How Culture Brokering is Similar to Diversity Consulting

Speaker 1:

Hello, this is Dr. Nelva. I am the CEO and founder of Met Inc. And today we'll be presenting on engaging a diverse remote workforce. So, what will be achieved today? Here are the goals for today's presentation. Uh, better understanding of your diverse group of workers, uh, tools that you can use to which you can engage your diverse workforce and why groups from different continents, different in their approach to different tasks, uh, will also really delve in into how different cultures are challenged, or let's say, use technology in a different way and how to engage your diverse workers. Also, your different, um, generational workers, so millennials versus boomers, et cetera. And lastly, uh, discovering the of a diverse workforce.

As I mentioned, I am Dr. Nelva Lee. I am a native of Panama. I speak Spanish and fluent, uh, Spanish fluently fluently and french conversationally. I have over 30 years of healthcare experience and have worked in various medical settings, outpatient, inpatient, private public institutions. I have worked as a professor for over 20 years for graduate and undergraduate courses, and I have a PhD in healthcare administration. Uh, together with my husband of 22 years. We have three beautiful children to include an adopted daughter from Puerto Rico, and two boys, 13 and 20 years of, right? So here are some of the problems that we're gonna today. Uh, so the problem number one, do you routinely conduct video based meetings with a team from across the globe or time zones? Uh, problem number two, does your team routinely get into communication jams? Do, uh, number three, are there major generational gaps between your team members resulting in still? And number four, is everyone tired of video conferences, but can't think of alternatives. So we're gonna tackle these solutions and much more during this presentation.

Uh, so problem number one, do you routinely conduct video based meetings with a team from a CLO across the globe or time zones? Uh, so that is the reality, right? Of today's world, especially post covid, uh, that we have a lot of, uh, our employees, um, that are working from home remotely. Uh, and there's usually historically a challenge with engaging your diverse workforce. Then you add on top of that the, um, the challenge of a remote workforce, and that becomes even more of an issue, right? Uh, so here's what we, uh, are going to try to do. So number one is better understanding of your diverse workforce. So, some of the things that we definitely recommend, uh, our clients to do is to be open to learn about, not just about individual differences, but of cultural differences with your team. Okay? Uh, so a lot of times we'll tackle individual differences.

We say, okay, everyone's different. Everyone has a different perspective, but have you thought about how cultures also are different and have different perspectives? Uh, and also going to be aware, uh, that the world map, different gen, um, different cultures, depending on where they are, uh, in different confidence have a different way of approaching things. Okay? Uh, and so that's important because, um, specifically for, um, specifically for global companies, um, it's important to know, sorry. It's important to know specifically for global companies, that every continent has its own historical background, and every continent, uh, usually has its own, uh, language and cultural diversity that was kind of baked in into it through generations. Okay? Um, lastly, um, for this specific understanding of, of your, um, remote workforce, um, it's important to know that there are different scales, okay? Uh, and we'll delve that, delve into that a little bit more.

But specifically in the areas of, um, of communication, whether it's high content context versus low context, whether, uh, they are direct negative feedback givers versus indirect negative feedback givers. Uh, how do they persuade? Do they use principles first? That's like research first, or are they more application space persuasive people, uh, do they lead versus, um, with egalitarian, uh, versus an hierarchical type of framework? Okay. How do they make decisions? Is it consensual? Everyone kind of has a, has a piece of the, uh, decision making? Or is it top down? Uh, do we trust based on task based trust, such as, uh, the western world, very contract based, right? Right. Uh, or is it relational based? Do we have to break bread, right? To, to be able to trust, uh, our disagreements solve confrontationally or by avoiding? And lastly, scheduling is that linear time. You know, the western world loves their linear time.

At two, two o'clock, there meetings gonna start versus flexible time, uh, more, more, um, you know, your, uh, African countries or your Asian countries have more of a flexible time when they're doing their scheduling. So we're gonna really delve into some of these, um, issues, right? Um, so here we have a few ideas. First of all, that you need to keep in mind before you are looking at specific cultures. Okay? So are you hiring a representative sample of that general population? Okay? That's really important, uh, because unless you have a critical mass of individuals in each representative group, they're not gonna feel comfortable to even speak out or speak up about their specific needs. And you're not even gonna be able to really address those things because they're not going to feel that they have a seat at the table. But once you have that representative sample, are you giving them a seat at the table? Are you giving them the opportunities to voice your opinion and to be heard? Okay? And one of the ways that we encourage companies to do that is to, and post assessment, okay?

