Whether it’s watching hit international television shows like Netflix’s “Squid Game,” “Dark or “Indian Matchmaking,” or through the resurgence of international travel post- COVID-19 pandemic, our access to cultures beyond our own is greater than ever before. For most people working in large organizations, global collaboration on remote or hybrid teams is no longer a novel experience — it has become the norm.

However, even as information has become more accessible than ever, our ability to work across differences has not kept up at the same pace. It used to be that building cultural awareness was a key differentiator, but those days have passed. Awareness has become the minimum requirement for working in the global workplace and cultural agility is what will take individuals, teams and organizations to the next level.

The Case for Cultural Agility

Decades of research confirm that diverse teams have the potential to outperform homogeneous ones. However, it is also known that diversity alone does not lead to better outcomes. This is where psychological safety and inclusion come into play.

Psychological safety means feeling safe to speak up, ask questions, make mistakes, or share ideas without fear of judgment or punishment. When supported by inclusive practices, it encourages open dialogue, collaboration, and learning—making it a foundation of healthy, high-performing teams.

One prominent example is Google’s Project Aristotle, which found that the highest-performing teams shared one thing in common: a strong sense of psychological safety. These teams demonstrated:

• 19% higher productivity
• 31% greater innovation
• 27% lower turnover
• 6 times more engagement

In our increasingly globalized world, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to collaboration. Due to different cultural backgrounds and work styles, psychological safety looks a little different for everyone. Creating true psychological safety within teams requires more than good intentions — it demands the ability to navigate and adapt to different work styles, communication norms and expectations. This is where cultural agility becomes essential.

Paula Caligiuri, author of “Cultural Agility,” defines the concept as “the ability to quickly, comfortably, and effectively work in different cultures and with people from different cultures.” While national culture is one obvious factor, cultural differences also arise in different group affiliations, such as job functions, corporate culture, industries and regional norms.

Understanding Work Style Differences

To help identify and adapt to the key cultural differences that affect collaboration, the GlobeSmart^® Profile is a proven framework to use in your training programs for examining five key dimensions of culture and their impact on work style preferences:

1. Independent ↔ Interdependent: Do individuals see themselves as autonomous contributors, or as part of a group that defines identity and purpose?
2. Egalitarianism ↔ Status: Do people expect a flat hierarchy with equal participation, or a structured system with clear authority?
3. Risk ↔ Certainty: Are decisions approached with experimentation and flexibility, or caution and established processes?
4. Direct ↔ Indirect: Is communication valued for its clarity and candor, or for its nuance and context?
5. Task ↔ Relationship: Is success driven by efficiency and results, or by trust and relationship-building?

These preferences are not binary, and neither end of the spectrum is “better” or “worse.” However, they do influence behaviors in the workplace. In a training setting, people with a direct communication style may welcome immediate feedback and open debate, while those with an indirect style may prefer private, reflective methods, such as chat functions, small group discussions or follow-up conversations. Task-oriented people often expect clear content and takeaways, whereas relationship-oriented participants value group connection and shared reflection. Understanding these preferences helps facilitators design learning experiences that resonate across cultures.

A Tool for Cross-Cultural Problem-Solving

Understanding cultural differences is only the beginning — true agility comes from applying that awareness in real time. One practical tool for doing this is the What — So What — Now What framework:

• What (Context): Identify the cultural dimensions at play. For instance, is the conflict stemming from a difference in hierarchy expectations or communication style?
• So What (Impact): Reflect on how these differences may affect collaboration, decision making, or engagement.
• Now What (Strategy): Determine what next steps can bridge the gap and lead to a better outcome.

Consider a team meeting where remote employees seem quiet. Rather than assuming disengagement, this framework helps uncover what might really be happening:

• What: Cultural dimensions such as deference to status, indirect communication preferences or a need for trust before open dialogue could all be influencing behavior.
• So What: Without recognizing these differences, valuable input may go unspoken, expectations may be unclear and silence could be misread as lack of interest.
• Now What: Strengthen engagement by building trust in one-on-ones, sharing materials in advance, inviting quieter voices to speak and recapping key takeaways in writing.

By using this structured approach, teams can navigate cultural complexity with greater awareness and enable meaningful participation from all members.

Developing Cultural Agile Teams

For learning and development (L&D) professionals, there are a number of ways to ensure all learning initiatives model and contribute to improving cultural agility:

1. Offer cultural agility training. Begin with targeted learning experiences that introduce core concepts such as key cultural dimensions, how behavior is influenced by culture, and strategies for flexing across work styles. Training should be linked directly to participants’ real work environments to ensure relevance and retention.
2. Start global, adapt local. When designing learning initiatives, focus on the key outcomes you want learners to achieve and create a framework that will work globally. Then localize the specifics to fit different environments. This can be as simple as changing the context of a case study to represent the functional realities of employees in one geography.
3. Model inclusive facilitation. Work style differences, such as direct versus indirect communication or independent versus interdependent collaboration, can shape how individuals engage in a learning environment. To increase participation and reinforce long-term learning, offer multiple ways to participate, especially in virtual sessions, like responding in the chat, speaking off mute or joining small breakout discussions. This flexibility helps accommodate diverse engagement preferences and supports more equitable involvement.
4. Globalize your competencies. Many leadership models and competencies have a strong bias toward Western norms and are often shaped by an organization’s home country. Applied globally, they may be less effective — or even counterproductive. For example, with a competency like “ownership,” someone with an independent and risk-oriented style may take the initiative, while someone more interdependent and certainty-oriented may focus on precisely executing assigned tasks. Strong leaders make space for both approaches while setting clear expectations for all.
5. Make cultural agility everyone’s responsibility. Cultural agility should not be a remedial intervention for those outside the dominant culture. Instead, train all employees to recognize their own cultural lens, appreciate others’ and build skills to flex their behaviors accordingly. This frames inclusive, strong collaboration as a shared responsibility.

Agility Is the New Baseline

Improving cultural agility takes intention and practice, but it is within reach for everyone. Learning leaders play a vital role in creating the environments and opportunities that enable this growth.

When you embed cultural agility into program design, competency frameworks, and training delivery, you do more than support cross-cultural collaboration—you create the conditions for innovation, trust, and sustained high performance across a global workforce. It’s time to move beyond awareness and equip your people with the skills to succeed in an increasingly connected world.