Improving Multicultural Team Communication and Collaboration: Proven Strategies from a Cultural Intelligence Expert.

Ever wondered how to foster effective communication and collaboration in multicultural teams? If you're curious about building trust and enhancing communication skills in a global context, this episode is for you.

Welcome to this episode where I have the privilege of welcoming Victoria Rennoldson, a renowned communication coach and cultural intelligence expert. Victoria specializes in developing global leaders' communication skills and building trust in diverse, multicultural teams. Their discussion centres around defining cultural intelligence, diverse communication approaches, and effective collaboration strategies.

Three Benefits You'll Gain:

1. Adaptation Strategies: Practical advice on adapting to different communication styles and promoting a shared communication framework in multicultural teams.
2. Inclusive Dialogue: Insights into encouraging inclusive dialogues and active participation from all team members.
3. Conflict Resolution: Techniques for navigating difficult conversations and resolving conflicts effectively in diverse teams.
   
   Gain the insights and strategies you need to foster cultural intelligence and effective collaboration in your teams.
   
   Contact:
   Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-rennoldson/
   Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/culture_cuppa/
   Website:  https://culturecuppa.com/
   
   Bio:
   Victoria Rennoldson is communication coach, certified cultural intelligence trainer, and the CEO and founder of Culture Cuppa. 
   
   She helps current and future global leaders to elevate and amplify their communication for the next step in their international career, by developing speaking clarity, confidence, connection and agility to handle challenging conversations.
   
   Victoria supports multicultural teams with her training to build trust and collaboration with cultural intelligence, growing themselves, their teams and their organisations globally. 
   
   She is based in London, the UK, and works virtually and in-person with individuals and teams all over the world. Victoria is a keynote speaker and the host of the top-ranked podcast, Cultural Communication Confidence.
   
   
   

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:08] Back to It's an Inside Job podcast. I'm your host, Jason Liem. Now, this podcast is dedicated to helping you to help yourself and others to become more mentally and emotionally resilient so you can be better at bouncing back from life's inevitable setbacks. Now, on It's an Inside Job, we decode the science and stories of resilience into practical advice, skills, and strategies that you can use to impact your life and those around you. Now, with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:36] Music.

[0:44] Hey folks, welcome back to the show. It's an inside job. I'm your host, Jason Liem. Today, we are going to do a deep dive into cultural intelligence. It's that connective tissue that makes teams and organizations more resilient and robust. And so today, I'm very much looking forward to my conversation with Victoria Rennoldson, an expert in this field. And so who is Victoria? Well, she's a communication coach, a certified cultural intelligence trainer, and the CEO and founder of Culture Cuppa. She helps current and future global leaders to elevate and amplify their communication for the next step in their international career by developing speaking clarity, confidence, connection, and the agility to handle challenging conversations.

[1:26] Now, Victoria supports multicultural teams with their training to build trust and collaboration with cultural intelligence, growing themselves, their teams, and their organizations globally. Victoria is based in London, the UK, and works virtually and in person with individuals and teams all over the world. Victoria is also a keynote speaker and the host of the top-ranked podcast, Cultural Communication Confidence. So in today's conversation we're going to explore and understand what exactly cultural intelligence is we're going to address the key components of cultural intelligence we're also going to explore proven skills and methodologies how to communicate on a multicultural team and that means moving beyond transactional communication it's about the communication before during and after meetings we're going to talk about how to recognize and support diverse communication approaches creating a communication charter to formalize feedback and collaboration methods and Victoria is also going to share with us her model of constructive conflict framework a proven methodology and so without further ado let's slip into the stream and then.

[2:35] Music.

[2:48] Victoria, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Jason. It's an absolute pleasure to join you today. I was wondering if we could kick off the conversation by you briefly introducing who you are and what you do for our audience. Absolutely. So I'm Victoria Rennoldson. I'm based here in London, the UK, and I am a communication coach and cultural intelligence trainer. And I'm working with global professionals all around the world, helping them to improve the way that they're speaking, the way that they're communicating, their leadership communication skills, but also helping teams think about how do they collaborate better together and how do they improve their ways of working to ultimately get better trust in the team.

[3:33] And I think even more than now that professionals such as yourself with your skill set, background, education and experience are needed, especially when we consider a lot of the things as we see at least on the political stage on a global stage where we see division and derision at a lot of levels and so what I'd like to do is to talk to you about do a deeper dive into cultural awareness cultural intelligence but perhaps could we begin with you defining or operationally defining from your perspective cultural intelligence for our audience absolutely Absolutely. So there are many different thoughts around what cultural intelligence is out there. And from my perspective, it's going beyond awareness of similarities and differences to really understanding what is driving people's behaviours, what is driving their communication style. And ultimately when we have cultural intelligence when we develop this capability we're able to interact better to get to our outcomes but also we're able to build better relationships because we appreciate where people are coming from and we understand where it is we need to adapt ourselves and where it is actually we need to stay with what we are we stay with who we are.

[4:55] So that's sort of the the the grounding the foundational stones towards what cultural intelligence is beyond similarities and differences but as i understand what you're saying is understanding what are the roots or what are the reasons people behave or communicate in a certain way and to be open and i guess that requires a level of curiosity to and patience for that, Absolutely. So it starts with curiosity. It starts with understanding your drive, your motivations for working in culturally diverse situations and really understanding that it's more than just interest. You actually have to go deeper. It's actually about confidence and resilience and persistence in those kinds of situations.

