Cross cultural psychometric instruments

A few years ago, looking for better analytical data to support my coaching and team facilitation work, I researched the intercultural assessment instruments available. Over 20 credible tools emerged, all with different target populations, objectives and methodologies. Selecting one over another was not easy, and road testing all of them not practical. I explain here how I arrived at the IRC as my instrument of choice.

Selecting the right tool is very much a function of the outcomes sought, both for the individual and the organisation. Avoid mis-steps by being clear about objectives from the outset. I was able to eliminate quite quickly many instruments that had a narrow focus on, say, recruitment or suitability for an international assignment.

Apart from my doubts about these instruments’ role as predictors of success, their approach also troubled me. To my mind they measured past generic adaptability in the workplace [admittedly a very useful attribute, and not to be underestimated] not future cultural competence in a new role.

Cultural competence is learned through practice in cross cultural settings. The acquisition over time of cultural empathy and sensitivity is the foundation for competence. What I needed was a tool that allowed people to reflect on where they were and how they could improve.

Most of my intercultural coaching and facilitation work involves working with people in leadership roles in cross cultural working environments, usually as leaders in senior teams. My coaching style focuses on business performance and leadership effectiveness. I knew, therefore, that a tool that provided insights on leadership capability as well as intercultural competence would be an added bonus.

Of the four aspects that IRC measures, one – Preference for Certainty – gives insight into a person’s tolerance for ambiguity. Clearly, working in cross cultural environments adds a layer of uncertainty in professional life, so its relevance is obvious. But of course, coping with ambiguity is a widely recognised success factor in a person’s leadership profile. This dimension of the IRC is probably the one that leads most often to revealing insights and discussions into a business leader’s capability and development needs.

Building Commitment is the second aspect with wider application beyond the intercultural. This aspect’s sub-dimensions focus on leadership competences that are equally valid in a mono-cultural environment: building networks, creating common goals, leveraging social dynamics and working within organisational politics are some examples. Overlay the generic competences with intercultural competences and the resulting feedback from this aspect can be powerful.

The remaining aspects – Intercultural Communication and Intercultural Sensitivity – deal as their names imply with the core competences a leader needs to work effectively in a cross cultural setting. The data provided are rich in insights and prompts for further discussion.

So finally I settled on the IRC. It met all my conditions in terms of a balance between intercultural competences and generic leadership capability and provided rich data for analysis and discussion. The online test is quite quickly completed and the development report succinct, useful for me and my interlocutor.

Other instruments did catch my eye. The International Profiler [TIP] has many of the features of IRC and, a first at the time, offered versions in languages other than English. It is more extensive than IRC, taking nearly an hour to complete, and measures more competencies.

On balance, though, I decided to proceed with the IRC. It provides speed and simplicity, and the development report is detailed enough to support a coaching assignment. TIP tried too hard, it seemed to me, to provide all the answers through testing. What I needed was a baseline for discussion, not a standardised test score. Where this is a requirement, however, TIP would be worth a look.

Interestingly, TIP is the only tool with a 360° option [I’m open to correction on this if anyone knows of other 360° tools]. Whether 360° feedback is valid in intercultural environments must be an open question. The very nature of 360° tools presupposes a consensus on approach and expectations. The multi-variable cultural biases present in intercultural environments preclude, I would argue, the kind of consensus required.

A final thought: virtually all the instruments I researched were “Anglo Saxon”. By this I mean that the organisations or their principals were rooted in an Anglo Saxon culture, particularly the UK and USA. Should this be a cause for concern? Is there an intrinsic bias that could invalidate the tool for cultures in, for example, the emerging economies in Asia and Africa? Maybe new tools are being developed that address my concern. If so, I’d be delighted to hear about them.