WEBVTT 00:00:00.330 --> 00:00:04.174 Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the 00:00:04.212 --> 00:00:07.854 Inclusion Bytes podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a number of 00:00:07.892 --> 00:00:11.006 amazing people as they've had a conversation around the subject of 00:00:11.028 --> 00:00:14.734 inclusion, belonging and generally making the world 00:00:14.852 --> 00:00:18.174 a better place for everyone to thrive. To join me in the future, then please 00:00:18.212 --> 00:00:19.326 do drop me a line to 00:00:19.348 --> 00:00:22.782 jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk, 00:00:22.836 --> 00:00:26.342 that's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co. dot UK. You can 00:00:26.396 --> 00:00:29.894 catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places. 00:00:29.932 --> 00:00:33.602 So plug any headphones, grab a decaf and let's get 00:00:33.666 --> 00:00:36.966 going. Today is episode 100. Yay. 100. With 00:00:37.068 --> 00:00:40.198 the title power reimagined. And 00:00:40.374 --> 00:00:44.086 I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Jason 00:00:44.118 --> 00:00:47.786 Patent. Jason describes himself as a Global Leadership and 00:00:47.808 --> 00:00:51.566 DEI consultant and coach. When I asked Jason 00:00:51.588 --> 00:00:54.718 to describe his superpower, he said, persistence, finding solutions, 00:00:54.884 --> 00:00:58.654 growing in partnership with others. 00:01:00.228 --> 00:01:03.786 Wow. Hello, Jason. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Joanne, 00:01:03.818 --> 00:01:07.666 I'm really happy to be here with you and have the 00:01:07.688 --> 00:01:11.134 chance to talk about some topics that I know you and I both care deeply 00:01:11.182 --> 00:01:14.610 about. So thank you so much for inviting me. Absolute pleasure. And 00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:18.486 it's really great for Suzanne to introduce us as 00:01:18.508 --> 00:01:21.974 well, and that's really good. Thank you. So, 00:01:22.012 --> 00:01:25.542 Jason, power reimagined. Tell me about power. 00:01:25.676 --> 00:01:29.274 I feel like any conversation about 00:01:29.472 --> 00:01:33.194 making the world better for more people has to start 00:01:33.232 --> 00:01:36.966 and end with power. And I also feel like, and I'll 00:01:36.998 --> 00:01:40.614 speak really now, I think this does apply beyond 00:01:40.742 --> 00:01:43.020 the borders of the United States, but 00:01:44.430 --> 00:01:48.206 I don't want to overstate the case. And I was born and raised in the 00:01:48.228 --> 00:01:52.014 United States and while I've spent about ten years of my career also living 00:01:52.052 --> 00:01:55.806 and working in China, really, I mean, the United States and 00:01:55.828 --> 00:01:59.586 American Us american culture and language and all of 00:01:59.608 --> 00:02:02.994 that is what I'm most familiar with and what I live and breathe every day. 00:02:03.032 --> 00:02:06.226 So that's sort of a caveat to what I'm about to say, which is that 00:02:06.248 --> 00:02:09.938 I think that we don't have that many tools for meaningfully 00:02:10.034 --> 00:02:13.286 discussing power and having it be front and centre in 00:02:13.308 --> 00:02:17.126 conversations. And there's a couple of reasons for 00:02:17.148 --> 00:02:20.918 that. I think. One is generally the people who have the power 00:02:21.004 --> 00:02:24.842 set the conversation topics, and when we have power, 00:02:24.896 --> 00:02:28.394 we generally have a harder time recognising that we have it. And when we do, 00:02:28.432 --> 00:02:30.778 we don't want to talk about it because we're afraid someone's going to come and 00:02:30.784 --> 00:02:33.886 take it from us. And then also, and this, I think, is very 00:02:33.988 --> 00:02:37.694 much not unique to the United States but a huge 00:02:37.732 --> 00:02:41.326 part of our culture here is we like to think of ourselves as really 00:02:41.348 --> 00:02:44.862 egalitarian and equality minded. 00:02:45.006 --> 00:02:48.674 I don't think that the behaviour of the nation state 00:02:48.712 --> 00:02:52.002 really bears that out. I don't think that the structures in the way 00:02:52.056 --> 00:02:55.734 that systemic oppression still happens every single 00:02:55.772 --> 00:02:58.802 day in the United States really bears that out behaviorally. 