[5:39] Knowledge comes into it for sure. You need to have some level of insight around what you might expect. And there is a really established body of research out there, which many different research points, which talks about some of the things you might find when you meet people from certain cultures. But that's a starting point, because ultimately, we need to go beyond generalizations. We need to recognize individuals and people. So that's where we then need to put together strategies. And then we need to put into place actions. We need to understand what is it we're going to adapt in our behaviors to be more successful.

[6:16] So to ask you, again, just to start general here, you know, there are a lot of professionals that listen to this podcast and such, and some of them are leaders and managers and some of them are on global teams. And obviously that means they're spread across the globe. I was wondering when it comes to yourself training and teaching professionals about cultural intelligence is there a different approach from something that's where they can gather face to face quite often and those that let's say meet on teams or zoom on a regular basis so many of the people that I'm supporting the teams the individuals the leaders they are often working in virtual collaborations so they're working with teams that are split across multiple locations and either meeting perhaps very irregularly or perhaps sometimes not at all because of course the collaboration tools are so fantastic we have the teams and the zoom and everything else the webex but in reality this only goes so far and what has happened is that we have this amazing productivity and efficiency of communication we can get so much done we can really chunk through agendas and chunk through meetings incredibly more easily than we ever did before. But the reality is, is that that piece of understanding each other, allowing the spaces and the times for structured and unstructured conversations.

[7:42] A lot of this has fallen by the wayside. So the idea of how do we collaborate? How do we understand each other to collaborate better together?

[7:50] That is where cultural intelligence can support leaders and support teams where the tools are there, but the way of using those tools in the best possible ways perhaps are not being fully utilised today.

[8:03] I think that's such a salient point because, you know, a lot of companies, it's not saying some companies weren't using Teams before, but once the pandemic hit and it became ubiquitous using virtual Teams as, you know, people were looking for different ways to create a little more social cohesion over a screen and different things are being tried. But the reality of the situation is, at least from my perspective and the perspective of my clients that I work with. So it's just a slice is that because they were constantly running from one virtual meeting to the next, what happened was the natural default was a transactional type of communication. And they tried sincerely and genuinely to try to build in some of the social aspect. But because people are just looking at a screen the whole time, it became very transactional. And this is a question that comes up time and time again when I'm meeting with clients.

[9:06] What would you speak to that?

[9:10] What would you say to that? Yeah, absolutely agree, first of all. I think there is that temptation that, you know, the meetings get stacked because the opportunity is there. But I think there are sort of a couple of things there. The first thing is, is that communication isn't just what happens in the meeting. Yeah. So communication is what happens before the meeting, during the meeting and after the meeting. And I talk about it in that way because people often turn up expecting to get everything they need and want and to make the connection, to engage, to get the kind of result they're looking for almost immediately within that space of time. And sometimes that's feasible and it's possible and sometimes it's not. So there has to be a kind of reality, which is thinking about how do you engage people before they even turn up on that call? Like if it really matters to you, if you are selling in an idea or trying to meet with decision makers to get to the outcome that you're looking for in your project, how can you utilize communication and engagement before you're even entering into the meeting room? How do you get that ongoing conversation and connection after the meeting to, again, achieve the outcome you're looking for? So it's thinking about communication as more what I call through the line rather than as a one-off incident.

[10:27] The other angle on this that I want to present is that we often assume that everybody wants to communicate in the same way, has the same communication style. Now, the risk is in global diverse teams, particularly based in multiple locations, but let's say it's even a team in one location that's very, very diverse. People will have their natural styles of communication, right? So there will be some people who are incredibly happy at any point to unmute themselves and say exactly what they think, or to interrupt somebody mid-flow, or to kind of go, actually, I totally disagree on that.

[11:03] And then there are going to be people in that room who just are not. In fact, they are more reflective. They need more time to process. They're not happy in a larger forum to be unmuting. So as leaders, I think the kind of responsibility is to think about how do you encourage collaboration and communication in a meeting room when people have different preferences like that, which are potentially culturally driven. Some people might be more direct in their communication style or indirect.

[11:32] Some people may have a relationship to power, distance, and hierarchy, which means that they will not contribute until they've heard from the senior leaders first. They may not challenge points of view in the same way because, again, they have a different relationship to power, distance, and hierarchy. And these are just a a couple of examples so for the leaders who are listening to this you know it's really thinking about how you encourage all the voices to be heard rather than just to hear from certain voices that dominate the conversation i think that's very very important for people have to give the space a lot of the criticism i hear about sometimes let's say you have a dominant culture let's say Let's say the dominant culture is an American culture where people are just much more individual. They speak up and such. Again, not every American is such as that or Canadian. Let's say North American. But let's say they form the majority of the culture, the majority of the team. And then you have other cultures, which obviously are the minority, which may need more time to reflect.

[12:36] The question is where I hear a lot of the times is, look, we are talking about team norms here and not cultural norms. And we expect those people on the team, because they have a certain rank and authority, that regardless of where they come from, we just expect that they will speak up, that they don't have to be invited all the time, that they have to become part of the fray, part of the conversation.

