Harnessing the Powerful Diversity Advantage

  Organizational Culture  

With projects having team members more often located in different parts of the world, diversity is becoming the order of the day. While this brings a lot of positive aspects and new ideas, it can also be quite challenging. 

 

Living in Africa as I do, you automatically find yourself in a diverse environment. Not only do most of the continent’s countries already have a broad mix of different cultures in their traditional setup, but then there is also usually a big group of other cultures in the mix. That could be people who settled during colonial times; Indians who came to build infrastructure (like the Kenyan Lunatic Express, which was the first railway); the Chinese who built the Kenyan Standard Gauge Railways (and are currently building many roads and major office buildings); or Arabs who settled along the East African coast long ago. 

 

In literally every company I have worked in during my 28 years in East Africa, we had at least three or four very different cultures on any team. Being a foreigner myself (I am German), I often had to leave my own cultural thinking behind and adapt. This also put myself into a unique position where I could have a unifying influence.

 

Working in a culturally diverse environment can be enriching and help surface different viewpoints and ideas. The difference is you—your attitude toward it…