And post assessment, it's so important cause that pre-assessment will tell you where all of your gaps are as a company, and then the post assessment will then tell you whether or not you address most of them, or if you still have more, more to go. Okay? Uh, so it's very important that you discover your cultural relativity, like your place in those scales. So if you are, say, from a western culture that likes your scheduling to be linear or likes your decisions to be co consensual, uh, and then you're dealing with another culture that is the opposite of you, you need to be able to know where you, you stand, um, with that other culture and, and how to really go about, um, addressing communication issues that you might, that might arise. Cause of those differences. The most important thing is to be open-minded. Anytime you believe that your way is the right way, or it's my way or the highway, that is when you're going to start having issues in communication and breakdown in communication.

So it's so very important that the first thing that you need to do is to have an open mind. Uh, you need to be able to approach, um, communicating with another culture with your two ears and your one mouth. That's why God gave us two ears in one mouth, right? To be able to listen twice as much as we talk. Um, and just being aware that culture is, as I mentioned earlier, it's an interplay of language and history. Everyone arrived at their perspective because of centuries, um, of decisions because of centuries of history. Um, and it's very important to, to be able to take that into consideration. I'll give you an example. Uh, the United States is a low context culture versus a high context culture such as Japan. Low context means that you have to spell everything out. Everything has to be spelled out in communication.

Whereas in Japan, if you spell things out, people think that you think that they're dumb, uh, and they really value being able to read me through their mind. That's high context. Well, why did the US develop as a low context culture? Well, for starters, we are very young nation, 200, little bit over 200 years, and we are a nation of immigrants, right? And so lots of different cultures, so everyone had to spell things out. Everyone had to be very specific and precise. If communication was gonna take place, you couldn't assume things. Whereas Japan is a very old culture, right? Several thousand years old, and they were very isolated for most of those, those years of their culture, which means that everyone had a very homogenous way of worldview, way of thinking. And so you didn't have to spell everything out because you could have very, um, nuances that everyone will pick up, right?

Just kind of like think of a marriage when you're first married, those first couple of years, you kind of have a lot of communication problems. Why? Because you really don't know where that person is coming from half the time. But after you've been married 10, 20, 30 years, there's a build in understanding, and therefore, you don't have to spell everything out, because I understand sometimes you finish the that person's sentences because you know where they're going. Same with cultures. So high context, cultures such as Japan have that, have that baked in history, have that baked in, you know, camaraderie, and therefore they don't have to spell everything out. But if you are dealing with someone from Japan that's used to valuing high context, and you spell everything out, they communication can break down because they might be, they might think that you are implying that they don't understand, or that they can't come to understanding without everything being written down or spelled out.

Uh, the exact opposite is, is when you're dealing with someone from the us, if a Japanese person does not spell everything out, there will be communication problems, because we are used to that. And so understanding your, your position in that scale is so important. And also understanding the interplay of the history of language and history. Lastly, it's important that you identify the strategies that are needed to be able to deal with those different cultures, right? So strategies have to be very specific to the culture that you're working with in relation to your own culture. All right, so let's go to problem number two. Uh, so actually before we do that, I, I like to ask a question. Does anyone have an example of one of the skills when you were dealing with another culture of one of the, the low context versus high context, direct negative feedback versus indirect negative feedback persuasions with research versus application? Does anyone have any examples of the conflict that you have? All right, well, that's okay. If you don't, we'll, we'll ask, oh, Ali, you have one. Just meet yourself.

Speaker 2:

I'm mastering this technology so I can actually speak now.

Speaker 1:

Okay. You said

Speaker 2:

I spent three years living in Korea or in Japan. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I spent seven years living in Korea. Your examples are spot on. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if you understand the word tolerate, I understand I was tolerated

Speaker 1:

<laugh>.

Speaker 2:

At no point in time from the day I arrived in Korea, or the seven years I spent there, did I feel a part of a team? I was the outsider exactly the same way I perceive my time in Japan,

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Speaker 2:

Depending on the level of the person in the corporation, if they were at the very top or within two levels of the top, I was deeply appreciated. But the remaining levels below the superior personnel, I was tolerated and was never supported. I'm talk, I'm talking about in a daily task. So cultural diversity is applicable to the culture that you're in,

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

So you, you, as depending on your level, need to make sure that the, uh, pre and post assessment assessment prior to implemental cultural training organization-wide factors in the diverse personalities, or diverse people, because being treated the same as everybody else, when you're not the same as everybody else, means you're being tolerated.

