Why Diversity and Cultural Awareness is Essential in Your Company and Team?
What is Diversity?
It is the inclusion of individuals representing *“differences in age, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other characteristics (deeper-level) such as personality, values and personal interests.”
Most organizations refer to the demographic characteristics of diversity, namely: gender, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, religion, disability status, and sexual orientation.
Like Manjit Minhas, Dragon’s Den, had mentioned in an interview, "Calgary (Alberta, Canada) has a fantastic wide array of diversity. We are highly educated in various ways, not just energy, oil, and gas, but from tech to extensive expertise. We are very diverse in expertise. We also have a vast age demographic in the city, which is pretty fantastic". This diversity in education, industry, expertise, demographics also includes a diversity of culture as well. This diversity is not limited to Calgary, as the pandemic has further accelerated globalization with remote work.
Whether your business, title, or position in the organization, and whether you work in Calgary, Canada, remotely or abroad, globalization means that we are increasingly working with people from a wide array of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Hence, it is beneficial for business owners and organizational leaders to understand the connection between diversity, culture, leadership in businesses, and the many ways in which it can influence how we think, act and respond. How a business acts and responds to diversity and cultural awareness may impact motivation, creativity, innovation, and employee retention.
It is common to hear that employees leave the leader, not the organization. If a leader is not inclusive and culturally aware, this impacts how motivated an employee is to perform, engage, create and innovate, which could impact retention. Hence leadership effectiveness is vital to employee retention, especially when research shows that **“leadership effectiveness has been shown to be significantly correlated to business outcomes such as the return of investment (ROI), employee job satisfaction, employee engagement, turnover, etc.”.
Inclusion and dialogue are cornerstones to global leadership effectiveness. This includes inviting people from an array of backgrounds and experiences within the organization, truly listening to their perspectives, and co-creating innovative solutions to organizational issues so employees feel heard and gradually build a sense of belonging.
The key is to embrace inclusion as ***“we cannot inspire others if we exclude them or disconnect from the whole. We inspire others when we reduce the circle of those we exclude and widen the circle of those we include until there is only one circle”.
Ideally, *”the more balanced an organization's workforce demographics are throughout every level of the organization, the less likely it is that anyone's social identity will be associated with greater status” or privilege.
As we navigate increasingly diverse multicultural communities and remote or in-person workplaces spread across the globe, our encounters with difference may lead to unexpected challenges and stressors.
Intercultural communication is affected by multiple factors, including the aforementioned demographic characteristics of diversity, cultural identity, roles in our families, communities, and workplaces, the assumptions and stereotypes we hold about each other, perspectives on the situation, and the context of the interaction, including power dynamics and history.
Unconscious bias in these factors affects how we perceive, evaluate, and react to others, impacting individual, leadership, and organizational effectiveness. *“Research on diversity initiatives suggests that one of the primary explanations for the continuing lack of full integration of employees representing diverse backgrounds has to do with the persistence of unconscious bias”. We all have unconscious bias, *“certain assumptions about what other group members are probably like, and dissimilar”, which impacts how we see and interact with others. The awareness of these unconscious biases may lead to change if there is a desire and motivation to change.
The need for broad, inclusive inquiry and engagement is captured by ****“the need to interact with and manage a multitude of stakeholders spread across the globe, which means that (owners and) managers of global organizations confront a diversity of values, perspectives, and expectations. Responding effectively to this diversity requires broad knowledge about constituencies, a willingness to include different voices into the corporate dialogue and decision-making process, and the capacity to balance multiple and often competing stakeholder interests”.
How can you ensure diversity and cultural awareness in your companies or teams to increase engagement, motivation, creativity, efficiency, unlock innovation, and outperform profitability?
That is where we come in. At Business Knowledge Integration Inc., we help you with your intercultural, diversity, equity, and inclusion needs by pairing assessment, development plan, cohort-based training, team coaching, 1:1 coaching with your diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives or programs to lead to more sustained results.
Coaching helps both minority and majority employees, including leaders, in:
· Leadership effectiveness
· Inclusion by addressing diversity and cultural differences to enhance a sense of belonging to comfortably express opinions and embrace each other's uniqueness resulting in higher employee engagement and retention
· Knocking down barriers and eliminating biases
· Creating a psychologically safe culture for all, which is an essential part of leadership
For more information on executive coaching and leadership development needs, in particular, coaching in intercultural, diversity, equity, and inclusion, click on ‘Schedule a Consultation’ above.
References
*Nishii, L., Countering Bias in the Workplace (2021 virtual online course), Diversity and Inclusion Certificate for HR program, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University
**Profile Interpretation Manual, The Leadership Circle LLC, Version TLC: 10.2
***Secretan, L. (2010). The spark, the flame and the torch. Inspire self. Inspire others. Inspire the world. Caledon, Ont. The Secretan Center Inc.
****Stahl, G. K., Pless, N. M., & Maak, T.H.O.M.A.S. (2013). Responsible global leadership. In M. E. Mendenhall, J. Osland, A. Bird, G. R. Oddou, M. J. Stevens, M. Maznevski, & G. K. Stahl (Eds.), Global Leadership: Research, practice, and development (pp. 240-259). London: Routledge.