Reliance gains from Diversity and Inclusion.

Last week, Reliance Infosystems joined the rest of the world to celebrate diversity and inclusion, I took a journey back to the days of the firm's little beginnings. The company started off with full bet on diversity with a team made up of highly committed people from different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures, and languages. In our small team, we had minds from various Nigerian ethnic groups, including Hausa, Ibo, Igala, Ishan, Itsekiri, Kanuri, Tiv and Yoruba. Thus, reflecting the diversity inherent in the Nigerian nation.

However, as the company evolves into a global brand, expanding its footprints into different regions of the world, the complexity of diversity becomes bare. For instance, figuring out how to conduct oneself in another culture can be challenging.

While I ponder on these challenges, it became more clearer the concomitant benefits the company has enjoyed. The implications of the diversity are the new experiences, the many innovations, better products, and better outcomes for our customers.

I could not help but to take a deeper look at the subject of diversity through the lens of culture and how it influences us. And here is my take.

Cultures dictates the manner we solve problems and reconcile our dilemmas. It affects how we communicate, perpetuate, and develop our knowledge about life. It is responsible for the varying collection of beliefs, values, behaviours, customs, and attitudes that exits in different society. Individuals can simultaneously be members of different cultures and thus can be affected by multiple cultural traits.

At the same time, DIVERSITY is a complicated subject because of the varying characteristics. Diversity can relate to background, personality, experience, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and many more unique attributes that make us all who we are. Diversity is the compendium of similarities and differences that each of us always carry, founded on our individual personalities, the experiences we’ve had, and the choices we’ve made.

The impact of culture on the growth of global firms cannot be over emphasized. From the standpoint of globalization, an ever-increasing number of multinationals with multicultural challenges abound. Consequently, managers of large multicultural organizations must be prepared for adaptation, ready for intercultural connections, eradicate stereotypes, learn about other cultures without preconceptions, converse rationally, build multicultural competency, strive for cooperation while reserving differences, and achieve the organizational goal. They must also be very intentional about the needs of every individual and create enabling environment for everyone to achieve his/her full potential. This is how inclusion can be achieved.

Many studies agree that it is imperative for global managers to possess cross-culture competencies as a requisite skill. While some suggest that global managers must have cultural intelligence to enable them to navigate through unfamiliar contexts and adapt quickly, others agree that rewards for developing cross-cultural competency should be available to all employees and supported with the appropriate training to build these skillsets. Among those researchers is Professor Erin Meyer, the author of the culture map. She suggests that Manager need to be aware of cultural differences and understand cultural relativity. According to her, the 3 things that are most important when working internationally are:

1. Putting yourself in someone else shoes

2. Be curious

3. Be humble.

 The culture map is a book every manager should have in their library. I highly recommend the book. I have learnt a lot from it myself. It is a small book with a strong content.

Reliance equates Diversity and Inclusion to winning. Having earned the 2022 Microsoft Country Partner of the Year Award, Reliance Infosystems has yet again proven to be the reliable torchbearer for businesses looking to seamlessly make a digital shift.

Achieving this great feat for the third time testifies to Reliance’s outstanding achievements and efforts in driving the purposeful digital transformation of organizations across the globe.

 Over the years, the Microsoft-Reliance Infosystems partnership has helped organizations to beat the challenges of large-scale corporate transformation, cloud computing, and cyber security. Together, we create trust, deliver long-term business results, and assist in finding solutions to our client's most pressing business issues.

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