Soft Skills for the BPO Sector

245

CORPORATE ETIQUETTE AND CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

him as an arrogant, headstrong, over-con dent person who frequently

lost his temper and lashed out at his teammates. His cultural awareness

was quite apt due to his high IQ—he was aware of some cultural diver-

sities found around the world—but could not fare well in his cultural

sensitivity, cultural  exibility, and cross-cultural communication because

of his attitudinal reservations.

Molishka’s high CCI in the assessment sheet was mainly due to her

soft-spoken nature, willingness to learn and go-getter attitude that she

executed among her teammates and clients. These virtues worked in

her favour and undermined her shortcomings like lack of work experi-

ence, below-average assertive skills and her aversion in articulating the

not-so-pleasant messages out of the fear of being disliked by others.

Her cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity, cultural  exibility, and cross-

cultural communication, all were found quite apt because of her open

attitude and willingness to learn.

Sushant’s high CCI in the assessment sheet was the result of his rock-

solid EI and SI, which compensated for his mediocre technical skills which

undoubtedly were not as sharp as Rahul’s and his soft skills which were

nowhere near to Molishka’s. In fact, his high  exibility and his credibility

among his teammates made him the  rst choice of his bosses for the

US-based project. His cultural awareness was good if not excellent but

his cultural sensitivity, cultural  exibility, and cross-cultural communica-

tion, all were amazing, all because of his  exibility and people skills.

FOOD FOR T HOUGHT Success in a multicultural work environment

depends not only on your IQ-based technical skills and EI- and

SI-based so skills but also on your CCI.  is CCI of yours

needs less of your ethnocentrism and more of your empathy, which

enables you to receive, recognize, respect and reconcile with the cultural

diversities while working with people other than those from your own

culture.

NOTES

1. Lydia Ramsey, Manners that Sell: Adding the Polish that Builds Pro ts

(Longfellow Press, 2000).

2. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture (last accessed

on 24 April 2009).

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