Latest / Women Disrupting Tech / How to Use Cultural Intelligence as a Leadership Superpower with Gwen Kolader | Episode 101

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How to Use Cultural Intelligence as a Leadership Superpower with Gwen Kolader | Episode 101 · Women Disrupting Tech

• 0:00
  I hope you do, because if you want to do a seal speech to a
• 0:04
  country that is opposite from from with with, you know,
• 0:08
  cultural values opposite from yours, How how would you know if
• 0:12
  you if you start the seal speech with chit chat or you dive into
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  numbers immediately or if if they want to have only want to
• 0:20
  focus on short term instead of long term.
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  You can make so many, you can so make so many mistakes in
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  pitching your idea for market expansion or business
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  relationships to understand how that most probably will be done
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  in that specific culture to sort of really prepare for that and
• 0:44
  plan for that and think about how you can create the best
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  outcome. Yeah, it's it's, it's extremely
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  important. Welcome to Women Disrupting
• 1:03
  Tech. My name is Der Konopkas, and on
• 1:06
  this podcast I give the women who work in tech the platform
• 1:09
  they need to inspire and empower each other.
• 1:13
  Join me on a journey into the world of entrepreneurship,
• 1:17
  funding biases, and role models to discover the strategies for
• 1:21
  success in the tech industry. In other words, how women can
• 1:26
  disrupt tech. Are you ready to listen?
• 1:35
  Hey, welcome back to Women Disrupting Tech and thank you
• 1:38
  for listening to episode one O 1.
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  Traditionally, we associate leadership with strategy,
• 1:44
  authority, and control. But what if intelligence and
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  sensitivity were as important or more important?
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  After all, in a multicultural society like ours, leading with
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  brute force just doesn't cut it anymore, right?
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  Well, in this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, Gwen Co Ladder
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  is my guest to invite us to rethink how we lead, especially
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  across cultures. Gwen is an accomplished people
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  and culture strategist with a unique blend of experiences in
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  cultural, corporate, and personal sense.
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  By listening to this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, you'll
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  discover why inclusion and not diversity is the starting point
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  for building strong teams, how to challenge bias in everyday
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  leadership decisions, and how you can measure inclusion in a
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  way that it actually drives change.
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  Plus, Gwen shares some very interesting lessons that she
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  learnt from the Maasai on the leadership trail in Kenya.
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  The result is a powerful episode that is a reminder that
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  leadership is never just about strategy, control and authority.
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  It's about self-awareness, curiosities, and about how we
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  show up for others. So when you're ready to listen
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  and learn how to use cultural intelligence as a leadership
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  superpower, please welcome to Women Disrupting Tech, Gwen
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  Kolater. Hey, Gwen, good morning.
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  Good to have you. So we're going to talk about
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  cultural intelligence as a key leadership skill.
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  How did you find your passion for this topic?
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  Well, first of all, thanks for having me, Dear Kyon, I'm
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  pleased to be in your podcast. So impressive on how many
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  episodes you already run. So congratulations.
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  My passion for cultural intelligence, I think it starts
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  with this small seed in life when you are going abroad,
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  traveling, maybe with your parents when you're a little,
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  but also afterwards. I think my my first real
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  awareness around how cultural differences play up or, or or
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  are important in in work or in impactful interactions during
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  getting things done is when I I worked in London years ago.
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  I remember when I was working in a hotel chain and what I found
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  is that it was quite hierarchical compared to how I
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  am. And I remember it was a hotel
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  chain run by a by a family. So every now and then the family
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  would come down to speak to the personnel.
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  And my first time when that happened, I remember my
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  supervisor was like, come on, girls, we need to stand in line
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  because the family is coming down.
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  And I didn't really know what to expect.
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  But then that family came and I just stepped forward, say, hey,
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  I'm Gwen, how are you? And everybody was looking at me
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  like I was crazy. And that was sort of the first
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  moment that I understood that I was breaking between brackets, a
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  code or a cultural code, or I didn't understand the context.
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  And during my professional life afterwards, when I really start
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  to working in international organizations, I noticed that
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  the way that people interact, understand each other or trust
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  each other might differ when you come from different cultures.
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  And it just really caught my interest.
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  Yeah. I started to to pick that up
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  and, and really integrate that in the work that I do.
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  I've been in people and culture for a long time.
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  During my entire career, I, I worked in big international
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  organizations, specifically in, in, in telco and in tech and in
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  various organizations. I learned more and more and more
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  about how learning about different cultures and
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  understanding how you are being perceived and how you perceive
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  others is extremely important as somebody reporting into some
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  someone or somebody leading teams or interacting with
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  different colleagues or customers around the world.
