Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
Joanne Lockwood: for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood,
Joanne Lockwood: your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation.
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Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to
Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 123
Joanne Lockwood: with the title Cultural Intelligence for
Joanne Lockwood: Harnessing Diversity. And I have the absolute honor and
Joanne Lockwood: privilege to welcome Ritika Wadhwa. Ritika
Joanne Lockwood: is an ethnic minority, immigrant, female founder,
Joanne Lockwood: and CEO of Prabhaav Global that specialises in using
Joanne Lockwood: the transformative power of cultural intelligence
Joanne Lockwood: for impactful leadership. When I asked Ritika to describe
Joanne Lockwood: superpower, she said resilience. Hello,
Joanne Lockwood: Ritika. Welcome to the show. Oh, thank you, Joanne.
Ritika Wadhwa: The honor is absolutely, completely, and
Ritika Wadhwa: 100% mine. You know what a big fangirl I am of
Ritika Wadhwa: Joanne Lockwood. Oh, going bashful now and so.
Joanne Lockwood: We met each other recently at a Professional Speaking Association meeting, but
Joanne Lockwood: also we caught up at the Culture Pioneer Awards, didn't we, with,
Joanne Lockwood: HR's own Sift. That was a a great evening, wasn't it? It was.
Ritika Wadhwa: It was. I think I've well, I've I've been fangirling you from afar for a
Ritika Wadhwa: while. And so it was I've actually seen you in a lot
Ritika Wadhwa: of forums, but obviously you only noticed me at the
Ritika Wadhwa: PSA first and then at the HR zone. So I think our paths have crossed
Ritika Wadhwa: several times before that. And so meeting you in person was
Ritika Wadhwa: brilliant, but also being asked to be featured as a guest on your
Ritika Wadhwa: podcast is an absolute honor. Thank you. Thank you.
Joanne Lockwood: Pratika then, tell me, cultural intelligence,
Joanne Lockwood: how do we harness it for diversity? Tell us more about CQ.
Ritika Wadhwa: Oh, right. So where do I
Ritika Wadhwa: start? Tell us more about CQ. CQ CQ is
Ritika Wadhwa: cultural intelligence. Cultural intelligence
Ritika Wadhwa: technically is defined as the ability to work with
Ritika Wadhwa: people that are different from us. It is a capability
Ritika Wadhwa: that we can all build and scale very much
Ritika Wadhwa: like emotional intelligence, and it
Ritika Wadhwa: helps us to work in multicultural situations,
Ritika Wadhwa: to work with people that are different from us, to work and navigate
Ritika Wadhwa: situations that might not be familiar to us. There's
Ritika Wadhwa: IQ, there's EQ, and there's CQ. CQ is relatively
Ritika Wadhwa: the new baby on the block as we call it because it's been around 20
Ritika Wadhwa: plus years, but only in the last 12 or so years has
Ritika Wadhwa: there been a practical application to cultural intelligence. Cultural
Ritika Wadhwa: intelligence, very much like emotional intelligence, is formed of 4
Ritika Wadhwa: capabilities. The first capability is the CQ
Ritika Wadhwa: drive, the why, there's CQ
Ritika Wadhwa: knowledge, the what, CQ strategy,
Ritika Wadhwa: the how, and CQ action when you actually do
Ritika Wadhwa: something about all those capabilities. And so
Ritika Wadhwa: what cultural intelligence does is hold people accountable,
Ritika Wadhwa: hold leaders accountable for behavior change. Because I've seen a lot of
Ritika Wadhwa: frameworks, very, very interested in the field of
Ritika Wadhwa: diversity, equity, inclusion, personally and professionally.
Ritika Wadhwa: And what I was most interested in is to hold
Ritika Wadhwa: people, leaders more specifically, accountable
Ritika Wadhwa: from moving from intent to impact. And this is the framework that I
Ritika Wadhwa: thought absolutely does that because a lot of training courses
Ritika Wadhwa: out there and a lot of forms of intelligence, whether that's cultural
Ritika Wadhwa: competency, cultural awareness, whatever you wanna call it, sit in
Ritika Wadhwa: the CQ knowledge box where you get the information, but you're not really
Ritika Wadhwa: told what to do with it. For example, unconscious
Ritika Wadhwa: bias training increases discrimination, yeah, because we're not taught what to
Ritika Wadhwa: do with that unconscious bias. And this is why a cultural intelligence
Ritika Wadhwa: framework means you've got the CQ knowledge, but you're being
Ritika Wadhwa: taught on how to use that knowledge to plan for those interactions that
Ritika Wadhwa: are different, to be aware of how that interaction is going,
Ritika Wadhwa: and to self reflect on what about it worked or didn't. And we
Ritika Wadhwa: know that the best learning comes from that self reflection, comes from
Ritika Wadhwa: sitting with the discomfort and asking yourself what went right or
Ritika Wadhwa: wrong. And last but not the least, I was really, really
Ritika Wadhwa: interested in exploring a body of thought, a framework,
Ritika Wadhwa: a theory, a research based topic on
Ritika Wadhwa: how can people show up? How can leaders
Ritika Wadhwa: act in a way that is adaptable? Act in a way that is inclusive?
Ritika Wadhwa: Act in a way that they are able to work with those
Ritika Wadhwa: differences in in how they show up as an ally, in how they show up
Ritika Wadhwa: as a leader, in how they show up as an inclusive leader.
Ritika Wadhwa: So really that in a nutshell is cultural intelligence.
Joanne Lockwood: In a nutshell. In a nutshell. Yeah. I I I studied
Joanne Lockwood: CQ a fair bit, and I always think that, as you
Joanne Lockwood: say, knowledge you can be have knowledge. You can have
Joanne Lockwood: the have the desire to do well. But unless you've got that strategy,
Joanne Lockwood: you're likely to be armed and dangerous. Little knowledge
Joanne Lockwood: can obviously take you to the wrong direction. When you talk about intent and impact,
Joanne Lockwood: I was thinking if we're not careful, our positive intent can actually
Joanne Lockwood: be problematic and cause negative impact. So that's where we gotta
Joanne Lockwood: really focus on the strategizing how we contextualize what
Joanne Lockwood: we've learned, isn't it? Exactly that. And this is why the organization's
Ritika Wadhwa: name is Prabhaav Global, and Prabhaav means
Ritika Wadhwa: Impact in Hindi. So as much as it's a bit
Ritika Wadhwa: of a tongue twister, when I started when I started thinking about
Ritika Wadhwa: the name for my organization, and I came up with the word Prabhaav,
Ritika Wadhwa: a lot of people with the right intention said, why don't you call
Ritika Wadhwa: it what it is on the tin? And I said, call it what
Ritika Wadhwa: it is on the tin for who? For me, Prabhav impact is what speaks to
Ritika Wadhwa: me in my heart. And that's what I'm really, really
Ritika Wadhwa: interested in. That impact. Whether the intent is positive or
Ritika Wadhwa: negative, we can't see it. What we feel is the impact of
Ritika Wadhwa: those words and actions that turn the intent into impact. And
Ritika Wadhwa: so that's what I'm interested in, how to use a theory,
Ritika Wadhwa: a framework that is foolproof
Ritika Wadhwa: to convert that intent into positive impact. When
Joanne Lockwood: I talk to people, one of the biggest things, you know, the the barriers
Joanne Lockwood: to inclusion is the fear of getting it wrong. People are
Joanne Lockwood: so worried. We, you know, we live in this culture at
Joanne Lockwood: the moment, a blame culture. We live in a culture where of
Joanne Lockwood: wokeness and antiwokeness and political divide
Joanne Lockwood: and people pushing back and people having their privilege challenged.
Joanne Lockwood: And people get really scared about saying or doing the wrong thing
Joanne Lockwood: for fear of being called out on the internet or getting in the newspaper
Joanne Lockwood: for the wrong reasons. So how can CQ, cultural
Joanne Lockwood: intelligence, help us navigate through that fear?
Ritika Wadhwa: I love that question. I want to answer that question
Ritika Wadhwa: with Martin Luther King's quote. People fail to get
Ritika Wadhwa: along because they fear each other. They fear each
Ritika Wadhwa: other because they don't know each other. They don't
Ritika Wadhwa: know each other because they have not communicated with each
Ritika Wadhwa: other. So in a nutshell, it's all about the communication.
