deepSEE Consulting

“Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.” – Peter Drucker Spot on: Drucker is spot on when he compares company cultures to those of countries. Leaders don’t often think of their organization as even having a culture, much less comparing it to country cultures, but that is exactly the case.

In a recent article, Luke Visconti (aka “The White Guy") argues that “CEO commitment is essential to diversity-management programs.” As my kids would say, “No duh,” that’s pretty obvious. But I would add another reason that Visconti didn’t mention. That is that CEOs must be committed because successful diversity initiatives are actually successful change initiatives. The organizational culture must shift to be more inclusive and adaptive to difference.

Over the last few decades our workplace has drastically changed: diversity abounds, technology rules, M&A’s are the norm and change happens every few minutes! This new environment calls for superhero leaders with a more robust set of competencies. We believe that two crucial sets of competencies that are a must-have for effective leaders today are Cultural Competencies and Emotional Intelligence Competencies. Want proof? Here’s some good research to back up our claim: