Few things aid us in developing CQ Strategy like cross-cultural encounters themselves.

  One of the leading experts on the educational value of cross-cultural travel, Kenneth Cushner, writes, “Travel affords one to see the world from another perspective. But these lessons don’t always jump right out at you. More often than not, they are missed because of one’s inability to perceive what has gone on from the local perspective, or one’s inability to step back from the situation.”[118] We have to shut down our mental cruise control to benefit most from our travel abroad.

  Don’t miss the chance to use your short-term missions trip to see the world differently. Step back from a situation to interpret what’s going on. That’s what we’re after with CQ Strategy. We’re trying to reframe what we see and create new categories for understanding. In the short run, engaging in CQ Strategy can result in a far more healthy and redemptive short-term missions trip. In the long run, thinking more critically and carefully about what we observe can significantly transform the way we understand, interpret, and live out God’s mission in the world. Surely that’s worth the hard work of journaling, reading some good novels, and questioning our assumptions.

  Most short-term missions trips occur in groups. Teams go together from churches, schools, and other organizations. A key component to team members being able to engage in CQ Strategy on a short-term missions trip is spending time on planning and reflection. Dialoguing with others about cues and their interpretation is a real asset to doing short-term missions in community rather than by oneself.

  Back to Shanghai

  No one in the group meandering through Shanghai seems to have a whole lot of CQ Strategy. Jake assumes his extended experience in Mexico makes him a natural. Overall, he’s a confident guy who isn’t very fazed by how he may come off to others, particularly in a vastly different world like China.

  Sarah, the resident intercultural expert on the team, has just enough knowledge about cultures to make her dangerous. She seems to know all the answers but isn’t aware or mindful enough to be able to interpret accurately what she’s observing. As a result, her high CQ Knowledge, when not combined with high CQ Strategy, may actually hinder her effectiveness in China. This is something I’ve observed again and again. Pre-departure training can be vitally helpful in developing CQ Knowledge. When we fail to use it in tandem with CQ Strategy, however, it often results in worsened engagement cross-culturally than if we’d spent no time at all studying the cultural nuances. This is what my African friend Mark described to me in London when he said, “[Those North American youth pastors] have prepared just enough for this trip to make them dangerous.” The goal is to grow in our cross-cultural understanding and then combine that with a thoughtful, reflective perspective.

  Jenny gives us the most hope for CQ Strategy of anyone on the Shanghai team. She lacks the ability to interpret what she’s observing, but she knows enough to stop herself and question what’s really going on. With a heightened degree of CQ Knowledge through more interaction with Chinese people and by additional study about how cultures relate, Jenny will be well on her way toward cultural intelligence.

  Join me in committing to work on CQ Strategy. As we learn to interpret, reflect on, and reframe our observations, we create a link between our cross-cultural understanding and the behavior we’re after in our mission work. CQ Strategy helps connect our cultural knowledge with something deeper. Once we start down this road, we see an ever-growing window into life as a whole. Suddenly we have a new way of seeing and approaching our faith, our interactions with people, our family, and our life. Open your eyes! Wider! Once you get a glimpse of God’s world this way, you’ll never want to go back to life without cultural intelligence.

  Strategies to Improve Your CQ Strategy

  Anytime:

  Notice. Don’t respond. When you see something unusual, don’t jump to conclusions. Stop and consider possible explanations.

  Plan for ways to incorporate culturally diverse perspectives in the things you read and talk about.

  Creatively seek feedback from individuals who come from various cultural backgrounds.

  On Your Short-Term Trip:

  What color do you notice more than any other today? Compare your observations with others.

  Look for something that is different from home. What about something that looks the same?

  Journal about the things you are observing and suggest possible explanations. But don’t rush to conclusions. Check out your interpretations with someone from the culture.

  12

  Actions Speak Louder than Words

  CQ Action

  Jun flagged down a couple of taxis to get everyone from the university back to the hostel where they were staying. They had just finished their second day of teaching. Jake and Jun ended up in the same taxi together, so Jake used it as a chance to get some feedback from Jun. “So, Jun. How’s it going, bro? Are we doing okay? Are you happy with the team?”