Ritika Wadhwa: And this is where CQ comes in. It sits at the heart. Cultural
Ritika Wadhwa: intelligence is about communicating, but
Ritika Wadhwa: communicating for impact. So what I mean by that is
Ritika Wadhwa: how do we understand what outcomes we want to
Ritika Wadhwa: drive from any interaction? And getting to the core of that,
Ritika Wadhwa: what outcome do I want from my interaction with Joanne when I see
Ritika Wadhwa: you for the first time or when I'm in a meeting with you. Now what
Ritika Wadhwa: knowledge do I have about Joanne? Okay. And how am I going to use
Ritika Wadhwa: this knowledge to get the outcome that I want?
Ritika Wadhwa: And so with that, what we mean is people fear each other because they don't
Ritika Wadhwa: know each other, and this fear sits at that if if we can
Ritika Wadhwa: we can level up and increase the knowledge about the communities,
Ritika Wadhwa: the groups, those parts of society that we're not familiar with,
Ritika Wadhwa: that we don't know much about. If we can find ways to gain
Ritika Wadhwa: knowledge, whether that's through books, listening to podcasts like
Ritika Wadhwa: yours, being out there, watching movies, having those conversations,
Ritika Wadhwa: getting to know the human behind those
Ritika Wadhwa: biases and assumptions that we might have, will that take away that
Ritika Wadhwa: fear to some extent Jo that not that we are completely confident,
Ritika Wadhwa: but at least we can come from a place of curiosity. And so cultural
Ritika Wadhwa: intelligence can really help us. And for this, to
Ritika Wadhwa: answer your question a little more long winded way, I personally think
Ritika Wadhwa: that the why is really important. When people say that we fear and
Ritika Wadhwa: there's Joanne woke, there's this, there's that, what is it that we want
Ritika Wadhwa: from our lives and from society and from our employees and those
Ritika Wadhwa: around us? When our why is clear, it's easier for us to
Ritika Wadhwa: navigate that path and to be more confident in those
Ritika Wadhwa: interactions than just come come from a place of fear. Yeah. I think I think
Joanne Lockwood: you're Jo right. You talked about
Joanne Lockwood: getting to know people. I think what happens sometimes in these
Joanne Lockwood: debates that become unproductive, toxic, whichever word you like to
Joanne Lockwood: use, we start to dehumanize,
Joanne Lockwood: and we can see a history of dehumanization language
Joanne Lockwood: throughout the generations and centuries where
Joanne Lockwood: the out group becomes labeled and
Joanne Lockwood: stereotyped with a with with some sort of dehumanized
Joanne Lockwood: view. I'm good. I'm normal, but
Joanne Lockwood: they're not. They're bad. They're different. And then you you
Joanne Lockwood: you sort of associate this word. I mean, we see a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: this with, using Donald Trump as an example, the way he
Joanne Lockwood: refers to his, his challenges for the presidency. You know,
Joanne Lockwood: the dehumanizing always puts a negative label in front of their
Joanne Lockwood: name, things like this to try and turn people's heads or
Joanne Lockwood: minds against somebody with that repetitive. I think we yeah. So we
Joanne Lockwood: we've seen that in many wars. We're seeing it happen in the Middle East at
Joanne Lockwood: the moment where two sides dehumanize each other. Once
Joanne Lockwood: something is not human, it's far easier to discriminate
Joanne Lockwood: or eradicate or exterminate. It re it really is,
Ritika Wadhwa: isn't it? It really is because if you don't have names, you don't
Ritika Wadhwa: have faces, it's it's a certain set of society or certain
Ritika Wadhwa: religion or certain way of doing things that I'm not familiar
Ritika Wadhwa: with. That's got to be wrong because this is not this is not how I
Ritika Wadhwa: do things. I mean religion goes a big way. One of the biggest
Ritika Wadhwa: con biggest backlash I get is whenever I talk about religion.
Ritika Wadhwa: It is it it divides it feels to me that it
Ritika Wadhwa: divides more than any other facet of humanity.
Ritika Wadhwa: And so how do we navigate that?
Ritika Wadhwa: How do we continuously work within that
Ritika Wadhwa: system to ensure that individuals are treated
Ritika Wadhwa: as humans, that groups are treated as humans. And I I personally
Ritika Wadhwa: think that the more I work within this field, the more
Ritika Wadhwa: I come across people that are culturally intelligent.
Ritika Wadhwa: I see them being able to do this effectively.
Ritika Wadhwa: But you've got to you've got to open up to the idea before
Ritika Wadhwa: you, go down that road. So the the first step on this journey is is
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, was CQ Drive. And I
Joanne Lockwood: I think you're quite right. You said before that even comes
Joanne Lockwood: your why, doesn't it? Because the why gives you the drive.
Joanne Lockwood: So what gave you your why to to embark
Joanne Lockwood: on this, journey of of enlightenment, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like? Enlightenment. Wow. Epiphany more like.
Ritika Wadhwa: Yes. Absolutely. Only took me 25 years to
Ritika Wadhwa: get to where I am. Right? When I say 25 years, 25 years of working
Ritika Wadhwa: life, you know, a lot longer before that. But
Ritika Wadhwa: what it really was is I want to I want to share that actually
Ritika Wadhwa: from the time that I was born, when I was born in
Ritika Wadhwa: India, up until now, even today, it
Ritika Wadhwa: very much feels like systems were put in place
Ritika Wadhwa: for someone like me to have a very different experience. And
Ritika Wadhwa: so that right there is the why. Because from the time that I was born
Ritika Wadhwa: as a woman, as a girl in a patriarchal India,
Ritika Wadhwa: 40 something years ago to then moving to the UK
Ritika Wadhwa: and to Canada where it became that I'm a woman of color,
Ritika Wadhwa: that I'm an immigrant, that I have a funny accent, that
Ritika Wadhwa: I'm fresh off the board. So many other facets of me
Ritika Wadhwa: that really was not something that was chosen. It wasn't
Ritika Wadhwa: I didn't choose to be born as a woman. I didn't choose to be born
Ritika Wadhwa: in the color of skin that I was born in. And I'm very proud of
Ritika Wadhwa: that. Don't get me wrong. But then systems were put in place for someone like
Ritika Wadhwa: me to have a very different experience of life and what I was
Ritika Wadhwa: capable of achieving. Right? And so I've
Ritika Wadhwa: had to fight that system, and this is why resilience is the superpower. I've had
Ritika Wadhwa: to fight that system from the day I was born until today.
Ritika Wadhwa: As an entrepreneur, I'm still fighting that system.
Ritika Wadhwa: And so that's the why, because I want to leave a legacy.
Ritika Wadhwa: I want to leave a legacy for those that look like me, for those that
Ritika Wadhwa: were that have no choices in the way they were born, where they were
Ritika Wadhwa: born, how they were born, all of those facets to to where we don't
Ritika Wadhwa: have a choice. I don't want someone like me to waste, and I
Ritika Wadhwa: say waste, 20 something years of their life before they
Ritika Wadhwa: get to the full circle moment of, I'm really proud of who I am and
Ritika Wadhwa: I can achieve whatever I want to achieve. It's taken me
Ritika Wadhwa: 25 years of working in boardrooms where
Ritika Wadhwa: I made myself small. I made myself
Ritika Wadhwa: fit in. I made myself try to
Ritika Wadhwa: please powers that wouldn't be pleased no matter what I did to
Ritika Wadhwa: now get to the point where it's like, no. You know what? Try
Ritika Wadhwa: and take away any part of my identity now. Try and question any part of
Ritika Wadhwa: my identity now. No. So it's that part of that legacy for those
Ritika Wadhwa: coming behind me, including my own 2 daughters. But equally, how
Ritika Wadhwa: that makes me feel, that why is very much I haven't felt better
Ritika Wadhwa: about myself and the skin I'm in than
Ritika Wadhwa: now, which is when I've embraced that totality of my living
Ritika Wadhwa: experience and who I am. So the why really is that. And I'm driven into
Ritika Wadhwa: boardrooms and into conversations with senior leaders and
Ritika Wadhwa: challenge them to say, how are you making
Ritika Wadhwa: your organization, your team, the space you occupy
Ritika Wadhwa: inclusive for people like my like me, and that's why.