00:02:58.946 --> 00:03:02.310 But we don't like talking about power here 00:03:02.460 --> 00:03:06.054 because there are these myths that we've built up 00:03:06.092 --> 00:03:09.866 around meritocracy. To 00:03:09.888 --> 00:03:13.370 the extent that we have merit and ability, 00:03:14.190 --> 00:03:17.558 we can create the future that we want for ourselves, 00:03:17.654 --> 00:03:21.370 irrespective of our membership in identity groups, 00:03:21.530 --> 00:03:25.242 irrespective of history, et cetera, et cetera. 00:03:25.306 --> 00:03:29.054 So all of that to say, in answer to your 00:03:29.092 --> 00:03:32.598 question, we have to talk about power because it is the central 00:03:32.794 --> 00:03:36.626 reality of humanity and we're really not good at 00:03:36.648 --> 00:03:39.810 talking about power. Yeah, power, 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:43.774 privilege, these are all words that Dei 00:03:43.822 --> 00:03:47.446 professionals like ourselves talk about all the time. Yet when you try and bring them 00:03:47.468 --> 00:03:51.090 into the conversation with people who maybe are not HR 00:03:51.170 --> 00:03:54.838 dei orientated, they feel there's a threat. I think you 00:03:54.844 --> 00:03:58.600 mentioned it. People feel that you're taking something away from them. 00:04:02.110 --> 00:04:05.482 You mentioned egalitarian and this belief of 00:04:05.536 --> 00:04:08.618 meritocracy. If people believe in the 00:04:08.624 --> 00:04:12.382 meritocracy, then they believe that everybody has a fair chance. But 00:04:12.436 --> 00:04:15.594 what they don't often see is the power and privilege 00:04:15.642 --> 00:04:19.454 imbalance in the meritocracy that they swim in 00:04:19.492 --> 00:04:22.754 all the time. Exactly. And those 00:04:22.792 --> 00:04:26.526 feelings, we're also not really good at talking about feelings. It's 00:04:26.558 --> 00:04:30.050 considered quote unquote soft, not businessy. 00:04:30.790 --> 00:04:33.906 And that's another skill set that we have to develop 00:04:34.008 --> 00:04:37.106 collectively, is emotional intelligence, 00:04:37.218 --> 00:04:40.998 recognising what our feelings are, naming them, dealing with them, 00:04:41.084 --> 00:04:44.760 and also recognising their origins. And what I mean by that is 00:04:46.010 --> 00:04:49.798 I'm a cisgender, heterosexual, able bodied white man. The country that 00:04:49.804 --> 00:04:52.266 I grew up in, the society that I grew up in, really, in a lot 00:04:52.288 --> 00:04:55.770 of ways, the world was kind of built by 00:04:55.840 --> 00:04:59.626 people like me, for people like me, which means that I 00:04:59.648 --> 00:05:03.230 am not immune to those same emotional reactions. 00:05:05.010 --> 00:05:08.766 There are times when I'm reading something or hearing something, and 00:05:08.788 --> 00:05:12.190 I can feel myself bristling and getting annoyed 00:05:12.770 --> 00:05:14.800 when somebody questions 00:05:16.710 --> 00:05:20.420 something I've considered to be fundamentally true. And 00:05:21.750 --> 00:05:25.470 the feelings aren't going to go away because they've been burned into our brains 00:05:25.550 --> 00:05:29.334 by the systems that we have grown up inside of and that we still 00:05:29.372 --> 00:05:33.158 continue to live inside of. So I think that right out of 00:05:33.164 --> 00:05:37.014 the gates, one thing that can stop a conversation, really, even before 00:05:37.052 --> 00:05:40.710 it gets started is these feelings 00:05:40.790 --> 00:05:44.586 of defensiveness, protectiveness, feeling like somebody is 00:05:44.608 --> 00:05:48.426 going to take something away from me. That's one piece of it. 00:05:48.448 --> 00:05:52.154 And then another piece of it is I can feel as if my identity, who 00:05:52.192 --> 00:05:55.854 I am, is being challenged. What kind of a person I am is being 00:05:55.892 --> 00:05:59.614 challenged. Oh my gosh. If I have a racist thought, I must be 00:05:59.652 --> 00:06:03.482 a bad person. There's a very, very steep and slippery 00:06:03.546 --> 00:06:07.394 slope from if I have this kind of thought to 00:06:07.512 --> 00:06:11.186 therefore I am this kind of person, that I definitely know that 00:06:11.208 --> 00:06:14.642 I'm not. I know that I'm a good person. And the 00:06:14.696 --> 00:06:18.498 system's context can be extremely helpful 00:06:18.674 --> 00:06:22.070 because it kind of frees us up from having to 00:06:22.220 --> 00:06:25.574 blame ourselves or feel badly about who we 00:06:25.612 --> 00:06:29.386 are. And it helps us set, I think, a much more really kind of 00:06:29.408 --> 00:06:32.954 scientific and objective. I mean, I don't believe in 00:06:32.992 --> 00:06:36.330 objectivity. That's a whole philosophical conversation we could have there, 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:38.970 right? But we do have science. 