  “Everything is okay,” said Jun. “It’s fine.”

  “Well, what’s that supposed to mean?” asked Jake. “That’s a very noncommittal answer. ‘Okay’? ‘Fine’? C’mon, bud. Shoot straight with me. How do you feel the team is doing?”

  “It’s okay, Jake. We will talk about it.” Jun immediately started pointing out the Chongqing Harbor, where the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers meet.

  Jake was a little frustrated by Jun’s nondescript feedback, but he decided not to push it any farther. Instead, he feigned interest in the places Jun pointed out along the way.

  Meanwhile, Mandy, one of the other team members, struck up a conversation with her taxi driver. His English impressed her. It turns out he had spent several years in Hong Kong. Knowing the prevalence of the British influence in Hong Kong, Mandy purposely used the hard o when she said the word process. She had some Canadian friends who always said it that way. She also said words like library really fast, as she had often heard Brits do. She referred to it as the “libree.” As Jenny and Brian listened to her talk with the taxi driver, they began to laugh as she forced British pronunciations of English words.

  Jenny, the ever-reflective one, wondered what Mandy was doing. Is that really more effective than just speaking English the way we typically speak it? I wonder if it sounds as forced to this driver as it does to me. Was Mandy’s behavior a good demonstration of cultural intelligence? Is that what it looks like to be high in CQ Action?

  The team got together to discuss their first two days of teaching. Jake, the infamous storyteller of the group, shared a few of his greatest blunders. Jenny, the ever-reflective one, bombarded Jun with questions: “Why won’t anyone respond when I ask the group a question? Will I offend them if I ask them not to call me Miss Gilmore? Some of them are older than me! Should I try to make things more participative, or is it better for me to use the lecture-style that they seem more comfortable with? Or am I even right in assuming they’re more comfortable with lecture?” For each of Jun’s responses, Sarah, the cross-cultural expert, had her own two cents to throw in.

  Once we improve our CQ Drive, Knowledge, and Strategy, can we behave in a way that demonstrates our love for Christ and others? That’s what CQ Action is most concerned about.

  What Is CQ Action?

  CQ Action is the extent to which we change our verbal and nonverbal actions when interacting cross-culturally. Everything from how fast we talk to our
topics of conversation are a part of CQ Action. Cultural taboos such as pointing or talking with our hands in our pockets are some of the behaviors avoided when observing CQ Action. CQ Action is being sensitive and appropriate with our actions and behavior as we engage in a new culture. The point isn’t to act as chameleons wherever we go. Rather, in an attempt to relate to the people we meet, we strive to interact in meaningful and appropriate ways.

  The other three capabilities of cultural intelligence are vitally important for all the reasons we’ve just explored. At the end of the day, however, our cultural intelligence and, more importantly, our short-term missions endeavors will be measured by our behavior. The things we actually say and do and the ways we go about our work become the litmus test for whether we’re doing short-term missions with cultural intelligence. As we’ll see shortly, the other three capabilities are essential in nurturing CQ Action, but cultural intelligence is not just a mind game of having the right motivation, gathering information, and learning how to interpret cues. Eventually, we have to act and engage. Our ability to draw on what we learn from the other three capabilities to act appropriately is CQ Action.

  The biggest problems for most short-term missions 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 CQ Action. The difference between short-term trips done with CQ Action and those done without is significant. Short-term missions trips without CQ Action look more like a typical tourist experience. The tour group sticks together as a group of outsiders, stays in cushy places, seldom veers into the local cuisine, and views the culture as a sporting event rather than actually playing the game.

  An important part of CQ Action is seeing the ways behaviors can have different meanings in different places. Behaviors such as laughing, shouting, smiling, and talking quietly are some universal behaviors we share as humans. However, culture programs our minds to interpret those behaviors differently. Smiling is expected in certain situations and assumed to mean certain things in one place but has entirely different uses elsewhere. Nudity is crude in public and intimate in private for most North Americans, but it has very different meanings in many tribal cultures. Students sitting still and nodding their heads can mean something entirely different in one culture as compared to the next.