[13:01] And so the question I hear a lot is, how much does the majority need to constantly, not constantly, bend to the minority, however that shows up? I think it comes down to what is the best approach for that team? That is the ultimate question we need to ask ourselves here. So I think it starts from having a very open conversation and a recognition and acknowledgement that there are different approaches in the room. Sometimes that's not even acknowledged. So I think this is the starting point that we have to say, okay, we recognize we're not hearing for everybody here. We recognize that actually everybody is not communicating in the same way. You've got to then ask yourself why, what's driving that? Now, cultural influences could be one of those reasons. There could be a multitude of reasons behind that. Why somebody perhaps doesn't feel like they had a psychological safety even to express their opinion. And that's also a whole different area.

[14:03] But you've got to ask those about the motivations and the drivers. And then the team has to make a conscious choice. How do we make the most of our collaboration? How do we get to the best outcomes? Now, that might be saying, actually, we see these different styles and we sit together and discuss and agree what is going to be our communication style. And sometimes I encourage teams to put put together what I call a communication charter or ways of working, which actually really formally acknowledges, actually, this is how we expect people to challenge each other. This is how we expect people to give feedback if we don't agree. And I know that might sound very obvious, but sometimes it's not. And in fact, a team doesn't have an agreed way of challenging each other, giving each other feedback, feeling like they are able to, say, challenge more senior leaders is in the team meeting. So that can be an incredibly helpful starting point.

[15:03] And then the next question, which is the cultural question, is how do we make the most of our different approaches? How do you make the most of what's going on inside that room? And that might be individuals do need support to help them to have that awareness that perhaps in this organization, in this team culture, they're not being as effective as they could be. Maybe they need that cultural intelligence training to help them adapt their communication styles and behaviors. That could be one solution. It could be the whole team needs to build up their awareness and realise there are different ways. It doesn't have to always be this way. And I want to be really clear about this, that it's not necessarily a A or B choice. There isn't A, it's either this or this. It can be both and. You might be certain types of meeting, types of communication.

[15:57] Where it makes sense to go for that style of communication. But there are other types of meetings where it really makes sense to perhaps have a more reflective style but make conscious choices I suppose that is my point have the awareness make conscious choices it really it really resonates with me everything you're saying and I think it's such an important skill set for and awareness for people to adopt and to actually move it from talk to action because what my My question is, and I'm sure this sits with a lot of people, a lot of managers. I think everyone is well-intentioned. Everyone has positive intentions. And they go through some sort of cultural intelligence. They come up with some sort of rules of engagement. They move from cultural norms to some sort of team norms that are, excuse me, specific to that team. And they have a good workshop. Maybe it's one, two, three workshops and training. Everyone speaks about it. And they come up with this, these rules of engagement. But then reality kicks in. the pressures market forces speed of things deliveries what have you deadlines and then there's that transactional part where they are on teams and it's it just becomes that, and what i find time and time again especially behavioral change even at the individual level.

[17:14] If we are not aware of it if we are not conscientious of it if we are not cognizant of it we can fall back to default behaviors how does a team even though they have the best intentions and they work through this and they create this cultural sensitivity and intelligence and awareness.

[17:32] How can they create, what do they need to do from your expertise, Victoria, so that becomes the default way of interacting, communicating, collaborating? I think that's just the most brilliant question because the reality is, as you probably know yourself, that you can come in and do an intervention, whether that is a one-day workshop, a series of workshops, you working with a team over a period of time. But the reality is the activation sits beyond that the activation is really about the responsibility and so i want to answer that question by coming back to something we've touched on already it comes back to drive and motivation and we one of the capabilities of cultural intelligence is cq drive cq meaning cultural intelligence and so one of the key parts of me working with any team is understanding.

[18:28] Are you motivated to do this like why does this matter to you but genuinely why does it matter because it can't be that oh it's just because senior management said this was a great thing to do or a policy says that this would be a brilliant thing to do to become a more inclusive organization and I'm being slightly flippant here but there is a bit of a reality which is sometimes this is driven from an HR agenda sometimes this is driven from somebody in the organization who's who's very passionate about it and really sees the benefit of it but i think it's where it's powerful is where teams really recognize when it goes wrong when it isn't working when it's caused problems and i've heard people talk about the fact that they are you know as individuals filling in their team outside the conversation they feel outside the group. And that's not great. That's ultimately going to cause friction, tensions. It can really break down.

[19:30] The way that people are working together, it can delay projects. I've seen it lose sales for people, like they've lost sales with customers they didn't quite understand. So this is not just an internal dynamic, it's also an external one. And it can really matter if you are an organization that is either expanding globally, or you are thinking about working with people in certain cultures, then this really, really matters. So it comes down to motivation and and to be really specific one of my big kind of points in going into any sort of training or coaching around cultural intelligence is helping people to activate it to understand what they're going to commit to do within time frames after that training after that coaching and helping to keep them accountable on that journey but ultimately it has to be visible the awareness has to be really brought to the forefront.

