Beyond National Food Days
A client of mine recently asked for ideas about how to better embrace the multinational mix of their people beyond celebrating their national days with food. Whilst recognising and sharing different foods is a good start, it keeps our understanding of each other at a level of cuisine only, rather than getting to the importance of character and social norms.
Multinational teams aren't built and maintained solely through token gestures of samosas and sushi days. Genuine cultural empathy requires diving deeper into our colleagues' origin stories and upbringing - understanding what shapes their thinking, communication styles and decision-making processes.
When we reduce cultural diversity to cuisine, we miss the transformative power of genuine connection. True empathy means recognising that your Brazilian colleague's circular storytelling isn't time inefficiency; it's relationship-building. It's acknowledging that your Japanese teammate's silence isn't agreement (or an inability to contribute); it's thoughtful consideration.
Cultural empathy isn’t about labelling individuals or countries, it’s about developing a deeper understanding of difference. When done well it transforms teams as they are able to see beyond stereotypes to recognise each person's humanity, which is, after all, the thing that unites us all.