Joanne Lockwood: This is very reasonable. I think that's a great motivation to
Joanne Lockwood: change the world one person at a time or one mind at a time or
Joanne Lockwood: one Conversation at a time. One conversation. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Whatever. I think people often get frustrated that they can't fix the
Joanne Lockwood: world now. And it's that's that's the that's the problem. Sometimes you feel like
Joanne Lockwood: you Jo you're taking one step forward and not just 2 backwards, but sometimes 5
Joanne Lockwood: backwards. Because for every time you you make a difference,
Joanne Lockwood: you see another example of somewhere you need to make a difference somewhere else, and
Joanne Lockwood: it's just watching the TV and turning the news on, listening
Joanne Lockwood: to Question Time on the BBC, whatever it may be, and you see
Joanne Lockwood: examples day in, day out where people should
Joanne Lockwood: know better and should to do better don't for
Joanne Lockwood: whatever reason. A political end, I guess, without getting too political
Joanne Lockwood: here. So how can we try and educate
Joanne Lockwood: leaders in that way then? Because, you know, you gotta start you say you start
Joanne Lockwood: with the why, but the first bit is the the drive, and then we're gonna
Joanne Lockwood: get the knowledge. How do people acquire that knowledge? When I work with
Ritika Wadhwa: leaders, in fact, the workshop that I had even this morning, is very much
Ritika Wadhwa: about I know my why, but I'm gonna have to unpack their why. Because
Ritika Wadhwa: everyone's why is different. And unless you're not unless you're clear about your why. Now
Ritika Wadhwa: let's be honest here. If your why if you're getting to work, and I'm talking
Ritika Wadhwa: about call lots of corporates that I've worked in, you're coming to work because
Ritika Wadhwa: ROI is important to you, that profitability is important, cost savings is
Ritika Wadhwa: important. Sure. Innovation is important. Sure. That's all fine.
Ritika Wadhwa: Let's admit it. Let's admit to that, that that's your why
Ritika Wadhwa: Or that you want to you you've had an experience of someone you you love
Ritika Wadhwa: dearly that has been marginalized. Someone you know, your own experience of
Ritika Wadhwa: being marginalized. Whatever the reason, and you want to make the world a better place.
Ritika Wadhwa: If you are not clear about your why, you're not gonna be able to persist
Ritika Wadhwa: on this journey that we call diversity and inclusion.
Ritika Wadhwa: So let's assume for the sake of this
Ritika Wadhwa: conversation that a leaders, a CEO of a
Ritika Wadhwa: big multinational company, their why is ROI.
Ritika Wadhwa: Okay? Their why is financial stability, profitability. Now
Ritika Wadhwa: you've got to ask yourself, are you going to be able to get
Ritika Wadhwa: to that space without diversity and inclusion? And by that, we
Ritika Wadhwa: mean diversity because it brings the unique perspective that you need for
Ritika Wadhwa: innovation, and inclusion Jo that those that are
Ritika Wadhwa: there with unique perspectives are able to speak up and give those unique
Ritika Wadhwa: perspectives. Because if you're not gonna do it, your competition is gonna
Ritika Wadhwa: do it. So the business case for doing this, and
Ritika Wadhwa: I'm talking about leaders that are either heart led or head led.
Ritika Wadhwa: The business case for those head led leaders is a no brainer right
Ritika Wadhwa: now. CQ is a critical capability for navigating
Ritika Wadhwa: today's increasingly global and diverse business environment.
Ritika Wadhwa: It's so important that we made it one of our core behaviors
Ritika Wadhwa: at PwC. This is by the CEO of
Ritika Wadhwa: PwC a while ago. Right?
Ritika Wadhwa: So that's the why. Now how do we go about gaining knowledge? That's the easier
Ritika Wadhwa: part. You've understood your why. Which cultures do you interact
Ritika Wadhwa: with the most? And by culture, I mean gender, I mean
Ritika Wadhwa: nationality, I mean sexuality, I mean ability, I mean
Ritika Wadhwa: religion. Everything that makes us who we are. Which
Ritika Wadhwa: cultures do you interact with the most as a leader? That onus is now up
Ritika Wadhwa: to you to get the knowledge about how those cultures are
Ritika Wadhwa: similar or different from the way you are. There's books to read. There's podcasts to
Ritika Wadhwa: listen to. There's conversations to be had. There's innumerable
Ritika Wadhwa: resources out there. There is no excuse for a
Ritika Wadhwa: leader now to say I don't know about this because we've got the we've got
Ritika Wadhwa: the Internet. You've got social media. Who are you following
Ritika Wadhwa: on your social media feed that is vastly different from your lived
Ritika Wadhwa: experience? So how are you constantly learning and
Ritika Wadhwa: gaining that knowledge? How are you understanding about the cultural
Ritika Wadhwa: values of the team members that you work with on a
Ritika Wadhwa: regular basis? I've had so many instances from
Ritika Wadhwa: leaders that will say, but you know what? I've said
Ritika Wadhwa: to my team, challenge me at any time. I love feedback.
Ritika Wadhwa: That's the only way I can get better. And look, I'm opening up myself vulnerably
Ritika Wadhwa: to feedback at any point. I'm saying, have you understood who's
Ritika Wadhwa: reporting into you? Maybe they come from cultures that are high power distance or low
Ritika Wadhwa: power low high power distance. Hierarchy means a lot to them,
Ritika Wadhwa: which means they are not okay to challenge their boss or someone that's
Ritika Wadhwa: senior to them in the organization. So by saying that you
Ritika Wadhwa: want to be challenged, doesn't mean you're really opening the platform
Ritika Wadhwa: for constructive dialogue. And so that CQ knowledge
Ritika Wadhwa: box sits in really getting under the skin of what you think
Ritika Wadhwa: is acceptable and familiar to you, and it might not be for others, but it
Ritika Wadhwa: isn't wrong. So how are you navigating that?
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's important what you say there. It's leaders who
Joanne Lockwood: who say that. It's the same to me as my door is always
Joanne Lockwood: open. Mhmm. It's a very passive form of
Joanne Lockwood: communication saying, it's your problem to come and talk to me. As
Joanne Lockwood: a leader, it's our job to to
Joanne Lockwood: lean in, to reach out, to be active and
Joanne Lockwood: deliberate about our allyship and our our learning.
Joanne Lockwood: And you say, if you think about power dynamics, not everybody is
Joanne Lockwood: comfortable. Not everybody wants to say, I wanna knock on your
Joanne Lockwood: door and disturb you. It's only a little thing. I say, just that
Joanne Lockwood: little and often, how's it going today? Is everything working alright? Was was any
Joanne Lockwood: blockers? Anything I can help with? How was the weekend? And just those
Joanne Lockwood: conversations become used to having conversation with people. I don't expect everyone to come
Joanne Lockwood: to you. And you might be listening to this saying, well, I've got 30, 40,
Joanne Lockwood: 50 people reporting to me. I can't do that with everybody. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: you can. You can if you want to. Maybe not every day,
Joanne Lockwood: but just gently cycle around, speak to people, talk to
Joanne Lockwood: people, get the lowdown. If you hear someone's having some struggles,
Joanne Lockwood: make a special effort. But, yeah, just to sit back and say, my door's always
Joanne Lockwood: open. Come find me. It's like I agree. I agree. I think, you know, even
Ritika Wadhwa: if you look I mean, that concept of leadership. I'm a big fan of servant
Ritika Wadhwa: leadership. So I I really believe that a
Ritika Wadhwa: title doesn't make a leader. It is about what what the
Ritika Wadhwa: leader does with the title. So it's how do you
Ritika Wadhwa: gain not gain. How do you earn the respect
Ritika Wadhwa: of those that report into you? How do you
Ritika Wadhwa: earn their confidence? How do you earn their trust? And that to
Ritika Wadhwa: me is leadership because that's what will get the best out of people that
Ritika Wadhwa: work with you and for you. The other interesting element to this is
Ritika Wadhwa: that old school thought of leadership and the oh, you know, the door is
Ritika Wadhwa: open, speak up, give me feedback, give me challenge. It all comes from a great
Ritika Wadhwa: place of intention for sure. But what's the next generation
Ritika Wadhwa: looking for? The next gen the the the the millennial,
Ritika Wadhwa: those coming behind us, their understanding of leadership and how they want to be
Ritika Wadhwa: led is vastly different from the way the world has been working so
Ritika Wadhwa: far. So how are leaders adapting to that? And that's again where the
Ritika Wadhwa: heart of cultural intelligence sits. You've you spent as you say, you spent the
Joanne Lockwood: early part of your life in India.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm just curious, and this is this is curiosity. How
Joanne Lockwood: how different was it for you to start again
Joanne Lockwood: effectively with with in a new culture, a different
Joanne Lockwood: majority faith, a different majority language, even the
Joanne Lockwood: food. It's it's the television. Everything is
Joanne Lockwood: different. And how does that feel to
Joanne Lockwood: be someone embarking on this second part of their life or the
Joanne Lockwood: next part of their journey to is it exciting, or
Joanne Lockwood: is it daunting? What a great question, Joanne. And, you
Ritika Wadhwa: know, I've thought about it in so many ways over so many years
Ritika Wadhwa: now. And I'm able to recalibrate it so differently from if
Ritika Wadhwa: you'd asked me this question even 10 years ago. Okay? And
Ritika Wadhwa: I say this because now that I've done this work
Ritika Wadhwa: and within I've spoken to so many people within this field of diversity, equity,
Ritika Wadhwa: inclusion. I have some amazing friends, you know, my tribe, and
Ritika Wadhwa: really gone deep into what all of this means. When I first arrived
Ritika Wadhwa: in the UK, as much as it was daunting
Ritika Wadhwa: and it was actually not great, and that's
Ritika Wadhwa: a polite word to to use, but I was grateful.
