Often trust is based on culturally dependent criteria. Many Latin, African, and Asian cultures (sometimes referred to as “warm cultures”) build trust on relationships while others build trust upon performance. Understanding each other's definition and basis of trust removes cultural obstacles.

Many cultures value honour and protect each other by indirect answers and carefully not saying certain things. Other cultures are very direct. "Why don't they just say what they mean?" or "Why are they so rude and angry?"

Studies show that multi-cultural teams with low CQ perform poorer than culturally homogeneous teams. But multi-cultural teams with high CQ consistently outperform homogeneous teams. Removing cultural obstacles improves teamwork and, therefore, innovation.

High CQ people value contribution regardless of culture. For relief/development work, they involve the national recipients of the project from the beginning.  For business, they avoid tokenism and include everyone based on ability and  contribution.

Make sure all involved understand where decisions are made, and understand their role in decision making. Consensus? Top-down?

And want is the definition of a good meeting? Some cultures, a meeting is to decide the issue. Others are to provide a place for lively debate, whether a decision is made or not. Others is a formal gathering to affirm a decision already made (by the authority, or by pre-meeting consensus.)

CQ provides the tools to truly value and include people in your organization of different cultural perspectives. It forces a company to move beyond exclusion and tokenism, to inclusion and value-added empowerment.