[20:26] Ongoing otherwise as you say it just becomes a that was nice but just you know nice rather than active yeah and so the cautionary tale here is not to let it fall into the background but to constantly at least in the initial stages when you're trying to create this team a new team default behavior is to constantly bring it up to the forefront to make people aware of it and so how does that show up sort of nuts and bolts when they've been through some sort of cultural training with you and they've done a deep dive into it and they understand their drivers and motivators and everybody wants it is it as simple as kicking off each meeting saying hey guys we've gone through this hey guys gals sorry that was a canadian thing we've gone through these rules of engagements with Victoria, we're all committed to it. Is it to start maybe just a couple of minutes as a reminder of how we are going to conduct these meetings moving forward, or how do you keep it in the forefront of the team's mind?

[21:27] So it can be this. It can be also the fact that what we often look at is generating a team map for people to understand their own preferences and how they show up in the world. And having that map is really helpful. So when challenges do come up, trying to diagnose where exactly is this kind of going wrong? Like which element of behavior or communication is this that's driving the issue here. It's having that kind of super visible rather than a way in a drawer and like, okay, that was nice. But the other thing that I'm really passionate about is getting people to work on their real life challenges, their real life problems that they're experiencing to apply the cultural intelligence knowledge and not leave it in the theoretical

[22:10] space and to make it super, super practical. So usually, particularly with teams that I'm working with over an extended a period of time, or perhaps, you know, across a full day, a couple of days, we would then be applying this and saying, okay, you bring the real life scenario, what challenge are you facing right now that you believe is culturally driven? Let's apply what we've learned around motivation, around knowledge, around strategies and actions to come up with the solutions. So that is obviously very highly motivating to teams to take that away, to keep applying that and to actually get that solution embedded into the team.

[22:51] Let's say they've gone through cultural intelligence, everyone's motivated, everyone's driven. And, you know, I work with Dutch companies and they are very direct with each other. It has nothing to do with impolite or being rude. It's just they're very direct. And then there are other cultures that I work with that are much more respectful of the hierarchy per se, not that Dutch aren't. But the question is, once we've gone through this, But where we come from is so ingrained into our mindsets. If there is a, let's not say a minority, everyone's of equal playing ground, there's enough from each culture. But some cultures, some individuals may be a little more respectful, a little more quiet, giving more people space to speak up.

[23:36] Even through the training, what do you recommend for managers or leaders to try to encourage more of these sort of quieter cultures or these more, if you've, I don't know if I've articulated my question clear enough for you. No, I make, I understand. So practical ways that you can encourage to hear from all of the voices in the room, rather than just from certain individuals. I think there is a number of things that you can do. I think if you are conscious and aware of it, You can think about what are other ways to get people contributing their points of view that go beyond just saying, oh, I'm you to just say what you think now. So that goes back to, again, thinking about that communication is more than just an event. It's through the line before, during and after. so you can invite views before people come into the meeting room you can get people to um i mean really simple things like use collaboration tools like mentimeter where you can create word clouds anonymously you can use a breakout room sometimes people are just more comfortable expressing a point of view in a smaller environment coming to a collective view which they then share with a bigger group i know these tools are super familiar with most people probably listening and they're are obvious tools, but it's just a reminder that these tools are there also to help with communication, particularly when there are different dynamics in the way that people express their views.

[25:04] I think it's also potentially just making people aware who are much happier to say exactly what they think, to really voice their opinions. If there's a feeling that they are dominating the conversation, perhaps having a quiet word separately before a meeting, just making them aware of that dynamic and also asking them to be respectful of others like making sure there's enough space.

[25:29] Because sometimes in virtual collaboration, that is the challenge, creating a bit of a pause or a space for people to process. Well said. And I think the other thing to be mindful of, and, you know, I understand that we're speaking in English. English is the business language. The vast majority of people listening to this podcast probably are working in English, even if it's not their first language.

[25:55] You know what I would say is that even if somebody appears to be incredibly fluent in English even if they're working in English every single day there is still a processing that needs to happen which might take longer for them than if somebody is a native speaker of English and this is not to do with language or necessarily saying people need like English language training or anything like that they probably don't but this is just recognizing that these people are super talented they may be processing in their second third even fourth language and that is a like super talent but give them a break like recognize like no matter how fluent they appear to be being able to express yourself in a nuanced way particularly if you're a leader yourself you know the people I work with global professionals are often working in English as their second third fourth language there is a there is a kind of processing that might need to take place but there's also sometimes a bit of confidence challenge that goes with that as well no matter how senior somebody appears to be sometimes there is a bit of imposter syndrome am I expressing myself in the right way am I actually expressing myself at the level the global leader level I should be and that is another dynamic to be aware of.

[27:17] In the first part of our conversation victoria highlighted that cultural intelligence begins with being aware of both similarities and differences amongst people it's about understanding what drives their behaviors and how they communicate by developing this capability we can interact better achieve our desired outcomes and well build stronger relationships because we appreciate where others are coming from and know how to adapt ourselves. It starts with curiosity and understanding our own motivations to work effectively in a culturally diverse environment. Of course, that's not all. We also need resilience and persistence. It's crucial to see people as individuals rather than categorizing them under a single cultural type. Victoria and I also discussed improving communication over virtual meetings. The big question is, how do we move beyond transactional communication?

[28:13] Communication isn't just about what happens during the meeting, Victoria says. It involves our engagement before, during, and after that meeting. How we interact with people before they join the call and after it ends is just as important. Now, we all know that not everyone communicates in the same way and having a one-size-fits-all approach, well, that can severely limit us. Some people are straightforward and vocal while others are more reflective and quiet. As leaders, well, we need to be aware of these differences and encourage collaboration, especially dealing with culturally diverse teams.

