[00:00:00] Trisha: 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.
[00:00:39] Trisha: Hi there, everyone. I'm Trisha Carter, an organizational 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, the shifts in thinking.
[00:01:03] Trisha: And as we are thinking about our thinking, this is one of the four capabilities that make up cultural intelligence. Sometimes it's referred to as cultural metacognition or CQ strategy. One of the ways that we build that capability is to look back on our experiences and reflect. So today we're doing just that.
[00:01:24] Trisha: We're going to look back on the past five guests and reflect on the things that they've shared with us. So the last five guests include Shaikh Fadilah Ahmad from Brunei, Brian Johnson from the USA, Jennifer Izekor from the United Kingdom, Samkelo Blom from South Africa, and Marc Geil from the USA. So we had a diverse group of people from different locations and very different life experiences, but with some real things in common, some real threads and repeated themes that emerge throughout the different episodes. So what I've done is gone through and collated some of those themes and reflected on them and how they showed up, in different people's experiences and in the stories that they told. So I'm going to go through them one by one for us to think about them and in many ways for us to emulate them or use them if we can.
[00:02:21] Trisha: The first one was just what stood out to me in going back was that each of these people displayed a real love of other people and a delight in serving people. the first one that really stood out was Fadilah's delight in meeting people from different cultures. I love the story about how he took up cycling so that he could enjoy times with people who weren't part of the diplomatic community where he was working.
[00:02:44] Trisha: And Jennifer, she said it, she made it explicit a number of times.
[00:02:48] Jennifer: Oh, I love people. I just, I, I love, I love people and, and, you know, I, I feel incredibly blessed that in all the roles that I've had, whether I sort of intentionally gravitated towards that and, you know, in, in, in the later part of my career, yeah, much more intentionally. The question I've always asked myself is how do I add value to people?
[00:03:08] Trisha: And in the same ways, Brian, Marc and Samkelo also demonstrated that real love for people and delight in service.
[00:03:17] Trisha: And in many ways that. that joy, that, that leaning towards people from all different types of people is actually demonstrative of another cultural intelligence capability. Not so much the thinking side, but the motivation, it's high CQ drive, and it's really that openness and motivation to be with people from different backgrounds.
[00:03:39] Trisha: And at some point, we must look at how the drive and the thinking, interweave, if you like, how they come together, because I think that's a real factor as well. One of the other themes that came through. Was a number of these people had been exposed to difference at a very young age, so they hadn't grown up in, you know, a homogeneous environment where everybody was the same Fadilah spoke of going to boarding school and suddenly being exposed to people who are from other religious backgrounds and how he experienced the joy of celebrating other religious celebrations as well as his own.
[00:04:18] Trisha: Brian spoke about his experience growing up in a very diverse community and how much he appreciated that. And then his experience staying in the homes of his black teammates. he was a ball player, and how the families would welcome him in and there would be open discussions about lots of issues, compared to his home. That was quite a difference and it was something that he really enjoyed.
[00:04:41] Trisha: Jennifer spoke about moving back to Nigeria, and this was not her home. She'd been born and raised at that point in England, but it was her parents home. and so then she really had sort of two separate childhood experiences, but that helped her to appreciate both cultures more deeply.
[00:04:57] Trisha: And Marc shared that he'd been a Rotary Exchange student. So in high school at the age of 15, he spent a year in Japan, which was a massive shift from his earlier life in Illinois, Michigan. I haven't seen research on the development of cultural intelligence in children. And so if anybody has seen any, I'd love to see more and to sort of think about, you know, how cultural intelligence can be developed in children from these experiences.
[00:05:27] Trisha: It obviously is because each of these people really displayed high cultural intelligence. but you know, it would be great to know if this is a common factor for many people. One of the other threads that wove through was what people referred to as lightbulb moments. And it really is the shifts. but people spoke about how suddenly they recognize something.
[00:05:50] Trisha: Brian spoke about the lightbulb moment when the mother of his black friend helped him to see that bias and problems existed in many different groups. And it wasn't just in his. Team as he referred to himself thinking about being a white male compared to many of his friends who were from a different background, but that discussion with her helped him to see that that bias could sit in many different groups.
[00:06:16] Trisha: Jennifer spoke about loving lightbulb moments, she spoke about her own and she spoke about recognizing them in others as she teaches cultural intelligence and inclusive leadership and seeing people suddenly gain new awareness or seeing something from a different experience.
