True personal growth ultimately will lead to fulfillment and it's my intention with these podcasts to connect more deeply with you. Thank you for joining me and Corbin and my guests, and welcome to this episode. Well, hello again, and welcome. And today I have a guest with me. She is Maria Garatanandia. I do hope I've said that correctly, Maria. You have. Yes, you have. Thank you. And Maria specialises in global leadership and development training and coaching.
She has over twenty years of experience working with clients in The States and Latin America at all levels and across many industries. Maria offers clients solutions in leadership competencies, including intercultural and global team management, also in interpersonal intelligence. Plus, Maria is a part time professor at Anagy Mendez University in Orlando, teaching effective communication. So I think we're going to have rather a lot to talk about.
Welcome, Maria. Thank you, Anne. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invitation. So where are we going to start? You've had such an interesting life. Yes, as we get older, there's more to talk about. Tell me about the early part of it that brought you into the career that you have. I thought after living abroad for so many years, my father was an expatriate working for a large American company. He was transferred to various countries in my childhood.
And of course, that created an interest in me in all things intercultural and international. So I thought I was going to go into the Foreign Service because I loved languages, I loved history, and I just loved discovering new places and new cultures. However, things don't usually turn out the way you think. That's very true. My life took a few turns, but I wound up finding a little niche for myself, which was cross cultural training.
And I think that I was interested in this because I saw my parents struggle a bit when we would move to a new culture or another. In particular, I would see that my father would be frustrated because he felt, even going from one Latin country to another, that he was not understood or he had difficulties with his colleagues or his team. And I could see some of the things that were going on because I was younger and I think I had absorbed some of the culture.
And once I realized that there was a whole dimension, a whole art in understanding cross cultural differences, I thought, that's something that I could do. So that's how I became interested first in helping people cross cultures, helping them understand the dos and don'ts, helping them have a little bit of a shortcut in order to be able to make their learning curve a little shorter.
Well, I think that's such a valuable service because, I mean, it's great that you recognized the need and decided to fill it because with children, these things come naturally. Kids just manage to play together and they get on with it. But it's really difficult as an adult, especially when there's a language barrier. You're fighting on two fronts, not only in communicating and being heard, but in just doing things the right way in that culture. Yes, absolutely.
And as a kid, having to be the new kid every two or three years at new schools, you learn very quickly how to just look around, observe, figure out what's cool and what's not cool because you're coming from one culture, one school, and you learned what was cool there, but you come into a new environment and that might not be the cool thing to do. And of course, as children or teenagers, what we want to do is just fit in. That's all we want to do.
And it becomes more urgent or more of a priority when we're in those early adolescent years, right? It's built into So I had to learn at a very fast pace to pick up on the skills that would permit me to assimilate quicker. And I think that that helped me going into adulthood to figure out how to, quote unquote, fit in or how to be able to connect with people.
And some of those skills might have been subconscious because I learned them as a child, almost like you learn a language as a child and you don't remember being bilingual. But these were also some skills that I learned that helped me to start a business in a new country and be able to obtain clients in a new country and be able to cross cultures and sell a service that was still relatively new during the time.
So these are all things that I am very thankful that I had the experience of being what we call a third culture kid, where you grow up in a culture that's different from that of your parents and you spend a significant time of your formative years just learning, learning how to adjust to these differences. Yes. My best friend at school was a cross culture kid. That's just occurred to me.
Her parents were Italian, and they had left Italy, I suppose, the early years after the war when everybody in the West was trying to recover from it, and they made a home for themselves in Africa. So she and her sister, I think, were born there, and she assimilated into school just like all the rest of us. She spoke with the same kind of accent that there was just no difference.
But her parents, they well, dad, of course, was forced to learn the language, but mom was never comfortable speaking English. And, yes, the culture was very different, very, very different. It usually is harder for the adults. When I'm coaching expats, executives who have perhaps a two or three year assignment, I find that many times the executive worries more about their spouse and children. And I usually tell them, You know what, the kids, they will go through their culture shock as well.
