Part 2 of 3 Series: Multicultural Team Benefits from In-House ICI Training
A multinational corporation’s recruitment team is experiencing firsthand the benefits of having in-house colleagues who had participated in Inter-Cultural Intelligence certification training.
This past May, alumni of KnowledgeWorkx’s ICI certification training led their own company’s multinational talent recruitment team through the process of pursuing ICI training and early steps to implement what they learned together about intercultural and cross-cultural teaming. Their team works out of two countries to cover recruitment needs across the Middle East and North Africa (with recruiters based in the UAE and their extended support team working from India). See Part 1 one of this series.
Can ICI can benefit your team?
What could Inter-Cultural Intelligence certification training do for you individually, for your team, and for your company as a whole? It may be an important exercise to build a business case to justify investing time and money in ICI development.
When they were communicating the value of ICI training with their leadership, those who had already passed the course were able to highlight several potential benefits for their UAE-based/India-based team:
1) CI training would help the group to focus on intercultural teaming (and by default, its link to higher performance).
2) ICI training would introduce the Three Colors of Worldview, helping the group come to an understanding of one another’s perspectives and biases, and to understand why some people react in the way that they do (partly because of the cultural paradigms in which they grew up).
3) ICI training would provide an ideal opportunity to take a hard look at inter- and cross-cultural communication barriers and ways to get around those, to resolve resulting conflicts, and to prevent future miscommunications.
4) ICI training would create a safe “third cultural space” for assessing and improving teaming in general: Building relationships and trust within the team (reiterating that “one team, one vision” idea, demonstrating a mutual value and honor; willingness to put time, energy, and love into colleagues; introducing and expounding upon the concept of a team charter, etc.).
Anticipating and pursuing the benefits of ICI for your multicultural teams
In considering all these potential benefits, the question of whether to arrange an ICI workshop for all the team members became obsolete. It was abundantly clear that training in ICI ("raising your 'ICIQ'"), the 12 Dimensions of Culture, and Three Colors of Worldview would be tremendously advantageous.
Having exposure to this course would enrich the team as a whole, and that these tools could certainly help these recruiters and support staff. It would undergird and reinforce their efforts to build relationships; to work together more efficiently and harmoniously; and to curb, prevent, and address cross-cultural and intercultural issues.
How might this kind of training boost your personal development as a globally-aware contributor? Could it increase the efficiency and harmony of the multicultural teams you are part of and/or leading? How would enriching the global competencies of your team benefit your company corporately and in multinational expansion efforts?
In Part 3 of this case study, we share what specific aspects of Inter-Cultural Intelligence they unpacked and emphasized for the particular needs of this team.
Quickly becoming the global preferred choice for Inter-Cultural Intelligence development, KnowledgeWorkx promotes mutual understanding of other cultures and perspectives in the workplace, and helps teams to develop the intercultural capacity necessary to thrive in a globalized world.
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