[28:49] Now Victoria also emphasized the importance of having conversations within the team to understand different approaches and discover what drives each member. The team must consciously decide how to collaborate and to achieve the best outcomes. Now by creating a communication charter which formally recognizes how we challenge each other provide feedback well this is a brilliant idea from Victoria now Victoria also made another salient point and that is if we want to make the most of our diverse approaches well some individuals on the team might need more support to align with team expectations leaders need to ask themselves am I motivated to do this does this matter to me it has to be more than just an HR policy as I said it needs to be a genuine effort recognized by the team Only then will cultural intelligence flourish. So with that said, let's slip back into the stream with part two of my brilliant conversation with Victoria Reynolds.

[29:46] Music.

[29:53] Constructive conflict or challenging conversations, however we want to call it, I think that's it's part of the landscape. It's part of the ecosystem of any corporate or team. But in a lot of cases, people, at least nowadays, are almost sometimes very wary of having particular types of conversations because they may be seen as an ist of some sort, racist, chauvinist, something or other. How does someone...

[30:26] Address constructive conflict how what do you suggest for people to go into constructive conflict because some people might just be it may not be anything to do with sort of uh political or Indians per se but it may just be I'm shy I'm conflict shy I don't like confronting people what is your expertise your knowledge or advice you would share with people to in order to have these challenging conversations absolutely I know you're absolutely right confrontation is something thing that either cultures some cultures are really or some people who have that preference are really comfortable with and it's a core part of how things are done and then for some people it really isn't I mean you know I remember quite distinctly having a conversation with a client who was Israeli who was saying actually confrontation is just a part of what we do like we we kind of have very direct conversations and often it involves rages voices which might sound like people are shouting at each other. And that to other cultures may just may not be comfortable. So this is, you're absolutely right. This is really, really important.

[31:30] So the thing I often say to people is you need to really think carefully about how you design the communication. So you need to be going into a conversation where you feel safe and able to express in a way that will land your point, what you are finding is not working right now or what it is that you want to confront and so what I mean by designing the communication is really thinking about what's going to work best for you and let's say it's with one other person with that other person so do you need a break like maybe there has something has happened in a meeting that you're deeply unhappy about and you need to have that a conversation around it maybe you're feeling emotional about that I would always give yourself this pace the space um to process the emotion and to come back to it. So maybe that requires a bit of a break, a physical or even a temporal break to address it.

[32:27] I'd also think about where and when is this conversation happening? Now, the beauty is if you're physically in the same place, you can really think about how do you do this conversation differently? Now, that might look like taking away from the meeting room, taking it away from sitting opposite each other in that slightly confrontational way and thinking about how could you have this conversation somewhere else? How could you be side by side, which is shown to be less confrontational? I've even sometimes said to clients, could you go for a walk with this person? Could you go out of the office building, take a walk and have a conversation? Again, that can reduce the emotion from it. But clearly for some virtual teams, that's just not possible. So I often say to them, change the channel. If you normally communicate like this via Zoom or Teams or any sort of online platform, could you have a phone call instead? Can you find some other way to communicate from the usual way that you do it? And then it's really about how you deliver that conversation. And I have a bit of a framework that I use with people to help them think about how to land their point when there's an issue without it sounding aggressive or perhaps creating some negative tension.

[33:50] It starts from assuming positive intent. It's assuming that perhaps there has been something that's happened that you've not seen the full picture of. So, you know, if you go into a conversation assuming the other person was negatively intended, it's probably going to show up in the way you're talking. It's going to show up in the energy you bring into that conversation. So that is the first point. If you've got any kind of emotional baggage, as I put it, put it down. They're going to say, that's heavy stuff. Like try and put down that emotional baggage and going clean with the energy and assume that they are there was something you didn't quite understand about the situation okay then I like to sort of advise people to describe what was going on in that conversation so maybe you use um the analogy of thinking about it like it was a camera on the wall kind of videoing what was going on there and you kind of say you know I I saw this. I heard you say that. I noticed this in that meeting. I observed this. And you're not saying what it means. You're not saying kind of how you felt about it, but you're just kind of describing. Now, ideally, those kind of statements, those kind of sentences should be something that is something the other person should be not saying, hold on a minute, that didn't happen. It should be a common view of what happened in the meeting.

[35:15] But from there, we can then describe impacts and we can say about what the impact to you was how did that actually make you feel how did you what did you take out of that situation what did you come away from the meeting thinking about them what was the impact to others in the room how did you feel that they reacted when this thing happened the situation happened and then you can place a light invitation which is can you tell me more what was going on there now that is a light invitation because what I find is that sometimes at this point people get defensive or they kind of say oh no that's not what I meant or that isn't exactly what happened but it is an opportunity potentially to find out what was driving the behavior what was driving the communication or the issue, and sometimes you discover something completely new like what was going on for them personally like I'm really sorry I had a shit day shitty day excuse my language um but you know I had a really terrible time something personal happens and um you know I came into that meeting my goldfish died um I'm having a really tough time with something at home I whatever it might be and again sorry I'm being slightly flippant here but the idea is you just don't know what's going on behind the surface we interpret we decode from what we see in the world but we might not know.

