6.

1 Recognising other essential skills for your career success

Apart from the technology advances 

that are transforming today's workplace, 
the modern workforce is faced with 
a number of other contemporary issues. 
These hurdles can create 
either obstacles or opportunities in 
your career depending on your curiosity and adaptability. 
Let's look at some strategies that can help 
you navigate and move forward in your career.

Play video starting at 38 seconds and follow transcript0:38

Managers and leaders need to know how to fully 
utilize the talent of 
employees from different backgrounds. 
Many organizations are continuously on 
the lookout for those who can manage diverse teams, 
take on expert assignments 
and understand disparate markets. 
Cultural fluency is the ability to emphasize with 
people of other cultures despite linguistic barriers. 
This competency is an essential ingredient 
in driving productivity and innovation, 
and has a direct impact on financial performance. 
All of these factors are 
great catalysts for career success. 
In practice however, it can be quite hard to master 
cultural fluency at work as we 
often operate with our own cultural framework. 
We do not have time to pay attention to culture or 
want to avoid making any mistakes or look silly. 
But you can probably imagine how 
this can easily create a disconnect, 
frustration, and even bring risk to one's career. 
So where can you start with 
building your cultural fluency? 
The following steps might be 
a good starting point: Recognize 
that different culture extends 
beyond the ethnicity and race, 
as people can identify with their sexual orientation, 
disability, or socioeconomic status. 
Be aware that currently, 
these members of society often experience 
many barriers in recruitment and 
promotion due to discrimination. 
You can read more about this in the Resources section. 
Assess both your personal 
and organizational cultural competence 
and get external guidance. 
You can use the intercultural development inventory tool 
that will evaluate 
your current cultural competence and 
also will provide a road-map for future learning. 
You can also take various intercultural tests 
that you can find in the resources section. 
Bettina, who is currently the Director of 
Human Centered Design at a global investment bank, 
recently did the intercultural test and 
found that she needs to 
improve her cultural competence in 
order to increase both productivity and bonding in 
her international team that is 
spread over four different countries; 
Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and Germany. 
She discovered that she needed to 
learn more about different cultures, 
so to understand how to better 
motivate different members of her team. 
She also realized that her processes for on-boarding 
new employees needed some adjustments that in fact, 
she had already implemented into the road-map for 
on-boarding clients to the bank 
from different cultural backgrounds. 
Bettina also acknowledged that she had to change 
her assumptions about why 
certain senior members of her team oversees, 
acted in the way that 
previously made her think that they were 
overly timid and somewhat inexperienced. 
You might be surprised to learn that 
your perspective about people's behavior, 
can heavily be influenced by 
your gender and the culture 
of the country where you were brought up. 
Your version of treating people with respect, 
may be quite different from that of your audience. 
Degree learners will recall that 
the habit corner activity on 
preparing for a global career from week 2. 
You can use the insights such as, 
maintain positive indifference and 
find commonality between cultures 
from this activity to improve 
your cultural competence at work in your home country. 
Cultural competence is not acquired overnight 
and the secret is to stay patient and open to learning. 
If you yourself are a member of 
a culturally and linguistically diverse group 
within your team or organization, 
you might find that you 
often doubt your abilities because of 
the visible or subtle bias that you may experience 
through communications or management styles of others. 
How can you resist this? 
Tom Nguyen works in 
the mergers and acquisitions department of 
a bank where leadership teams across 
all divisions have one thing in common; 
they're male and they're white. 
Last year, he found two colleagues 
at his same level were being promoted. 
He knew that his colleagues were pushing for it, 
so he resolved to play hard ball too, 
which was a bit contradictory to 
the values that he was brought up with, 
that if you work hard, 
you will be recognized. 
He now has two direct reports and hopes to stay on 
the management track to set an example for 
migrants that there is a track to follow. 
Tom wants other migrants to know that, 
learn how workplaces really 
operate and work smarter rather than harder. 
Tom says in banking, 
half the time you're not promoted on merit, 
you're promoted on how smart you work. 
So learn which projects are 
considered the most valuable or prestigious, 
and ask to be a part of those. 
Understand banter. 
To fit in them culturally, 
you need to know how to talk 
about sports, politics, music, 
and even the latest office gossip that you 
can get by attending informal events such as, 
team lunches and after work drinks. 
Articulate your goals. 
Sometimes you need to be explicit about what you want. 
Tom suggests telling your manager, 
"This is what I want to achieve by 
X time," and asking for 
a checklist of tasks and 
performance benchmarks you must hit to achieve your goal. 
That way, your progress is measurable, 
keeping both you and your manager accountable. 
Find allies and the mentor at work. 
Knowing someone from a similar background at work can 
help you navigate workplace issues and feel less alone. 
"When I was in my first year at 
the bank in the analytics team, 
I had a colleague who was from 
a similar background and he used 
to look after my interests more than others," says Tom. 
Lastly, get out of toxic environments even 
if those workplaces happen to be leading organizations. 
Developing mental health issues is 
not good for your career in the long-term. 
I hope this discussion will help 
you better read your environment. 
You can regain a sense of control 
in complex circumstances at work, 
which should create more resilience 
while you figure out your long-term plan.