Ted Audio Collective

I have a goal of visiting at least 10 countries every decade.

I've exceeded my goal.

I'm now at country number 56, which makes me very happy.

And let me tell you, the countries I've visited are so different on so many dimensions.

They're in Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, or South America.

I often find myself being one of few black people and often the target of many stairs.

However, when I get the chance to dig a little deeper into the people in the region, I find

myself noticing that there's so much we have in common.

For instance, there are universal games.

I grew up playing something called Mancala, Google it if you don't know what it is, but

no matter where I've traveled, I've found some version of it.

In the same way, sometimes in our organizations, even though we might be in the same office

or region, certain groups or units can appear so different from the one you might be in.

You're in marketing and everyone thinks you're all creative, while you view those finance

people or engineers as purely technical and boring, but underneath these simple categorizations

lie more commonalities than we can imagine.

So what can we do as individuals and organizations to more actively practice uncovering these

commonalities, to unleash new ways of thinking and doing business?

I'm Madu Prakhanola, this is Ted Business.

Our speaker today is a Parna Baradwaj, a consumer strategist.

In this talk, she describes how certain patterns of behavior in the global market may be invisible

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