Next week begins Global Inclusion week, and I encourage all JMP staff to participate in planned activities and events. These are opportunities to learn, connect, and build relationships with others to strengthen our commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment.
Recently, Kyoko Myoko, HR Business Partner and Talent Acquisition Specialist for Japan, brought to my attention that May 21 is World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. Honestly, I was not aware of this global day, but it is a great way to begin the week with a focus on respecting and valuing cultural diversity.
Personally, I am the father of four children, two of whom are adopted and of Hispanic descent. Our family celebrates the fact that we have Mexican, Italian, and German backgrounds in our family by having a day each year where we eat food that represents these various cultures.
Professionally, I value that JMP has employees in 17 countries. I appreciate the unique cultures, customs, and perspectives that colleagues bring from around the world, especially as a manager of a multi-country team. Some of the ways I’ve tried to connect with my team include:
- Participating in a personal culture map assessment that identified differences in how our team communicates, establishes trust, and makes decisions based on country-specific cultural norms.
- Showing curiosity by learning about holidays that colleagues celebrate around the world.
- Being sensitive to time zones when scheduling meetings.
Below are examples from colleagues of why cultural diversity is important to them. Please use the comments to highlight what you appreciate about our diversity within JMP and how you might celebrate May 21 by experiencing different cultures from around the world.
Kyoko Myoko, JMP HR
“I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on working in a diverse organization. I worked for many years in multinational companies and was used to working with people from other parts of the world even before I knew the term "DE&I", but thanks to the penetration of DE&I, I feel much more comfortable in working in this environment than before and continue to discover and learn a lot every day. Our HR team (based in Cary, with colleagues in Dublin, China, and Japan) meets every two weeks, and our manager is always mindful of time differences, cultural events, and language barriers for us, which makes us feel "cared for" and "included" in the group. I believe that having and giving this feeling is very important in promoting DE&I. It is good to know the cultural norms of each region, but at the same time we need to know the personal style preferences of everyone. When we recently shared the results of our Personal Culture mapping assessment, I found that some of my results differed from the national norm, and that these tendencies and preferences are likely to be greatly influenced by the work environment as well. Knowing these results made our communication even smoother and more enjoyable. After all, it is essential to know each other well to "include" and "be included.” We also played a game called "Two Truths & One Lie," which you should try. It was a lot of fun and gave us a little peek into our personal lives. Knowing my tastes, my colleagues can probably imagine how I celebrate the day. Of course, I will be dancing the Argentine tango and enjoying drinks from different regions! Hope everybody will enjoy the day with their own style. 
”
Alex Beck, Sales Manager
“My advice would be to look at differences in cultures the same way as we look at differences in personalities. There is nothing like ‘one German’ or ‘one French.’ Even if we are born in the same country, in a comparable social environment and the same gender, we do have different personalities. And we´ve come a long way to understand this, accept it, and work with it.
And as Fred Kofman said: ‘We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are!’ He said this in the context of individual personalities. But, to me, that´s applicable also to cultures.
So let´s stop judging and flip the script: let´s focus first on understanding and secondly on being understood. Let´s see differences not as a challenge but rather as an opportunity. For example, how can these differences in cultures complement each other and make a team more complete?”
Audrey Shull, JMP Development Testing Director
“I have a team in Cary and a team in Beijing. One thing we do together to connect is to have a monthly Fun Topic joint meeting. We alternate between 8 pm and 8 am so we take turns who has to get up early or work late. It started as a longer work-focused meeting where we first talked about work and then had a brief Fun Topic discussion at the end. However, meetings kept getting longer as the Fun Topic discussions were always engaging and interesting. Now, we have streamlined the “work topics” segment of the meeting so we can maximize time for the Fun Topic segment. It’s been a great way to get to know each other better and share and celebrate our cultural differences. Past fun topics are not always culture-focused, but have included special holidays, special festivals, hometown food, childhood games, food culture and table manners, what we do to stay healthy, and many others. The May 2023 Fun Topic is to share our people we admire. It’s been a wonderful way to share our cultures with each other and get to know our colleagues better. My advice for teams is to remember that the feeling of connection, of being a JMP family, is one of the things that makes JMP special. In an environment that has become more hybrid or remote in how we work with our colleagues, we have to be more intentional about connecting as people.”
Dara Hammond, Sales Manager
“We usually ask lots of questions of one another and are very open to learning about the cultures of our European counterparts. My team consists of US, UK, and Germany so we get to chat about various traditions we each hold, holidays/bank holidays we’re not aware of, etc. The simplest is we’re respectful of each other’s time zones when scheduling meetings. We’re a very caring team just loaded with compassion, so we all know that the questions come from a place of learning and curiosity.”
Curt Hinrichs, JMP Academic Sales & Marketing Director
“First, I think, we should recognize that our best outcomes are usually the result of diverse inputs of perspectives and ideas. Often these are from a cultural or experiential foundation and valuing them and incorporating them strengthens our team and JMP. On the team, it begins with fostering an environment where feedback and open communication is encouraged and where everyone has a voice and will be heard. We perform better when we have a wider and deeper understanding of the task at hand. Though we live in and serve a global market, there is much we can learn and understand about the people and cultures we serve. Our most immediate resource for this is each other and finding time to learn about the lives, cultures, and interests of our colleagues helps us better understand the cultural diversity we serve.”
Gina Xie, Marketing Manager
I think we could build a work environment to support diversity by:
- Being aware of the importance of intercultural dialogue, diversity, and inclusion.
- Avoiding stereotypes to improve understanding among colleagues from different cultures.
- Building conversations among colleagues to support diversity with real and every day-life gestures.
- Learning about traditional celebrations from other cultures from colleagues.
Ian Cox, Pre-Sales Support Director
“Just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true – If you take any two individuals, their similarities will always far outweigh any difference. This is doubly so when in the world of work, they are united in a common purpose, namely, to spread the use and impact of JMP. I would always advocate meeting someone on their own terms in any discussion or interaction but doing this with one eye on what we are seeking to accomplish. Of course, where people are involved, this can never be a perfect process, so a good dose of tolerance and understanding helps enormously too.”