Speaker 1:

<laugh>, thank you for that comment. And we're gonna delve into that a little bit more in the, in the slide to come. But that is an, an example from real world example of how cultural, um, differences can really break down trust and communication. So thank you so much for that, Allie. All right. So second problem is, does your teen routinely have communication jams due to cultural differences? And I think we, we've kind of addressed that a little bit already, but we're going to, uh, discuss a little bit more. So we talked already about the different scales, right? Um, and there's an amazing book that we use during our, our training, uh, program is called Culture Map. And in that book, it really breaks down every single one of these scales and gives examples of, of, of how communication can, uh, break down because of the position, uh, that that person finds themselves in relation to the culture that they're working with, uh, and also the leadership role that they have.

So I think Ali kind of touched on that as, as well, is that sometimes if you are in a leadership role of, um, say the supervisor or the manager, uh, the communication flows differently than if you are say, an underling or say a project manager or something. Uh, and so really it's important to understand where you stand within that organization and where you stand within the cultural differences, um, with, uh, with that the culture that you're dealing with the most. And just imagine in our teams today that we have people from across the world. And, uh, just in our, in our session right now, we have someone that lives in the Middle East, someone that lives in Europe, and someone that is that hails from China. Um, so you, we have all of these different, we have male females on the call, so we have already a plethora of, of cultures, and there's a po there's a potential to have communication breakdowns, um, if we don't address things very early on.

Uh, so I wanted to also, um, go into, uh, discussing the arts of persuasion in any culture. So what makes me a good persuasive person, uh, in a western culture may not necessarily make me a very persuasive person in an Asian culture, for instance. Uh, because persuasion, um, what someone uses as persuasion, uh, differs, right? Based on your culture. Uh, so which style are you? Are you a principles first persuasive person, or an applications first in the Western world, I usually America, for instance, um, we're very application space. When we try to persuade people, we try to tell them, this is why you wanna do this, because this is going to be the result, right? Which show them, this is good, this is what the result is going to be if you do X, Y, Z. Whereas in more, uh, principles, first, um, persuasive cultures, they focus heavily the majority of their, of their presentation on research.

So say I was giving this in a, this presentation in a persuasive, um, culture, I wouldn't even be talking about applications right now. I would still be be going over research. Like it would be like a research, present presentation. You know, the type that you give, say at a dissertation or something to that effect. It'll be heavily focused on research, research, research. People need to know that all the steps before they can even think about the applications. And so that is definitely a different same culture. Um, another thing that we wanna look at is, um, is just looking at your country's persuasive, um, on the scale and, and the culture that you're working with. And so you need to be able to either change your, your persuasive, um, uh, take change the, your style, if you will, um, to, to really accommodate for that culture.

And holistic versus, um, versus, uh, holistic thinking, for instance, is a very Asian, uh, cultural phenomenon. So, for example, in China, and I think, uh, maybe PE can speak to this as well as well, uh, they're very team based decision makers and persuaders, like you have to take into account the whole. Uh, whereas America's a very individualistic right, uh, culture, we are very focused on how is this gonna help the individual person, individual person on the team. Um, but in, in China, in in other holistic, uh, cultures, it's all about the team. The team is what's important first. And then when the team addressed, then they look in a specific, um, persons within that team to make sure that they have the, the required, um, resources itself. Um, and so really just really identifying what you're, what culture you're dealing with, and what culture, uh, and what they value in that culture is so important.

And just identifying strategies for how you're going to, uh, um, deal with that, uh, with those differences. Okay. And, um, I also love, um, oh gosh, sorry, I missed, I also love this slide because we wanna look at different tools, unlocking communication chats. Um, so it's really important, as I mentioned, the culture mapping, um, that we do in our, in our training program. Uh, it's, it's crucial. Cause we, one of the things that we do, we do the pre-assessment to identify the gaps. But the other thing is that throughout the, the program, um, we ask each individual, um, of your team members to do a blog to specifically address how they view themselves in relation to, uh, those different scales and how they view their, their team members. Um, and so, so you're gonna be building as a team a blog post, blog posts from different team members from different, uh, races on different culture, uh, female versus male, um, different people from different parts of the, of, of the region of the world.

