I do think stories are one of the best tools for communicating across any number of cultures. But I also think there are wildly successful leaders who are introverted, disciplined, lead via spreadsheets and goals, and might not "appear" to be a great leader...but in retrospect, made a massive impact.

The better you work to find the pain point and problem facing a diversity of users, the more clearly you can DEFINE the goal when you implement the process for culturally intelligent innovation.

Developing an explicit decision-making process upfront for how you will make that decision will help alleviate conflict and gridlock when you actually need to decide.

There are highly innovative companies in the U.S., Germany, and India. And there are many stories of companies that failed to innovate in all those countries. This is good news because it means, regardless of your cultural background or where your company is based, it can become innovative.

Generating diverse ideas requires being clear about the kind of input needed and creating multiple ways for diverse team members to share their ideas (e.g. use more than just a brainstorming session).

When you jump on a city bus or roam the streets off the major thoroughfares you'll quickly learn that we have as many differences as similarities. And therein lie the greatest opportunities for innovation - our different ways of viewing the world and coming up with solutions!

What really makes the difference in innovation is whether the corporate culture is paying attention to innovation.