E22 | How to Develop Cultural Competence

Hi. Welcome to lead with a coaching mindset, a Podcast where we explore how leaders unlock their followers potential. I am Dr Damian Goldvarg, and I am very excited to discuss my new book, lead with a coaching mindset.

Hi everyone. I'm Elaine Padilla. I'm also coach and I will be the host of this podcast. We hope that you find this space inspirational and thought provoking.

Let's get into it. Welcome to lead with a coaching mindset. We meet with Elaine 27 to discuss the chapters of my book. Lead with a coaching mindset. And today we are going to be discussing our chapter four that is about contracting and agreement. And in particular, we're going to be focusing on creating conditions for cultural competence and how leaders pay attention and invest in having culturally competent teams. So Ellen, great to work with you today.

Yeah, good to see you. So. So Damien, for those that are not familiar with cultural competence, like what you know? What does that mean? Tell us more about that.

Well, firstly, I think it's important to define what is culture, because people talk about culture in different ways. And one simple way for me to understand culture is to understand it as when a group of people share similar beliefs, values, rituals they have in common, and experience that they may feel they belong to that specific group. And so not only ethnicity is not only What country are you from, but it's also about can be religion, can be age, can be generation, can be sexual orientation, level of abilities, like in some way, you belong to a group of people who will have similarities and also differences with other groups. To the extent that we are aware of differences and similarities, we can be more effective working together.

You tell me about the importance of of difference within a group? Well, when

you have differences in a group, there are different perspectives and ways of working, and that enrich and enhance the work. Sometimes they may not be agreement because of that, because people are coming from different mindsets and different values, different cultures, and that may create sometimes differences and conflict, what can be productive if people respect each other and are willing to move forward, even when They are not 100% convinced or agreeing with what needs to be done, but you understand that including other people's perspectives, values, ways of working with enhance and enrich the outcome. So I think that that is a key challenge working with differences. But I do believe when people really appreciate and value the this idea that differences are good people embrace the differences from a place that, okay, you have to think like me. You need to be like me. And if you don't, there is nothing wrong with you. And that's it.

That's the different mindset. Yeah, I know sometimes there's a there's, you know, all these different perspectives. But I know I've read that there's, you know, research that shows that there's increased, like, innovation. It does take longer for for there to be, like, consensus and agreement, but Is there discussion with these different points of view? It leads to more innovation. So I love that.

And the world is a diverse place, so to the extent that we can enhance embrace it, yeah, learn how to deal and navigate the differences. The happier we be in our relationships and in the work environment.

Yeah, it makes for a more interesting world, for sure, definitely. Yeah, yeah. So you also talk in the book about the how this cultural competence, like what it does for a team like, tell me more about, about the the positive outcomes, aside from more innovation, what what you know, what else can you expect to find?

Well, in the book, I talk about different benefits, how teams benefit. And one, number one is what you were talking about, the creativity and being inventive, and that that will be a very important one, also enhancing the performance, because people bring different perspectives, so the outcomes may be better because learning from different way of thinking and working and perspective, so enhancing team performance engagement. If people are feeling value and respected, they're more engaged. More willing to bring their own ideas, expand the market reach, because I think that people want diverse teams. Working with diverse teams, sometimes people wonder, okay, who are the participants? Who are the members of this team? And also builds a brand, a positive image of all of these different people working together, collaborating and enriching the process. So these are some of the benefits of for the team and the creativity you were talking before to innovation key

you you talk about a Japanese company, and I believe, as an American, you spoke with an American about their experience working with a potential customer that was Japanese. Tell us about that, that that interaction and that and what, what he learned from that experience?

