When I work with groups of leaders who need to build business relationships, I ask them to choose a partner based on specific criteria:

1. Choose someone they do not know very well. Or at all.
2. Choose someone who they believe is very different than they are.

It’s very interesting to see the results of this exercise.  Here’s an example: in one of my sessions, there was an African American woman who partnered with an Eastern European male who had blond hair and blue eyes.  After talking for a while, they discovered that despite their physical differences and assumed obvious cultural differences, they had more in common than either of them ever imagined.  The lesson to take away here is that our assumptions sometimes could not be further from the truth.  Always keep an open mind and stay curious.