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  Yeah, it's, it's quite essential.
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  So you recently went to Kenya on the leadership trail.
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  I was wondering was there, did you learn anything new there
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  with regards also to intelligence, with regards to
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  leadership skills? Well.
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  Yeah, the the trip to Kenya was quite special because the, well,
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  what happens there is that you go into the wild for a week and
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  the Maasai is guiding you. Yeah.
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  So you have to leave your phone, money, step tracking devices,
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  watches. You have to leave that all
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  behind and trust fully the Maasai each other and nature for
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  being safe and and to go from A to B.
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  The combination of five to seven hours of trekking, mountain
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  climbing and everything with not being distracted by any digital
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  device was just, yeah, it was mind blowing to me.
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  I'm quite attached to my phone. I'm quite addicted to my phone.
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  I have to pay. So I was looking forward to the
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  effect of not having a phone for a week, what that would do to
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  me. But that combination of not
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  having devices moving your body constantly and being in nature
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  with a intimate group of people, that combination was just mind
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  blowing. It showed me how much we
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  actually miss while we're on our phones.
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  And all my senses were completely open.
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  I was so connected to everybody and to nature, and I was much
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  more calm and much more focused and much more sensitive to a lot
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  of things. So I guess as a leader, it's
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  also very much important to step back sometimes, specifically in
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  situations where there's a lot of stress or a lot of work
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  pressure or a lot of complexity and uncertainty.
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  Sometimes taking a step back, taking the time to breathe and
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  really look at what's happening and thinking about what you
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  experienced during interactions or during situations is is key.
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  Yeah. So what what did?
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  What did you do different after that trail?
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  Well, during the trail, I learned a couple of things about
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  where I am in my career, where I am as a person, what I sort of
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  reconfirmed what I enjoy in life and and what I find important in
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  life. And I think those those outcomes
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  have strengthened during that trail.
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  I tried to be less on my phone, although after four days after
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  my return, I was on my phone again.
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  I had to. It took me 4 days to really get
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  back into the rhythm of Western life, so to say.
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  But yeah, and some habits are hard to beat and it is just one
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  week. And at the same time, I feel
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  that the way that I want to be and stand in life really
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  sharpened during that that week. OK, so I, I want to double click
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  a bit on on opening your senses here because she described you,
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  you're there without a phone, without a watch, just looking at
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  nature and the people around you.
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  Take us through what how that works on a on a really on a
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  practical level, like you get up in the morning, how do you wake
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  up? Do you wake up with sunlight
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  because there's no alarm going? Off.
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  Yeah. There's no alarm going off.
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  Yeah. So the group is 10 people.
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  That is including the leader and then a group of Maasai people.
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  So the group itself is, well, the participants really are 10
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  people. And then with the Maasai
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  together. Yeah, it's it's almost 20.
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  Yeah, there is there is no watches.
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  So you wake up when you wake up and you go to sleep when you go
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  to sleep. Yeah.
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  So take take me through a day, you wake up most probably
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  because somebody that you share your tent with, you woke up
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  already or you just wake up. And then The funny thing is that
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  apparently everybody else in is in sort of the same rhythm.
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  So, and I don't know what time it was, but I guess it was
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  around 6-7 that everybody would woke wake up.
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  We would get some breakfast that was being prepared by the Maasai
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  people, so some pancakes or boiled eggs.
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  And we would go either to do a meditation on a mountain when
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  you hear the elephants go through through the bushes,
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  which is just incredible. Or we had a session together in
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  in the upcoming sunlight, you know, surrounded by jungle,
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  hippos in the waters around you, monkeys in the trees.
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  So it is so totally different from what you are used to.
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  And therefore, you know, immediately when you wake up,
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  you are connected to nature and you are connected to what's
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  happening and you're calm and focused.
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  So the exercises that happened during that week are also very
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  profound because you can really go deep into yourself, which,
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  yeah, makes it, yeah, an extremely fantastic experience.
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  And then we would start tracking.
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  So we would the, the Masai would show us the way and, and, and
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  nature is nature. So we would follow the tracks of
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  the of the animals. But for instance, when we were
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  there, it had rained a lot a couple of weeks before.
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  So the animals didn't go up the mountains that much and the
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  bushes were already growing and, and, and blocking the road the
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  the animal Rd. So for what One day, for
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  instance, the Maasai was just cutting through the bushes with
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  their knives to clear the path, and another time we were
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  climbing huge mountains, holding ourselves to trees and pulling
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  yourself up and pushing yourself down and climbing rocks.
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  And yeah, so and in between, yeah, you have a lunch, which
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  is, again, some pancakes or pasta or whatever they prepared.