I'm not discounting it, but they will go through it a lot faster than the adults will. And usually the accompanying spouse has the hardest time because they've had to leave behind all of their life to follow their spouse. Whether it's a man or a woman, you have to leave behind your job, your friends, your routines. And while the executive has their job cut out for them and their environment where they have to be productive, the trailing spouse really has to carve out of nothing a brand new life.
And so that's where it can be the hardest. That's the trickiest that I've found when I'm coaching cross cultural clients. It's the whole family scenario. But like you said, the kids, they adapt a lot faster. I have to admit, I was always a little bit envious of the kids at school who had foreign speak foreign language speaking parents because they automatically grow up bilingual or trilingual in some cases, and it comes so easy to children to pick up a language.
Yes. And I always tell people, don't be afraid to make sure that you keep that, your native language alive at home. My mother, My parents left Cuba back in the '60s, and whereas my uncle told his kids, We're now American citizens. Cuba's gone forever. And he spoke English to his kids. My mom was always very adamant that we not forget the native language.
And it was a good idea because thanks to that, my first job paid me about 20% more because I was bilingual, whereas my cousin, sadly, he was transferred in one of the important jobs he got to Puerto Rico and he couldn't speak the language. It was very sad because, you know, it would have been so easy for him to just jump in if he had known Spanish.
Mhmm. You know, when we were chatting before this, I told you that I have spent some time in in Hong Kong, and at that time I was working as a secretary, you know, just fresh from school, very young, but I had those qualifications, and whenever you applied for a job in Hong Kong at the time, you had to supply a photograph. There was no discrimination, of course, but from the photograph whether you would be likely to converse in Chinese as well as in English.
So of course, the Chinese girls were in massively more demand than we were as expats. So I think, you know, when you have no experience, you're up against it anyway attempting to get a position in work, but it was one of the reasons I didn't stay in Hong Kong very long. And here's the thing, a lot of people ask me, well, Maria, from all the places you've lived, where's your favorite? And I always say, You know, I can't really think of a favorite place.
One of the characteristics of third culture kids or adult third culture kids is that we're sometimes labeled as a little bit detached. And it's not so much that we're detached, it's just that we are accustomed to saying goodbye and adjusting to change a little faster. And we don't pull quite on as hard to what we've left behind.
I think this is important because you need to make the best of whatever circumstance you're in and be able to see the positive in the new environment and shake off the nostalgia of what you've left behind. And perhaps I'm being pragmatic here. Maybe that is one of the characteristics of TCKs, as they say. But I think it behooves us to be able to look forward and not so much backward and make the best of what we have. I agree.
In fact, skills of that nature are good for life in general, aren't they, To stop looking back, I was on a course recently and there was this phrase living life in the rearview mirror. A lot of people do that thinking back to the good old days and I speak for myself as much as anyone else and it doesn't get you anywhere. No, it certainly doesn't.
And I think that's why I love the whole topic of communication because having been in different places, having immersed myself in different cultures, you get to see what makes people tick, what are the things that they hold in common, and what are the things that differentiate them.
For example, when we talk about poor human values, things like respect, for example, I think humans all over the world understand what respect means, and we probably all think it's important, but how we show respect values, it just differs so much between one culture and another. If you think of, for example, something as simple as eye contact, In certain cultures, you have to make sure you maintain direct eye contact with someone to show them respect.
A teacher might say to her student, Look at me when I'm talking to you. Whereas in another culture, that would be insubordination, to keep sustained prolonged eye contact with an elder. That's a very good example. And I could tell you coming from a Latino background, if I were to look at my mother long and hard, I'd probably get a slap across the cheek. Back in the days when you still got slapped. Did it do us any harm?
No, no. I agree, but then again, it's a Don't know if that's politically incorrect to say that my mom ever spanked me or slapped me. No. Well, I think it's much harder to control boys without a little bit of physical persuasion. Probably, probably. But it's true. You think of all of those common values, but how they show so differently. And that's where the cross cultural learning comes in so handy because as a cross cultural trainer, you can be the, how should I say, the interpreter.
