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We all naturally develop trust and empathy with our close family and relations. However, we are not naturally inclined to trust people that we consider strangers, people outside of our social comfort zone. In intercultural settings of cooperation, such as global teams, a shared cultural pattern is missing. This leads to difficulty in building trust, a lack of predictability, misunderstandings, ineffectiveness, and sometimes conflict.

Working effectively with deep diversity is a process that requires special skills. Team members need to understand, recognize, appreciate and integrate the different cultural patterns in themselves and each other. To illustrate the main skills needed to make deep diversity work, I use the metaphor of romantic love. Read more about how opposites attract, marrying opposing views and reconcilable differences in Caleidoscopic Cooperation, working with differences.

What do you think about when you hear the words 𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 & 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧? What’s the image that comes to mind?   Including underrepresented groups is what most organizations mean to do when they strive for diversity, diversity as a goal. 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐚 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐝. However, often the argument of diversity and inclusion is linked to creating an organizational advantage. Yet superficial – often visible - characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, or age do not necessary make an organization more successful. To really use diversity to the advantage of the organization, they need to search for 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲. Deep diversity is about how people differ on a deeper level, independent of whether they are male or female, their sexual orientation or their level of education. People who differ on a deep level hold different values, beliefs and attitudes. They developed different cultural patterns, and have specific ideas about what is good, right and what works.