00:06:39.630 --> 00:06:42.986 And I think if one were to 00:06:43.008 --> 00:06:46.382 take as close to an objective look as possible 00:06:46.516 --> 00:06:50.074 at the world, the world is structured by systems that power is distributed 00:06:50.122 --> 00:06:53.906 unequally. This is all true as far as I'm concerned. Why would I 00:06:53.928 --> 00:06:57.474 expect that I somehow am free from 00:06:57.592 --> 00:07:01.330 all of the biases that the 00:07:01.480 --> 00:07:05.234 unjust and unequal power systems I've grown up inside of have 00:07:05.272 --> 00:07:08.420 burned into my brain. Of course I'm not free from those. 00:07:09.110 --> 00:07:12.006 It doesn't mean that I'm a bad person because I have a particular kind of 00:07:12.028 --> 00:07:15.522 thought. I have a particular kind of thought, say a racist 00:07:15.586 --> 00:07:19.350 thought, a thought that is disparaging of an entire 00:07:19.420 --> 00:07:23.098 group of people based on race, which, as we all know, is a 00:07:23.104 --> 00:07:26.666 fiction as well, human created fiction? Why would I 00:07:26.688 --> 00:07:30.234 expect that my brain wouldn't be polluted with all of these 00:07:30.272 --> 00:07:33.870 negative biases if the systems around me that I grew up in and continue 00:07:33.940 --> 00:07:37.246 to live inside of have burned them into my brain. It's just a 00:07:37.268 --> 00:07:41.006 fact. So if we can begin to have to look 00:07:41.028 --> 00:07:44.846 at ourselves with a certain kind of objectivity, I think we can also look at 00:07:44.868 --> 00:07:48.306 ourselves with a certain kind of compassion as well, and understand. 00:07:48.488 --> 00:07:51.938 Look, I'm stuck in this muck along with everybody else. 00:07:52.104 --> 00:07:55.886 How can I begin to develop a set of tools and skills 00:07:55.998 --> 00:07:59.766 to deal with it every moment of every day so that 00:07:59.948 --> 00:08:03.654 I can deploy the power and the privilege that I have 00:08:03.772 --> 00:08:07.618 into something that is closer to inclusion and belonging 00:08:07.714 --> 00:08:11.386 and equity and equality than if I don't have that 00:08:11.408 --> 00:08:15.178 awareness? Because if I don't have that awareness, I'm just going to roll forward 00:08:15.344 --> 00:08:19.146 and do what humans do, which is generally use the 00:08:19.168 --> 00:08:22.702 power that we have in order to keep what we have and keep others 00:08:22.756 --> 00:08:26.446 from getting it. So roundabout now, several minutes in, I 00:08:26.468 --> 00:08:30.174 think that that's when we talk about power reimagined. We're talking 00:08:30.212 --> 00:08:33.998 about something like that. Yeah. It's interesting you brought into the 00:08:34.004 --> 00:08:37.726 conversation of social constructs. This is the rule 00:08:37.758 --> 00:08:41.566 set we invented over generations, hundreds of years, thousands 00:08:41.598 --> 00:08:45.154 of years, whatever it may be, as a society, that we've decided these social 00:08:45.192 --> 00:08:48.998 constructs are the rule set that we must all live by. 00:08:49.084 --> 00:08:52.838 And if you don't conform to those constructs, you get policed either 00:08:52.924 --> 00:08:56.326 out of your society or you get 00:08:56.508 --> 00:09:00.186 forced back into the box where you come from. And I know 00:09:00.208 --> 00:09:03.786 it's quite a well worn cliche, but it's basically the 00:09:03.808 --> 00:09:07.478 premises of the film. Matrix is all around understanding 00:09:07.654 --> 00:09:11.014 the world of social constructs, how it's been designed 00:09:11.062 --> 00:09:14.782 and being able to step out of that rule set and see the world 00:09:14.836 --> 00:09:18.378 differently. It's literally taking the two blue pills, isn't 00:09:18.394 --> 00:09:22.238 it? Because once you've stepped outside and see the 00:09:22.244 --> 00:09:25.380 world through constructs, you can't unsee them. 00:09:25.830 --> 00:09:29.458 I've used that metaphor in conversations and specifically, actually in 00:09:29.464 --> 00:09:32.898 coaching conversations before, the blue pill, red pill metaphor from the 00:09:32.904 --> 00:09:36.626 matrix. And isn't it exactly what you just said? Once you've seen it, you 00:09:36.648 --> 00:09:40.230 can't unsee it. And it can be daunting, it can be 00:09:40.300 --> 00:09:44.022 frightening. But I also feel like if we really 00:09:44.076 --> 00:09:47.446 mean it when we say that we want to create a world that works for 00:09:47.468 --> 00:09:51.266 everyone, if we want to create a world of genuine belonging, 00:09:51.378 --> 00:09:54.870 if we want to create a world where we're not really creating 00:09:55.030 --> 00:09:58.426 needless suffering and death every day, if we really want to boil it 00:09:58.448 --> 00:10:01.542 down, we don't really have a choice. You mentioned another word, 00:10:01.616 --> 00:10:05.406 oppression. And you mix that with power, you mix that with privilege, you 00:10:05.428 --> 00:10:08.734 put oppression in there, again, another triggering word for many 00:10:08.772 --> 00:10:12.526 people. I'm not oppressing anybody. But again, when 00:10:12.548 --> 00:10:16.050 you think of that, of the dynamics of systemic and social 00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:19.666 constructs and how we've built society, the inequities that are 00:10:19.688 --> 00:10:23.346 inherent in it, it's again, hard to see how 00:10:23.448 --> 00:10:27.206 I as an individual have oppressed anybody. But I 00:10:27.308 --> 00:10:30.454 recognise that I benefit from a system is 00:10:30.492 --> 00:10:34.246 inherently a construct. Disadvantages many, 00:10:34.428 --> 00:10:37.926 yes. And I'm going to pan out for a 00:10:37.948 --> 00:10:41.386 moment because I think one of the things we've gotten into pretty quickly in this 00:10:41.408 --> 00:10:45.018 conversation is some of the limitations of the 00:10:45.024 --> 00:10:48.694 human brain and how we evolved and what we evolved to be successful 00:10:48.742 --> 00:10:51.740 at. There's a phrase that 00:10:53.310 --> 00:10:57.134 I doubt that I invented. I did some googling to see if I could find 00:10:57.172 --> 00:11:01.022 it out there. And I didn't see that anybody had used this before. But then 00:11:01.076 --> 00:11:04.746 I'm still kind of testing it out to see if it sticks and if it's 00:11:04.778 --> 00:11:08.626 helpful for people. But essentially, the workplace is the modern day savannah. And what I 00:11:08.648 --> 00:11:12.066 mean by that is no specific savannah, but the savannah of the 00:11:12.088 --> 00:11:15.746 imagination, where it's a struggle for survival, scarce 00:11:15.778 --> 00:11:19.362 resources, there's danger, life threatening danger 00:11:19.426 --> 00:11:23.062 around every corner. And humans evolved inside 00:11:23.116 --> 00:11:26.866 of this context. It's kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, 00:11:26.898 --> 00:11:30.410 the law of the jungle. And our 00:11:30.560 --> 00:11:34.186 physical brains and bodies exist and are 00:11:34.208 --> 00:11:37.914 configured in the way that they are so that we can succeed in 00:11:37.952 --> 00:11:41.502 that kind of an environment. Take that and throw that 00:11:41.556 --> 00:11:45.262 into still, I guess. I guess it's still the early 21st 00:11:45.316 --> 00:11:48.906 century here and now in January 2024, and we're 00:11:48.938 --> 00:11:52.554 recording this episode. And there's 00:11:52.682 --> 00:11:56.434 all of these ways in which it is absolutely necessary for the survival of our 00:11:56.472 --> 00:12:00.306 species that we be able to collaborate well with people who 00:12:00.328 --> 00:12:03.650 are really different from us. To unleash their talents, 00:12:04.070 --> 00:12:07.918 to have them feel like they belong so that they can unleash their 00:12:07.944 --> 00:12:11.682 talents. And I don't mean this in the instrumental, extractive, 00:12:11.746 --> 00:12:15.414 capitalist sense of get stuff out of people. I mean. I mean 00:12:15.452 --> 00:12:19.062 this in kind of the highest sense of, like, let's 00:12:19.126 --> 00:12:22.886 deploy our humanity in the most effective way possible for the betterment 00:12:22.918 --> 00:12:25.738 of our species. So you take this very 00:12:25.824 --> 00:12:29.494 understandably terrified, frightened