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!
Many Westerners see follow-through and reliability as the most critical factor in how they calculate the trustworthiness of another individual. In some other cultures, who you know and how you're related to other individuals is the most important variable. And for others, it may be as much about your reputation and what others have said about you.
Smaller companies are often more homogenous. Don't simply increase your diversity because of the social pressure to do so. Instead, realize that hiring a more diverse team will give you a whole new repertoires of innovative ideas. And then develop a strategy for effectively using the diversity of your team.
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.
Natural light consistently fosters innovation, as does the avoidance of disturbances from noise and extreme temperatures.
Trust is consistently seen as a make or break component of innovation - particularly because the freedom to fail is an important part of innovation.
Nature is good for all of us. When we're exposed to trees and other natural settings - even within the city, it fosters creativity.
The better you work to find the pain point and problem facing a diversity of users, the more clearly you can DEFINE the goal when you implement the process for culturally intelligent innovation.
Becoming a culturally intelligent innovators starts with something as basic as exercising self-control.
The more diverse your team, the better you'll be at identifying what a diversity of users perceive as problems.
The best way to improve perspective taking is to see users up close.
The distraction, particularly of technology, impedes the innovative process. And when you add to that the distraction of working with colleagues who are in different time zones and/or who have a different approach to urgency and distraction, the potential for losing focus is abundant.
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.
When you jump on a city bus or roam the streets off the major thoroughfares you'll quickly learn that we have as many differences as similarities. And therein lie the greatest opportunities for innovation - our different ways of viewing the world and coming up with solutions!
There are highly innovative companies in the U.S., Germany, and India. And there are many stories of companies that failed to innovate in all those countries. This is good news because it means, regardless of your cultural background or where your company is based, it can become innovative.
Minimization is what happens when we take the "world is flat" idea too far...and act as if people everywhere are the same (and thereby minimizing the differences).
What really makes the difference in innovation is whether the corporate culture is paying attention to innovation.
Given the increasing diversity among customers and employees, organizations that attend to cultural intelligence are more successful.
When you start paying attention to diversity, you notice it (and notice its absence!). And based on the culture of your upbringing and the culture of your organization, you may or may not be primed to think consciously about innovation.
The two most important forms of diversity when it comes to innovation are visible diversity (typically skin color, age, gender, etc.) and underrepresentation (anytime someone is less than 15% of the majority group). Other forms of diversity are also relevant but these are the ones that psychologically play the most role in how someone engages with the innovative process.
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.
Developing an explicit decision-making process upfront for how you will make that decision will help alleviate conflict and gridlock when you actually need to decide.
The most important part of aligning various expectations is to clearly describe the problem you are trying to solve and identify at least three different ways diverse users experience this problem. The more diverse your team, the better you'll be at doing this.
Generating diverse ideas requires being clear about the kind of input needed and creating multiple ways for diverse team members to share their ideas (e.g. use more than just a brainstorming session).
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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