Ritika Wadhwa: At that point, even when people mocked my accent
Ritika Wadhwa: or the fact that when I arrived into this country, I had
Ritika Wadhwa: significant work experience in the in in India. I had a
Ritika Wadhwa: university degree. I had a postgraduate degree, but I didn't get a
Ritika Wadhwa: job in this country. I just didn't. They just they would refuse to even look
Ritika Wadhwa: at my CV 25 something years ago. And I had to
Ritika Wadhwa: start after months of looking at 100 of rejection
Ritika Wadhwa: letters. I started from scratch as a sales executive, really.
Ritika Wadhwa: Anyone that could have me would have me. And I was
Ritika Wadhwa: grateful. That is the result of post colonization,
Ritika Wadhwa: that anything white. The fact that I am in London,
Ritika Wadhwa: the fact that I can actually visit Buckingham Palace anytime I
Ritika Wadhwa: wanted, It was so ingrained in us
Ritika Wadhwa: that everything white is so good that just to be part, just to
Ritika Wadhwa: get a job and work with white people, I felt grateful.
Ritika Wadhwa: It was those years were almost, wow. I've got white
Ritika Wadhwa: friends, and I can go spend time with them and,
Ritika Wadhwa: you know, send photographs to my family in India about these white
Ritika Wadhwa: friends I have. And I'm working at bosses who are white, and I'm
Ritika Wadhwa: going to university with white people, and my professor's white.
Ritika Wadhwa: And now I'm really, like, I'm in this culture where Christmas is celebrated.
Ritika Wadhwa: And Buckingham Palace on the you know, and Oxford is down the road and Cambridge
Ritika Wadhwa: is down the road. All these words and notions that we grew up
Ritika Wadhwa: with in India, Where we were taught to be grateful to a great
Ritika Wadhwa: extent, because the British came and built the railways. Okay?
Ritika Wadhwa: And so when you unpack that part or what does that all of that mean,
Ritika Wadhwa: as hard as it was, I was terribly grateful. And it was
Ritika Wadhwa: hard. It was hard. Absolutely everything that you've said. The language as
Ritika Wadhwa: much as it's English, it's still different. And, of course, I
Ritika Wadhwa: was asked more than anyone else, oh, your English is really good.
Ritika Wadhwa: The number of times that people said, wow. Do you have TVs in
Ritika Wadhwa: India? Wow. Your English is really good considering I was taught the Queen's
Ritika Wadhwa: English in a Catholic school by priests and nuns.
Ritika Wadhwa: It is a it is a dichotomy of sorts, really. And and
Ritika Wadhwa: so those initial years were really hard because the weather was
Ritika Wadhwa: awful compared to India. Right? It gets dark at 3
Ritika Wadhwa: o'clock in the afternoon. What the hell is that? I thought they're a couple a
Ritika Wadhwa: couple a part what? Apoll acropolis?
Ritika Wadhwa: No. Go on. Help me here, Joanne. When the world is ending, what's the word
Ritika Wadhwa: for that? Apocalyp apocalypse. That's it. Thank you. Let's hope
Joanne Lockwood: it's not let's hope it doesn't happen. The Rockets Europe. I was like, oh my
Ritika Wadhwa: god. No one ever told me. That's what happened here. And so and, obviously, you
Ritika Wadhwa: know, having no friends, no family, it was really, really hard. But I
Ritika Wadhwa: was grateful, and so I got through it. And this is a different season
Ritika Wadhwa: now. It so I I I'm just trying to
Joanne Lockwood: fathom, but it feels I mean, it's bad not going on holiday
Joanne Lockwood: to a country that you've not been to before, trying to drive on a different
Joanne Lockwood: side of the road, trying to and as Joanne English
Joanne Lockwood: speaker native there's an expectation that the whole world speaks
Joanne Lockwood: English and you go to a part of a country I remember
Joanne Lockwood: I think I was in somewhere in Spain where
Joanne Lockwood: off off of the main track you go into a shop and horrified how
Joanne Lockwood: dare you not speak English. So you kind of get it's that privilege you're born
Joanne Lockwood: with though, isn't it? You're you're brought up in a world where
Joanne Lockwood: of the majority being white, being English
Joanne Lockwood: speaking, having a certain status and wealth,
Joanne Lockwood: you you you do tend to breathe that oxygen where you think
Joanne Lockwood: everybody has the same. And that's where some of the CQ, I guess,
Joanne Lockwood: comes in where we're have to recognize some of the lived experience
Joanne Lockwood: and the fact that they don't have the same experience as you as you as
Joanne Lockwood: you and that their their attitudes
Joanne Lockwood: social attitudes are different. Maybe there's
Joanne Lockwood: an imposter syndrome. Maybe there's a limiting belief in there as well. Or as you
Joanne Lockwood: said, there's a kind of aspiration to be white. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: It's it's it's really interesting to hear that. Yeah. I never I never imagined
Joanne Lockwood: that white people would be held in such high esteem in India
Joanne Lockwood: after the colonial years of of what we did to the
Joanne Lockwood: country as a as a as a British colony. You know? Yeah.
Ritika Wadhwa: It's such it's but what's it's the it's what you're fed, isn't it? It's what
Ritika Wadhwa: you're fed even after it's it's the it's the stories. I mean, obviously,
Ritika Wadhwa: I've gone into a much deeper dive into what all of that
Ritika Wadhwa: meant, the British to be in India. And we did learn. Now that I'm here,
Ritika Wadhwa: I I I realize and understand that actually we learned more about the
Ritika Wadhwa: British Raj in India than those living here ever
Ritika Wadhwa: learned. So we know what happened with the partition. Obviously, we know
Ritika Wadhwa: what the Jallianwala Bagh massacre meant. That was part of our
Ritika Wadhwa: history books. We learned about all that. Yes. They did build the railways,
Ritika Wadhwa: but what happened with the famine, what happened with the stolen jewels
Ritika Wadhwa: and all the textiles and, you know, all of that? So we
Ritika Wadhwa: learned about that in school. And then it's been a journey as part of my
Ritika Wadhwa: work, really, to dig deeper into what that really meant. And
Ritika Wadhwa: having said that, so that was that was an interesting
Ritika Wadhwa: in between period in the 19 seventies, 19
Ritika Wadhwa: eighties, 19 nineties, those 30, 40 years,
Ritika Wadhwa: just under the shadow of post colonial India. Right? Now if
Ritika Wadhwa: I look at India, if I go when I go back now and I talk
Ritika Wadhwa: about you talk to those that are my age or younger
Ritika Wadhwa: than me, it's a very different
Ritika Wadhwa: narrative. Because India,
Ritika Wadhwa: economically, is doing better than the UK right
Ritika Wadhwa: now. So considering we've had
Ritika Wadhwa: 75 years of independence, so it's really a
Ritika Wadhwa: 75 year old country in a sense. And, and and, you know,
Ritika Wadhwa: it's doing better economically. And so a lot of my body of work
Ritika Wadhwa: that I'm doing right now is focused on working with organizations
Ritika Wadhwa: that have a huge Indian employee base
Ritika Wadhwa: or offices in India. And this isn't about training
Ritika Wadhwa: Indians to work with the western world.