animal 00:12:29.542 --> 00:12:33.374 brain and you throw it into this current context and 00:12:33.412 --> 00:12:37.198 this need to collaborate effectively. And it's a 00:12:37.204 --> 00:12:40.746 real mismatch. We're really not very well equipped 00:12:40.858 --> 00:12:44.702 at the most basic biological level. We're not well equipped to meet 00:12:44.756 --> 00:12:48.594 the challenges of the moment. In other words, we've got a really long way to 00:12:48.632 --> 00:12:52.370 go because of this fundamental mismatch. I'm trying to remember 00:12:52.440 --> 00:12:55.774 now that this whole sort of panning out context and savannah 00:12:55.822 --> 00:12:59.526 context. Do you remember the last question 00:12:59.548 --> 00:13:02.418 you asked me a moment ago? I want to tie it back to that. It's 00:13:02.434 --> 00:13:06.040 around the systemic oppression and the social constructs and 00:13:06.730 --> 00:13:09.510 how we benefit from. Without realising. 00:13:09.850 --> 00:13:13.686 Yes. So the broad context is our brains and bodies 00:13:13.718 --> 00:13:17.558 aren't equipped to think in certain ways. And one of those ways is we're 00:13:17.574 --> 00:13:20.634 not really equipped. It's very difficult to think in these 00:13:20.672 --> 00:13:24.286 macroscopic, big picture, systemic terms 00:13:24.388 --> 00:13:28.174 because we evolved in this environment that was extremely local. We form 00:13:28.212 --> 00:13:31.982 in groups and out groups. Right. It's not like every individual is struggling against 00:13:32.036 --> 00:13:35.666 every other individual. Groups are struggling against groups. We have in groups and we have 00:13:35.688 --> 00:13:39.410 out groups, and we're really good 00:13:39.560 --> 00:13:42.946 at understanding the interests of our in 00:13:42.968 --> 00:13:46.562 groups, those who are nearest and dearest to us, the people 00:13:46.616 --> 00:13:50.294 whose interests we perceive to be aligned with our own, and then 00:13:50.332 --> 00:13:54.134 everybody else whose interests we perceive to be not aligned with our own, and sometimes 00:13:54.252 --> 00:13:57.726 often directly conflicting with our own. Hence, 00:13:57.778 --> 00:14:01.546 intergroup conflict, war. So all 00:14:01.568 --> 00:14:05.020 of this points towards a need for us 00:14:05.390 --> 00:14:09.210 as human beings to try to look at ourselves 00:14:09.550 --> 00:14:13.146 in a more objective way to understand what our 00:14:13.168 --> 00:14:16.974 limitations are. Because if we don't understand what our limitations are, we 00:14:17.012 --> 00:14:20.590 don't really have a chance. If we do understand what our limitations are, 00:14:20.660 --> 00:14:23.986 then we can start to work with those limitations, address those 00:14:24.008 --> 00:14:27.234 limitations, and build up sets of skills that we can then 00:14:27.272 --> 00:14:31.090 deploy that help to overcome those limitations. Yeah, because 00:14:31.160 --> 00:14:34.322 our in group out group biases are so 00:14:34.376 --> 00:14:37.330 ingrained in our prehistoric brains. 00:14:38.470 --> 00:14:42.214 I live in a commune. Anybody who comes from over the hill is only 00:14:42.252 --> 00:14:45.986 coming over the hill to attack me or do something bad to me. Therefore, 00:14:46.018 --> 00:14:49.302 I trust people who are in my in group. I distrust 00:14:49.366 --> 00:14:52.854 inherently anybody else who's not like me. So it's the affinity 00:14:52.902 --> 00:14:56.378 bias out group stuff. So it's so 00:14:56.464 --> 00:15:00.218 ingrained in who we are, in our biases, our 00:15:00.224 --> 00:15:03.686 protection mechanism, our vagus nerve is straight to our adrenaline 00:15:03.718 --> 00:15:07.230 gland, kicking us into action or kicking us into hide. 00:15:07.570 --> 00:15:11.306 You see it in the animal kingdom as well. We have an inherent distrust. 00:15:11.338 --> 00:15:14.690 So if you think about that as a fundamental survival bias, 00:15:15.110 --> 00:15:18.882 no wonder people who are not like us, people who have 00:15:18.936 --> 00:15:22.594 different values or different systems or different language or different skin colour, whatever, 00:15:22.632 --> 00:15:26.374 or sexuality, they may become outgroup. And it's really 00:15:26.412 --> 00:15:30.214 hard to let our brains encompass them and bring them 00:15:30.252 --> 00:15:34.086 in unless we find an affinity. Yes, absolutely. 