Cultural Intelligence is the ability to work effectively with people from any group any time, anywhere. According to the Harvard Business review a key predictor for success in this century is a person’s level of cultural intelligence.

To be successful we each need to recognize the multiple identities in each of us, and the differences and similarities amongst us.

To some people, diversity is one-dimensional and equals only LGBT rights, or race, religion, etc. Real diversity is in all of our differences and similarities and the multiple dimensions of diversity that make up who we are.

Too often, we stay in silos and are segregated within those silos in order to maintain a familiar level of comfort. Those silos within silos exist in the workplace; at conferences and in the way we socialize. When people exist in solos they never learn how to work with differences, they tend to see themselves and others as one-dimensional and end up breathing their own fumes.

They impede our ability to work with each other in the US and on a global level.

In order to break through those silos, work together and with people globally we need to learn cultural intelligence skills to see the world from different vantage points beyond our own, and understand ourselves in relation to others as different and similar, and find our points of intersectionality.