The benefits of pursuing Inter-Cultural Intelligence (ICI) Certification
What happens when someone becomes an Inter-Cultural Intelligence Certified Practitioner? This intensive cultural training gives them the ability to navigate and create culture in whatever environment they find themselves.
Although we live in an increasingly-globalized economy with a skyrocketing number of organizations embracing multiculturalism, there is still a lingering unawareness of important distinctions between cultural perspectives.
Raising one’s “EQ” and “Self-Awareness” levels is admirable, and it is heartening to see concerted efforts to form “multicultural” teams who collaborate harmoniously and effectively. Yet many teams that are nominally multicultural are still only mono-cultural in practice. The minority members are welcomed, but inadvertently expected to set aside the “lenses” through which they would naturally read conversations and projects, to acclimate, to speak the language (literally or figuratively) of those around them, to set aside personal preferences for the greater good (i.e., the team’s harmony and effectiveness), and to blend in—not unlike chameleons who camouflage themselves in strange or threatening circumstances.
In a truly intercultural team setting, participants interact as peers, as equals with mutual respect for one another’s viable perspectives and methodologies. The onus does not fall upon one individual to swallow or shelve his personal cultural distinctiveness and adapt instead. Members of an inter-culturally intelligent team have an intentionally-cultivated, growing awareness of one another’s backgrounds, cultural mores, default impressions, and preferences for communication, handling tasks, handling problems, and so forth.
This unvoiced expectation for the minority to conform to the majority mold is simply a natural, default mindset held by people who could perhaps benefit from the pursuit of improved Inter-Cultural Intelligence.
Participating in ICI certification training brings you into a classroom of individuals who may hail from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds but who are all willing to admit they have room to grow in intercultural awareness. They are committed to learning how to function as genuine, mutually-respectful peers—in spite of their cultural differences and socioeconomic inequalities.
The ICI certification workshop is several days of training, case studies, and exercises with an experienced facilitator and fellow learners, each of whom brings unique viewpoints into the discussion. The workshop is a powerful combination of content and camaraderie, and its purpose is to create cultural learners who are agile and able to adapt. The ICI course is offered by KnowledgeWorkx to be taken virtually or in-person.
As you learn about Inter-Cultural Intelligence, you begin sharpening a differentiating edge in terms of personal development and wisdom for leadership—among peers and within your own organization, but also among competitors within your industry.
Pursuing ICI Certification also strategically compounds your effectiveness. Raising your personal Inter-Cultural Intelligence will benefit you in everyday life (enriching your daily relationship-building and personal growth efforts—listening, communication, considering others) as well as in your workplaces. Inter-Cultural Intelligence has countless general and specialized application areas—in international education, leadership development, organizational effectiveness, high-performance team formation, corporate culture development, contracting and negotiating (international and domestic), training and coaching, the entire gamut of human resources disciplines, and more.
And although ICI Certification is the end objective of the workshop—it’s not the end of the benefits!
The potential gains of certification are limitless. Once you have been certified, you then become part of the KnowledgeWorkx network with access* to an ever-expanding compendium of resources and tools—online and off. (*The level of that access is then determined by your licensed agreement with us.)
In accordance with KnowledgeWorkx’s license agreement, you as an ICI Certified Practitioner would be free to start applying the tools—to your own workshops, to learning modules and coaching materials, as well as wielding these principles and resources in a consultative capacity.
There are diverse, innumerable ways that ICI and its methodologies will add value—not just as an impressive addition to your own CV, but on a massive scale of adding credibility and competency to the entire organization of which you are a part.
While sharpening your individual organization’s competitive edge and differentiating your own purposes and worth from others’ are wonderful advantages—growing your ICI competency and credibility reaches beyond those goals and accomplishes far more in a far greater sphere—one of global proportions.
Quickly becoming the global preferred choice for Inter-Cultural Intelligence development, KnowledgeWorkx promotes mutual understanding of other cultures and perspectives in the workplace, and helps teams to develop the intercultural capacity necessary to thrive in a globalized world.
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