[36:43] The reality is you just, you may not get a real explanation. And in some ways it doesn't really matter. In some ways it's kind of an opportunity perhaps to find out more, but the most important bit is now moving into drawing a line and looking at the future. And this is where, you know, I think it's really important to outline what it is you want to see in the future. What is it you want to see next time and what is the change of behavior that you want to see enacted and so that's really worthwhile being specific on talking about how you want the next meeting to go what support you need from them next time and then the very last bit which I think is a bit I sort of learned from somebody else but I think it's just so powerful in terms of the question which is can you commit to this? Can I rely on you?

[37:35] Can I rely on you? Now, that question is so powerful because you are inviting them to commit. And it's in human nature to say yes to that question.

[37:48] Now, somebody might say no still. They might say, look, I can't commit to that. And that's okay. But that tells you, you've not finished the conversation. There's more to explore. so anyway that's the approach that I know there's a lot there but I wanted to explain the full approach of designing the communication and then the kind of framework for the conversation.

[38:09] No, but I think it's very, I think it was very eloquent the way you articulated sort of the step-by-step process of how someone needs to prepare. Because 80% may be the prep in having that conversation and 20% is actually having the conversation.

[38:26] Because what I hear you saying, please correct me if I'm wrong, you know, from the top of our conversation, cultural intelligence is about curiosity. Curiosity it's and when you're going into conflict from my experience the natural tendency is to is to take a a win-lose kind of fight or to understand that that person probably had some sort of nefarious or negative intent but what i hear you're saying is you know what you need to step back be a little self-aware be a little cognizant of your own drivers and understand that more than likely the person had positive intent but maybe they went the way they went about it behaviorally was counterproductive but in their eyes it may not have been counterproductive so what i also hear is that maybe assume that you don't understand what their motivators or drivers are and to maybe part of the conversation as as you said the initial is to describe what happened get them to describe what happened and to understand maybe what is the reason they did it that way or said something that way is that what i understand is curiosity positive intent content and going in saying, you know, I'm probably ignorant when it comes to their motivational drivers, whether it's cultural or if it's gender or if it's.

[39:39] What department they're coming from. Is that what I understand? Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, this is how we make sense of the world. Of course it is. Our brain, I mean, you know this, right? Like, you know, this is your area of expertise, but our brains are really about fast tracking to solutions. So we see somebody do something or we hear the the way they say it, and we make it mean something in our mind. And we then decode it and say, well, this means this.

[40:06] But we can't actually always be true. Even if you're the most emotionally intelligent person, even if you believe that you have cultural intelligence, I mean, and this is actually really important, you know, cultural intelligence is a journey. It's not a destination. So we can't ever say, tick, I'm now culturally intelligent. I've now done that. I don't ever have to worry about it ever again. You know, I'm on my journey. You're on your journey. Everybody's kind of always learning all the time. And you've got to have that sort of humility to recognize you're never really done. You're always learning along that way because we are human and other people are human. And so everybody is an individual in the way they do things. But coming back to your question, we can never know the full story. And that's something else I often say to my clients, you know, if they make a statement that sounds like a generalization, I say, but how do you know that? Like, how do you know that is actually what they meant or what they intended now some people do get quite caught up with well of course they meant that and that was the negative intention and look I'm not totally naive of course there will be times when people are being negatively intended but I suppose I always say back look you know how does that help you to assume it's negative if what if you did assume it was positive what if you felt like you you're in control of that situation, you could do something about it and choose to give feedback in a way that then moves you forward.

[41:35] I think that's the powerful piece. Choose to believe that there is a whole load of alternative interpretations of what you've just seen, from what you've just heard. And I know that is not easy. That is the work. That is why sometimes it's helpful to have people like you, a sparring partner, to work with. That's why it's helpful to have people like me to work with in a coaching or training situation but that is the work to recognize that we make these shortcuts in our brains in terms of what things mean but our brain isn't always right like sometimes we don't see the full picture, Exactly. It's those heuristics, it's those shortcuts that you spoke to. The brain's trying to save energy, so it'll go to its default.

[42:20] And I think what you're saying is, if we can shift the default from thinking when we're in a conflict that, oh, they had some sort of negative intent, but just automatically assume maybe they had positive intent. Because the negative intent will rise if it was truly that after a while, at least from my experience.

[42:38] And going back to your multi-step process here, which I think is very good, but I really like that last question, can I or can you commit to this? Because if they say yes and as you said most people will say yes because they want to to contribute they want to add value it creates a sense of ownership in that and when a person has ownership and they're not just told what to do but they are committed to what they do i think it brings on a whole different level of sort of maybe almost innate motivation because they've committed to something and to some level their name or reputation is linked to that ownership to that yes they've committed to absolutely and you know it also gives you that opportunity let's say the situation happens and you see the same behavior you see the same communication style that is not what you agree to then it gives you actually that opportunity to go back and what is important in this is not just what you're saying but how you're saying it but you can say it again again, with light touch, with a smile. Hey, I thought we talked about this. I thought we were talking about a change in behavior here. I was looking to you for support in this. I was looking to you to be acting in this way in this meeting. And I didn't see it. Can we just go back to the conversation we had last week? Is that still in line?

