Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is critical skill set that has applications far beyond private industry conducting business in the international arena. Militaries around the world spend enormous amounts of money, time, and energy ensuring that their troops are trained on weapon systems, vehicles, and equipment. NATO countries spend fortunes on preparation exercises and training to test tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) across NATO Coalition Forces; honing military proficiency and effectiveness should they need to exercise force protection, demonstrate a deterrent posture, or actually fight during an operation. This preparation and expenditure is only prudent. However, very little effort, if any at all, is spent solving the "people puzzle."
In reality, most stability and counter-insurgency operations are all about the people. The importance of people is true at all levels, whether dealing with the adversaries, host nation population, international community, and even one’s own nation. To be successful in these potentially diverse environments, CQ is critical. The ability to recognize the shared beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors of a group of people and, most importantly, to apply this knowledge toward a specific goal is just as important as equipping and training the front line war fighter to fight in a coalition environment.
Cultural intelligence is a set of skills that facilitates effective cross-cultural management. CQ plays a major role in dealing with NATO delegates and military representatives, and provides a broad-based understanding and acceptance that helps delegates build trust with foreign colleagues; negotiate agreements within NATO as well as, international organizations. CQ is a key component to managing diversity in the planning stages and on the battlefield.

Cultural intelligence is a leadership skill for all ranks that help with the understanding of the people you work with. CQ makes for smoother relationships, better communication and comprehension, and, therefore, more effective results. Grasping differences in how others think, behave, make decisions, view the political world, and interpret actions assists in providing strategies and options in how best to engage them to achieve desired objectives.
CQ is equally empowering in understanding adversaries. Abandoning preconceived, superficial, or erroneous perceptions and actually endeavoring to fully comprehend the "enemy" can provide invaluable insights into their attitudes, behaviors, decision-making processes, and motivations on the battlefield.
In all, CQ is an underused tool that provides enormous capability to empower military personnel and assist them in achieving mission success. It is a force multiplier that is relatively inexpensive and, if properly harnessed, can provide a return on investment far in excess of its cost. After all, conflict in general, and military operations specifically, are all about the people.