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  You share your learnings, you share your feelings, you share
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  your thoughts as much as you want to.
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  And at the end of the day, depending on how the trip went,
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  because we were almost attacked by by buffaloes, for instance,
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  one time. So that will hold up.
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  That was holding up the time that we were moved from A to B
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  or that somebody was struggling with a specific part of a
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  mountain and therefore we would all wait for each other.
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  So it depends on what happens that day, but you arrive before
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  the sun goes down and then you sit, you sit by the fire and you
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  share stories and then you go to bed.
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  And most probably that would be around 8:00.
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  Yeah, so a lot earlier than usual.
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  Yeah. And you would also sleep then
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  close to 10 hours. Yeah, I think so.
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  Yeah, I think so. It was quite, it was quite cold
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  in the night. So I also had AI had a couple of
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  nights that I was struggling from the cold and it was lovely,
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  lovely, lovely weather. 2020, 829° during the day.
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  But yeah, at some point after, after 222 nights, I slept like a
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  baby, yeah. Yeah, I can imagine especially
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  also with all the how do you get used to all the sounds around
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  you, because those sounds go on 24/7 and during the day you're
• 13:22
  sort of used to it, but in the evening.
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  Yeah, in the evening it's, it's a lot of hyenas that you hear.
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  We were walking with donkeys as well.
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  Not, not us, but a group of Maasai people had donkeys with
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  them to to carry the food and the water and everything.
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  And they made natural, how do you say that places for the for
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  the donkeys to stay in during the night.
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  And the hyenas would would try to attack them and try to eat
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  them. So sometimes you hear hyenas
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  very close to you. Sometimes in the morning you see
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  where elephants have been walking because you see their
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  poop. But yeah, I think I've never
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  woken up really by animal sounds because I was just too tired.
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  But it's it's quite kind of special when you're around the
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  fire fireplace, you know, around 8-9, it's pitch dark outside.
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  Or at least that's what I think the time was.
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  You know, clear black skies with a zillion stars with hyenas in
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  the background with some other animals that sometimes are
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  pointed out by, by the Messiah people.
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  Yeah. And just be.
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  Yeah. It's just, it's fantastic.
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  What did the Messiah teach you? Humbleness, I guess, respect for
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  the nature. But they also shared a lot of
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  stories about their culture, about how they grow up, what it
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  is to be a man in, in the Kenyan culture or in the Maasai
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  culture. And The funny thing is that I
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  caught myself on one of the stereotypes or beliefs that I,
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  that came into my mind because at the beginning of the, of the
• 14:54
  trail, we started off in the camp with the Maasai and they
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  welcomed us with their, with their red clothes, clothes and,
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  and they're dancing and, and, and they're, they're singing.
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  And I caught myself thinking, Oh, this is so touristic.
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  This is so commercial. This is so after a week, you
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  don't think that anymore. Because at the end of the trail,
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  when you come back to the Maasai village or the, the, the, the
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  things that they have the camp, they do those rituals again to
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  say goodbye to you. But then you're fully emerged
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  sort of into, into the whole feeling around, you know, their
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  culture. You understand it better.
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  You understand it better. And that is what with all
• 15:43
  things, how it works, right? If you open yourself to to
• 15:47
  somebody else and get a better understanding of why they do
• 15:50
  things, how they do things and what their values are, how they
• 15:53
  look at the world and then compare it to to how you do
• 15:57
  things and how you look at the world.
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  You try to build those bridges of understanding between
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  opposite cultures. So much.
• 16:04
  Yeah. So let's move to the, let's say
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  the main course of of this meal, cultural intelligence.
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  Let's start with a bit about diversity, equity and inclusion
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  because when we first spoke, we had a pretty, I think pretty
• 16:21
  lengthy discussion about what businesses are getting wrong
• 16:25
  with implementing the EI. And even when we spoke before
• 16:28
  the the recording, we talked about this.
• 16:31
  So maybe good what what businesses in general are
• 16:36
  getting wrong with the RDEI implementation and what you see
• 16:40
  how that works out? Yeah, I, I think a lot of
• 16:44
  organizations focus too much on the D and what I mean with that
• 16:48
  is the diversity itself as a fact.
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  So getting a lot of diverse people in and I hate the word
• 16:54
  diverse people, but. Why?
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  Because I think everybody, what is a diverse person?
• 17:02
  Yeah. But yeah, right.
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  So what is that? Apparently it's not you, right?
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  It's. Someone else?
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  From first glance, right. So, yeah, I, I, it puts a stamp
• 17:17
  on your forehead. I, I, I don't like that.
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  Apparently, according to, to how it's approached, I'm a diverse
• 17:26
  person. But no, I'm Gwen, right?
