Intercultural Competence is crucial to a firm's culture and, frankly, it's ability to engage in and provide quality architecture. Being able to understand and empathize with coworkers, collaborators and clients from different backgrounds and experiences breeds a sort of patience that seeps into everyday interactions and materializes into a healthy, happy, reduced stress workplace. So much of workplace conflict is driven by misunderstanding and poor communication - in my experience so far at Perkins & Will, it seems like an office that's committed to listening to the voices of junior coworkers and allowing them to lead.
Today we sat on a long, exhausting AOC call at a tense moment in the project. While it was not a particularly diverse call - most of the speakers were cis white men - the Perkins & Will contingent was not spearheaded by a project manager talking over contractors, but rather a junior designer, who was more than willing to let contractors and subcontractors get their thoughts in, and frequently deferred to his female colleagues on the work she produced. It's an admirable step and hopefully reflects the values of the firm at large.