Towards enhancing multi-cultural intelligence

[Ramu Iyer]

I work as a Project Management consultant. My knowledge of psychodrama and
group therapy is at its infancy.

My personal mission is to (1) liberate the untapped energy of the beautiful
minds trapped at the bottom of the pyramid (individuals with depleted
emotional bank accounts), and (2) achieve greater return on assets (time,
attention, ideas, knowledge, passion, energy, and social networks) in the
service innovation value chain.

I aspire to become an Activist Turnaround Manager who can facilitate the
synchronization of individuals in a geographically-dispersed team to create
value and enhance their leadership potential. Specifically:
* Accelerate capability building of participants
* Act as a knowledge broker who can bridge the gap between the various
process participants (with varied skills, experiences and mindsets)
* Critically examine and troubleshoot abstract and general answers or
perspectives that imply action (but actually hide profound disagreements and
misunderstandings)
* Focus the existing work context to create compelling and tangible action
points in order to address performance shortfalls or resolve breakdowns in
operations
* Bust the status quo and transform inefficiency into innovation

I've always been excited that we live in an interaction economy (also called
a knowledge economy). However, for every interaction between two people,
there are three opportunities for failure (win/lose, lose/win, lose/lose).
There is a combinatorial explosion in the number of misexecutions as the
size of the people network increases. Yet, it is always a good thing to be
"people smart".

Where does all this lead us? Corporate governance loves establishing "rules
of engagement" (via slidedecks) and encouraging (but not always doing) a
"play by play" (rehearsal) that all the moving parts can play to win.
However, most often actions lead or lag the strategic intent, often
resulting in dissonance. In my view, unless there is an intentional
rehearsal of (and a deliberate appetite for) the rules of engagement, the
process orchestration will not be a slam dunk. Consequently, rhetoric and
action will be out of sync (i.e., encounter friction) without rigorous
planning, shared understanding and coordination.

For cross-border transactions, deep international economic integration may
be inherently incompatible with national soverignity. Consequently, some
authors argue and correctly point out that the world isn't flat, contrary to
the what the pundits had loftily declared via elevator pitches with great
hubris (that the "World is Flat").

In a high-tech environment, a distributed team can have members located in
onshore, nearshore and offshore locations which cover a number of timezones
separated by geography, language and distance. In a corporate setting, I
have often heard musings by senior executives that everyone needs to be
aligned at the speed of thought! Achieving shared understanding in a
geographically-dispersed team is an iterative process and requires
multi-cultural intelligence.

Is there a powerful opportunity for using psychodrama (and/or other related
method/technique) to raise the activism and transform the theater of
operations so that we can bust silos and enhance the multi-cultural
intelligence of a group?

The end in mind is to reinvent the art of work and working together so that
we can enable great people decisions.

Thanks for sharing any feedback and knowledge pointers (as well as offering
support). Feel free to correct any flaws in my thinking process.

Ramu Iyer
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