• 17:29
  So that's so that's how it how it feels, how it can feel, how
• 17:32
  it feels to me at least. But a lot of organizations focus
• 17:36
  on that only and not really building a culture where people
• 17:40
  can really thrive. Because getting that diverse
• 17:44
  person in doesn't doesn't necessarily mean that that
• 17:47
  person will thrive If you don't adjust your culture, the way
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  that you lead, the way you interact and that you don't take
• 17:56
  any notice of what this person brings, it's about.
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  So a lot of organisations, I feel focus a lot on the D and
• 18:05
  not looking at what value people bring into an organization, how
• 18:11
  they can add to strengthening your culture, your brand, your
• 18:15
  results, your innovation and your creativity.
• 18:20
  I find that a lot of organizations are struggling
• 18:22
  with that and therefore it doesn't really embed in in what
• 18:26
  you do as an organization, right?
• 18:27
  So building that inclusive organization where people can
• 18:31
  thrive and where you can really bring all that value of all
• 18:34
  those different people, all of them together and really
• 18:39
  integrate that in the employee journey, in how you interact
• 18:43
  with customers and clients, in how you build up your strategy,
• 18:47
  in how you set yourself up for success.
• 18:49
  That is how you really do it. And then really track that with
• 18:53
  data so that you have to hold yourself accountable and really
• 18:58
  create KPI's and not only diversity KPIs, but also
• 19:02
  inclusion KPIs. How do you measure inclusion?
• 19:06
  Well, I try to do this as follows.
• 19:08
  Diversity KPIs are, for instance, we want to move from
• 19:14
  30% of women to 40% of women by X year, right?
• 19:21
  Inclusion KPIs are more like every quarter.
• 19:25
  I speak to somebody that is different from me, right?
• 19:29
  And we do that. You could do that in an
• 19:32
  organization by creating a framework for that.
• 19:35
  So that for instance, the KPI is for everybody to do that every
• 19:40
  quarter to to pick out somebody that is is different from you in
• 19:44
  whatever shape or form. So it could be a man talking to
• 19:49
  a woman, could be someone a white person talk, or a
• 19:53
  Caucasian person talking to someone with a different
• 19:56
  ethnicity, could be about religion, about sexual
• 20:00
  preference. Doesn't really matter, right?
• 20:03
  Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:05
  Of course, the goal is to get more understanding of one
• 20:08
  another and an understanding of yourself as well, because those
• 20:12
  kind of conversations will trigger how you look at people
• 20:16
  and how you perceive people. And that is how you can build
• 20:20
  bridges, right? So that is, for instance, an
• 20:24
  inclusion goal and that can lead to better engagement, high
• 20:29
  retention, and those things you can measure.
• 20:32
  OK, so then this is, let's say, your employee engagement that
• 20:37
  you regularly measure anyway. At least I hope you do.
• 20:42
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:43
  And you can have specific DNA targeted questions in there so
• 20:47
  that you can have through surveys you can collect
• 20:50
  feedback. OK.
• 20:51
  Can you can you give an example of of of such a question?
• 20:54
  That would be more on the on the on the inclusion?
• 20:58
  Yeah, sure, Yeah, sure. It depends on what you want to
• 21:01
  measure in an organization, for instance.
• 21:03
  But one of the things could be, do you feel safe in your team,
• 21:06
  right? One of the things that I see in
• 21:10
  surveys that are quite challenging is that it's not
• 21:13
  specified enough. So sometimes the question is, do
• 21:16
  you feel safe in this organization or do you know, do
• 21:19
  you feel or do you feel safe with leadership?
• 21:21
  You know what leadership is that right?
• 21:22
  Is that the higher senior C levels leadership or is that
• 21:26
  your own manager, right? Yeah.
• 21:28
  So think about that when you create a survey like that to
• 21:32
  make sure that what you want to measure, it's actually mentioned
• 21:35
  like that as well. Yeah, so really anonymously.
• 21:38
  Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
• 21:40
  And of gets its own into its own issues because it, once you get
• 21:46
  more to the top, the question leadership will often be your
• 21:50
  own manager instead of let's say, if you're on the base level
• 21:54
  of the organization, then yes, it's, you may actually not even
• 21:59
  talk to those people on the daily basis.
• 22:02
  Whereas to your manager, I again, I hope you talk on a
• 22:06
  daily basis. So one of the things you said in
• 22:10
  our earlier conversation is that if you build inclusion,
• 22:15
  diversity will follow. Can you explain how that works,
• 22:19
  that link and why diversity? So you said diversity does not
• 22:24
  lead to inclusion because you tend to forget all kinds of
• 22:28
  preconditions that you need. So how does inclusion then?
