The Kozai Group helps individuals and organizations work more effectively across differences so they can live and thrive in harmony. We make people aware of their existing competency levels in global and intercultural effectiveness and inclusion and enable them to improve these competencies
We offer three tools that meet all the criteria for rigorous assessment instruments:
- Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (IES)
- Global Competencies Inventory (GCI)
- Inclusion Competencies Inventory (ICI)
Whether you need help addressing an immediate issue or want to proactively build intercultural or inclusion competency throughout your organization, these assessments offer solutions that create awareness and develop crucial skills, , prepare staff to deal effectively with diverse clientele and co-workers, shape a more inclusive and global workplace environment, mitigate the risk of incidents of intolerance related to diversity and cross-cultural misunderstandings, increase appeal to a wider employee talent pool, and improve your bottom line.
Each of the three inventories provides an overall competency score that indicates how people compare to others who have taken the instrument. They also include a Social Desirability Score that signals whether users’ answers were likely to be overly influenced by their desire to project their ideal self rather than an honest self-appraisal. This score also flags another potential concern — people whose response patterns indicate they might be overly harsh in judging themselves.
Users of all three inventories receive an extensive feedback report that provides: 1) a basis for understanding their current levels in each competency and their overall result; 2) a proven Personal Development Plan that models how to leverage, compensate for weak areas, or grow competencies; and 3) Resources. Group Reports, which are available to administrators, are useful catalysts for organizational improvement projects and pre-post assessment research.
About the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale :
What is the IES?
The IES assessment survey evaluates competencies critical for effective interaction with people who are different from one another. These differences can originate from country culture or from ethnic, generational, religious, and other sources.
The IES provides educators and study abroad managers with measures to help them create a baseline of self-awareness about the current levels of intercultural competencies of those they teach and/or prepare for study abroad experiences. This baseline serves as a platform from which students can explore – with their teachers and classmates – concrete, pragmatic “next steps” they can take to enhance their competencies and help make their educational and/or study abroad experience more fulfilling and productive.
The IES measures three major competencies:
1. Continuous Learning. How we learn about other people and the accuracy of that learning.
2. Interpersonal Engagement. How we develop and manage relationships with people who are different from us.
3. Hardiness. How we manage the challenges and stress involved in interacting with people different from ourselves.
Who should use the IES?
The IES helps to educate students on how to increase their level of intercultural competencies and positively affects their learning experience in intercultural coursework and while studying abroad. The IES intercultural assessment tools aid in the process of acclimating the student prior to their study abroad experience and measuring their growth in intercultural competencies after the experience.
For educators, the IES is a valid and reliable pre-post instrument, especially combined with qualitative data, to measure whether or not your intercultural competence programs or study abroad programs are effective. The 60-question assessment provides students with feedback on their current levels of intercultural skills and shows them how they can develop these skills during a course or study abroad experience.
It also helps educators meet their institutional learning objective. The IES provides your students with feedback on their current levels of intercultural skills and shows them how they can develop these skills during your course. Once your students take the IES, you can incorporate activities into your syllabus to reinforce its lessons, expand their global understanding, build their intercultural skills and meet the accreditation requirement.
About the Global Competencies Inventory:
What is the GCI?.
The Global Competencies Inventory (GCI) assessment survey evaluates global competencies critical for effective interaction with people who are different from yourself and reflects 80 different nationalities. These differences can originate from country culture or from ethnic, generational, religious, and other areas.
GCI measures three main components of intercultural effectiveness:
1. Perception Management. Assesses how individuals perceive and make sense of the worldaround them and their ability to learn about people who differ from them.
2. Relationship Management. Assesses an individual’s orientation toward developing and maintaining positive relationships with people from other cultures.
3. Self Management. Assesses the individual’s capabilities to maintain a healthy emotional state by effectively managing thoughts, emotions and responses to the stressful aspects of living and/or working in cross-cultural environments.
Furthermore, the culturally responsive assessment provides consultants, organizations, and managers with measures to help them create a baseline of self-awareness about the current levels of cultural competencies of people they are working with. This baseline of self-awareness acts as a platform from which individuals can mutually explore with their consultant and managers – using various methods and means – concrete, pragmatic “next steps” they can take to enhance their global competencies.
Who should use the GCI?
Consultants, human resource professionals and/or organizations can greatly benefit from administering the GCI to help global leaders break down the complexities of working in a culturally-diverse organization or setting, whether that be in a leadership position or working with global teams, to measure their ability to work effectively with others who are culturally different from themselves. Through answering 150+ questions, and measuring 16 different dimensions of intercultural understanding, it will become much easier to determine the level of cultural intelligence and competence of any individual.
About the Inclusion Competencies Inventory:
What is the ICI?
The Inclusion Competencies Inventory (ICI) evaluates competencies that are critical to being more inclusive with people who differ from you. We live, work and play within diverse contexts. The forms of diversity we encounter reflect a wide range of types: race, ethnic group, gender, age, religion, political views, and ability . When diverse people interact, an outcome can be confusion, conflict, or apathy while another potential outcome includes heightened interest in diversity, intriguing questions, learning, innovation, and synergies.
The ICI measures these three key factors:
1. Knowing Yourself. Your awareness of “who you are”, inclination to change over time, and likelihood to be adaptive and resilient in challenging situations.
2. Knowing Others. Your interest in and actions to develop relationships with people who differ from you and your ability to better understand them.
3. Bridging Difference. Your interest in and ability to see and understand multiple perspectives, and your sensitivity to the inequity in power differences that are present in many situations.
Who should use the ICI?
The ICI can be used by diversity, equity and inclusion professionals, human resource managers and consultants, to assess competencies associated with effective inclusive behavior. If you’re looking to evaluate the critical competencies needed to be more inclusive, to be able to measure changes in inclusive competencies levels, and/or provide self-analysis for improvement – then you’re looking for the ICI.