Embracing DEI: Cultivating Strengths in Multicultural Teams -- S11E28

·33 min·3 clips

Amitoga learned in Colombia that stopping work for lunch recharges teams, challenging her U.S. work-through-lunch mindset.

Jim Collison, CliftonStrengths Community Manager at Gallup, interviews Amitoga Jeremy, a learning and development consultant at Gallup with top strengths of strategic, learner, connectedness, context, and positivity. The episode focuses on how to coach and lead multicultural teams, defined as teams with various beliefs, habits, rituals, and ways of working. Amitoga shares an anecdote from her early career in Colombia, where she realized that stopping work for lunch to recharge and build relationships actually enhanced productivity, contrasting with her previous U.S. mindset of working through lunch. They discuss the nervousness coaches feel about not being subject-matter experts and the importance of asking questions rather than imposing assumptions. Amitoga emphasizes leading with positive intent and observing team dynamics to identify healthy versus hurtful practices. She explains how CliftonStrengths themes, like her own 'connectedness,' serve as a common language to understand individual motivations and needs in team settings. The conversation turns to pre-work for teams, with Amitoga suggesting using Venn diagrams to map shared habits and unique contributions. Jim and Amitoga explore creating psychological safety through vulnerable storytelling by leaders, sharing past failures to invite team openness. They address the difficulty of apologizing in cross-cultural conflicts, with Amitoga advocating for direct admission of wrongdoing and framing it as impacting team performance or trust. Questions from the chat cover generating connectivity in remote environments through breakout rooms and one-on-ones, and utilizing strengths to identify individual biases, like Amitoga's positivity potentially minimizing failures. Amitoga closes by recommending intentional meeting structures that allow multiple modes of participation, such as brainstorming or solutions sessions, to ensure inclusivity. The episode wraps with Jim promoting the CliftonStrengths podcast for the full recording and feedback collection.

As heard by us

A practical conversation about common ground, individual contribution, and better questions for multicultural teams.

Jim Collison and Amitoga Jeremy keep the focus on the groundwork multicultural teams need before collaboration can really hold. Jeremy, a learning and development consultant at Gallup, brings her CliftonStrengths of strategic, learner, connectedness, context, and positivity into…

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Why you'd press play

You will hear a thoughtful way to find shared team ground while still protecting the distinct strengths each person brings.

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