I'll give you another example. I was working with an expat from Peru and she was annoyed because one of the employees from the company who also worked as the driver would not say hello to her when she got into the car. And she was living in Mexico. So she's Peruvian, he's Mexican. And when I was talking to her, she's like, You know, he's a little bit rude because I get in the car, he doesn't say anything to me and he should say hello. And so that kind of annoyed her.
And later on when I was speaking to him, go figure, he says to me, You know, this lady, she's really rude because she gets into the car and she doesn't say hello to me. And so they were both annoyed at each other thinking the other person was rude because the protocol of greeting is different in Peru than it is in Mexico. Who's expected to say hello first?
In Mexico, the person who enters or arrives is responsible for initiating the greeting, whereas in Peru, he was supposed to greet her, kind of as a welcome. So they were both silent the whole way, seething that the other person was so rude because they hadn't said hello. And so my job there was to clarify, and of course, the Peruvian, I had to tell her, Guess what? Here, you're in the wrong. You're supposed to say hello first. And she's like, Really? Are you serious?
And I'm like, Yes. And she's like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I really judged this guy so poorly based on what I thought was the correct way of behaving. And you don't think of this because you assume that the protocol is the same everywhere you go, but it's not. Well, you're so right. We don't even think about it. I I I I don't think about whether to greet first or to wait to be greeted. But I suppose whatever I do is just natural in this culture that I'm living in. Exactly.
I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you with Connecticut. And that's the thing. It's the Johari window. You don't know what you don't know. Right? Unless somebody comes and says, hey, Anne, guess what? This is what you don't know, and I'm going to tell you something that might be very useful to you. Right?
So those are the things that I found fascinating in the study of interculturalism because there are so many simple things that once you have the understanding, you can get over those huge communication obstacles because many times you're attributing some of these behaviors to a personal conflict when it just has to do with your cultural filter. And as soon as you have this newfound understanding, everything changes because all of a sudden it's like, Oh, this isn't personal.
This is just something that has to do with the rules of the game. And I didn't know the rules of the game. Now I know the rules of the game. It becomes so much easier. Yeah. I really like it. I think that the service you offer is amazing. How do you do you advertise or is it all word-of-mouth? Well, it is usually a lot of word-of-mouth.
Although I do a podcast with a colleague that we show on LinkedIn called Global Gals, and we talk about all things intercultural because we just find it fascinating. And of course, I have my webpage where I offer cross cultural training and services besides others like other leadership skills, like communication, presentation skills, conflict management, feedback, coaching for managers.
But there's a special place in my heart for all things intercultural because it's something that I've grown up with all of my life. Yeah, I really like that angle. Naturally, I will make certain that all the relevant links are in the show notes, but just to get back to the topic in hand, you were particularly interested in the stress management side of things. Have we covered everything that you wanted to say?
Well, I talked about stress management because I think a lot of people get stressed out when they don't know how to approach a conversation. It has to do with managing expectations. It has to do with giving feedback. It has to do with managing conflict. And so either you have the approach of avoiding conflict altogether and sweeping it under the rug, which eventually will come back somehow.
Or you have, some people, when they do manage conflict, they might be at a point emotionally where maybe they're addressing a little too late and they might let their emotions get the best of them and maybe succumb to verbal irritators or things that don't work and actually cause a bigger problem, or the fear of giving somebody feedback.
You know, this is something, I noticed you did X and it had this result, Y. Let me suggest we do this other thing, A, in order to achieve B. So there are some very simple, simple models that we can follow to take the stress out of effective communication, whether it's giving someone feedback, whether it's a colleague, a boss, a team member, or even our spouse or kids, that'll make it so much easier so that you don't feel like you're going to create this big conflict, this big drama.
You can do it in a in a simple way without losing your cool and actually making it helpful for the other person. Very true. It you know, it's training that everybody should have. It's one of the many things which they should teach at school instead of all the useless subjects, many of the useless subjects that we spend all those years learning like a parrot and throwing back at them in exams. But wouldn't conflict management and giving feedback and receiving feedback be so much more helpful?
Absolutely. I think if kids could learn some simple models from the very beginning, you know how, at least I used to remember they would say, use your words, like when kids lash out. It's like, use your words, don't try to smack somebody or don't try, use your words instead of yelling or whatever. When kids are little, if we could start teaching them, you know, describe this and then describe the impact. What's the situation? What's the behavior? What's the impact? So simple.