Ritika Wadhwa: I'm taking the onus to actually train the western world on how
Ritika Wadhwa: to work with India. Because guess what? You
Ritika Wadhwa: need it now more than they need it. And I by you, I mean, the
Ritika Wadhwa: western world. Yeah. US, Canada,
Ritika Wadhwa: Australia, all of these countries need to
Ritika Wadhwa: understand the culture of countries
Ritika Wadhwa: like India, like China, like Brazil, those countries that are
Ritika Wadhwa: overtaking, that are not buying, you know, oil
Ritika Wadhwa: in dollars. India is not point buying oil in dollars right now. So what
Ritika Wadhwa: does that really mean? Do you need them more or do they need you? I
Ritika Wadhwa: think history has turned its head. Things have turned around
Ritika Wadhwa: completely. And so a lot of my work sits around
Ritika Wadhwa: understanding those Indian cultural values and how can you make the
Ritika Wadhwa: most of your employees there rather than teaching them how to order food
Ritika Wadhwa: in a British pub. Things have changed. Yeah. I mean, it it
Joanne Lockwood: it's it's a real shift, isn't it, in in the power base? Because the
Joanne Lockwood: western world wanted to use cheap labor, cheap
Joanne Lockwood: resources, less controls, less health and
Joanne Lockwood: safety, more less this worry about the environment.
Joanne Lockwood: Let's push all our problems out somewhere else. And the side effect of that
Joanne Lockwood: was, yes, we probably didn't do great by the people, but we've actually
Joanne Lockwood: created industries and knowledge and expertise
Joanne Lockwood: that the Western world no longer has. We can't manufacture. We can't
Joanne Lockwood: develop. We we don't have the tech skills that you have in
Joanne Lockwood: India and in China or the rapid resources
Joanne Lockwood: you have to be able to pull stuff together with people and the
Joanne Lockwood: growth that you have over there is is phenomenal. And, you know, I think I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not sure exactly where where the rankings are, but China and
Joanne Lockwood: India, the highest populations in the world, more people in those 2 countries in
Joanne Lockwood: most of the world. I mean, it's yeah. So India is the biggest democracy,
Ritika Wadhwa: the most populated with the average age being 23,
Ritika Wadhwa: and and just rapidly rapidly developing in every
Ritika Wadhwa: way. Yeah. Yeah. You Joanne see where the where the where the
Joanne Lockwood: power base is gonna be in 2021 and onwards, if not before. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's a as a as a Western world
Joanne Lockwood: person, I guess I need to be thinking about where the future is. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: fortunately, I'm probably too old to worry about it, but if
Joanne Lockwood: you're if you're coming out of school now, then sure is
Joanne Lockwood: anything that in New York and China are gonna be instrumental in in the world
Joanne Lockwood: economics in the When coming out of the future? Organizations,
Ritika Wadhwa: big I'm working with a lot of multinational law firms,
Ritika Wadhwa: insurance firms, facilities management firm, name
Ritika Wadhwa: it. All these international firms that are looking to expand and
Ritika Wadhwa: have already expanded in places like Dubai and Bombay, you
Ritika Wadhwa: know, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, all these
Ritika Wadhwa: places. Literally, those are the organizations I'm working with because they are
Ritika Wadhwa: coming to me and going, tell us. Tell us how we can
Ritika Wadhwa: improve our knowledge. How can we use strategy? How can we.
Ritika Wadhwa: The drive is already there. It's a no brainer for them. They'll if you don't
Ritika Wadhwa: Jo I don't have to work on that, but I'm helping them to work and
Ritika Wadhwa: develop the rest of the capabilities. That is
Ritika Wadhwa: it's almost as if, literally, if you don't harness that
Ritika Wadhwa: diversity, if you don't harness that understanding and that knowledge,
Ritika Wadhwa: forget thriving, you won't even survive in 5
Ritika Wadhwa: years' time. I'm not saying 20 years. I'm saying 5
Ritika Wadhwa: years' time. If you're not harnessing that diversity, if you're
Ritika Wadhwa: not understanding how to work better with the east, if you're not
Ritika Wadhwa: understanding what your competitive edge is, and this is one of
Ritika Wadhwa: them, then then really, that's what they're worried about. And
Ritika Wadhwa: that's why they come and either come to me and I and, you Joanne organizations
Ritika Wadhwa: like myself to do this work. Is is English gonna be the dominant
Joanne Lockwood: language? People from the Indian subcontinent, are
Joanne Lockwood: they gonna be happy communicating in English, or will we see a
Joanne Lockwood: shift in western world peoples
Joanne Lockwood: learn to speak different languages? Joanne, I can only speak
Ritika Wadhwa: for India Joanne it breaks my heart. Really, it does. Because
Ritika Wadhwa: that colonialism has left such a deep impact. And
Ritika Wadhwa: I say I speak only for India, but I've had this conversation with lots of
Ritika Wadhwa: people from countries that were colonized.
Ritika Wadhwa: And those marks of anything English,
Ritika Wadhwa: when I go back to India now, a lot of my friends only
Ritika Wadhwa: speak to their children in English. All
Ritika Wadhwa: the education system worth anything is in English because
Ritika Wadhwa: of that colonialism to go if you don't learn English, if you
Ritika Wadhwa: don't understand English, if you're not ahead in English, we won't get ahead in
Ritika Wadhwa: life. Whereas if I go to countries like Greece and
Ritika Wadhwa: Spain and Italy where they're not they're not shy
Ritika Wadhwa: about their language. They're not embarrassed.
Ritika Wadhwa: All their education system is in the primary home country language.
Ritika Wadhwa: So it is, I mean, in Greece, it's Greek, and in Spain,
Ritika Wadhwa: it's Spanish. You know? So there's that aspect of that. But equally, the other
Ritika Wadhwa: aspect about India, specifically, that I can speak with is that
Ritika Wadhwa: it's so diverse even internally. We've got
Ritika Wadhwa: 26 something states, and every state has its own language.
Ritika Wadhwa: But the only way to bind the country continues to remain
Ritika Wadhwa: to be English. So Hindi is the national
Ritika Wadhwa: language, but a lot of the north is Hindi, and a
Ritika Wadhwa: lot of the south still speaks in English. They have 99%
Ritika Wadhwa: literacy late rate in some states, and it's all English education. So
Ritika Wadhwa: really, in that sense, literally, I don't
Ritika Wadhwa: you talk to the rickshaw drivers, you talk to the vegetable vendors on
Ritika Wadhwa: the street, you talk to everybody speaks in English. Everybody
Ritika Wadhwa: speaks in English. And this is why I'm re you know, my my I
Ritika Wadhwa: tried to teach Hindi to my girls, and they learned it.
Ritika Wadhwa: They knew and they speak spoke Hindi fluently until the age of
Ritika Wadhwa: 4, 5 until they started school. And then they go to India and they talk
Ritika Wadhwa: to Indians and everyone's speaking to them in English. So the effort is just gone.
Ritika Wadhwa: And Jo, yeah, long winded answer to the fact that it is sad,
Ritika Wadhwa: but I do think that English is there to stay as far as India
Ritika Wadhwa: goes. It also means if you are trying to communicate with
Joanne Lockwood: people in other countries, you mentioned Greece and Spain, other
Joanne Lockwood: places, that, isn't it? The second
Joanne Lockwood: the
Joanne Lockwood: the official second language or the official third language of Joanne countries, isn't it? The
Joanne Lockwood: second the the official second language or the official third language of many
Joanne Lockwood: countries. It's unusual not to find English spoken
Joanne Lockwood: in many countries these days. But also that's also why India is
Ritika Wadhwa: on such a rise because unlike a lot of
Ritika Wadhwa: other nations, India's ability to
Ritika Wadhwa: grasp in language Joanne English being its
Ritika Wadhwa: primary Joanne language, but also Indians will generally keep their
Ritika Wadhwa: head down, work hard, get on with it. It's a combination of all of these
Ritika Wadhwa: factors, which is also why if you look at Silicon Valley, most
Ritika Wadhwa: of the CEOs are Indian origin. So so you mentioned
Joanne Lockwood: that India is it do you say 26 states, you said? Is it
Joanne Lockwood: 26? Yeah. And each one of those, it has its
Joanne Lockwood: own culture. And as
Joanne Lockwood: you say, sometimes in in terms of different languages and different and it's
Joanne Lockwood: run sort of semi autonomously within the within
Joanne Lockwood: the overall sort of state. That means that
Joanne Lockwood: I, as a person who wants to maybe do business in India,
Joanne Lockwood: is not just doing business in India. It's doing business in a city or this
Joanne Lockwood: city, and that's it. The culture is gonna be different. So the
Joanne Lockwood: CQ knowledge I need is gonna is gonna be different
Joanne Lockwood: amongst different different parts. So I'm not just learning about India.