[00:06:31] Jennifer: And you see these light bulb moments go on but just suddenly go get it now. And that's, you know, I live for those. That's, that's what brings me incredible joy
[00:06:41] Trisha: marc spoke about his moments on planes. he is a global executive for an organization and his career has involved him traveling a lot as he goes to, different operations of his organization around the world. But in those moments, he would often be. flexing from one way of operating to another and on the planes he would often reflect about what he'd experienced and really use that CQ strategy.
[00:07:09] Trisha: He also spoke about the joy of helping others step into the different perspectives. He referred to them as aha moments.
[00:07:16] Marc: When I would see the aha moments in somebody else's eye or those moments of going, oh, they're thinking about this differently.
[00:07:26] Marc: And seeing them change their perspective, then as a result of that, that was always the most rewarding thing.
[00:07:32] Trisha: Samkelo spoke about being the mirror. to his clients, asking them the questions, which he also asked himself to help him and them take different perspectives. Are you thinking about this as an employee? Are you thinking about this as a CEO? and guiding people to step into the shoes of others to enable them to recognize the impacts of their decisions.
[00:07:57] Trisha: He also spoke about making difficult decisions himself and stepping into their shoes so that he could feel and see the different perspectives. He talked about the experience of different cultures and the moments when you see other cultures behaving differently to your own. He spoke about how easy it is to fall into judgment.
[00:08:18] Samkelo: So my South African culture, very vociferous. My South African culture, you speak about things, you raise issues.
[00:08:25] Samkelo: My South African culture, you tackle issues. Can you imagine what is a challenge when I'm dealing with somebody who does not come from that culture? I can think that they are being secretive, they are hiding things from me
[00:08:36] Trisha: And this, my friends, is cultural metacognition. It's that awareness of my own culture and how it has shaped my expectations. And how it might cause judgment, but being aware of it, we can stop those judgments. And this is what we're helping others to grow in their ability to do also. Samkelo wants people to have their own lightbulb moments so that they are learning how to reflect and think differently.
[00:09:03] Samkelo: I'm not trying to impose it on them. I'm not trying to give them the right answers. Just trying to play that mirror, ask the uncomfortable questions and say, hey, this process, this system, is it equitable or not?
[00:09:15] Trisha: So the light bulb moments, the aha moments, those things that bring joy can sometimes bring challenge, but a part of what we want to do if we're going to grow.
[00:09:26] Trisha: Another theme that came out in a number of the episodes of the last five people was recognizing that one of the significant cultural differences that people experience is around what people often referred to as low power distance and high power distance. And for those of you for whom this is a new concept, we're really talking about different values.
[00:09:49] Trisha: And if we think about almost a continuum of values of people, at some end of that continuum, believe that there isn't a great deal of power or difference between people that we're much more, on the same level, egalitarian, if you like. And then at the other end of that continuum, there's a much greater difference.
[00:10:08] Trisha: So there's a high power difference and some people are given more power. Some people are given more respect because of that power. And so it's right in those cultures to show that respect. Samkelo spoke about his culture where he was brought up to respect adults.
[00:10:27] Trisha: And then he spoke about being made a manager in an insurance company and managing people who were older than him.
[00:10:33] Samkelo: because in my own culture, which is the culture, we are taught to respect adults.
[00:10:40] Samkelo: Now I'm a manager and within 2003 I've got people older than me who are reporting to me.
[00:10:48] Samkelo: I'm now having to performance manage those people. I'm now having to have uncomfortable discussions with those people. Those people are older and mature, and they're married and I'm not yet married.
[00:11:02] Trisha: He had to recognize that the value difference that he had grown up with was not what was operating in the world of business where he was, and he needed to adapt to a different way of operating. He recognized how difficult it was for him, almost like he was disowning part of his identity.
[00:11:20] Samkelo: And I have to be conscious of what the past taught me and what the present is gonna be asking me.
[00:11:26] Trisha: Jennifer spoke about her father in the traditional Nigerian culture, which was also high power distance. She said, if he said jump to her as a child, she obeyed. And yet, parenting her daughter, who had grown up in England, a low power distance culture, Jennifer realized that if she told her daughter to jump, there would probably be a debate.
[00:11:48] Trisha: Because that's the way her daughter had grown up. Marc also spoke about experiencing this difference when he moved to Tokyo on his exchange.