• 22:32
  How does it well? Yeah.
• 22:34
  But organizations where people feel that they can be who they
• 22:37
  are or where they are, where they're seen, heard and valued
• 22:42
  will attract all kinds of people.
• 22:44
  So that is sort of simply said why inclusion will attract
• 22:48
  diversity or when diversity will follow inclusion and of the
• 22:51
  other way around. What you see is where in
• 22:56
  organizations where there is a high inclusion rate or there's a
• 23:00
  lot of inclusion, you will see that in their brand outings.
• 23:03
  You will see that in their the way that they build a narrative
• 23:06
  around the organization. You will see it on Glassdoor.
• 23:09
  You will see it on how people that leave the organization
• 23:12
  speak about your organization or people that are in the
• 23:15
  organization. You will speak about your
• 23:17
  organization, You will see it in in initiatives that an
• 23:20
  organization will take and all of that will attract people that
• 23:25
  are looking for organizations where they can feel safe.
• 23:29
  The other way around is also the situation.
• 23:31
  So if you are in an organization where there is a lot of, well,
• 23:35
  there's less inclusion. So there's a lot of, for
• 23:38
  instance, a lot of masculinity, less inclusive language spoken.
• 23:44
  There is a high power distance, for instance.
• 23:47
  So that's there's a little hierarchy.
• 23:50
  OK, Anne. Or where there are a lot of
• 23:54
  employees giving feedback on Glassdoor, saying that their
• 23:58
  feedback has never been heard, have never been listened to, or
• 24:03
  that they've been released without explanation.
• 24:06
  Or all sorts of examples where people where employees may feel
• 24:11
  that are not safe and that is expressed somewhere that those
• 24:14
  are organizations that most probably people will be hesitant
• 24:18
  to join. So inclusive cultures will
• 24:22
  attract more diversity because people want to want to feel safe
• 24:27
  and want to feel seen and heard and and valued in organizations,
• 24:31
  particularly when you are a person so so-called that are of
• 24:37
  the norm that is outside the norm or less the norm where you
• 24:42
  most probably have to work a little bit harder to get seen,
• 24:45
  heard and valued. So if you.
• 24:48
  Join most that still. Well, you tell me.
• 24:51
  Yeah, I think it's so interesting that we don't look
• 24:55
  at, even though everyone thinks of him or herself as a really
• 25:01
  rational person who is really data literate and data minded
• 25:08
  looking at data to to base their decisions on.
• 25:11
  And then there's thing like bias where women as an example still
• 25:17
  have to prove themselves or still and also still feel that
• 25:20
  they have to prove themselves. Yeah.
• 25:23
  And why that is? Yeah, I think getting out of
• 25:26
  bias or challenging your own bias, it's not as easy for some
• 25:31
  people as it is for other people, I guess.
• 25:35
  So what you see is of course, our brains are wired to to be
• 25:41
  more open and welcoming to to something or someone that is
• 25:46
  more similar to us. And that has to do with your
• 25:49
  brain wanting to protect your protect you.
• 25:53
  So anything out of the norm as you have been grown up into that
• 25:58
  norm or with that norm would be seen very black and white of
• 26:02
  course, but would be seen as dangerous.
• 26:05
  So biases are based on that, right?
• 26:09
  So how can cultural intelligence then help break that bias?
• 26:13
  Let me just finish a little bit what I was saying.
• 26:15
  So, so challenging that sort of automatic response of your brain
• 26:21
  of rejecting 1 and accepting the other will we'll, we'll ask from
• 26:29
  you to be really focused on that and be really mindful of that
• 26:32
  and really force yourself to step back every now and then to
• 26:35
  see what kind of decision am I making here?
• 26:38
  What kind of interaction am I entering myself into?
• 26:42
  How am I behaving? What are my beliefs?
• 26:45
  To really see if you're making a decision out of emotion or
• 26:50
  stereotyping or assumptions, because your brain does that all
• 26:54
  the time. Or if you make a rational
• 26:56
  decision and really challenge that emotion or really challenge
• 26:59
  that assumption or stereotyping cultural intelligence to come to
• 27:04
  your to your next question. Cultural intelligence is all
• 27:07
  about that, to really understand your drive for wanting to
• 27:13
  wanting to understand how you are being perceived coming from
• 27:17
  a specific culture and how you perceive others coming from
• 27:21
  specific cultures. Because we stereotype all the
• 27:24
  time. Yeah.
• 27:25
  But is that fair? Is that true?
