Demographics, migration, and economic changes have altered the social context of work. Today’s workers across a range of accountability levels, job roles, organisation size, and industry interact daily with individuals from backgrounds different from their own, both in home markets and across borders. Global markets require a new workplace competency—the ability to manage cultural diversity.
Defining cultural diversity
Reflecting its civil rights roots, workplace diversity has traditionally been defined and managed in terms of legally protected categories in the United States including race, gender, and disability. These ‘visible’ diversity markers trigger stereotyping and other biases.
Cultural diversity shifts the focus from visual differences to variations in behaviours and mental processes shared by a group of people connected through common life experiences. Cultural diversity intersects with other diversity categories when a group can be distinguished in terms of its shared mental framework for interpreting and responding to the world.
Cultural diversity is not limited to nationality. Within each national culture, there are ethnic, religious, age, gender, occupational, sexual orientation, social class, and health status subcultures. Those subcultures create huge variations in patterns of thought and behaviour within national groups.
Plus every organisation possesses its own unique system of values, beliefs, and codes of practice. Beneath organisational cultures lie department and team-level differences.
The greater impact of cultural diversity
The impact of cultural diversity on organisational outcomes may be magnified relative to other sources of diversity.
Cultural diversity is most likely to involve differences in perspectives, knowledge, and experience necessary for optimal information processing, decision-making, and innovation. Culturally inclusive workplaces attract and energise top global talent. A culturally diverse workforce can better understand and respond to the needs of customers across the globe. And a culturally diverse workforce can increase access to suppliers and other stakeholders in new markets.
But cultural attributes including nationality, race, or ethnicity are the most common social categories by which people sort themselves and others into in- or out-group members. Social categorisation triggers stereotyping and other forms of bias. Bias threatens workplace harmony and productivity. Also, when our interpretative frameworks (cultural schema) are misaligned, we misunderstand or misinterpret each other. This can cause confusion, suspicion, and conflict.
Unlocking the potential of cultural diversity: Cultural Intelligence
Cultural Intelligence is the capability to manage cultural diversity. If you have high Cultural Intelligence (CQ), you display four critical competencies:
CQ Drive is your willingness to work with diverse others and includes the ability to overcome explicit or unconscious bias and the capacity for persisting in challenging intercultural interactions, even when confused, frustrated, or burnt out.
CQ Knowledge is your understanding of culture and cultural differences. This involves more than awareness of variations in language, customs, and appearance. Core cultural differences are invisible, but they cause the most problems and are often overlooked. Those hidden cultural differences include values, assumptions, and beliefs.
CQ Strategy is your ability to flex mentally. With high CQ Strategy, you are not confined to a single worldview. You are open to new or integrative ideas.
CQ Action is your ability to flex verbal and non-verbal behaviour. CQ Action decreases the risk of miscommunication and helps you to respond to diverse others in a manner that conveys respect and builds trust and rapport.
As a tool for managing any form of cultural diversity, Cultural Intelligence helps turn a business risk into a strategic strength. Organisations with well-managed diversity programs and workforces with high Cultural Intelligence are best placed to thrive amid global complexity and change.
Does it work?
Yes! The four competencies of Cultural Intelligence are not abstract ideas. Social scientists have demonstrated each maps to particular regions of the brain. Plus studies show Cultural Intelligence predicts important measures of diversity competence. These include improved problem-solving and decision-making, increased collaboration and knowledge sharing, enhanced well-being, and better task performance. In fact, Cultural Intelligence is a better predictor of success in diverse settings than cognitive ability, emotional intelligence (EQ), personality, demographics, and international experience.
How can you develop Cultural Intelligence?
Cultural Intelligence is not a personality trait. Nor is it something you are born with. Cultural Intelligence develops with education, training, and experience.
This malleability offers organisations and individuals an opportunity to better position themselves for global success.
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