And you're gonna have this information, it's sort of like a, your own focus group and, um, team, um, focus group. And you're gonna be able to really delve into the, the cultural mix of your particular company with that. Um, and then we also have, um, recordings. So video recordings of groups together. So you're gonna have the individual blog post from your team members, and then you're gonna have recordings of groups and we'll, we'll assign a specific consultants to each client, uh, with each client to really work with you when you're developing that focus group. So you can develop a focus group based on the different cultures, uh, within your team or different projects within your team. Uh, but however you decide to, to build it, it needs to really serve your purposes, it needs to address those, um, the pre-assessment. So after everyone completes the pre-assessment, we will do a analysis and we'll give you a report that shows all your gaps.

And we'll build those focus groups based on those gaps. Okay? So let's say the, uh, the report shows that you have a gap in how you communicate with male versus female. Say you're a tech company, that's usually an issue within tech companies cause they're very male dominated. Uh, there's usually very small percentage of females. They don't have that critical mass, and therefore their voices usually are not heard. So let's say that that's their case. If you're a tech company and you have that issue, you're going to want to make sure that your focus groups are addressing that. So you're gonna wanna have a focus group just with women so that they can feel free to speak. And then you're gonna have, you wanna, wanna have a focus group, uh, within the different teams that are specifically having issues, uh, with that, um, with those communication breakouts.

Okay? So it might just be specific teams within your company that need to specific, uh, to have a very intense focus group just with them. Uh, and then these focus groups will be edited and will be provided as podcasts to your company to further help you to identify and not just identify, but correct your, uh, cultural differences going forward. So that's, that's the consulting way. And so we are really excited because we are able to bring our consultants that have experience within that, the cultures and, uh, within that industry. And we were, we're able to really break down the process for you. And then when you're doing that post assessment, you're gonna see that you, what areas you improved on and what areas you still need to work on. So that's, that's, uh, the amazing thing about it. Uh, so one of the things that we also wanna make sure that, um, is how much respect is required.

So some cultures have a very high respect leader, especially for the leaders versus the, um, those that are not in leadership. So they're, they might be very hierarchical, um, and very power based, uh, like distance. Um, uh, they have a lot of distance between their, their leadership and subordinates, whereas other cultures, that's not the case, right? They really value more egalitarian, uh, work environment. Um, and also the level hobby. So are, is it allowed in the culture that you're working with, uh, to talk directly to the boss, to the, to the ceo? Is that something that is allowed? Is it allowed for me to go around my direct manager to speak to, to my manager's superior? In some cultures it's not even an issue, but in others that would be considered insubordination. So you wanna make sure that you know the culture that you are working with, what is expected and what is not an o okay, but is not an allowable thing to happen. Ok? Uh, so does anyone have any, any questions or comments about the material process at this time?

Okay, now move on. So problem number three, are there major generational gaps between the team members? Okay, resulting inate, sometimes the anytime something results in aate, that means it's gone on too long for starters, <laugh>. So if you have aate of communication, whether it's between generations or whether it's different cultures, that means that the problem has not been addressed early enough. Um, the sooner that you can address that issue, the better, right? Um, in fact, we recommend that the companies that are entering into global agreements or global teams, that they address these culture mapping issues from the GetGo so that you can really put together strategies for how we are gonna communicate as a team based on what we already know are some common, uh, cultural differences between our teams. Okay? So that's really the best time to address an issue, but if you get to mate, that means it's gone on for a while.

And so you wanna be able to address those because you can, uh, you don't have to give up on the team. You, you definitely can address them. So let's just look at first at a few of the generational, um, common generational issues that you can, that arise. Uh, for instance, um, oftentimes older workers are really motivated by things like traditional benefits such as healthcare, pensions, 401k. Whereas younger generations are not motivated by those things. They're much more motivated by flex time and extra training and things like that. It's really, they don't seem, um, a company as a place that they're gonna stay forever, that that's really a thing over the past. Whereas older generations, they still have a certain loyalty to the companies because that is based on their generation. That was what they grew up with, right? Um, in the past companies, uh, a person could stay with when one company throughout the entire working career, unh with a pension, um, and a nice little watch <laugh> and be on their way, uh, that is very much unlikely today.

Few and far between, you'll find, uh, that a worker stays with one company for 10, 20 years. It's very unheard of unless maybe government workers, right? Uh, so it's really important that you understand what younger workers want outta out of their working environment. They want to, to be able to take information, take, um, a learning from their employer that can help them be promoted in their next job or within the same job, but be promoted. They wanna be able to, to advance in their careers, and that is a benefit to them. Longevity and lo and loyalty is not a benefit. Also, flex time, they grew up to me, their mother and father or even grandparents working themselves to death and not having any, um, work life balance. And they don't want that. They don't want that for themselves or for their children. And so they really value flex time.

