Note from Art: this is the first of a planned series of Leadership Caffeine posts encouraging you to focus on developing the leadership and professional skills required for success in the emerging world.

Consider the case of “Raj”

“Raj” is a citizen of India working on an H1-B visa in the Midwestern U.S., for a global software firm based out of Germany. He leads a software development team comprised of a dozen team members spread across three continents. Only two members of the team report to him, and the balance are on-loan from other teams and managers.

Now, consider the case of “Dorothy”

“Dorothy” is an African-American manager in a U.S.-based health insurance provider. Her team is comprised of individuals across a variety of different ethnicities, including Mexican-American, Arab-American, Euro-American and Asian-American.

The Challenges are Obvious, but the Benefits from Getting it Right are Profound:

What’s remarkable about these two cases is not the complexity of the leadership challenges, but rather, the sheer raw potential to form something unique based on the cultural diversity built into these teams.

The benefits of successfully leveraging culturally diverse team members are many, including perhaps the most powerful of all: the potential to gain the unique insights of people who hold distinctly different world-views.

From ideation to problem-solving, opportunity identification and design, there are remarkable opportunities inherent in effectively tapping into the unique views of people from different cultures.

First, The Challenges:

On the surface, Raj’s situation is more complicated. He’s dealing across nations, time-zones and cultures with a virtual team who will likely never be in the same room together. His challenges to establish rapport, build credibility as a leader and get people working together where needed and in spite of distinct cultural differences and world-views, are complicated indeed.

However, don’t discount the complexity of Dorothy’s situation. While she has the benefit of being able to engage with her team in person, she is working in an environment where embracing and leveraging diversity is still relatively new.

Contrary to the myth, the U.S. is neither a melting pot, nor is it an environment where stereotypes have been wiped out and prejudices dissolved and left for the history books. The statistics on diversity in the workforce, the court cases on discrimination and the statistics by ethnic group indicate otherwise. And while many people of the ethnicities identified are second or third generation Americans, they still grow up in many cases in their own culture with their own unique way of viewing the world, inter-relating, deciding and working. There’s nothing easy here for Dorothy.

Cultivate Your Cultural Intelligence to Tap Into the Potential from Diversity:

Whether your situation/opportunity is about coping with and leveraging diversity across borders or in the office, your success and effectiveness as a leader requires active cultivation of your Cultural Intelligence (CQ) “muscles.” Dr. David Livermore, writing in his excellent book, The Cultural Intelligence Difference, suggests that there are four components to our Cultural IQ:

  • CQ Drive-your motivation…your interest and confidence in functioning effectively in culturally diverse situations.
  • CQ Knowledge…your pursuit of knowledge about how cultures are similar and different.
  • CQ Strategy…how you make sense of culturally diverse experiences.
  • CQ Action-your capability to adapt your behavior appropriately for different cultures.

While we’ll expand upon each of these and what Livermore and others have to say about strengthening your CQ in upcoming posts, your assignment for now is to ask and answer the following CQ Jump-Start questions:

1. Do I actively seek out culturally diverse situations…from food to travel to literature to group and social situations? Not surprisingly, many individuals gravitate towards the familiar and away from the foreign. Developing CQ requires the opposite behavior.

2. Am I knowledgeable about and comfortable relating to others from different cultures? My educated guess is that most Americans if given truth serum would offer “No” in response to this question.

3. Am I able to effectively engage with others from different cultures in pursuit of business objectives? If you were suddenly required to offer constructive feedback to a team in Japan or, to negotiate with a prospective supplier in Germany, how prepared are you to do this competently? Here’s a hint…neither of those situations is like others you’ve dealt with in your dealings with U.S. based teams or firms. 

4. Do I have an understanding of the cultural world-view and dimensions of those of different ethnicities on my team? If you think it doesn’t matter, you’ve missed the point here. From family upbringing to religious training to views on power and even traditional cultural views on gender roles, these all are part of people’s make-up. Ignore them at your own peril. 

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Diversity isn’t just an HR initiative…it’s a critical part of your organization’s fabric and future. Leveraging it requires leaders to actively engage  and focus on strengthening personal and team CQ.  Your knowledge of and your abilities to gain from cultural and ethnic diversity is one of the critical leadership skills of our times. And much like that exercise program you’ve been putting off, this one only offers benefits if you put the effort into the program. It’s time to dive in. Your success and the future success of your firm may just depend upon it.

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Want More? Check out Art Petty’s latest book, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. Created for fast-moving and highly motivated professionals and leaders, Leadership Caffeine offers more than 80 short, idea-packed essays for the critical leadership and professional development situations in your life. (All royalties on purchases through 12/2 will see the royalties donated to a local food pantry. See original promo note for specifics.)

Join the many groups and management teams and meeting/conference organizers who have adopted Leadership Caffeine as a discussion and development tool. The collection makes a great gift for the newly promoted leader or for your team during the holidays.

About Art Petty:

Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach and Strategy Consultant, helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement or to inquire about being a guest on The Leadership Caffeine podcast.