• 27:27
  And is that also handy to do? And to understand why your
• 27:33
  leadership style is not motivating a team that comes
• 27:37
  from another country or why the way you greet somebody is being
• 27:41
  frowned upon by somebody else. Right.
• 27:44
  Very interesting situations to step back and really look at
• 27:48
  what's happening. Yeah, to get a better
• 27:51
  understanding of building those bridges, if you want to do
• 27:54
  business in new countries or unknown territories, you have to
• 27:58
  understand how to do business there, right.
• 28:01
  Not only that, but also how you are being perceived doing
• 28:05
  business. If you want to lead global
• 28:07
  teams, you have to understand what makes them thick and, and,
• 28:13
  and and what they find an impactful way to build trust or
• 28:17
  to receive leadership or to communicate rather than just
• 28:21
  come into the equation and use your, your leadership style as
• 28:26
  the norm. So to come back to your
• 28:28
  question, cultural intelligence is really to challenge yourself
• 28:33
  and to become more adaptive and flexible towards other cultures
• 28:38
  and understanding yourself, your your own culture as well.
• 28:41
  Yeah. Does it help to travel a lot for
• 28:44
  that? Of course it helps.
• 28:46
  But what doesn't help is if you travel to other countries, for
• 28:50
  instance during business, business trips and you stay in
• 28:54
  your hotel in the Marriott Hotel in another country, eating
• 28:59
  Western food and speaking English, right?
• 29:02
  So if it helps if you go out, for instance, my last trip to
• 29:07
  India and I've been there many times, but I was invited to one
• 29:12
  of my dear colleague's house. She has prepared, she had
• 29:15
  prepared a meal that she was preparing for two days already.
• 29:19
  And she was so happy to invite me to her home and for me to
• 29:24
  meet her family and to share stories and to learn to learn
• 29:27
  more about each other. And what is the way that trust
• 29:31
  is built in a lot of situations in India where for instance in
• 29:34
  the Netherlands, normally you don't bring your colleague back
• 29:38
  to your house where you have been creating stumbles on that
• 29:42
  for two days, which, yeah, we build trust in a completely
• 29:48
  different way. And we is then the Dutch
• 29:50
  culture? Or maybe.
• 29:52
  We have this really strict separation between private and
• 29:57
  business life. We tend to keep that miles apart
• 30:00
  from each other, right? So if you would travel a lot for
• 30:04
  business and your lovely colleague invites you to, I
• 30:07
  don't know, their favorite restaurant or their home or
• 30:11
  whatever, and you say, no thank you, I want to go for my fries
• 30:14
  in the Marriott Hotel, do that. Because if that is what is
• 30:19
  appealing to you, please do that.
• 30:21
  But you will not, You will miss out on a fantastic opportunity
• 30:26
  to become more cultural intelligence because it's not
• 30:28
  just the food that you eat, it's the whole.
• 30:31
  It's the. Story, right?
• 30:33
  It's the story sharing is to see how families behave in other
• 30:36
  countries, how they have their values, how they think about
• 30:40
  religion, what they speak about when they talk about
• 30:44
  geopolitics. There's so much more to unravel
• 30:48
  and those moments are just fantastic.
• 30:50
  Yeah, yeah. It's it's also my experience
• 30:53
  that talking to people, let's say inside their own comfort
• 30:59
  zone, really a builds trust and makes conversations so much
• 31:03
  easier later on because you understand a lot better where
• 31:08
  they come from, how they see. It's also facial, by the way.
• 31:13
  I, I really remember that when, because I, I, I did a lot of
• 31:18
  international work in the, in the days that we were still
• 31:21
  doing calls. But because I'd seen the face
• 31:24
  with the pronunciation, I could see and sense a bit on the, on
• 31:28
  the base of the tone and, and what they were saying.
• 31:31
  I could sense a bit how they really intended it and what they
• 31:36
  really felt. So that made my life a lot
• 31:38
  easier because I could then also I was sort of in a coordinating
• 31:44
  position. I could then also relay that
• 31:46
  information a lot better back to my other colleagues who didn't
• 31:50
  know the person who just heard the voice and were looking at it
• 31:55
  through their own lengths. Yeah.
• 31:58
  And it's I'm thinking about what you're saying.
• 32:00
  How difficult would it be to have calls, just a voice and
• 32:05
  just the interaction through verbal communication when you
• 32:08
  are interacting with a culture that is silence because they
• 32:13
  want to show respect to the person on the phone.
• 32:17
  And if you're trying to find out, you know, what they feel or
• 32:20
  their response, you will have quite a struggle, right?
• 32:24
  So then of course, it's also so much, so important if you are
• 32:28
  interacting internationally to upfront think about, OK, I'm
• 32:33
  going to interact with a person from that culture.