It's not laziness. And so the older generation sees that as laziness, but it's not, it's not, they're just really adapting to the realities of their time. So it's really important. Uh, so statistically, 37.3% of your workforce is going to be the older generation. I believe this was taken prior to Covid, because we are seeing in the great reflection, or the great not recession, the great resignation that the majority of the workers that are resigning are those older workers, right? And then, uh, 21% of the workforce, uh, is younger, younger generation. So one of the things that we also wanna address based on culture is how do other cultures achieve decisions? Okay? So we mentioned this earlier between consensus versus top down. In some, in some, uh, cultures, it's so important for everyone to have a say in the decision making American culture, not so much they might have a, a say as far as how we come up, maybe in the brainstorming session, but at the end of the day, it's the boss that makes the decision, right?

Uh, so we are very, um, we are very top down in decision making, whereas in Japan, it's the opposite. Even though they're hierarchical, they are very consensual concept building when it comes to their decision making. All right? And also how is delivered is delivered in the heart or in the head, okay? And that's one of the things that we want to discuss as well. So is it, is your, um, is the way that you address a, a colleague and the way that you trust in a colleague based on how much, um, respect you have for them, how much your relationship that you built with them? Or is it just based on contractual? Um, and so, uh, American who again, are very contractual based, uh, when they're building, uh, their, uh, when they're entering into a, a working relationship, whereas in other cultures, it's very relational based.

You have to break bread, you have to spend time, you have to really know someone on a personal level, um, before they can really trust you. Um, meals, again, as I as a, are a way to show trust. Um, but so, so is really showing, showing your true self. Um, again, Americans really feel like there's a divide, right? Between your personal life and your business life. In other cultures, that's not the case. It, it's all same. Um, so it's very important that you understand what's the cultural context and what is expected to really enter into a contract. Uh, the relationship is the contract in many, in many cultures. Um, and choosing your communication style and type is very important. Some cultures really value email, uh, whereas others, the communication is all about personal face-to-face or even phone. Um, they don't, they don't value the quite as much. Okay.

Awesome. All right, problem number four. So if everyone's tired of video conferences to think there's no alternative solution, okay, I say this as we're doing a video conference, right? <laugh>. So there's definitely benefits of the conferencing. I believe we're, like I mentioned earlier, we're all in different continents. I believe there's three or four continents, um, represented today. So this meeting would be un not able to even take place if it wasn't for video, right? Uh, but because of Zoom, we have lost touch with a lot of things that make teams work and make teams tick. Uh, first of all, let's back up and just talk about the remote workers' needs. Uh, many remote workers, especially those that really valued time with others, not everyone does, but some really do get, uh, their flowing when they're working alongside someone else. Even if that person is not working on your project, uh, we, you have to encourage them to get outta their homes, okay?

For those people, if, especially if they're, if isolation is something that comes up a lot in that pre-assessment, I feel isolated. I feel like I'm not, uh, really, um, getting, uh, being as productive as I'd like to be. For workers such as those, you really need to encourage them to go into quasi offices such as Starbucks or some other location where there are people around. Even if they're not working on the same project as them, they'll still feel like they're not isolated. And so that's important to them. And be, be mindful of catering to individuals when you're working with remote workers. You don't have to stick to very strict nine to five, or everyone has to be working at the same hours. Be flexible. Be willing to, to let people work at at night shifts or early in the morning or split their time, you know, four hours at the beginning and four hours later.

Um, be willing to, to, to work with, with them. And they'll definitely, um, appreciate that and show that appreciation with productivity. Um, and then, as I mentioned, there's some things that can't take place, um, that cannot replace face to face. Uh, so make sure that you're incorporating some type of face to face meetings, whether it's quarterly or annually, um, so that you can build that sense of community. That's very, very important. Um, one thing I wanted to also point out is that there's different ways that cultures disagree. So you wanna make sure that you're disagreeing productively. Disagreements are gonna happen, but you're doing it in a productive way. And the main thing that makes it productive is respect. So if you're not respecting, let's go all the way back to the very first couple of slides, and that's being openminded about the other person's culture.

