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Given the increasing diversity among customers and employees, organizations that attend to cultural intelligence are more successful.
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Becoming a culturally intelligent innovators starts with something as basic as exercising self-control.
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Culturally intelligent leaders will not assume they know what will build trust with clients or staff. Instead, they'll discover what's most important for communicating and building trust.
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I do think stories are one of the best tools for communicating across any number of cultures. But I also think there are wildly successful leaders who are introverted, disciplined, lead via spreadsheets and goals, and might not "appear" to be a great leader...but in retrospect, made a massive impact.
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Perspective taking is taking on the perspective of others. It's what we do anytime we buy a gift for someone else ("What would they like?"). So it means breaking the golden rule ("Treat others the way you want to be treated") and instead, acknowledges that others may not want what you want.
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The more diverse your team, the better you'll be at identifying what a diversity of users perceive as problems.
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Culturally intelligent innovation begins with changing our impulse from Why can't you see it like I do? to Help me see what I might be missing!
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Even an organization that doesn't do much work internationally will benefit from a culturally intelligent strategy to innovation. Working across different generations, business units, regions, and functions are all factors that can also influence the innovation process.
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Clashing expectations are what most consistently derail any team, and especially a culturally diverse team. So if you take the time to "define" the goal carefully upfront, you've addressed one of the most difficult and important parts of the innovative process.
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For me, the key question is what's behind the dangerous idea. If it's simply to stir things up and appear radical, I'm not interested. But if it's done with a quest to learn, evolve, and improve the quality of life for people everywhere, I'm on board.