How to Promote Innovation in Multicultural Teams

There is no denying the benefits that come from multicultural teams and organizations. Everyone knows that working on a team allows for different perspectives and ideas. Make that a multicultural team and you uncover different ways of seeing the world altogether. Diverse teams and organizations have an advantage for many reasons, including access to a wider variety of skills, expertise across different global markets, and a greater ability to attract and keep talent. Furthermore, diversity has been known to breed creativity, drive innovation, and even increase team performance.

So how do we ensure that innovation emerges from multicultural teams?

Can it happen on its own? Sure. Can we help it along? Most definitely.

There are various resources out there to help teach and inspire innovation. One is Ideo’s Design Kit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/581125890/design-kit-travel-pack. Another that I’ve used myself is Kickbox by Adobe https://kickbox.adobe.com/. For those of you unfamiliar with Kickbox, it’s essentially an open-source toolkit for teaching people to innovate. But really, it goes beyond that. The goal is to guide people in the right direction in order to get their ideas off the ground. If someone follows the entire process, they get to see their idea come to life.

While Kickbox provides you with lots of great content, you can supplement with your own, thus creating the perfect fit for your needs. For multicultural teams, I recommend supplementing with different models and tools from other regions of the world. Innovation and creativity don't always look the same from country to country, and the more you can incorporate different ways of thinking the better.

While the goal of the toolkit is to teach others to innovate, I believe the most exciting part is what happens next. After sharing the toolkit with people on my team, it was clear that they were getting something more out of it than just learning about innovation. They felt a sense of empowerment. Their ideas were being heard, and they were allowed to create something that was theirs. One great part of Kickbox's guiding principles is that anyone can do it. This is not just for engineers or those on the R&D team; this is for everyone. When you give those who don’t normally have a voice a way to innovate, you’re empowering them; you’re allowing them to take their ideas and create something that is theirs.

Toolkits like Kickbox are a great way to fuel innovation, inspire creativity, and empower any kind of team. If you're interested in chatting with me about how to start your own innovation toolkit, please drop me a note here or email me at hello@nicolebarile.com.

Happy Innovating!

 Contact me at hello@nicolebarile.com if you’d like to learn more or visit me here. #futureofglobalwork