[00:11:57] Marc: one thing that really stood out to me was the hierarchical differences, that, that existed, you know, recognizing that, that power distance was in play. And of course I didn't understand the term power distance when I was 16 years old. but learning those things at a young age and, and seeing that Around the world, people interact in a much different way. And, and that was something, again, I took back on that moment. It's a big aha.
[00:12:23] Trisha: And so this theme of different experiences of power difference was something that was significant for three of our interviewees as they told their stories and as I work with people, you know, moving countries, as companies send their expatriates around the world.
[00:12:40] Trisha: This is often a challenge for people, and so it is something that people might need to think through, might need to use that cultural metacognition, that thinking about their thinking, to see when they're facing those differences. Another thread that came through was about accepting the possibility, or even the probability, of failure.
[00:13:01] Trisha: There's some research in metacognition about failure awareness, and the more we're aware of our failures, the faster we can learn to be effective. And so you can imagine somebody dealing with people who are different to them, we make mistakes, there will be failures. And so it makes sense that this theme came out in every one of these five people's stories.
[00:13:24] Trisha: Fadilah spoke about the risks in career switching.
[00:13:27] Fadilah: And I said, my God, what happened if I fail? So I believe that don't worry with failure. You just have to try. The sad thing is you're not trying at all.
[00:13:36] Fadilah: we are always fear of this unknown, but just go through it because
[00:13:40] Fadilah: It's just always this fear of Trying to prevent you doing things, but trust me, I think when you just go through it and, things we might not go as good as you, if you thought, but use that as part of your, learning curve
[00:13:55] Trisha: and that would seem to be what the research shows as well. Brian said, he, we spoke about sports people, about how training sports people, they repeat things so that they can respond quickly in moments of failure. And as he said, those moments of failure will happen. And his advice at the end of the episode
[00:14:15] Brian: I would say be humble. Realize it's not going to go well all the time. And that's okay. That's part of the fun of it. And to appreciate the people who are around you and work your tail off.
[00:14:28] Trisha: And Jennifer also said,
[00:14:29] Jennifer: be gentle on yourself. I think, you know, know that there's no perfect way of doing it you're going to get it wrong sometimes and fall flat on your face and. And, um, you know, and I've learned to, that sometimes you have to, it's okay to have a pity party occasionally, but as I always say you know, sometimes we, we throw ourselves a pity party, we bring out the banners, we have the drinks and then we go, right, okay, party over now, clear it up
[00:14:52] Trisha: Samkelo pointed out some of the areas that South Africa had failed. And yet, he has hope that they will do the healing needed.
[00:14:59] Trisha: One of the other themes that came through was celebrating and appreciating generational differences. Marc and Jennifer both spoke about recognizing that cultural intelligence isn't necessarily just about international cultures, it's also about other aspects of difference, and both of them referred to generational differences.
[00:15:20] Trisha: Jennifer spoke about being in cultural intelligence training and recognizing that that was one of the things, the differences that existed between her daughter and herself. And Marc spoke about seeing different generations in the workplace and seeing how they thought differently, operated differently.
[00:15:39] Trisha: Appreciating and valuing those differences, but both of them recognized that they needed to take those differences into account as they dealt with people. he says he's raising his daughters in a different world to the one that he grew up in, and he's adapting to that. He's adapting to, as he described it,
[00:15:57] Samkelo: A culture of communicating, a culture of emotions, a culture of feelings as well, and it's something new to me.
[00:16:04] Trisha: Fadilah and Brian both spoke about working with young people, mentoring young people, coaching them, and noticing the differences they're bringing and being energized by working with them. Brian spoke about hoping for a world where everyone is included, regardless of age or gender or race or any aspect of difference.
[00:16:24] Brian: I'm humbling for a much more inclusive world. We can really appreciate one another. I don't like hate. I will fight hate any place, any time, and that has been my passion through my life. I think being in diversity so long is that really, that's what we're doing. We're trying to bring people together.
[00:16:42] Trisha: And that, my friends, is high cultural metacognition. When we notice the differences, when we wrestle to learn about the differences so that we can operate in a way that might be different when it's needed. And when, as Jennifer would say, we can meet above our differences in common humanity.
[00:17:04] Trisha: This is what will help us to build the bridges. Be the conduits to change and bring value to people. Thank you for listening and join us again next week for another episode of The Shift.
[00:17:27] Trisha: