Uncommon sense in an unusual world

Have you ever felt that you were talking to someone and the other person had no common sense at all?

No matter how hard you tried to explain your point of view, it seemed like a pointless uphill battle.

Have you ever considered that the other side had exactly the same feeling about you, but for a different reason?

Demanding common sense is naive at its best, selfish at its worst. Diversity is cool until somebody disagrees with us.

What happens then is the dividing line between diversity and inclusion, success or disaster.

Session Takeaways

• cultural differences are simply clashes of common senses. If that is how we approach the topic, we can remove the illusion of superiority and replace it with the power of curiosity
• we all belong to 15-20 cultural groups at the same time so when we talk to someone, what are the chances that they belong to the same ones? Pretty much zero. Every single conversation is a cross-cultural dialogue
• diversity without inclusion turns into painful liability, let's get that right first

Facts Related To This Presentation

• 8 out of the 9 skills and mindsets needed for leaders to succeed are directly linked to how much they understand themselves and others (Jacob Morgan, The Future Leader). People skills = business skills
• over 80% of companies buy and sell people solutions based on the challenges and answers of people who were working without internet, EU, cheap flights in the 60s and 70s. New challenges require new solutions.
• more focus is needed on diversity for HR rather than diversity for PR