As markets continue to expand globally, the landscape of the global economy is changing dramatically. This requires firms to read ahead into an unpredictable future. To ride this wave successfully requires in turn that your firm tools up your most precious asset – your people – to actualize the hidden potential of the diversity not only of your workforce but of your widening customer base.
In order to maintain your company’s competitive edge worldwide, your employees now need not only to embrace the various cultures, languages, thought systems, religions, customs and working styles of colleagues, but also learn to utilise, build cohesiveness, and recruit around these diverse skills and talents.
This is no longer a “good to have” but a “must-have”. The urgency is driven by market opportunity emerging in the developing areas of the global economy. The drive to successfully and sustainably engage customers hailing from outside an organisation’s “comfort zone” is fraught with risk, as demonstrated by many costly failures faced by multinationals and public institutions alike the world over.
Now is the time for your company to discover precisely how bringing the element of intercultural fluency as a core universal skill set for your talent can be used not only to unleash the power of a truly engaged, diverse workforce, but simultaneously equips them to use these intercultural fluency skills to do a better job of engaging and delighting your worldwide base of customers in turn.
THE HIDDEN COST OF DIVERSITY – THE RISKS OF “GROUP BEHAVIOUR” AND CHALLENGES OF BRIDGING GAPS.
Living Potential International turbo-charges the culture of diversity excellence in our clients’ organisations by bringing in our intercultural expertise to increase employee engagement, motivation, and sense of belonging at every level of the firm. What this results in is a truly thriving company-wide community.
Historically, diversity and inclusion initiatives have tended to develop in independent fashion, with specific groups championing their interests and creating a supportive community within each to enhance the professional development of both its individuals and the group as a whole.
Knitting these diverse narratives together into a cohesive whole can often be a challenge, because simply speaking – diversity tends to divide. People are used to operating in groups. As trained psychologists, we see common phenomena like “groupthink” and ingroup/outgroup behaviour obstructing well-intentioned attempts to get people to work better and closer together.
If not well-integrated, diversity initiatives can end up unintentionally reinforcing biases and fear-driven behaviours, that may lead to further interpersonal friction and loss of productivity.
USING INTERCULTURAL TOOLS TO KNIT YOUR COMPANY’S “DIVERSITY CULTURES” TOGETHER.
As intercultural experts, we are used to successfully bringing different cultures together, fostering greater mutual understanding, cooperation and productive growth.
Our tools and experience drawn from the intercultural field allow us to support your employees in:
- Understanding how we naturally tend to think, behave and operate in “cultures”. These could be gender cultures, generational cultures, racial/ethnic or any of the groups identified as diversity interest groups for your company.
It is worth bearing in mind that whatever your employees learn here can also be applied to “corporate culture”, “department culture”, “team culture” and so on.
- Raising their self-awareness of their own subconscious filters, therefore getting a better handle on the real challenges of any cross-cultural interaction between individuals or groups.
This enhanced self-awareness unlocks tremendous growth and professional development opportunities for individuals and teams alike. Teambuilding and consensus-building efforts will particularly benefit.
- Creating personal plans that use this enhanced self-knowledge, appreciation of others, and intercultural knowhow to increase the integration, efficacy and sustainability of -firm-’s diversity initiatives within your employees’ day-to-day.
Cultural differences create friction. But they can also be rich generators of creativity and strength. Working with LPI will allow your firm’s’s diversity initiatives to reduce potential for conflict and maximize fruitful collaboration to the benefit of all.
HOW WE CAN HELP.
At Living Potential International we are able to draw upon the multifaceted expertise of our team of consultants to deliver a wide scope of interventions. These include:
- Designing and delivering employee talks and workshops, ranging from forty-minute lunchtime talks to multiple-day offsites for teams and senior leadership
- Consultancy and advisory services to support the formulation and implementation of -firm-’s diversity, learning and development, recruitment and retention, and organisational management strategies
- Flexible support from our native Asian, Indian and Latin American, Western-trained personnel and other international associates to support your company’s rollout of excellence in diversity practices across the firm’s global footprint
These are just some of the possibilities available for us to support you at your company. We would welcome the opportunity to have an exploratory discussion with you, to learn more about your firm’s objectives and to share more details on our related success stories.
Living Potential International 