00:15:34.188 --> 00:15:37.654 And I think if it's okay with you, I'd like to give 00:15:37.692 --> 00:15:41.446 a. I love this. And it's all 00:15:41.548 --> 00:15:45.034 extremely. This is context. Would it be okay with you if we move into something 00:15:45.072 --> 00:15:48.730 a little bit more practical and applied? Okay, go for it. Yeah, 00:15:48.800 --> 00:15:52.158 please do it. I'm wondering if your listeners just like, okay, 00:15:52.244 --> 00:15:54.720 great. What am I supposed to do? 00:15:56.530 --> 00:15:58.000 Solution is good. Yeah. 00:16:00.290 --> 00:16:03.858 I have a book and I write about this in the book. I'll just give 00:16:03.864 --> 00:16:06.580 an example. And when I talk about 00:16:08.470 --> 00:16:12.066 global leadership and global Dei, there's a 00:16:12.088 --> 00:16:15.858 fairly specific way in which I mean that and the 00:16:15.864 --> 00:16:18.822 whole global piece. The reason I put that in there, first of all, it's because 00:16:18.876 --> 00:16:22.120 my career has been global, but also because 00:16:22.810 --> 00:16:26.594 differences that when we're talking when we're in a global context, 00:16:26.642 --> 00:16:30.362 we expect difference to show up. And there's a whole field called 00:16:30.416 --> 00:16:34.218 intercultural communication, intercultural leadership that has 00:16:34.304 --> 00:16:37.706 a rich set of tools to offer us for 00:16:37.888 --> 00:16:41.606 looking at difference and changing the lens through which we see 00:16:41.648 --> 00:16:45.200 difference. And so to give a specific example, 00:16:46.210 --> 00:16:50.026 what it helps us to do is focus on behaviours so that we're not jumping 00:16:50.058 --> 00:16:53.454 immediately into identity, we're not jumping immediately into power, 00:16:53.652 --> 00:16:56.782 because it can generate these shutdown 00:16:56.926 --> 00:17:00.434 reactions from people. And you can't get anywhere if you start there sometimes, 00:17:00.632 --> 00:17:04.466 right? So if we start with something behavioural, behavioural, I 00:17:04.488 --> 00:17:08.182 think we all are familiar with differences in, say, 00:17:08.236 --> 00:17:11.922 communication style. Individuals have differences in communication style, 00:17:11.986 --> 00:17:15.526 and differences also pattern across cultures. From the 00:17:15.548 --> 00:17:19.018 standpoint of communication style. One of the big adjustments that I had to 00:17:19.024 --> 00:17:22.202 make as somebody born and raised in the United 00:17:22.256 --> 00:17:26.086 States and trying to work effectively inside the chinese 00:17:26.118 --> 00:17:29.766 cultural and linguistic environment was different communication styles. 00:17:29.878 --> 00:17:33.710 I was trained know, say what you mean, mean what you say. Direct 00:17:33.780 --> 00:17:37.566 communication was really the only way to communicate. And then I found 00:17:37.588 --> 00:17:41.326 myself in a situation where the dominant, which is not to say that 00:17:41.348 --> 00:17:44.906 every individual conforms to this, right, this is patterns. But broadly 00:17:44.938 --> 00:17:48.622 speaking, my direct communication style was not going to be successful, 00:17:48.686 --> 00:17:52.178 it wasn't going to build trust, it wasn't going to help collaboration. And so I 00:17:52.184 --> 00:17:55.906 had to do some adapting, or the term that I use 00:17:55.928 --> 00:17:59.506 is bridging. I didn't admit the term bridging. It comes from the intercultural 00:17:59.538 --> 00:18:02.962 field. But even when we're not talking about international 00:18:03.026 --> 00:18:06.486 borders, one of the stories that I tell in the 00:18:06.508 --> 00:18:10.214 book is about a colleague that I had who had a very different communication 00:18:10.262 --> 00:18:13.542 style from mine. And she has the pseudonym 00:18:13.606 --> 00:18:17.094 Anita in the book. And she was one of my direct reports, 00:18:17.222 --> 00:18:20.762 and she was kind of a dream colleague. She was 00:18:20.816 --> 00:18:24.462 so good at her job that I never really felt that I had to 00:18:24.516 --> 00:18:27.706 manage her. She just got her work done extremely 00:18:27.738 --> 00:18:31.342 effectively. We would meet, I always met with my director reports, one on one 00:18:31.396 --> 00:18:35.220 every single week. And when we would sit down every week, 00:18:36.710 --> 00:18:40.498 what I wanted to hear from