If you think that your culture's way of doing things is the best or the only way, you're automatically shutting yourself down and you're not being open. So being openminded, being respectful of others' cultures is the first step to being able to disagree productively. Some people, some cultures rather, um, have to save face when they're disagreeing. Saving face is something that you probably heard in Asian cultures, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, for instance. Um, they, they cannot be, um, blasted, if you will, in front of others. If you're going to disagree with them, with someone, you need to do it in a very individual way behind closed doors so that they do not, um, feel humiliated. Um, that really takes place in a lot of other cultures as well, but more, more so in Asian cultures. So it's very important that you understand, um, how to address confrontation and conflict, uh, and doing it in a culturally sensitive way.

Okay? Um, so that's really important. So let's look at the, this next slide here. So let's look at how to deliver the promise of remote work. So I mentioned ensuring that everyone is heard and respected, super difficult, face to face, even more so challenging for remote workers, but it can be done with a little effort. So make sure that you are doing those presets, doing those, uh, regular surveys. You want to regularly conduct anonymous surveys of your workforce so that they can tell you how they're feeling and then you can address those issues. So not just hearing their issues is important, but addressing them is important, okay? And train specifically for diversity and inclusion. So it's important of most important that you are regularly highlighting your co your company's commitment to diversity and inclusion. Very important. Okay? So let's talk a little bit about lateness, um, and culture.

So, uh, if you live in America, you've heard of black people time, right? Uh, that's one way that we separate culture just within our country and the idea of lateness. Um, but that is really a very cultural thing, depending on the continent, really the culture that you're from. Um, and it's really because in some cultures, the idea that things are predictable just isn't the case. Um, so that is one reason why people were raised, if you will, with the idea of just being flexible, being understanding when it comes to time, that is not a fixed time, but it's more like a suggested timeframe. Uh, that is something that's totally alien to a lot of Western cultures. Um, and so they might assume that people from different cultures are lazy or not respectful of time, not the case at all. Uh, you have to understand the cultural, the historical context of that culture to be able to understand their, their perspective of time.

Okay? So fix versus reliable time, dynamic versus unpredictable, unpredictable time. Very, very important. A line is not aligned. So what is queuing? What does it mean that I'm waiting for an appointment to start, right? Very different idea, very different perspective from one culture to another. Same with the meeting. What, what does it mean that, that a meeting has to start at a specific time? This is something very, very basic. If you're working in a homogenous, um, culture, right? If everyone is from the same place, everyone has the same idea as to what that means. That a meeting starts at this time, or that it mean the, the, the agenda of the meeting is gonna go same way. That is so a totally different concept if you're working from someone different. So I'm gonna stop, right? And ask has examples of this.

So I'm gonna give you an example. So I'm from Panama originally, and I was invited to a Keen, which is a big deal for girl 10, turning 15, right? And, uh, on the invitation said to show up at 5:00 PM So I was there promptly, I would say 10 minutes early cuz I was, you know, I'm from the school of thought of if you're on time, you're late. So I was there a few minutes early before the, the party was the sun. I showed up at five, I dulled up for this, uh, usually don't eat, try to not eat too much before I go to a party. Cause I know I'm going to eat a lot at the, so I was a little bit hungry already. Well, guess what? The king didn't actually get started until 8:00 PM Yes, three hours later. That's when it actually got started.

Um, I was gracious, I was not super anxious or angry because I understood that this is very common, uh, for Latin cultures. Um, but yes, had I remember that I probably wouldn't have eaten beforehand and I probably wouldn't have tried to be there right on time. So that was definitely my, and, and I'm from, and I'm from Panama, so I know better, right? Um, but yes, that, that was definitely my lesson in that regard. Um, but yes, it, it is a real thing and, and grace really is the awkward word. It's not becoming angry when things do not go according to perceived way of how things should go. Awesome. All right, let's go to the next slide. So here's some of the joys of working with, with a diverse culture. So we've talked about all the challenges, but there are some joys. There are definitely some benefits to working with diversity.

So first, for starters, it inspires creativity, all right? Because you have people from different perspectives, as long as they are respectful of each other, you're going to see the synergy that really would not happen elsewhere. The varied perspectives really lead to ideas. When you're me together, that would not have come up any other way. It improves strategic planning and decision making. Again, cause of that creativity, people are able to come up with different ideas, different plans of action that would never have like the light bulbs start coming on. That would never have happened. Um, with, with a fully homogenous culture. Um, it supports innovation and improves product development. It fosters empathy and compassion. Again, if you have the right man mindset from the beginning, a mindset of respect, a mindset of open mind mindedness, right? Um, obviously it improves cultural awareness. Even if you have a bad mindset, working alongside someone allows you to realize, oh, there's different ways of doing things, or people from different cultures do things differently.

