In a globally connected world, cultural agility is a prized attribute, allowing workers to operate effectively across a broad range of environments and to quickly switch between contexts. Workers may find themselves shifting between teams and projects or engaged in tasks across multiple countries. Cross-cultural competency requires not only specific content knowledge, such as language skills, but also adaptability to changing circumstances and an ability to sense and respond to new contexts.

 

Over time, global flows of information and people will fundamentally reshape the experience of work. These flows will result in new work teams and styles based on new interactions between people of different origin and heritage, as well as life stages, levels of engagement, and perspectives.

 

Employers will need to reset their expectations for addressing differences among people and develop new skills for understanding and responding to these differences. Managing culture and diversity will therefore become a core competency for organizations over the next decade. Successful employees within these diverse teams need to be able to identify and communicate points of connection (shared goals, priorities, values) that transcend their differences and allow them to build relationships and work effectively.

 

 

http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/downloads/wfi/ACTF_IFTF_FutureSkills-report.pdf