her was because I was busy. I was 00:18:40.504 --> 00:18:43.700 moving a million miles an hour, trying to accomplish way too much. 00:18:45.350 --> 00:18:48.902 What I really wanted to hear from her was whatever 00:18:48.956 --> 00:18:51.606 she needed me to hear so that I could help her do her work more 00:18:51.628 --> 00:18:54.982 effectively. Instead, what I got was a story. Every single 00:18:55.036 --> 00:18:58.700 time we'd sit down and she would say, 00:18:59.390 --> 00:19:03.146 we've exchanged pleasantries, and then she'd get out 00:19:03.168 --> 00:19:06.986 her list and start going through all of the things that she's been 00:19:07.008 --> 00:19:10.746 doing. And then before long, she would start telling me a 00:19:10.768 --> 00:19:14.398 story. And it really bothered me because 00:19:14.564 --> 00:19:18.414 I just wanted her to get to the point. And one 00:19:18.452 --> 00:19:21.866 day she caught me looking at my watch in the middle of our meeting 00:19:21.978 --> 00:19:25.826 and stopped talking immediately. And I knew exactly what 00:19:25.848 --> 00:19:29.698 had happened. And I was like, oh, she got me. She caught me 00:19:29.784 --> 00:19:33.090 and she said, do you need me to stop talking? And I said, 00:19:33.240 --> 00:19:37.026 anita, I'm sorry, no, please continue with your story. 00:19:37.208 --> 00:19:40.406 And she did. But it felt a little bit different. I kind of spoiled the 00:19:40.428 --> 00:19:44.166 mood, I think, with my checking of my watch. We 00:19:44.188 --> 00:19:48.006 got through the meeting, it was fine. And it was an important moment for me 00:19:48.028 --> 00:19:51.462 because I recognised a couple of things. One was that 00:19:51.596 --> 00:19:55.338 she really needed to tell me these stories. It wasn't a 00:19:55.344 --> 00:19:59.002 question. There was this part of me, this voice inside my head, that 00:19:59.056 --> 00:20:02.718 I felt like she was wasting my time and wasting our time. And so 00:20:02.804 --> 00:20:06.238 it got me thinking more about what else could be happening here. 00:20:06.324 --> 00:20:10.126 And I had already been trained. In fact, one of 00:20:10.148 --> 00:20:13.614 my jobs at there was actually was 00:20:13.732 --> 00:20:17.346 directing a centre for intercultural leadership. So 00:20:17.448 --> 00:20:20.366 it's not like I was new to this whole topic, right? I just wasn't applying 00:20:20.398 --> 00:20:24.190 it to myself in this particular relationship at this particular time. And it's 00:20:24.350 --> 00:20:28.146 communication style. This colleague of mine is a 00:20:28.168 --> 00:20:31.798 high context communicator. That's a term in the field, and it's a term in the 00:20:31.804 --> 00:20:35.158 field for a reason. And I'm a low context communicator. What that means is, as 00:20:35.164 --> 00:20:38.998 a high context communicator, she needed to provide 00:20:39.084 --> 00:20:42.886 enough context to understand what she was doing inside of a larger 00:20:42.918 --> 00:20:46.586 context. As a low context communicator, I'm just like, let's boil it down to what 00:20:46.608 --> 00:20:50.398 we need to know, because efficiency and transparency, those are 00:20:50.404 --> 00:20:54.000 the values that are driving, that are most important for us 00:20:54.610 --> 00:20:58.394 to honour here, where she is more concerned with values 00:20:58.442 --> 00:21:01.726 around relationships and a sort of more 00:21:01.748 --> 00:21:05.518 holistic approach. What I was eventually able to do in that relationship 00:21:05.604 --> 00:21:09.218 was a little bit of fake it till you make it, which is to say, 00:21:09.384 --> 00:21:13.186 grit my teeth and listen to the stories until they were done. And then 00:21:13.208 --> 00:21:16.946 I found, over time, that I was actually enjoying the stories that she 00:21:16.968 --> 00:21:20.462 was telling me. I feel like it helped us to, 00:21:20.536 --> 00:21:24.118 over time, to build trust and actually kind of ironically, to get more efficient in 00:21:24.124 --> 00:21:27.814 our work. So I feel like I'm so concerned with efficiency. Like, 00:21:27.852 --> 00:21:31.626 tell me, get to the point. But the rupturing of trust could actually 00:21:31.648 --> 00:21:35.386 lead to inefficiencies in the long run. Whereas if 00:21:35.408 --> 00:21:39.146 I could flip this viewpoint in the ways that I've been 00:21:39.168 --> 00:21:42.906 