Yeah, that was a that's a good example. And you see that very often people working with from different organizations and cultures and believing that they may share the same way of thinking about things and working and sometimes maybe misunderstandings, so that there is some way it's so important to get to understand people from different cultures. And what is tricky though, is that you want to get to learn about different ways of working, but at the same time, each person is unique. So you cannot say, okay, Latinos are like that. Asians are like that. No, every person is a human being who is very different. So you have to be careful with stereotyping and putting people in underest, under the label, but at the same time, you want to learn about cultures and conditions, because when they are different, if you do not pay attention to that, that can be experienced as a lack of respect. Like, for example, once I was in Brazil and I was teaching a class, and to enhance the class I was saying, and it's important to do that like like this, that like this gesture, like for reinforcing, yeah, and I don't do that very often. I don't know why that day I was doing that, you know, just making and it has a sexual connotation. Don't do that here. When I go back. No, no.

It's kind of something you don't know. What you don't know from these kind of experiences, yeah, but I believe that it's better to learn and then see what's happened. Like I remember a trip to Japan with a colleague of mine when I was in the board of directors of ICF. At that time, the President wanted to be culturally competent, so he took a class about how to work in Japan from an American perspective, just showing in some way, commitment to build a relationship in genuine interest in being as effective as possible. And so this is a good example of a leader who really wants to be successful. I want to be respectful, I want to understand and learn. So he took this class, and one of the things he learned was that, compared to Americans, Japanese are more distant, they don't touch you. But this was a coaching Association, and coaches are a little bit different than everybody else, you know, like coaches we work happy now. They're supporting people most of the time, not every time, but most of the time. The culture of the coaching world is warm and caring. And so he got there, and these Japanese coaches came to him and hugged him. He said, everything that I learned, this is not what I learned, you know, like, all of that class that he got was never helpful at that time, because everything he learned didn't meet the experience he had with the people

that, yeah, that's so interesting, because there's the the sort of general culture of the country. But then there's also, like, a subculture, like you said, of the coaches. But how would it be different if it was, you know, one of the auto manufacturers or food production company, it would have been, you know, like you said, that distance and and not getting down having fun or getting to know each other for a while before getting down to business. But yeah, what a great what a great example.

So I think it's a paradox. I think I like to think in this way paradoxically, paradoxically, because in one way, you want to learn about different cultures, and then the other way each person is unique. So you would think of a curve. People falling this curve in different parts, like I have another colleague of mine that you know, that is a coach, and she's she's Chinese Canadian, and she doesn't identify with the Chinese parts as much in terms of regular and stereotypes about Chinese women in particular. You. So she doesn't like that. People think that she may be in a specific way because she just is Chinese from Chinese background. So it's interesting in the way that people fall in the in the curve, to what extent they are close or far from the the other

people in the same culture. True, true. And then the last little bit is, how much is the the the counterpart leaning into our culture, right? So, so you know, they may reach out to shake your hand and you're bowing, you know, because they're trying to so it's nice. Sometimes it's like coming together, right? Sometimes it might be one leaning into the other, but sometimes it might be both cultures leaning into the other person's culture. So that's beautiful to see.

And there are even differences in cultures inside the countries. Like you see in the United States, there is a difference in the culture in the East Coast, West Coast, South Midwest, and like that, there are differences in all countries. And for example, in Argentina, men kiss each other in the chick. And this is something that my partner America say, Oh, that's very strange. Men kissing each other like that. So it's there are different traditions and and ways of working. And even for me, when I moved to the United States, I had to be a little bit less warm, because I used to hug everybody. That's not appropriate. So I had to put my distance. I was talking. You need to put your distance so we learn also, you need to be open to learning and open see we make a mistake, to apologize and to move on. But I have had experiences in the past where you do something that you're not supposed to, and people know that you ain't you're generally doing it without knowing they forgive you.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks everyone for joining us again today. We know we covered cultural competence. You know the how we can kind of slow things down, but also lead to just more innovation. It fosters trust and collaboration if you truly respect the differences that exist and but it enhances team performance. There's also a benefit to to the organization when, when there's those diverse perspectives are are integrated in, into, you know, decision making and and then we also heard about some of the funny things that happen when different cultures come together. So thank you again for being here, and we'll see you next time.