And then that clarifies things for the receiver so that it's easier to get the appropriate feedback and create something more constructive. You need to connect so that you can communicate and collaborate. And that's my tagline. I think it's so important to make sure you have all three of those elements so that you can actually move forward and not get stuck. Connect, communicate, collaborate. I love that.
Yes. Yeah. We do need to hone our communication skills because isn't the world in such a mess? People are not communicating at all. No. And lack of leadership. Yes, yes. I think that especially our young, well, our young generation, Gen Z, that was stuck in lockdowns for almost two years, they lost a lot of that ability to break the ice, the small talk, create connections, create rapport. Rapport building is very important in order to be able to promote empathy and connection.
If you're robbed of that, it's even harder. And many of my clients tell me that early career professionals are struggling with that right now because, probably because of what happened a few years ago. So that's something that they're having to learn from scratch. Yeah, very true. I'm so sorry for that. Was it Gen Z that you called them?
I get some which is Gen Z and which is many, but anyway, the generation that was at school, particularly at the end of their schooling when those lockdown years happened, that was so, such bad luck for them. Yes. Absolutely. Very hard to overcome. Yes. So I think kids have a lot of pressures on them these days anyway at school with social media and the, well, the need to look perfect that we just didn't have. No. There's a meme and it's so funny. Every time I see it, I'm like, yes.
Thank God that I did all this stupid stuff before smartphones and the internet, right? There's no documentation of the stupid things we did. That's right, live your life in public. Everything that you do can theoretically last online forever. Yes. Yeah. And if you think about it, there's cameras everywhere, surveilling us all the time. Oh my goodness, yes, that's Big Brother, remember 1984? Oh yes, I read that. We're there. There. And it was very dark and very somber.
It was a horrible book to get through, in fact. Then I read it again, oh, within the last five years. It had a totally different effect on me. Oh my goodness, he's got so much of this right. He just got the year Yes. How does he foresee television? Excuse me? How did he, George Orwell, how did he foresee television? I don't know. As far as the general public was concerned. Well, how did he foresee everything? The cameras, the big brother, the surveillance, the big state.
I mean, it's uncanny, all of the things that he foresaw. And of course, everybody thirty, forty years ago would say, Oh, well, it's referring to the communist totalitarians. And now it has, no, I don't think it has, it's kind of everywhere now. And even in our more, quote unquote, free societies, we're starting to see little inching towards a bit of that authoritarianism that we see in that book. So yes, it's scary. It's more than just a little bit, in my opinion. It's very scary.
And we saw it with COVID. I think that's where we saw it the most. Oh, yes. And you know, they brought in a bunch of really restrictive laws, which haven't been repealed, because they never seem to take them away. I believe it's a law still in existence, which came in Elizabethan times that it's illegal to either sell mince pies or sell hot cross buns, and they've never repealed that law. Really? Oh my goodness. Shame I can't remember which one it was.
Wow. Anyway, Maria, have we covered everything that you wanted to mention? I believe we have. I think we have too. That was a really easy, free flowing conversation. I enjoyed it as well. Okay. I've got one question to ask you before I let you go. What's the one thing that you could do that in doing that would make everything else in your life either unnecessary or at least much easier? Oh, wow, Anne. You're really very deep there. Would like to do in life that would make things a lot easier?
I am at a loss. I don't know. Think, in my opinion, I think that already being able to communicate with practically anybody, being able to create a rapport with everybody makes my life easier. So in that sense, that is the vocation I'm trying to share with the rest of the world because I don't like drama and I prefer to be able to connect and communicate and collaborate with people in a very simple way.
So if life was kind enough to give me these circumstances to learn how to do it, I'd like to share that with the rest of the world because, again, a lot of the things that we put on ourselves are things that we don't necessarily have to. We can make things easier. We can have shortcuts or just deeper understandings of what makes people tick and make those interactions with others be so much more harmonious. Yes. Great note to end on. Maria, thank you so much.
I've really enjoyed chatting with you. Thank you so much for having me in. Absolute pleasure.