[00:00:00] I would like to acknowledge the Dharawal people, the Aboriginal people of Australia, whose country I live and work on. I would like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and thank them for sharing their cultural knowledge and awareness with us.
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[00:00:39] Hi there everyone, I'm Trisha Carter, an organisational psychologist and explorer of cultural intelligence. I'm on a quest to discover what enables us to see things from different perspectives, especially different cultural perspectives, and why sometimes it's easier than others to experience those moments of awareness.
[00:01:00] The shift in thinking. Some of you have listened to lots of our earlier episodes, and so you all know, but I'm saying it for the newcomers, that cultural intelligence, known as CQ, it's the capability to be effective in situations of diversity.
[00:01:15] And it's made up of four areas. Motivational, the CQ drive. Cognitive, the CQ knowledge. Metacognitive, the CQ strategy. And behavioural, the CQ action. And all four of these capabilities can help us operate effectively in situations of diversity. In this podcast we're focusing more on the metacognitive aspect, thinking about our thinking, that's CQ strategy.
[00:01:43] For those of you who've listened to a couple of episodes previously, you may recall that I'm currently traveling, I'm in the USA, and many people have said, this is an interesting time to be in the USA, and what shifts are you experiencing? Well, I've also been attending the CQ Fellows Retreat. meeting with this year's CQ fellows, people who are, also explorers and experts in the area of cultural intelligence and looking at developing a solution that will help people, whatever group of people they're working with, to be able to be more effective in situations of diversity.
[00:02:20] So it's been amazing listening, to what we refer to as the 2024 fellows and their solutions and to meet up with some of the 2023 fellows, some of whom, you know, because you've heard them speak in some of my episodes before. So it has been a time of real learning. and real gaining of knowledge. And it struck me that there's a bit of a difference between learning knowledge and using that knowledge in a way that involves our cultural metacognition.
[00:02:53] So I started off by thinking, what would I share with you about what I've learned?
[00:02:57] There are a number of areas that I've been learning about at the CQ fellows. And some of the areas that I've been discovering, I will hopefully be able to speak in more depth in further episodes with some of the people who have been developing that research. But some of the things that I have learned.
[00:03:16] We dived a little bit into the area of deep thinking, which is the work of Cal Newport. So that was something that took me into a little bit of thinking about how I work. We looked, among other things, at the ladder of inference, which is the work of Chris Argyris and one of the 2024 CQ fellows, dr. Leanne Weintraub is using that in her work, which has been published in her PhD, which is about developing skills in bridging divides. Another area that I learned about was cultural suppression in the work of Doctor Darryl l Washington as he researched how people sometimes suppress their cultural identities and the process that people go through to come to a point of acknowledging and accepting and recognizing their own identities and in that way achieving thriving.
[00:04:08] So I'm hoping that both of those people will be further episodes. And there are others as well who I learnt significant amounts from, and, and I'm beginning to reflect on some of their learning and how we can gain from it.
[00:04:23] I also learnt about the Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, which was a festival that we encountered on first arriving in the USA.
[00:04:33] I did a LinkedIn post about it where acknowledging that it's a festival belonging to the Mexican community. where grieving becomes a community event and almost a celebration of remembrance. That was a really, encouraging and uplifting learning for me.
[00:04:52] There are a number of other areas that I've been reminded of knowledge and that's caused me to reflect. So one area was the importance of other people in our learning, as we discuss, as people ask questions, as they might question us. We are inspired, we're energized, we're challenged, and hopefully we can make some new thinking as a result of that. So that's not so much a piece of knowledge. But it's an experience that can actually move us into that cultural awareness part of CQ strategy where we are thinking about what we're doing and thinking about how other people might be doing things similarly or different to us.
[00:05:36] One of the other things that I was reminded of as we went around the room and spoke about what had changed for people since we'd last been together, was the number of people who had faced some significant challenges and experienced pain and loss. And I realised, was reminded yet again, that these things are a universal reality.
[00:05:56] So people losing loved ones, someone has a child who's fighting a life threatening illness, some have lost beloved pets. Nearly all have faced work related challenges and that all of these experiences stretch us into sadness, into grief, into challenge, into discomfort. And while we're together, the U. S. election results were announced. And I could see the pain that many felt as they learned those results, especially those who were thinking about their communities who may be impacted by changes that may come.
[00:06:30] I was thinking in light of these experiences of pain and grief, How important empathy is when you bring a group together. I don't know about any research, but please let me know if you know any research that speaks to this point. But from what I do know at the moment, empathy doesn't automatically come with cultural intelligence.
[00:06:52] I think empathy is something that we bring to our cultural awareness, that CQ strategy. We bring it to that point to see what somebody else is experiencing. And almost I'm wondering if we need empathy to be able to step into that point and to really see things from someone else's perspective. But it's less the cognitive or the, thinking seeing, and we often say that metacognition is thinking about our thinking.
[00:07:20] But I think this is the feeling about what others are feeling. So to me, I was recognizing that while we can all have the experience of pain and sadness, some of us might see that differently. Some of us might not notice it. Some of us might need to learn how to notice it in others. And some of us might need to learn to support and care for others as they do that. And also to support and care for ourselves. And I'm thinking of the work of Kristen Neff and self compassion there.
[00:07:52] If you pull a global group together, there will always be people who see things differently, even when you are united on purpose or goals. And that is fine. That level of discomfort is something we need to become accustomed to.
[00:08:08] that we need to become almost comfortable with, if you like. But if we did, then we wouldn't necessarily be challenged by the different perspectives.
[00:08:19] One of the other areas that I noticed in terms of shifting is the power of and the effort involved in making small actions to fit in and adapt. I was thinking about this just as I was walking along a footpath and Some of you may know in Australia, we drive on the left hand side of the road. And so we have a tendency to walk on the left hand side of the footpath and here that is reversed.
[00:08:45] And so as we walk, it's helpful if we can remember that and get out of the way of people who are coming towards us. And so sometimes, After a few days, that can become more automatic so that we don't have to think about it. It's not something that we have to bring our CQ strategy to, to think and remind ourselves, Oh, I better walk on the other side, but it becomes automatic.
[00:09:09] And so there's that period often when people move countries and cultures that we're aware of differences. that we know we need to make that small action, but we have to keep reminding ourselves, and then hopefully it becomes automatic and we no longer have to think about it, and that makes things easier.
[00:09:26] I've been here, for almost two weeks now, and That aspect is automatic, except if I'm in a place where there's nobody walking towards me, then sometimes I have to remind myself. And in places where nobody is walking towards me was my walk this morning, as I walked around a lake in this suburb of Chicago, where I'm currently staying with my friend.
[00:09:50] And I was noticing. the different birds. I was noticing the squirrels. I was noticing the fall and the leaves falling really makes it, appropriate to call it fall. and I was noticing the coming winter and the cool, the cool weather. So, That action of noticing and the curiosity of noticing is something that we switch on or off and that's part of CQ strategy as well.
[00:10:16] So lots to think about and reflect on and there will be much more. I just wanted to check in with you and to leave you with some of my thinking so far. Thank you so much for listening. Please make sure that you subscribe or follow in whatever podcast app that you are listening from so that you can make sure to hear the next episode of The Shift. .