Asia-Pacific cultural IQ programme
At PwC, our purpose, values and behaviours are what unite us. Our purpose – to build trust in society and solve important problems – reflects ‘why’ we do what we do. Our strategy provides us with ‘what’ we do. But ‘how’ we deliver our purpose and strategy is what truly sets us apart – and that is driven by our culture, all of which shapes our behaviours and how we show up as leaders every day.
However, our global network – by definition – encompasses a host of different cultures. Our talent base in each market is becoming more multicultural and international, and we increasingly collaborate across borders, working on international or global teams, projects and engagements. So, how do we maintain and grow cultural alignment and inclusion among our people across the 149 countries where we have a presence? The Asia-Pacific Cultural IQ Programme has provided an innovative and exciting answer to this question.
The origins of this initiative began with the concept of strengthening relationships, fostering collaboration and supporting cultural and inclusive upskilling across the AsiaPac (APAC) region. That goal was just the start. Fast-forward to today, and the programme has evolved and expanded into a grassroots regional team collaborating across seven PwC APAC territories: Australia, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The vision behind the Asia-Pacific Cultural IQ Programme is clear: to provide PwC’s people with tools to collaborate and connect effectively in today’s globalised and digitalised world – thereby helping them develop into trusted leaders who demonstrate inclusion at all levels.
It’s a mission that the programme delivers through an ongoing series of virtual workshops, designed and delivered by a team that spans business areas including Inclusion & Diversity (I&D), Learning & Development (L&D), Human Capital and Clients & Markets. These workshops provide tools to help PwC people:
- Collaborate and connect across an international PwC community and network to gain broader knowledge, innovation and perspectives.
- Develop and upskill in the areas of global acumen and inclusion, to contribute to the PwC inclusion agenda and foster an even better place to work.
- Grow skillsets, and learn from their colleagues in other countries about other cultures and business practices, to help them better deal with doing business across borders, including how we interact with each other and with our clients.
The programme generates these benefits by creating a space that embodies the definition of Cultural IQ – an open forum founded on psychological safety and inclusion of different needs and circumstances across time zones, working behaviours and communication styles. Ideas and perspectives are heard and listened to, and the diversity that team members bring is valued and shared. This fosters a programme environment where participants form meaningful and connective relationships – while collaborating with respect, and adapting to each other’s views through cultural dexterity.
The results
The Asia-Pacific Cultural IQ Programme officially launched in 2021. Since then, an initial full cycle of the programme – which consists of four virtual workshops – has been delivered. Each has consisted of three or four well-attended sessions, and has centred on a different aspect of culture, while also enabling the participants to probe and debate some difficult issues related to that topic.
The areas tackled so far include “cultural influences on behaviour”, examining questions such as how to manage biases and stereotypes; “impact and intent”, zeroing in on issues like microinequities; “doing business across cultures”, drilling down into subjects such as negotiation and work-life balance; and “from awareness to action”, exploring how people can become cross-culture advocates.
The workshop sessions have attracted a total of well over 1,000 attendees to date – with interest and excitement continuing to grow all the time. So, are they delivering on their goals? To judge from the average satisfaction rate of 93% awarded by the attendees at the past four workshops, the answer is yes. And to get a feel for what the individual participants think, take this testimonial from one of them:
“The biggest takeaway for me was getting the exposure to learn from other countries from a cultural perspective. Because this kind of opportunity is hard to come by – not everyone has the experience of studying in or being seconded to countries other than the one they were born and bred into.”
Learning, connecting and building inclusion and understanding across cultures: that’s what PwC’s Asia-Pacific Cultural IQ Programme is bringing to our people. And its message about the importance of crossing cultural divides resonates not just in Asia Pacific, but worldwide.
It’s an initiative with a bright future – and widening horizons, with the regional team very excited to embark on the second formal cycle of the programme.
Participant testimonials:
“The session was very informative and one-of-a-kind. I learnt about understanding cultural differences across regions, and how we can adapt to enable an environment for collaboration and trust through transparency and awareness.”
“The collaboration across territories was beneficial in gaining different perspectives, and it was useful to have practical content designed.”
“I learned how people from different cultures have very different expectations in some ways, but are very similar in other ways.”
“A key takeaway for me was understanding key barriers of cross-cultural working environments and how to be mindful of these principles for effective communication in a cross-cultural environment.”
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