• 32:35
  And mind you, nobody is their culture.
• 32:38
  Everybody is their own person looking at different cultures
• 32:42
  and their values and their way of expression and everything is
• 32:46
  a is a very good starting point to learn more on, you know, what
• 32:52
  you want to achieve with an interaction and how you're going
• 32:54
  to achieve the success of that interaction.
• 32:59
  Yeah, strategizing that and and understanding that is is key.
• 33:04
  Yeah, so, So one myth I'd like to bust, and I hope you can help
• 33:09
  me, is that this is so cultural intelligence is only important
• 33:14
  in large international organizations, like for for ING,
• 33:18
  this is for nationality longer where I work and and you worked
• 33:22
  in a couple of large companies, then it's sort of everyone is
• 33:26
  like, yeah, OK, but how why is this also an important topic?
• 33:31
  If you have a, let's say 10 person, 12 person team in the
• 33:38
  Netherlands, how can it help? Let me answer it the other way
• 33:41
  around. If you have an organization.
• 33:46
  But if you have an organization of 10 people, but you are
• 33:49
  strictly doing business in your small village where, I don't
• 33:55
  know, you sell bread or you have a supermarket, and you interact
• 34:00
  with people that completely look like you and are only from the
• 34:03
  village, and you go home and spend time with your family and
• 34:07
  you don't travel, which is all fine.
• 34:10
  I can imagine that you might not feel the urge to be more
• 34:15
  cultural intelligent. I could understand that.
• 34:18
  The world today doesn't look like that, right?
• 34:21
  And I think there are so many interactions that you will and
• 34:27
  may and can have with people from different cultures,
• 34:31
  suppliers, your customers, the people that have relocated to
• 34:35
  your country and are living in your village.
• 34:40
  There are so many interactions in private life and in
• 34:44
  professional life where you can benefit from understanding more
• 34:49
  how you come across and how you perceive others to eventually
• 34:54
  have better interactions. So no, in my opinion, cultural
• 34:59
  intelligence is not only for the bigger companies or for remote
• 35:03
  companies. No, absolutely not.
• 35:06
  But yeah, it's all about the the drive that you have in becoming
• 35:11
  more cultural intelligence and the drive and the urgency that
• 35:15
  an organization has to become more cultural intelligence when
• 35:19
  whether you're going to be successful or not.
• 35:21
  Yeah. So, and if you want to be a
• 35:24
  start up with a worldwide impact, then yeah, you will need
• 35:29
  at some point to become cultural intelligence.
• 35:33
  I, I hope you do, because if you want to do a seal speech to a
• 35:37
  country that is opposite from from with, with, you know,
• 35:41
  cultural values opposite from yours.
• 35:43
  How, how would you know if you, if you start a seal speech with
• 35:47
  chit chat or you dive into numbers immediately or if, if
• 35:52
  they want to have only want to focus on short term instead of
• 35:56
  long term. You can make so many, you can so
• 35:58
  make so many mistakes in pitching your idea or building a
• 36:05
  relationship for, for market expansion or business
• 36:09
  relationships. Yeah, to, to, to, to understand
• 36:14
  how that most probably will be done in that specific culture to
• 36:19
  sort of prepare for that and plan for that and think about
• 36:24
  how you can create the best outcome.
• 36:27
  Yeah, it's it's, it's extremely important.
• 36:29
  Yeah. Does it also lead to personal
• 36:32
  growth? I think the answer is yes, but
• 36:36
  curious. Why do you think the answer is
• 36:37
  yes? Well just travelling and and
• 36:41
  learning about new cultures to me made it makes it a lot easier
• 36:46
  to have a slightly different lens on the on the whole
• 36:49
  immigration problem. Why is that good?
• 36:51
  Sick. What do you mean with?
• 36:53
  Politically sensitive, let's let's call it that.
• 36:57
  But I don't really understand why people are so extremely
• 37:02
  opposed to having these asylum seekers in their, in their
• 37:06
  cities, in their villages. Because my experience is that 9
• 37:10
  out of 10 cases, it only enriches life.
• 37:12
  And really, really worst case, it will bring you another
• 37:16
  kitchen in terms of food, but that's the, that's the worst
• 37:22
  case scenario. That's A and so I'm looking at
• 37:26
  all these demonstrations that we have in the Netherlands, like
• 37:29
  like, OK, but why these people have flatter homes?
• 37:35
  A&B they yes, they bring customs that you're not used to, which I
• 37:42
  understand is a bit scary, but they're humans.
• 37:46
  They don't intend badly. And I guess because I've
• 37:51
  travelled a lot, because I've seen, yeah, really a lot of
• 37:56
  parts of the world that most people don't get to see.