[44:02] And I think that's really powerful as well, because it gives you that opportunity to go back and say, look, you committed to this. This is how we have agreed that we're going to move things forward. And I think that's powerful as well. It kind of, again, just tries to move the situation forward.

[44:22] But even if, let's say there is a situation where somebody says, no, I don't commit to that actually I really don't let's say that is what the answer is I think that is a golden opportunity because it's like okay we're not in alignment here we're not working to the same goal so we need to then take a step back and really think about okay so what is the goal that we can both get behind here now if you're in one organization whether you know even in very very, very different teams, you should ultimately be able to get umbrella up until you get to that point where you're like, yeah, that's the common vision.

[45:01] That is the goal that we're both trying to aim for here. And that's where you can create alignment sometimes and move through conflict by recognizing we're on the same team. Ultimately, we're in the same organization.

[45:16] I think that's very important there because when we get into some sort of conflict, however that shows up we can move into silo mentality unintentionally but I think that question there or even just a statement you know we are on the same team or how are we dependent upon each other to achieve this you know it does create a sense of empathy it does create some sort of social glue or relation with that other person right where there was division what I hear you talk about victoria is shifting the conversations towards similarities to what do we have in common so no i i think it's a very elegant approach to shift mindsets because i can say anything to you any question and that's where your attention will go and you can't stop it because the brain is this inquiring machine and it's constantly trying to uh answer questions so even if i threw a rhetorical question such as what you've just said or maybe it's a direct question then i'm thinking okay what do we have in common how are we dependent upon each other how how do we in you know in our in achieving this goal how do we have to help each other.

[46:26] I'm just curious you know i i'm sure there's a lot of listeners going okay yeah this victoria is really talking a lot of sense and my team really needs a lot of this kind of help but But they're thinking, what kind of commitment is needed sort of time-wise and effort-wise or energy-wise when it comes to bringing a team up to –.

[46:49] Beyond the bare minimums of cultural intelligence from your experience? I know it's very specific from team to team and branch and such, but is there some sort of general answer you can come up with? Well, look, you know, I mean, I worked myself in business for 12 years. I worked in international teams. I recognize time pressures. I recognize that when it comes to investing time more than anything else in something like this, how really that takes a lot of commitment. I think I'm going to answer that question in a couple of ways. I think the first way is by saying it comes down to what is the team's motivation. Now, sometimes when I work with teams, there is a problem. There is a really urgent need because there is a real breakdown in the way of of communicating, a breakdown in results delivery, because people have really got segmented into them and us. And I know that feeling having worked in global teams and working with different teams in different countries, different functions, cross-functional teams that I was leading. I know when it goes wrong, it's not a comfortable place. And in fact, you need to sort that out ASAP.

[48:04] So for sure, you know, that motivation is there.

[48:08] But for other the teams where there maybe there are leaders listening to this or individuals listening to this and saying yeah this would be a great idea and it would be a positive thing to grow our team to develop our team I think you've got to link it to what would it ultimately give you so from an external perspective beyond growing the team of course that's always important growing the team spirit and the team glue if you like use the word glue I love that um you know yes that's important too but ultimately you have to recognize that teams that perform at that level when people really get each other they are absolutely able to drive better ideas they're able to drive better innovation because they're appreciating the diversity of thinking they're recognizing that actually having those differences are important and they include those differences rather than saying well actually we're going to go with majority think here we're going to go with like thinking in the same way that we've always have and so if you can link that motivation and driver to commercial results to outcomes that include things like faster delivery sales innovation projects that's when you get that powerful motivation because that's where it becomes then tangible but coming back really specifically to your question how do I work and how do I do things.

[49:33] It really does come down to what the team is facing right now.

[49:39] How diverse the team is, how they want to do this. But I work with people in aspects all the way from introductions to topics, just from like a literally a lunch and learn all the way through to kind of two-day workshops and everything in between. I work with people clearly in person, but also virtually. And I'm also very, very experienced in being able to adapt, workshops and adapt this training in a way that really makes sense because virtual training and learning is in a in a very different way right from then coming together in an in-person agreed way and then that's really important to acknowledge so that is sort of typically how i can help people in this space but equally i work with people one-to-one sometimes it is a leader who really wants to go deeper on this conversation and to understand themselves first and that is a very powerful thing to do as well are there sort of emerging trends in um cultural intelligence that you see on your professional radar that are sort

[50:40] of approaching us that maybe hasn't really hit the mainstream radar yet of leaders out there?

[50:47] Well, I mean, I suppose what I'm very aware of, and in my mind, I'm very much like on my learning journey with is what's the impact of AI in all of this? Like, what is the intersectionality of AI, cultural intelligence, and how does this matter? The way I see it cultural intelligence is about understanding humans it's about developing our human skills and getting to a better place by connecting human to human and in fact in a world of AI this is incredibly important so sometimes this these kind of trainings these kind of approaches are seen as soft skills and for me it's like no anything these are not soft skills These are not optional skills. These ultimately are skills that bring us closer together and ultimately have very tangible benefits, as I've mentioned, like sales, profit, innovation. Because I've worked in business myself, this really matters to me. And actually, it really matters that any training that I do has that really practical element to it as well. But coming back to emerging trends, I think one of the interesting things about AI and the tools like ChatGPT and so on is they're often being developed with almost a bias built into them in that a lot of the information that comes into them is coming from a...

