Doing business in 170 countries and working with about 100,000 business partners means you need to communicate with diverse communities and be a culturally sensitive organization.

To help shed light on how an individual or organization become culturally competent, Cathy McCluney, former manager, IBM Innovation Center, ISV and Developer Relations, moderated a presentation by Fanee B. Harrison, director, Cultural Diversity & Inclusion at Boeing, and Shahla Atashroo, a seasoned IT Leader with experience in IT Technology Planning, Engineering, and Operations. Here are excerpts from the seminar

Understanding culture and cultural diversity are important because it helps us understand the values and attitudes and behaviors of others. It helps us to avoid the stereotyping and bias that can undermine our efforts and it plays a critical role in the development and delivery of services.

1. Avoid stereotyping

"The first time I came to really think about why being competent in a culturally diverse environment gives you that leading edge was [after observing] my six-year-old son (he’s 24 years old now). I come from a diverse background; in fact, I have four different cultures. Some I have adopted, some I have learned. My son was playing with a few other teammates in the house and grandma was home. My mom, English is a second language for her, speaks Farsi and has the hospitality of a Persian. She kept asking these little boys as they were playing, 'Would you like drinks, snack or whatever?' But the boys had great difficulty understanding her and were kind of frustrated. My son was really disturbed by the fact that they couldn’t understand her. He looked at them and said, “She’s asking you if you want water or snacks, what’s so difficult about that?” I was standing nearby and thought, ‘Gee!’ My son didn’t see grandma that often because she lived abroad, but that exposure, understanding that she was just being a grandma, he had developed a tolerance for her accent and the way she was communicating and it gave him that edge.

"Another example, recently, I attended a high-powered engineering course that was offered through Cisco. There I am with fifty men and I was the only woman in that class. I was getting nice and comfortable and then someone asked me, ‘Are you in the right class?’ I looked at them and said, ‘Yes, I am, but are you?’ I tried to reach out, but I could tell there were a few of them who weren’t comfortable having me there as a woman engineer.

2. Don’t Confuse Culture with Diversity

"Everybody has a culture. A culture is what we inherit; it could be what we learned. It’s very dynamic. I’ve given you an example of myself. I was born in Persia, I came to the U.S., and I am a citizen. And I have inherited an American culture. I am also Christian, and there is a culture that I follow, celebrations that I [observe]. And also as an Iranian, I have a culture that is unique to Persia. It’s important that when you look at an individual do not form opinions because you could be dealing with a multi-culture individual. Culture is learned, shared, inherited from generation to generation, and is very dynamic.

"When you talk to my children that come from the same culture as I am and were born and raised here in the U.S., you’ll find that they have adopted a subtext of my culture. I followed my parent’s culture. I learned that from them, but the new generation in my cultural group has adopted their own version of the culture. So it is learned, but it is also dynamic and it changes continuously. Some elements of culture: values and beliefs we have, the way we communicate, social relationships, the way we dress, religious beliefs and so forth. Within the culture, you can have diversity. What causes diversity within the same culture? [F]actors such as age, gender, geographical location, socio-economic status and so forth."

3. Why Organizations Are Concerned with Cultural Competence

"There is a serious talent war. In order to obtain new, creative and energetic talent, we need to make sure that we have an organization and an environment where people want to work. The name alone doesn’t do it anymore; it’s having the right environment, being able to tap into the innovation and creativity that people from different backgrounds bring. if your company has been successful for years, the reality is things are changing all around us and we have to change with it. Building cultural competence around talent—obtaining talent, retaining talent is about the changing demographics, turnover, creativity, innovation, and establishing that environment of inclusion, where people feel their ideas are valued, and that they feel engaged in the work environment."

4. Tools You Need to Build

"We all say we value diversity, but what are we really doing? Are our actions aligned with our words? Of course, we all have affirmative action programs, and areas of underutilization—those areas have been underutilized year after year. We say we value diversity, but are we really going out to tap diverse people and bring them into the enterprise? And that includes people from every culture.

"Shahla mentioned everyone has a culture. One thing we do know [is that] people from different backgrounds have different experiences and perspectives on approaching problem-solving, how you would attack one situation over another. That allows us to tap into creativity and synergize…Not only do you value diversity, are you seeking diversity? Are you tapping into the diverse perspectives?

"When it comes to having an organizational self-assessment, where are we now and do we really want to change? If you keep going the way you are eventually it will impact your ability to compete and the way you do business. Are you willing to open up and say the emperor has no clothes? We have some areas we definitely have to address. Doing that self-assessment is a big risk.

"Managing the dynamics of differences is understanding that people are different and then leveraging those differences. I am not saying that everyone has to be the same, everyone has to modify like we used to do where you come in, check your brain at the door and you now do it our way. Those days are gone, but we want to manage those differences in a way that allows us to be more effective in how we do business.

"Acquiring institutional knowledge of culture means to take a position on training managers and employees on cultural differences. That’s an investment of time, bringing on extra consultants to train. When people say they don’t see color, everyone sees color. You see color, you see race and gender. But what we want is to not judge by those differences. How can I leverage those differences? Leverage my differences and everybody else’s?