The Intercultural Development Inventory

Measures openness and approach to similarity and difference along a continuum from monocultural mindsets to global mindsets

The Intercultural Development Inventory is an accessible, easy to understand, yet complex vertical development tool which measures openness and approach to similarity and difference along a continuum from monocultural mindsets to global mindsets. 

The Intercultural Development Inventory® (IDI®) is the premier cross-cultural assessment of intercultural competence that is used by thousands of individuals and organizations to build intercultural competence to achieve international and domestic diversity and inclusion goals and outcomes.

Two Central Findings Using IDI

Interculturally competent behavior occurs at a level supported by the individual’s or group’s underlying orientation as assessed by the IDI.  

Training and leadership development efforts at building intercultural competence are more successful when they are based on the individual’s or group’s underlying development orientation as assessed by the IDI. 

In contrast to many “personal characteristic” instruments, the IDI is a cross-culturally valid, reliable, and generalizable measure of intercultural competence along the validated intercultural development continuum (adapted, based on IDI research, from the DMIS theory developed by Milton Bennett). Further, the IDI has been demonstrated, through research, to have high predictive validity to both bottom-line cross-cultural outcomes in organizations and intercultural goal accomplishments in education.

Possible Approach could be just a one-time delivery or a Two-Phase approach The administrator would use the facets of an identity wheel blended with the IDI to help individuals approach their growth towards more expansive and inclusive mindsets.  Based on the organization and the community they serve intersectionality may play a critical role in how IDI results are interpreted.

Phase one could include administering IDI to members of the executive leadership team followed by debriefing the group, brainstorming next steps, and then debriefing individual participants. This would include delivery of IDI results package, Individual Development Plan materials and delivery of one hour follow up coaching with entire team in 3 to 6 months.

Phase two could be a day long (8 hours) offsite event designed to expand upon the teams IDI journey, followed by one hour coaching sessions every 3 months with participants.

Credit: www.idiinventory.com