Cultural competency leads to meaningful connections

Cultural competency — knowing oneself and having a genuine curiosity to know others on a deeper level — is much bigger than what we’re doing in our organizations. It extends to our societies and communities.

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Video production: Andrew Kennedy Lewis

Cultural competency is knowing oneself and having a genuine curiosity to know others on a deeper level, says Aisha Ghori Ozaki, manager of inclusive diversity at Allstate. And it’s much bigger than what we’re doing in our organizations; it extends to the societies and communities we live in.

Read the full transcript of Ghori Ozaki’s interview below:

Cultural competency, or sometimes intercultural competency, is really the ability for individuals, it’s knowing yourself and then really having a genuine curiosity and connection to knowing others on a deeper level. And that means that it’s not just what’s different about you, that’s great. It’s really getting a little bit deeper and finding ways to make meaningful connections around understanding the complexities that we all bring, the fact that we are so much more than any one component of our identity and thinking about that regularly. And recognizing that every individual has many things we don’t see about them and many things we don’t know about them and how do we want to value that and allow folks to feel really connected, and included, and welcomed in any organization. And I always say it’s not just about what you’re going to do in the organization or in the walls of the work that you do; it’s really much bigger than that in the societies and the communities that we live in.