Global Competency - or lack thereof

The GCI was an eye opening experience. While it reinforced some of the the things that I believe about myself, such as my self-management and general perception management abilities/competence, I was quite surprised to see how low I scored in Cosmopolitanism. But I thought about it, as I think we have all done with the results of these surveys, to try to understand. I know I stopped reading about traveling in the last two years when money and time both became scarce resources and economic and political issues here in the US began to dominate my thoughts due to their more immediate possible impacts. I have had really interesting experiences in other countries, especially Italy and Mexico, where, due to at least some minimal language competence, we could explore without the benefit of a guide or interpreter. And I look forward to more such experiences, but know that I've put them on hold until at least such time as I'm done with this program and feel a bit more economically secure. But it's time to at least start paying more attention to what's going on in the rest of the world (other than economic news from NPR).

The area where I believed that I was weak, and the results emphasized it, was in relationship management. While I am very interested in other people and usually good at engaging them in conversation, I don't think I'm very good at understanding where they are coming from or what they may be thinking (emotional sensitivity). And while I have learned the appropriate social flexibility for various situations in the US, whether business, school or different social activities, I don't know how well I'm doing in these situations with people who were not brought up with the same set of expectations. I've also never really had an opportunity to test these skills outside the US.

On the bright side, I am optimistic and inclusive, so I have faith that if I do work on developing in the areas where I see weakness, I should be able to improve.