Joanne Lockwood: Whereas in the UK, you tend to learn about the UK, and, yes, we have
Joanne Lockwood: a north and a south and Scotland and Wales, but we're not
Joanne Lockwood: vastly different. But what you're saying implies to me
Joanne Lockwood: that there is a huge difference culturally. Correct. So,
Ritika Wadhwa: so just to correct, it's 28 states. Technically, now that we've gone back to
Ritika Wadhwa: so 28 states in India and absolutely every state has its own language,
Ritika Wadhwa: its food, its culture, etcetera. So interestingly, this is the
Ritika Wadhwa: this is the conversation that I have with a lot of leaders as I as
Ritika Wadhwa: we work through cultural intelligence. What it is is that it's impossible.
Ritika Wadhwa: Let, you know, let okay. Take India for an example, 28 states, whatever different
Ritika Wadhwa: languages. But look at the world around us and how many languages are spoken and
Ritika Wadhwa: how many cultures there are when you look at religion, ethnicity,
Ritika Wadhwa: nationality, all of that. It's impossible for us to know everything about
Ritika Wadhwa: everything. What cultural intelligence does is
Ritika Wadhwa: it helps us become flexible and adaptable to work
Ritika Wadhwa: with any difference. So I'm I might know generically
Ritika Wadhwa: that, okay, India is a high power distance culture or
Ritika Wadhwa: that this is the language spoken there. This is the food that's generally eaten. I
Ritika Wadhwa: know generally, and that onus is up to me to get that
Ritika Wadhwa: general knowledge. Plenty out there to get that. I've gotten the
Ritika Wadhwa: general knowledge. When I actually go and work with people in
Ritika Wadhwa: that country, what I'm doing is I'm using the
Ritika Wadhwa: strategic part of the capability to Jo, okay. So I know
Ritika Wadhwa: that in India, generally, people are a hierarchical.
Ritika Wadhwa: That the culture works in a way that there's respect for titles, there's some
Ritika Wadhwa: formality there, etcetera. However, I'm sat in this
Ritika Wadhwa: meeting with an Indian person in Mumbai, but they seem to be
Ritika Wadhwa: low power distance. They don't really care about hierarchy. They don't really care about
Ritika Wadhwa: titles. I'm gonna flex and adapt the way I am
Ritika Wadhwa: conducting this meeting to get the outcome that I want, and that is
Ritika Wadhwa: cultural intelligence. So if you don't have the knowledge,
Ritika Wadhwa: you will go in through your own you will go in using your own
Ritika Wadhwa: cultural lens. So having the knowledge is really, really important. It's not
Ritika Wadhwa: a it's it's really important to gain as much knowledge
Ritika Wadhwa: as we can about the cultures that we work with. However, that's
Ritika Wadhwa: where if knowledge is all we have, as you've pointed out in the start, if
Ritika Wadhwa: knowledge is all we have, then that leads to stereotyping. Cultural
Ritika Wadhwa: intelligence holds you accountable to using that knowledge to flex and
Ritika Wadhwa: adapt in the here and now. So as
Ritika Wadhwa: much as I've got the knowledge, I'm sitting with someone that does not
Ritika Wadhwa: subscribe to any of the knowledge that I have about this culture. So how am
Ritika Wadhwa: I gonna flex and adapt? And this is the beauty of the framework where, really,
Ritika Wadhwa: it is about how we work with any difference, and it's
Ritika Wadhwa: impossible for us to know everything about everything. Yeah. You can't have
Joanne Lockwood: a a check sheet or a manual for every individual person. You have
Joanne Lockwood: to as you said right at the beginning, we talked about emotion intelligence,
Joanne Lockwood: EQ and CQ. You blend them together. And
Joanne Lockwood: when you're meeting people who are unknown for
Joanne Lockwood: for the first time, using a certain set of skills, a blend
Joanne Lockwood: between those 2, you can start to build relationships. But
Joanne Lockwood: if you go in there with assumptions, go in there without
Joanne Lockwood: without paving the way, if you like, for the that conversation.
Joanne Lockwood: You're gonna get it wrong. So what what are the kind of
Joanne Lockwood: typical mistakes that western northern
Joanne Lockwood: hemisphere, western world people tend to make in terms of the assumptions
Joanne Lockwood: or when working with people in maybe in the the
Joanne Lockwood: southern hemisphere continent? Lots.
Ritika Wadhwa: Lots. But that's again down to the individual in in in
Ritika Wadhwa: what in the way they have been brought up, in what knowledge
Ritika Wadhwa: they've been accruing, and through which sources. So it's very, again, very individual,
Ritika Wadhwa: really. So I'm not sure if I would
Ritika Wadhwa: paint it with a wide brush of west western way. But generally
Ritika Wadhwa: generally, I would say, you know, an example
Ritika Wadhwa: of that general way is that somebody shared with
Ritika Wadhwa: me, a white Joanne, who shared with me recently that he's a
Ritika Wadhwa: senior trainer within an organization. And he was
Ritika Wadhwa: sent to Malaysia with the specific purpose of training
Ritika Wadhwa: Malaysian women to become more assertive. I mean, where
Ritika Wadhwa: do you start from that? Right? It's just what does assertiveness
Ritika Wadhwa: mean? In what context? How is it expressed? And why is why
Ritika Wadhwa: is it that if it's expressed differently, that's not okay and that they you need
Ritika Wadhwa: training. Why is it that women generally get training and
Ritika Wadhwa: confidence? Why? I mean, what is the benchmark of how
Ritika Wadhwa: how how confidence is expressed? Who decides?
Ritika Wadhwa: So any everything, every juncture, it's not
Ritika Wadhwa: just east and west. What I'm thinking, everything that is the dominant way of
Ritika Wadhwa: doing things isn't necessarily the only way of
Ritika Wadhwa: doing thing. And I think, especially, those coming from the
Ritika Wadhwa: west when they work with those in the east have to have to question
Ritika Wadhwa: every assumption that be do I think this person is not being
Ritika Wadhwa: assertive because my version of assertiveness looks
Ritika Wadhwa: different? Do I think that this person is not challenging me enough because
Ritika Wadhwa: my as as my view of what challenging means is
Ritika Wadhwa: different? Do I feel like this person is being disrespectful
Ritika Wadhwa: because my view of respect is different? Do I feel
Ritika Wadhwa: like somebody else has recently mentioned to me that I read that they got
Ritika Wadhwa: really irate with loud people, and they considered that
Ritika Wadhwa: culture really loud and found it difficult to work? Loud by
Ritika Wadhwa: who standards? So all of those assumptions, when you
Ritika Wadhwa: have privilege, and I mean everybody has some
Ritika Wadhwa: privilege, When you are privileged in certain
Ritika Wadhwa: facets, those are the facets that you feel are the
Ritika Wadhwa: dominant features, and that's not really how the rest of the world operates. So you've
Ritika Wadhwa: got to question every facet of the privilege that makes it a
Ritika Wadhwa: dominant feature. Does that make sense? Mhmm. So
Joanne Lockwood: then what we're trying to do is assimilate people
Joanne Lockwood: to behave as I behave. That's what we're saying. You know, you
Joanne Lockwood: shouldn't meet my model of assertiveness. You don't meet my model of
Joanne Lockwood: the way you speak your language, the way you interact with
Joanne Lockwood: me. I want you to be make it easier for me to deal with you
Joanne Lockwood: that I'm pushing that back to you, then, aren't I? I'm training you to be
Joanne Lockwood: a better me. Correct. Not training me to be more
Joanne Lockwood: receptive to your needs. And, again, that's that's what we talked about, the
Joanne Lockwood: leadership being passive, not active. How can I
Joanne Lockwood: reach out in a way that's respectful to you, not expecting you to
Joanne Lockwood: be respectful to me? And we we I have to be
Joanne Lockwood: responsible for my change as well, don't I? Absolutely love
Ritika Wadhwa: that, Joanne. I don't know anyone who summarized if this whole thing
Ritika Wadhwa: that I've just shared so wonderfully. That's
Ritika Wadhwa: exactly that. And those that do come from
Ritika Wadhwa: dominant groups are so used to the world molding around
Ritika Wadhwa: them that it's hard to step out from that comfort and go,
Ritika Wadhwa: how do we change this? And and and it's
Ritika Wadhwa: hard, but equally you've got to ask yourself, why do I need to
Ritika Wadhwa: change this now? The answers are
Ritika Wadhwa: overwhelmingly that if you don't, then you won't survive, let alone
Ritika Wadhwa: thrive. Someone said, whatever it is that got me here is
Ritika Wadhwa: not enough to keep me
Ritika Wadhwa: here. And so there you go. Yeah. We we're constantly
Joanne Lockwood: refining our why, aren't we? Our motivations, what makes
Joanne Lockwood: happy, what makes us sad. We need to be stretched,
Joanne Lockwood: not not always. We need to relax occasionally, but we need to feel
Joanne Lockwood: that we're growing. Because if we're not growing, we are going backwards, and
Joanne Lockwood: that's that's the challenge, isn't it? And people are coming behind us
Joanne Lockwood: and around us, organizations, leaders. So
Joanne Lockwood: we have to keep pace. I think we we we can get complacent. You feel
Joanne Lockwood: like you got to the top of the hill, but you don't realize there's still
Joanne Lockwood: another hill that you haven't quite climbed yet. It's probably still in the cloud. You
Joanne Lockwood: don't even know it's there until you've walked to the bottom of it. Yep.
