Cultural competency is about reaching a place of understanding with the people who work within your organization. The definition of cultural competency involves having empathy when interacting with others and appreciating them for where they are coming from and their lived experiences. It’s less about reaching a place where there will never be blindspots, or everyone will all just get along. I think that is an unrealistic expectation for an organization, especially if your organization is truly diverse with people from different backgrounds, abilities, and experiences. Cultural competency is about honoring the human in all of us.
Cultural competency within the workplace starts with acknowledging that embracing and normalizing diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) is not just an HR responsibility or initiative. That means for your organization to really embrace cultural competency meaningfully, it should be operationalized within every fabric of your organization’s culture.
1. Define and demonstrate your organization’s personal commitment
Your organization is not committed to cultural competency unless you can demonstrate a shared definition of what that means, and what initiatives operationalize that definition. You can leverage the lived experiences of your diverse staff and ask them to share their experiences in a way that doesn’t come off performative or uncomfortable.
This may mean hiring a third party to conduct active and consistent surveys on the leadership and staff’s experiences. Conduct one-to-ones and focus groups with staff and leadership to understand their perspectives on DEIB within the organization. If there is polarity between their experiences, allow the third party to give metrics on the polarity; so the leadership can understand where the polarity must be synthesized. Give your DEIB committees more power to come up with solutions to build and reflect cultural competency more effectively within the organization.
Create a definition of cultural competency that considers the human element in honoring everyone’s lived experience. This definition should be about bringing your colleagues together under a shared set of values and purpose, to truly reflect DEIB throughout your organization.
2. Consult the experts
As briefly referenced before, your leadership can learn alot and lean on external DEI experts who have done this work for years. DEIB consultants are an investment but, in my opinion, they’re absolutely necessary to continue reflecting your organization’s commitment to operationalizing DEIB. Their work can:
- Provide metrics and demonstrate to your leadership where you have clear blindspots in your organization where this work is proving ineffective.
- Engage and coach your leadership on initiatives and practices they may not be familiar with or haven’t considered before; and
- Provide a roadmap for leadership to follow in order to hold them accountable to your organization’s shared definition of cultural competency.
Investing in external DEIB coaches and consultants is a proactive response to your commitment to DEIB. Oftentimes I’ve seen leadership get fatigued by trying to live up to their commitment to cultural competency and instead of being consistent, engaged, and accountable; their approach to DEIB turns very reactive. External consultants can provide metrics that become a part of leaderships’ performance reviews to keep up the culture of accountability and engagement.
3. Remind yourself: your organization’s commitment to cultural competency is an ongoing journey
Continue to reflect on your organization’s definition and demonstration of DEIB as an ongoing practice. This means having short and long term goals that change and grow as your staff and leadership do. Your organization is going to make mistakes and people are not going to get it right all the time. Value grace and compassion within your core values and allow everyone to be treated as human.
Create a culture where people can feel open to being their whole selves at work and genuinely connect with people from a place of understanding. Promote staff get-togethers so colleagues, who may not have worked together, or necessarily have shared experiences, get the chance to build empathetic connections where both parties feel comfortable. Encourage staff to ask their colleagues of different marginalized groups:
“How can I help?” or
“How can I understand?”
Rather than centering the status quo’s perspectives in the conversation; or creating a culture where colleagues only meet to “moan or complain” about their own experiences without listening. Share with your staff that “Thank you for sharing,” goes a long way.
Your organization’s commitment to embodying and embedding cultural competency is never going to be perfect, but it can be more empathetic and reflective.