[52:12] Anglo slash Western European view of the world. And so I think there is a lot of work that's going on at the moment to understand, well, how can we make AI culturally intelligent? How could we actually ensure those biases are not embedded into the AI, which then creates issues in the way that we're taking information from the AI? So I think that's a really interesting and live debate right now. And one I don't have all the answers to, but one that I'm also really aware of in the way that I interact with any of these AI tools right now. No, I think that's a very salient point because, I mean, AI is a whole new frontier. I think it was with Bard or Gemini with Google's where it was too culturally sensitive, if I may say something. So all the questions came out, just came out as like political correctness nonsense, right? It's like, what is this? And so, yeah, it's trying to find that sweet spot between being biased in one way and going way over on the other. So that's a very interesting point. I haven't really given much thought to. If some of the listeners are really curious to explore more about cultural intelligence, are there sources and resources that they can turn to that you would recommend?

[53:34] Absolutely, for sure. Sure. So the first thing is, I mean, please, please come and follow me over on LinkedIn. I mean, I think from my perspective, that'd be great to build the conversations. I love the space in LinkedIn to have those conversations and to people to build into the debate. So, you know, for me, that'd be great. People come and have a conversation with me over there. But the other way that I sort of share is via my podcast. I've got my own podcast, cultural communication confidence which again we touch on a lot of some of the topics we talked about here today communication cultural intelligence so those would be a couple of my own resources but there are sort of many many kind of books out there I think there are some fantastic um sort of places that podcasts that people can follow I can certainly recommend a few um and we can certainly you know i can provide some some links as well but but you know i think culture map by era mayor is a fantastic book dr david livermore is a real expert in this field and has written several books on the topic and somebody who i absolutely love and in this space and um if i had on my podcast show is dr katherine wu who's based over in singapore and is a real leading voice in cultural intelligence so um yeah those are just a few ideas for people who want to build their knowledge in this space.

[55:00] But for sure, anybody who's curious, like come and have a conversation with me. You know, if people want to take their cultural intelligence assessment, understand themselves first.

[55:09] You know, I'd love to have a conversation with anybody who would like to know more about this topic. I'd just like to rewind back to your own podcast.

[55:19] How often do you release it? How long is it? I know it's quite succinct. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So this is a podcast I've been running over the last almost two years now. We're almost up to episode 100, which I'm very excited by. So we're going to be celebrating that soon. And these are quite short episodes, actually. So when I do solo episodes, it's usually around sort of 15 minutes to 25 minutes. I have guests on the show, and sometimes those are a little bit longer, but maximum, it's really 35, 40 minutes. And the idea is it's a real variety of topics around communication.

[55:57] Cultural intelligence, real kind of feeders and starters of conversations. I want people to take out some really practical tips, but also to take away a thought which might grow into a seed that might grow into a plant around, here is something we need to do in our team. Here is something we need to talk about that isn't quite working right now. Here is a way that we can get better as a team and connect to each other and that's really my passion you know i just want to get this podcast out there as much as possible around the world globally i think the podcast platform and what you speak to by bringing you do your own soul where you speak from your own expertise but by bringing other guests that that creates a vibrancy around the story of cultural intelligence and what's really great 35 40 minutes that's usually a person's commute, which is perfect for any of you listeners out there. One last question. We're very respectful of your time, Victoria.

[56:54] What would be some final words or advice you could leave with our listeners today around cultural intelligence? Wow. So how to sum up this conversation? But I think for me, you know, the strongest idea I want to leave your listeners with is that ultimately, this is about human connection. This is about finding ways for us to bring ourselves closer together to make the world a smaller place, but also ultimately for us to deliver really great business results. And that's where cultural intelligence can really be a power for change that can help us move that forward.

[57:34] Music.

[57:45] In this episode, we've explored the essential elements of cultural intelligence with Victoria Rennoldson. We delved into understanding and navigating different cultural behaviors and communication styles. Victoria emphasized that cultural intelligence starts with recognizing both similarities and difference amongst people. It's also about understanding what drives their behaviors and how they communicate, what their motivations are, which helps us to interact act better, to achieve our goals, and to build stronger relationships. We also discuss the importance of curiosity, resilience, and persistence in working effectively in culturally diverse environments. Recognizing individuals rather than categorizing them under a single cultural type is crucial. We also focus on the Constructive Conflict Framework of Victoria's, an essential tool for handling issues without sounding aggressive or creating negative attention. The framework begins with assuming positive intent, recognizing that there may be unknown factors influencing the situation.

[58:48] Victoria's model emphasizes describing observations objectively, what was seen, heard, and noticed, rather than interpretations or feelings to avoid misunderstandings. We then discuss explaining the impact of the situation to help others to understand the consequences without feeling attacked. This is followed by inviting the other person to share their perspective, fostering empathy, and dialogue. And finally, Victoria outlined the importance of specifying desired future actions and securing commitment by asking, Can you commit to this? Can I rely on you? This approach helps address issues effectively while maintaining positive relationships and fostering collaborative environments. environment. Victoria, a personal thank you from me to you for sharing your wisdom, your time, your expertise, and your skills. I really appreciate it. Well, folks, this brings us to a tail end of another episode. I hope you got a lot out of this as I did. And until the next time we speak.

[59:47] Music.