Joanne Lockwood: Yep. You mentioned I'm really curious as we're having this
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. You mentioned about the partition. Mhmm. I know very little about
Joanne Lockwood: that. As you as you quite rightly said, we very rarely
Joanne Lockwood: learn about the history of our colonial
Joanne Lockwood: dependencies, for want of a better way of describing the
Joanne Lockwood: places we invaded and took all their all their wealth and left them
Joanne Lockwood: with a with a religion and, and railroad.
Joanne Lockwood: From my understanding, it's it was done on almost was it
Joanne Lockwood: religious, basically? Norms where mainly the Muslim
Joanne Lockwood: population of India were
Joanne Lockwood: forcibly ejected into Pakistan to
Joanne Lockwood: be a Muslim state, whereas India remained a Hindu,
Joanne Lockwood: Sikh state. Was that was that kind of the rough and it was it
Joanne Lockwood: was a very, very tough time for everybody, forcibly
Joanne Lockwood: rejected by the end. It's there's no kind of negotiation. It's
Joanne Lockwood: off you go. Yeah. I mean, one of the, we
Ritika Wadhwa: we learned about it a lot at school when I was growing up. But, you
Ritika Wadhwa: know, when you when you're at school, you're, like, memorizing it once or the exam
Ritika Wadhwa: paper, and that's after that. And then you get to a certain point in your
Ritika Wadhwa: life where you look back at your roots and and your foundations and
Ritika Wadhwa: what all of that meant. So someone recommended a podcast called
Ritika Wadhwa: Empire. And I have studied that.
Ritika Wadhwa: Oh my god. That's one of the best versions of really
Ritika Wadhwa: neutrally explaining what happened with the British Raj, and what they did,
Ritika Wadhwa: and why they did, and all those massacres, and all the wars, and the reasons
Ritika Wadhwa: behind that, and what happened at the House of Lords here. You
Ritika Wadhwa: know, all of that goes into the history of it. And and in a nutshell,
Ritika Wadhwa: the way the British work across pretty much all the empires
Ritika Wadhwa: and countries that they colonized was on the policy of divide and
Ritika Wadhwa: rule. So as soon as they saw groups of
Ritika Wadhwa: rebels or groups getting together, getting along, fall forming
Ritika Wadhwa: some sort of sort of a contingent to rebel against
Ritika Wadhwa: that that power. They would divide and then continue to rule.
Ritika Wadhwa: And so the so actually the Hindus and Muslims got along
Ritika Wadhwa: swimmingly well, wonderfully well. They were neighbors.
Ritika Wadhwa: It was all one country. Religion was never an issue. Until,
Ritika Wadhwa: of course, then the the British were almost
Ritika Wadhwa: forced to leave because, you know, Gandhi did the nonviolent moment and all of
Ritika Wadhwa: that part. And as they were leaving, of course, they wanted to leave a
Ritika Wadhwa: hue of destruction behind them. So literally,
Ritika Wadhwa: one person took the map of that was all of India and drew a line
Ritika Wadhwa: across it going through farms and railway
Ritika Wadhwa: tracks and people's properties and all of that and go, this is
Ritika Wadhwa: Pakistan, this is India. And they they created
Ritika Wadhwa: that animosity in the Muslim leaders' minds
Ritika Wadhwa: against the Hindu leaders and vice versa, which then led
Ritika Wadhwa: to this awfulness that was partitioned. Where actually my
Ritika Wadhwa: granddad was born on in in Lahore, the other side, which is
Ritika Wadhwa: Pakistan now. And he was one of them that actually took his
Ritika Wadhwa: belongings or whatever it was, got on the train and got to India
Ritika Wadhwa: and saved his skin and pretty much still got a village there where my
Ritika Wadhwa: granddad and his brothers and all of them just just little bit dishy
Ritika Wadhwa: of Pakistan. You could you could walk across the border. That's how close they settle
Ritika Wadhwa: themselves there. And, and millions dead.
Ritika Wadhwa: And even today even today, it goes on
Ritika Wadhwa: with Kashmir being a big issue around whether that's part of India, whether
Ritika Wadhwa: that's part of Pakistan. You've got the line of control and Hindus and
Ritika Wadhwa: Muslims still don't get along, you know. And all of that still
Ritika Wadhwa: happening 75 years, you know, very much like what I
Ritika Wadhwa: wouldn't compare it completely, but what's going on with Israel and Palestine.
Ritika Wadhwa: And that's part of exactly, we're really sorry what happened in Europe. Here you
Ritika Wadhwa: go. So all of those are parts of that legacy where
Ritika Wadhwa: it's really sad. Yeah. It is. And I and
Joanne Lockwood: it's it's it's been quite privileged to ask you that question and hear
Joanne Lockwood: from my own education because, you know, we I've got the drive, and I want
Joanne Lockwood: the knowledge. It's it's making sure that we take opportunities when we're meeting
Joanne Lockwood: people, not just to ask about you as an individual, but also some
Joanne Lockwood: of your cultural heritage as well Jo I can be better understanding.
Joanne Lockwood: And hopefully, next time I meet someone who has maybe come from the Indian continent,
Joanne Lockwood: then maybe I'll have a bit more conversation. Next time I have meet someone from
Joanne Lockwood: Pakistan, I'll have a bit more empathy with the history of the country,
Joanne Lockwood: and it's we we gotta take opportunities to be curious,
Joanne Lockwood: haven't we? And I think that's that's so important to,
Joanne Lockwood: otherwise, be just living our bubble. It's easier to do that,
Ritika Wadhwa: though. You'll be surprised when I when I work with leaders on cultural intelligence,
Ritika Wadhwa: the number of people that are happy the way they
Ritika Wadhwa: are. And that's fine as in what I mean
Ritika Wadhwa: by what I mean by happy the way they are is that they're not that
Ritika Wadhwa: curious. They're not that motivated to get on a train and go to
Ritika Wadhwa: some distant land and eat in the local
Ritika Wadhwa: restaurant there or travel by the local bus. And that's fine,
Ritika Wadhwa: because homogeneous, it's easier to work with people that are just like us.
Ritika Wadhwa: It's easier to be around. You don't have to do the guesswork around what does
Ritika Wadhwa: that mean when they were raising their hand like that or when they were you
Ritika Wadhwa: know, what were the non all of that guess works taken away when you work
Ritika Wadhwa: with people that are just like you. So that sense of curiosity is
Ritika Wadhwa: not inherent in everybody. And the whole part
Ritika Wadhwa: of this work, which I find fascinating, is that you even if you're
Ritika Wadhwa: not curious, you can become curious.
Ritika Wadhwa: So if your CQ drive scores are really low, there are very
Ritika Wadhwa: specific strategies and ways that you can increase that CQ drive
Ritika Wadhwa: and become curious and want to embark on those experiences.
