Unleashing the Power of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) - Your Path to Inclusive Excellence
What is Cultural Intelligence (CQ)?
Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is the key to unlocking excellence in organisations by embracing diversity and fostering inclusive cultures.
It's not just an innate ability; it's a skill that can be cultivated and improved upon over time.
CQ allows you to work effectively across cultural differences, forming meaningful relationships and boosting your job performance.
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Cultural Intelligence is the capability to work and relate effectively across difference.
It has four parts:CQ Drive – do you actually want to engage across difference?
CQ Knowledge – do you understand how people may think, communicate or work differently?
CQ Strategy – do you stop and plan rather than act on instinct and bias?
CQ Action – can you adapt your behaviour in the moment?
My shorthand is:
Diversity is a fact. Inclusion is an act. Equity is the impact – when CQ is unpacked.
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I focus on the behavioural “how”, not just the moral “why”.
I use Cultural Intelligence (CQ) as a practical framework to help individuals and organisations recognise bias, slow down decision-making, and act inclusively in real situations – recruitment, leadership, design, procurement, collaboration. Inclusive policies don’t change culture on their own, the behaviours to implement them do.
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We need to start with behaviour, not beliefs.
Ask: What are we rewarding? What are we tolerating? What are we repeating?
Then you work at the level of small, consistent, accountable, potentially habitual, actions – how meetings are run, how decisions are made, how feedback is given. Culture is built in the micro accumulations of great behaviour, with clarity as to what ‘great’ means.
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It looks like:
Clear expectations of inclusive behaviour, not vague values
Objective processes that interrupt bias
Leaders who understand their power and impact
Psychological safety for challenge
Inclusion embedded as a systemic and strategic lens on how work is done, not parked with HR
When this is in place, you don’t just get fairer workplaces – you get better outcomes in the built environment itself.
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First, by stopping the framing that this is about blame or exclusion.
Whiteness isn’t an identity – it’s a structural position. I tend to say that the language of cultural intelligence is not confrontational, but the level of introspection can be uncomfortable.
The invitation is to participate consciously in shaping fairer systems, not to feel attacked.When people understand how culture affects decision quality, safety, innovation and outcomes, they engage – especially when this is framed as leadership competence and improvable skill, not just a moral virtue.
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No, it’s not easy, but it can be straightforward.
It’s assumed to be hard because people don’t know how to do it well. Culture change feels difficult when it’s abstract, performative, or driven by guilt. When it’s grounded in clear behavioural capability, it becomes a practice – like fitness. Discomfort isn’t failure. It’s evidence of change and growth.
Our Purpose
Giving the unheard voice a place to speak
Our Mission
To create systemic change in culture, maximising human potential through developing cultural intelligence, to the benefit of people, place, and planet.
Our Vision
A culturally intelligent world where all on earth* have a voice.
*Humans are a part of nature, not apart from it.
The Inclusive Culture Pyramid: A Platform for Success
At Unheard Voice we have created the Inclusive Culture Pyramid as the foundation of our methodology.
When implemented, it empowers organisations to improve their culture by integrating Cultural Intelligence.
Let's explore the pyramid and its transformative capabilities.
The Model
Four CQ Capabilities, Four Change Cornerstones, Four Organisational Layers, Four Implementation Pillars
Drive (Motivation)
Do you have the desire to work and relate effectively across cultural differences?
Motivation is the first step in developing CQ, but it can be hindered by fear, defensiveness, and discomfort.
We help you navigate these barriers, pushing you forward with confidence.
Knowledge
Knowledge is the cornerstone of CQ.
It involves understanding different backgrounds, lived experiences, values, belief systems, leadership styles, organisational cultures, and even diverse professional languages.
Surrounding yourself with diverse perspectives and listening to these voices enriches your CQ.
Strategy
Before diving into action, it's essential to stop, think, and assess your thinking patterns.
Developing self-awareness helps you create procedural changes that mitigate the impact of biases.
Without CQ Strategy, actions may become stereotypical and tokenistic.
Action
Ultimately, people judge us by our behaviours.
Cultivating a broad repertoire of adaptable behaviours allows you to effectively work and relate across differences.
CQ Action demonstrates your commitment to inclusivity.
The Four Cornerstones of Change
To embed cultural intelligence and create an inclusive culture within your organisation, we focus on four essential cornerstones of change:
Role Modeling
Inclusive behaviours start from the top.
When leaders and colleagues behave inclusively, others are more likely to follow suit.
Fostering Understanding & Conviction
To drive inclusive change, individuals need to understand why these changes are necessary.
It's about inspiring people with the vision of an inclusive organisation.
Reinforcing Formal Mechanisms
Formal policies and practices play a vital role in promoting inclusivity.
By integrating inclusive practices into recruitment, procurement, and work policies, you encourage inclusive behaviour.
Development of Talents & Skills
Training is crucial for cultivating inclusive behaviour, and it must be complemented by opportunities to apply that training.
Including inclusive objectives in yearly appraisals supports this development.
The Four Layers of an Organisation
The way cultural intelligence can be used as you change requires different levels of responsibility to be taken:
Individual
Those who lead an organisation need to do the introspective piece of work to take responsibility for their role in the change, but so does everyone else in the business.
Team
Working effectively as a team means acknowledging and working with difference to create amazing and innovative solutions together.
Department
Having a shared language to promote departmental objectives which values and respects all who are working there, and takes into account interdepartmental needs, is delivered through this model.
Organisation
A culturally intelligent organisation does not adapt to everyone and everything. It has its own culture that is shaped by a unique set of shared norms and routines. Employees do not have to compromise their personal and cultural values to be part of a culturally intelligent organisation, but everyone is flexible to create a third culture that drives results.
The Four Implementation Pillars
And then we implement the behaviours using policies, procedures and practices across all elements of an organisation or business.
Attract
Who and how you educate people in your profession and attract them to join your company, business or organisation.
Retain
How you treat, progress and retain those you work with, engaging staff, contractors and collaborators.
Create
How you create your designs, products and services needs to have an inclusive lens placed across it all.
Engage
How you work with external stakeholders and build relationships to the widest possible range of users, customers, clients and supply chain.
Watch The Video
Cultural Intelligence is the capability to work and relate effectively across difference, which, when applied individually and organisationally, creates inclusive culture and better outcomes.
Cultural intelligence is made up for 4 capabilities:
Drive – your motivation
Knowledge – your understanding
Strategy – your plan and procedures
Action - your behaviours
When this is wrapped into a change model, like the McKinsey Influence model of change with its 4 pillars, these elements are wrapped together, and applied at individual, leadership team, and organisational level.
It’s a holistic approach to behaviour, which is then applied across how you attract a variety of people to work with you, how you treat, progress and retain them, how you create design, projects and services, and how you engage with external stakeholders.
The inclusive culture pyramid is a complete and tested paradigm to support culture change in organisations.