Dive Brief:
- Top executives agree that improving the cultural intelligence of a business -- the ability to work across and within cultures -- is essential to expand into emerging markets, attract the best talent and increase profitability.
- A diverse workforce allows employees to share ideas which can then be incorporated into the company's business model, says David Livermore, writing for Management Issues.
- While expanding into the global market, cultural intelligence will hlp a company better connect to its consumer base, thus improving company performance.
Dive Insight:
Cultivating cultural intelligence requires employers to diversify their staffs from the ground up -- something HR can reflect in their hiring strategies. Managers will need to know how to tap into opportunities both at home and abroad and be able to adapt their services as required. Staffs will also need to reflect the vastly expanding diversity of the customer base.
Diversity can easily be either an asset or a liability, depending on how it is managed, wrote Livermore. But companies that learn how to rely on the first-hand experience and insights of their workforce rather than solely the output of market research will be much more successful with their customers, he said. Bank of America's CEO, for instance, believes that there is a "direct link" between internal diversity efforts and customer satisfaction.
"CQ [cultural intelligence] is a critical capability for navigating today’s increasingly global and diverse business environment," Robert Mortiz, chairman of PWC in the Americas, told Livermore. "It’s so important that we made it one of our core behaviors at PwC."
