Diversity & Cultural Intelligence (CQ) – the workforce components you need today

Diversity & Cultural Intelligence – the workforce components you need today

Author: Gillian Anderson - Service & Training Consultant at Oriental Signature

In aviation and hospitality industries diversity is seen as highly desirable but understanding what you mean by diversity and how one person can add to your cultural mix is important.

Diversity doesn’t necessarily mean people of different cultures, what you really are looking for is people with different skills, life experience and views, so that different mindsets can be represented when discussing projects, products or direction. If you have ten managers from ten different countries, but all have the same work experience, you may not have really achieved an optimum level of diversity.

The opposite however is also true, if you have diversified your team skills for a project, but they all have the same or similar cultural background, you may be limiting your perspectives for the project and miss key considerations.

Finding a balance of skills, experiences and background is key, but navigating those interpersonal relationships may be a challenge. That is where cultural intelligence (CQ) comes in.

The BBC Worklife series in 2017 published an article describing CQ as ‘‘The ‘hidden talent’ that determines success’’. Randstad, the Dutch multination human resource consultancy firm describe CQ as ‘‘the ability to relate to culturally diverse situations, as well as work effectively in them. Individuals with high levels of CQ are better able to accomplish goals in a respectful and effective way no matter what the cultural context.’’

What are the key capabilities of someone with high CQ in your team:

-??????Great insight to better understand cross-culture relationships

-??????Higher Emotional Intelligence (EQ) through experience identifying Verbal & Non-Verbal indictors

-??????Invaluable mediators when navigating discussions in different cultural settings

-??????Inclusive Working allowing diverse views and experiences to be given importance

-??????Effective communicators invaluable for team success

Even the strongest of business relationships can be broken down due to miss-communication, having high CQ can help identify potential adversity and avoid conflict, to improve, innovate and elevate your operations.

How can you improve your CQ? Those in industries such as hospitality and aviation will testify to being open minded, immerse yourself into new cultures and experiences and learn from those around you. For those just beginning to expand their awareness some key points are:

-??????Listen, never make any assumptions about another, and ask questions to understand another’s point of view

-??????Empathise, consider the situation from a different perspective other than your own and try to better understand where it comes from

-??????Find common ground, even with our differences you should always be able to find a common goal, from there, whether it is personal or professional, work together to achieve it.

**Our international team at Oriental Signature are experienced with working in multi-cultural workplaces and providing training experiences to hospitality organization across the globe. Improving participant CQ is just one additional advantage of their services in their mission to elevate your professional training needs.