The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) Doha Chapter recently hosted a webinar titled ‘Developing a Culturally Inclusive Mindset’ led by Sylvia Gonner, founder and CEO of CultureWiz.
“Understanding the motivation, knowledge, and skills to cultivate a globally inclusive mindset is necessary to succeed in today’s diverse and interconnected work environment,” said Gonner, who was global vice president of the IIA with over 30 years of experience successfully leading international growth strategies.
Gonner explained that culture is the collection of beliefs, values, attitudes, habits, rituals, behaviours, and actions of a group of people.
“Intercultural competence is the ability to function effectively across cultures and think and act appropriately when communicating and working with people from different cultural backgrounds at home or abroad.
“Intercultural competence matters since consequences are inner conflicts, such as frustrations, self-doubt, resentment, inefficiency causing delays, wasted efforts and missed opportunities, and damage by way of bad reputation, harmed relationships, and loss of job,” she further explained.
Gonner also discussed how to develop a culturally inclusive mindset utilising three areas: maintaining self-awareness, adapting attitudes and behaviours, and developing understanding and acceptance.
“The first and foremost is to become self-aware of innate biases and assumptions, and prime values that drive our behaviours. Then comes understanding the values and beliefs that drive other people’s behaviours and how they perceive us. Then it is an acceptance that outcome matters more than intentions and all cultures are different neither one is better or worst.
“The success factors for working in cultural diversity is a challenge to overcome through organisational models, team building, and developing appropriate personal competencies. Culture clash arises from the interaction of people with different cultural values,” Gonner said.
Sundaresan Rajeswar, IIA Doha Chapter board member, said: “The presentation was exhaustive and encapsulated culture-related critical contents, such as communication solutions, trust-building solutions, task and relationship-based cultures, country mapping tools, and various other dimensions of culture. Sylvia Gonner brought out 10 areas with identified problems and researched solutions to develop a culturally inclusive mindset.”