If nothing else. It, it causes you to realize that your way isn't the only way that things are done and it improves productivity and job satisfaction. Again, if you have the right mindset, if you have, if you come into the workplace, especially if you're working in a diverse culture and you come into it with this idea that, wow, I'm gonna learn something new today. Oh, I love learning about new cultures, you're gonna have a really satisfying work experience. But statistics, for those of you that like the stats culture, um, companies with a diversity within their company, um, have 2.3 times higher cash than those that do not than their pairs. They have 43.1% higher revenue and they're 35% more likely to outperform their peers. So diversity works, okay? So don't become discouraged if you're having issues with your diverse group. If you work through them and come to the other side of understanding and good communication, you're going to make the reward.

Okay? So I like to also remind everyone that it's important to be so graced and to be willing to, to, to switch your style. So once you recognize that your style is not necessarily the way that your customer, that your, your teammate is really accepting of, or, um, understanding of at the time, be willing to be the one that switches your style. It's okay. Um, be willing to come up with this framework, especially if you are a leader for how you're going to communicate with this team or this group. Okay? And just realize that you can always identify a strategy that's gonna work for you always. So here's some steps if you wanna work, uh, with uh, when you are working, when you're working With's Consulting group, this is some of the steps that you can anticipate. As I mentioned, as soon as you start with us start working with us, we're going to perform a preassessment on your diverse workforce throughout your entire company.

That is crucial. You don't know where you're going unless you know where you're at when you're starting at. It's a crucial piece, uh, to do that preassessment and to really do the analysis and go over that report with you to know exactly what your gaps are and what, where, what areas you need to work on. Uh, then if you're gonna train your diverse group workforce using the culture mapping and generational gaps, um, training tools that we have, as I mentioned, we're gonna do focus groups and blog posts and all of that is going to really work to your benefit cuz it's gonna be very unique to your company, um, those deliverables. And it's going to help you to really understand where your areas of meat are and where you can improve and what are the steps for them, that improvement. And then we're gonna do a post assessment.

Uh, so lemme just back up for for a second. The blog post and the focus groups are all gonna be guided by a specialized consultant that will be working with your team specifically. And then we're gonna do a post assessment. That post assessment is going to be specifically on looking at the pre-assessment and what gaps you had and seeing if now you are addressing, you've addressed those issues and what needs still needs to be done. So on that, in that post assessment, we're gonna be doing some chairs because we know that you would've already addressed some issues. Uh, but we're also gonna give you a very specific, um, map if you will, and some strategies on, on what things still need to be done. And then we will encourage you all to continue to do regular surveys if you're a large company, probably quarterly, it depends, um, maybe semi-annually or annually, DEF depends on your needs. But definitely you want to continue to reach out to your team to reach out to your, to your, uh, diverse groups, make sure that they are still feeling heard. Make sure that they're those issues that they're, that are coming up are still being addressed, right? So these are some ways that you can, uh, work with us. We have our consulting, um, website where you can book a call. In fact, ill share, um, that website with you moment so that I can introduce my team. I like to introduce my team.

Does anyone have any questions? So this here is the Metto team. Uh, this is our consulting website and I would like to introduce our team. That course has myself, Dr. Lee. And then, um, we'll have this video uploaded here as well. And here's another video that gives you a little bit of our, uh, testimonials of our companies that we have worked with in the past. Uh, but here's our amazing of consultants. We have Logan Touch Ford, Lilydale, Sydney Mata Clark, and then we have even more yeah, a team of 50 consultants. And so these are all of our team members here. We're very, very proud of our team. They all have our certified, um, interpreters. They all have expertise in their particular languages and cultures. And the beauty of it is that they will work with your team to come up with solutions specifically for your team. So if you like to, um, work with us, you can just book a discovery call right here. Just click on that and book a time with us. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate, uh, you considering me to, for your diversity and inclusion consulting needs. Thank you.

All MiTio Alumni Interested in joining the DEI Consultant Team, please register HERE for the DEI Certification Course

For Companies/Organizations seeking our DEI consulting, schedule a call HERE

Or to learn more about MiTio’s DEI Consulting Services