It might be difficult to know how you can create a more inclusive and diverse organizational culture. Today, we discuss the Intercultural Development Continuum™ and the way it will possibly function an inclusivity guide for people, teams and organizations.
We talk with Sidney Van Dyke, the director of health equity and language access at Regions Hospital. She goes over the five mindsets along the Intercultural Development Continuum and shares practical examples to bring it to life. Take heed to the episode or read the transcript.
The Intercultural Development Continuum and why it matters
The Intercultural Development Continuum was adapted from Milton Bennett’s 1986 Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. It helps construct understanding of various cultures by taking a look at cultural variation. As an alternative of comparing a special culture to your personal, it asks you to think about things like how cultures relate to time, how they relate to power and the way they relate to relationship constructing. This model will be applied to racial, sexual orientation, religious and gender differences.
Working with this model will help individuals develop into more self-aware and interculturally competent – meaning that you simply’re in a position to shift your perspective and bridge the gap between cultures. It might also help organizations improve their cultural competence by adopting policies and practices that create more equitable outcomes.
The five mindsets inside the Intercultural Development Continuum
There are five mindsets people work through along the Intercultural Development Continuum:
- Denial – Within the denial stage, people aren’t aware of cultural differences. This could be because they don’t interact with people from different cultural backgrounds or aren’t curious about cultural diversity.
- Polarization – This mindset pairs an over-emphasis on cultural difference or identity with strong judgement. An example of polarization is an “us versus them” mentality.
- Minimization – Individuals with this mindset de-emphasize differences. That is essentially the most common mindset: about 65% of people that assess where they’re on the continuum fall into this stage.
- Acceptance – Someone with this mindset understands cultural differences and the way things like racism, misogyny or homophobia might affect others. But they don’t have the talents to act on improving inclusion and equity yet.
- Adaptation – That is the ultimate mindset where someone can recognize cultural differences, and so they have the talents needed to work to bridge those gaps.
Take heed to the episode to learn more about intercultural competence from Sidney Van Dyke.