The Business of We by Laura Kriska was published in 2021. The book provides a framework for bridging the Us versus Them gaps that exist in many workplaces.
As a cross-cultural consultant and diversity expert with over 30 years of experience, Kriska offers a proven 3-step process to encourage a “WE” mindset that promotes collaboration and inclusiveness.
The book includes practical tools and inspiration to help readers close the gap between themselves and others and create a work environment that values diversity and fosters mutual respect.
Diversity Can Be Divisive
We are part of a diverse and deeply interconnected marketplace. In the course of a few months in late 2019 and early 2020, a global pandemic impacted the health of hundreds of millions of people, devastating financial markets on every continent, and substantially altering the daily lives of billions of people around the world.
Learning how to work across differences is more important now than ever before. Our goals may be as critical as discovering a vaccine or repairing racial divides or as inconsequential as meeting someone for the first time. No matter what problem we are trying to solve, a WE mindset will benefit us all.
#2. Assume They Are Not Above Cultural Data
No matter what decade or century you are living in, listening to people from a younger generation is difficult for older people, and understanding the mindset of older generations is hard for younger people. Every sixty-year-old has been twenty-five.
When it comes to the workplace, we older folks firmly believe that we know what it’s like to be young. We also firmly believe that our additional 35 years of experience are valuable.
#3. Prioritize Cultural Data Before There Is a Crisis
Leaders of corporations in any industry need to prioritize cultural data before they are in the middle of a catastrophe by recognizing that culture is a relevant factor in everyone’s life. Finding ways to understand cultural norms, especially when those norms are different from your own, is essential.
As leaders improve their understanding of different cultural norms, both visible and invisible, they will also begin to understand what constitutes a violation of those norms.
The Obstacles to Achieving Cultural Intelligence
When leaders expand the definition of WE to include everyone in the organization, independent of specific roles, rather than perpetuating Us and Them divisions, new norms of inclusion begin to take shape.
There are five specific behavioral strategies leaders can use to overcome apathy and resistance, as follows.
#1. Show Enthusiasm for the Entire Team
Showing enthusiasm for the entire team is essential. Leaders must be aware of the different mandates that people and departments have. Leaders also must advance the belief that every department and every person in the organization has a specific role to play in achieving overall goals.
Spending time via formal meetings or informal conversations reflects the value a leader places on different people and departments. Making an effort to distribute time and attention across the entire organization contributes to a stronger sense of WE.