describing to you, we actually might have a more trusting relationship that could 00:21:42.928 --> 00:21:46.686 lead to longer term efficiencies. So that's one example. Now, if we get 00:21:46.708 --> 00:21:50.334 into identity and power there, I'm the supervisor, I'm a man, 00:21:50.372 --> 00:21:54.138 she's a woman. English is my first language, it's not hers. She's 00:21:54.154 --> 00:21:57.586 an immigrant, I'm not. There's a massive power imbalance in that 00:21:57.608 --> 00:22:01.426 relationship. What normally happens in the workplace is we're not 00:22:01.448 --> 00:22:04.366 aware of the power that we have. And when I say power, I deliberately include 00:22:04.398 --> 00:22:08.130 privilege in that as a specific form of power, the norm 00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:11.846 is to keep rolling forward. I'm not 00:22:11.868 --> 00:22:15.334 aware of the power that we have and just expect other people are going to 00:22:15.372 --> 00:22:18.818 do all of the adapting, code switching, accommodating, 00:22:18.994 --> 00:22:22.682 assimilating, integrating. And when we talk about power 00:22:22.736 --> 00:22:26.474 reimagined. One of the key things, behaviorally, that we're talking about every single 00:22:26.512 --> 00:22:30.234 day in the workplace is the folks with more power need 00:22:30.272 --> 00:22:33.866 to be doing the adapting, which is what in the 00:22:33.888 --> 00:22:37.678 book I call bridging. And again, not my term, but I apply it in 00:22:37.684 --> 00:22:41.386 a particular way in my work that was pretty long. I hope the listeners 00:22:41.418 --> 00:22:42.560 are still with us. 00:22:45.030 --> 00:22:48.610 One area that I've come to realise is when 00:22:48.680 --> 00:22:51.790 we talk about different groups, intergenerational 00:22:51.870 --> 00:22:55.586 groups particularly, it's incumbent on the older 00:22:55.618 --> 00:22:59.346 generation to bridge down because the younger 00:22:59.378 --> 00:23:02.786 generation won't bridge up. They may have an appreciation, but it's 00:23:02.818 --> 00:23:06.658 incumbent on us, Gen X's or other generations 00:23:06.834 --> 00:23:10.338 to learn about Gen Alpha, Gen Zenz and learn about how they're 00:23:10.354 --> 00:23:14.026 interacting with the world because they will not show any interest in 00:23:14.128 --> 00:23:17.914 what we're doing. So in order to create that bridge, as you 00:23:17.952 --> 00:23:21.514 called it, we have to bridge downwards. They will never bridge up. So 00:23:21.632 --> 00:23:25.262 the power imbalance, if you like, in that scenario is actually from an age 00:23:25.316 --> 00:23:29.166 perspective, the power is with the younger generation because they 00:23:29.188 --> 00:23:32.986 are setting the new communication styles. And if we, as older 00:23:33.018 --> 00:23:36.686 generation want to keep relevant, even in business, we have to bridge 00:23:36.718 --> 00:23:40.446 down and understand what's coming, not trying to force the younger generation 00:23:40.478 --> 00:23:44.258 to live in our world. Yeah, generation is a particularly interesting 00:23:44.344 --> 00:23:47.766 example because there's a really 00:23:47.788 --> 00:23:51.400 interesting how generation interacts with age. 00:23:52.410 --> 00:23:56.134 They're closely related, but not synonymous. But the fact that 00:23:56.172 --> 00:23:59.682 people in a given generation are going to age 00:23:59.756 --> 00:24:03.514 up into a cohort where they're the ones 00:24:03.552 --> 00:24:07.322 setting the standards for everybody else. I think you make a 00:24:07.376 --> 00:24:10.746 really valid and important point there that there is a power, but they don't have 00:24:10.768 --> 00:24:14.618 that power yet, right? We're still the ones in charge. 00:24:14.794 --> 00:24:18.622 And so often we feel like we can just go ahead and dictate our 00:24:18.676 --> 00:24:22.400 way, when in fact, as you point out, 00:24:22.850 --> 00:24:24.850 I guess the power is kind of latent, 00:24:26.710 --> 00:24:30.500 it's nascent, but there's no question it's coming right. 00:24:31.030 --> 00:24:34.706 I had to learn that as a parent. I thought the power laid with me, 00:24:34.888 --> 00:24:38.486 but I learned that I had to be a negotiator, I had to be an 00:24:38.508 --> 00:24:42.358 adapter, I had to be the one who gave to ensure the relationship 00:24:42.444 --> 00:24:46.022