Intercultural Competence & Diversity

To succeed in a cross-cultural business setting, it's important to understand the differences in how people communicate. Language isn't the only barrier. Pace, style, and nonverbal cues all affect how messages are received. If you do business on a global scale or in a diverse environment, adapting your communication strategy is critical to workplace harmony and the bottom line. In this course, Kelley School of Business professor and executive coach Tatiana Kolovou demonstrates simple techniques to build your cross-cultural communication skills: as a manager, peer, or coworker. Learn how to adapt your communication style, overcome hidden bias, and build rapport with colleagues around the world.

Find greater meaning, well-being, and productivity by learning how to interact with others across differences. Continue your Thrive journey and discover how to create inclusive environments where everyone can thrive. In this course, Arianna Huffington and Verna Myers discuss the impact of our cultural lens on our daily relations and how to counter bias in our words and actions.

Inclusive work environments can yield greater creative output, boost employee morale, and benefit a company’s bottom line. But even as a slew of modern companies make strides towards true workplace inclusivity, many still miss the mark. This is often due to a lack of cultural competence, or the ability to engage and adapt across cultural differences. In this course, instructor Mary-Frances Winters explains why cultural competence is key to the success of any diversity-related initiative, as well as how to assess and grow your own cultural competence. She shares scenarios and techniques that can help you grasp how your worldview impacts your behavior, as well as how to more effectively engage and adapt across cultural differences.

Being able to work across cultures is an increasingly necessary skill for all employees. Communications expert Tatiana Kolovou helps you develop the cross-cultural intelligence to navigate cultural differences. She outlines the six primary areas of cultural difference, highlighting the differences between high- and low-context cultures. Once you can recognize the differences, she helps you use visual and nonvisual cues in the environment to inform your actions and respond effectively. The course closes with two scenarios that demonstrate how to apply the principles of cross-cultural intelligence.

While a multitude of factors can go into the making of a successful person, nearly all individuals who achieve high levels of personal and professional success have a keen sense of self-awareness. In this course, learn how to become more self-aware in order to develop yourself personally and enhance career progression. Organizational psychologist Gemma Roberts helps you learn how to develop your self-awareness so that you can understand how others see you, and better align your actions with your intentions. She explains how to identify beliefs to enhance self-awareness, step outside of yourself to gain a different perspective, leverage a self-awareness action plan, and more. --Course Description

In today's global economy, it's crucial for managers to be culturally agile. The best leaders can accurately assess the cultural environment in which their teams are operating and manage their teams appropriately. In this course, join professor and global leadership expert Paula Caligiuri as she helps managers understand how to lead effectively across cultures. Learn how to create positive first impressions anywhere in the world and vary your verbal and nonverbal communications to be understood in different cultures. Plus, discover how to make convincing presentations in different cultural situations, motivate a team across cultures, make requests and provide direction, and more.--Course Description

In today's world, it's become increasingly important for individuals and organizations to prioritize inclusion. In this course, Dr. Suzanne Wertheim shares one element where everyone can strive toward inclusivity: language. She explores how inclusive language can create a better workplace culture and proves that even the slightest language adjustments can make a big difference. Dr. Wertheim reviews concepts around linguistics and how language works, then goes over common phrases and words that can often have a hidden meaning. She then covers the principles of inclusive language and shares actionable ways to make your language more inclusive.

Anne Marie Nakagawa's documentary examines what it means to have a background of mixed ancestries that cannot be easily categorized. By focusing on 7 Canadians who have one parent from a European background and one of a visible minority, she attempts to get at the root of what it means to be multi-ethnic in a world that wants each person to fit into a single category.

Finding a satisfactory frame of reference in our 'multicultural utopia' turns out to be more complex than one might think. Between: Living in the Hyphen offers a provocative glimpse of what the future holds: a departure from hyphenated names towards a celebration of fluidity and being mixed.

A young immigrant arrives in Canada from France—and brings his Citroën 2CV with him. The iconic post-war car stands out on the streets of Vancouver, and before long he meets up with a group of like-minded car buffs. In Julien Capraro’s documentary short, Franck, Lionel, Harjeet and Johnny Mac, who are busy preparing for an upcoming antique-car show, explain how these vehicles not only evoke nostalgia for a past era but are also a powerful marker of identity and a link between two cultures. Produced as part of the Tremplin competition, in collaboration with ICI Radio-Canada Télé.

In this personal documentary, director Sobaz Benjamin introduces us to an interesting group of people: a black woman who wants to be considered iconically Canadian, a white man who is culturally and psychologically black, and a black woman who decides to leave “Canada’s racial cold war.” He also exposes himself, a black man who grew up trying to bleach his skin. In the end, Race Is a Four-Letter Word teaches us that the soul has no colour. Yet, we also learn that race is a marathon we are all forced to run.

In this short film, a young woman of mixed ancestry struggles with an Equal Opportunity Form that requires her to respond to the dilemma: Ethnicity - Choose One.

Vistas is a series of 13 short films on nationhood from 13 Indigenous filmmakers from Halifax to Vancouver. It was a collaborative project between the NFB and APTN to bring Indigenous perspectives and stories to an international audience.