• 38:00
  And maybe that's a privilege, yeah, don't get me wrong.
• 38:03
  But I've, I've, yeah, it allows me to not see people with
• 38:08
  different skin colour as a, as a, as a threat to, to, to my
• 38:13
  humanity. I think cultural intelligence,
• 38:15
  what what it has brought me is a deep belief that everybody at
• 38:20
  the end of the day wants the same thing and that is being
• 38:25
  heard, seen and valued. Everybody wants that.
• 38:28
  The way we go about it, that is where the clashes come and that
• 38:33
  is where the understanding must be.
• 38:36
  So looking for acknowledgement or respect or that somebody
• 38:41
  listens to your story or understand where you come from,
• 38:44
  we all want that, but some cultures try to find that in
• 38:49
  ways that are unfamiliar to another culture and that is
• 38:55
  where those clashes come from. It all comes down at the end of
• 38:58
  the day to really understand how to bridge those, those, those,
• 39:03
  those gaps and how those understanding.
• 39:05
  So yeah, it enriched me a lot. It makes it has made me more
• 39:09
  humble and more, I think a more human centric leader than I've
• 39:13
  been before. So yeah, it has enriched me a
• 39:18
  lot. Let's move to my last question
• 39:20
  because that was a great bridge to my last question.
• 39:23
  So I'm on a mission to make diversity, equity, and inclusion
• 39:27
  the new normal in tech. What be would be your advice to
• 39:32
  make that happen? For you, yeah, I think continue
• 39:37
  with what you do because you have a long list of impressive
• 39:41
  people coming to your podcast and you started with nothing.
• 39:45
  You just as in you just started the podcast and apparently you
• 39:49
  do it in a way that you, you attract very interesting people
• 39:53
  and everybody has a story. So everybody's interesting, but
• 39:55
  you have you have very nice names on your long, long list
• 39:59
  already. And I think the way that you
• 40:03
  share those stories and those learnings and the wisdom from
• 40:07
  people is adding to that more understanding.
• 40:11
  We all need to increase more inclusion in organizations.
• 40:15
  And I think the mix of stories that you share go from
• 40:19
  data-driven to emotional stories and everything in between.
• 40:24
  And that is the mix that we also need to really ingrain
• 40:28
  diversity, equity and inclusion in our organizations.
• 40:30
  Because it is about data and it is about KPIs and it is about
• 40:34
  achieving goals and it is about storytelling and it is about
• 40:37
  sharing emotions and it is about understanding.
• 40:39
  So the whole mix of that that you offer through your fantastic
• 40:46
  podcast is, is something that you should not stuck with.
• 40:50
  So that that would be my advice to you.
• 40:52
  OK, so well, it will be going on at least until 2032.
• 40:58
  So in that in in that sense, your voice has been heard.
• 41:06
  And thanks very much for an amazing conversation.
• 41:09
  If people want to learn more about you and about your work,
• 41:13
  and about cultural intelligence as a key leadership skill, where
• 41:20
  can they find you on? LinkedIn yeah, I post regularly
• 41:27
  about what I do and how I look at the world.
• 41:29
  So if they're interested, always welcome to to come and check my
• 41:33
  profile. Cool, and we'll include that
• 41:36
  links in link in the show notes. Once again, Glenn Goladder,
• 41:40
  thanks very much for an amazing conversation.
• 41:42
  And listeners, thank you very much for listening.
• 41:44
  Until the next episode, keep being awesome.
• 41:52
  So that's a wrap of episode one O 1 of Women Disrupting Tech
• 41:56
  with Glenn Goladder on how to use cultural intelligence as a
• 42:01
  leadership superpower. Glenn and I hope that you've
• 42:04
  enjoyed our conversation as much as we did, and if you'd like to
• 42:08
  learn more about or connect with Gwen, please check out the show
• 42:12
  notes for a link. As usual, you can find the show
• 42:15
  notes at Women Disrupting Tech 01 word dot blog.
• 42:20
  When you've enjoyed listening to this episode, please follow the
• 42:23
  podcast on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, or YouTube.
• 42:27
  Following Women Disrupting Tech is a great 0 cost way to support
• 42:31
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• 42:34
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• 42:38
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• 42:43
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• 42:46
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• 42:50
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• 42:53
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• 43:01
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• 43:04
  with me, you can reach me via Dearcon at Women Disrupting
• 43:08
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• 43:12
  On LinkedIn, simply search for my name, Dearcon, and you'll
• 43:16
  find me. With that, I wish you a
• 43:18
  wonderful day. I hope to see you in the next
• 43:20
  episode and until then, keep being awesome.