Ritika Wadhwa: Because guess what again? If you don't do it, that
Ritika Wadhwa: that if you don't embark on that, if you don't stay curious, if you don't
Ritika Wadhwa: find out more, where are you gonna end up? Yeah. I suppose I
Joanne Lockwood: in my life, I've had the I'm gonna say a privilege. I've had a
Joanne Lockwood: privilege of working all over the world. When I
Joanne Lockwood: worked for a bank, I maybe not for huge amounts
Joanne Lockwood: of time, maybe 2 or 3 weeks at a time. I worked in Zurich,
Joanne Lockwood: best part of about 18 months on and off.
Joanne Lockwood: So 3 or 4 weeks here, 3 or 4 weeks there. So I was spending
Joanne Lockwood: a lot of time in Zurich. And also I've been members of organizations
Joanne Lockwood: that, have a global reach, global footprint. And I've
Joanne Lockwood: I've stayed in people's houses, homoasting around the world, all
Joanne Lockwood: across Europe, all across North America. So I've had the opportunity.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm now part of a a global association of speakers where
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not just meeting people who are living in the
Joanne Lockwood: UK. I'm meeting people who are still living and
Joanne Lockwood: working and thriving in in their country. And so I
Joanne Lockwood: actually see people in their home environment, and it's a real privilege to
Joanne Lockwood: so that that I suppose that's where my it's not even a drive. It's just
Joanne Lockwood: a normality for me where peep tremendously curious.
Joanne Lockwood: And I about 5 years ago, I was I spoke
Joanne Lockwood: at a conference in Kyiv in Ukraine. It was almost 5
Joanne Lockwood: 5 years ago this month. And I remember walking around
Joanne Lockwood: the the square in the middle of Kyiv where there were snipers
Joanne Lockwood: on the rooftops. I can't remember the year. I think it was something like 2014,
Joanne Lockwood: 2015 where they were shooting and they killed
Joanne Lockwood: 99 people or something like that, and if you go to I think it's Revolution
Joanne Lockwood: Square or and there's a there's memorials to these people
Joanne Lockwood: and and and something you said earlier was quite powerful, powerful, reminded me of
Joanne Lockwood: this, was in order to humanize that loss. Every
Joanne Lockwood: little memorial has a photograph, has a story. So when you're
Joanne Lockwood: walking around there, you know who person a was, person
Joanne Lockwood: b, because you've got their story in front of you. The the relatives still
Joanne Lockwood: bring things to that space. And I also remember
Joanne Lockwood: visiting Cyprus, and on the border between the the
Joanne Lockwood: the Greek side and the Turkish side, There's a border there,
Joanne Lockwood: the no man's land, and on the on the Cypriot side that I was at,
Joanne Lockwood: you could see the photographs
Joanne Lockwood: of the children that that had been lost
Joanne Lockwood: disappeared wherever they may be, either killed or kidnapped
Joanne Lockwood: or or just partitioned and separated. And,
Joanne Lockwood: again, by having those faces and those stories, humanizes the conflict
Joanne Lockwood: again. I think, yeah, sometimes it's hard to watch the
Joanne Lockwood: news, and there's been stories around the
Joanne Lockwood: Middle East. We're seeing real stories about people who've lost their lives,
Joanne Lockwood: the devastation of the of the people there. And to see those
Joanne Lockwood: faces, to hear those stories is the powerful element that keeps us human
Joanne Lockwood: and means that we've got to do something. So I guess that's kind of my
Joanne Lockwood: why is to humanize. Yeah. Is to don't allow us to fall into
Joanne Lockwood: that way where we we can demonize, dehumanize,
Joanne Lockwood: and and and treat people as as sub or something. And I
Joanne Lockwood: I guess that's my why. It's It's interesting though
Ritika Wadhwa: because, you know, again, if you're if you're completely privileged
Ritika Wadhwa: and you haven't ever felt what it's like to be marginalized,
Ritika Wadhwa: discriminated, bullied, harassed, hurt, or that
Ritika Wadhwa: people you love have been hurt because of just who they are,
Ritika Wadhwa: then it's so hard to to stay curious
Ritika Wadhwa: or want to do something about it. I personally do think
Ritika Wadhwa: very strongly and right or wrong that this work
Ritika Wadhwa: of dehumanizing or this work of
Ritika Wadhwa: activism, you might call it that, or this work of just
Ritika Wadhwa: wanting to make the world a better place Joanne come only when
Ritika Wadhwa: it sits deep in the gut, when it's really, really, really personal to
Ritika Wadhwa: you. And as much as, you know, for example, my girls come across as,
Ritika Wadhwa: you know, they're presumed white. They're 100% presumed
Ritika Wadhwa: white. So the way the doors open up for them, very different for the from
Ritika Wadhwa: my own lived experience. But I make sure that they know that that
Ritika Wadhwa: their mother has not had the same experience that they are having.
Ritika Wadhwa: Of course, the fact that they are in England compared to I was being brought
Ritika Wadhwa: up in India. Patriarchal India at that. Post colonial India at
Ritika Wadhwa: that. That's different. But, you know, even when
Ritika Wadhwa: we are traveling together at the airport, if they, you know,
Ritika Wadhwa: if I'm treated differently, they need to know that. And
Ritika Wadhwa: that's that's what will keep them wanting to fight towards an
Ritika Wadhwa: equitable world because their mother had to fight the system. And unless it
Ritika Wadhwa: becomes personal, I don't think people will have the fire in the belly to
Ritika Wadhwa: be persistent to continue when the going gets tough. Yeah. That that
Joanne Lockwood: must be I mean, I was I
Joanne Lockwood: was gonna say interesting. I mean, interesting is not the right word. I'll
Joanne Lockwood: explain what I mean. So you have a a, like, a a live real
Joanne Lockwood: example of being a compare and contrast
Joanne Lockwood: your lived experience with those of your daughters
Joanne Lockwood: based on perceived ethnicity?
Joanne Lockwood: I'd say interesting is a word. I can't think of the word I'm trying to
Joanne Lockwood: find here, but it must be you're able to observe that firsthand
Joanne Lockwood: about those differences. And you're obviously happy for your
Joanne Lockwood: daughters. Mhmm. But all but sad that it came at
Joanne Lockwood: the expense of their culture, faith, and history. They've
Joanne Lockwood: always had to have that part of them erased. I'm now
Joanne Lockwood: acceptable because I'm white kind of thing. Right. And I don't
Ritika Wadhwa: allow them to erase that. I don't allow it. I let them know.
Ritika Wadhwa: My my now 6 year old knew from the time that she started school at
Ritika Wadhwa: 4 that she is presumed white. She knows the word.
Ritika Wadhwa: She knows what that means. So we can just do our bit, but the very
Ritika Wadhwa: fact that I'm out and about speaking to to to to humans
Ritika Wadhwa: that are 16 year old and those that are 66 year olds about this
Ritika Wadhwa: exact same topic in the simplest terms to go, mommy, what do you do?
Ritika Wadhwa: And I'm like, I just try to get people to be kind to each other.
Ritika Wadhwa: That's what I do. I just get out there in the world to do that
Ritika Wadhwa: Because and why? Because, you know, they weren't kind to me because the way I
Ritika Wadhwa: look. Would you how do you feel about that? How do you feel about your
Ritika Wadhwa: best friend being treated differently just because they have a darker color skin compared to
Ritika Wadhwa: you? Or look out for the person that is alone in the playground. I mean,
Ritika Wadhwa: that's all we can do. Right? And so that's the part of the legacy, which
Ritika Wadhwa: is which is a live thing that we are constantly
Ritika Wadhwa: working with. You had to give our
Joanne Lockwood: listener here a a way to find their why in
Joanne Lockwood: their drive, how would you suggest that they
Joanne Lockwood: inwardly reflect to find that why where they don't have it?
Ritika Wadhwa: Interesting. So 2 things. On the fly, I'm
Ritika Wadhwa: going to answer that. 2 things. 1 is, think about the time
Ritika Wadhwa: that someone you love was treated unfairly. How does
Ritika Wadhwa: that feel? Really, how did that feel? And
Ritika Wadhwa: now project that to the world around you.
Ritika Wadhwa: How does every person who's marginalized, how do they feel
Ritika Wadhwa: when they've constantly got a glass ceiling in front of them that they're told they're
Ritika Wadhwa: not capable of doing something because they're differently abled or
Ritika Wadhwa: because they are they have a different sexual orientation or because they look
Ritika Wadhwa: different. Whatever it is, you've got to that feeling, you
Ritika Wadhwa: know, deep in your gut. That's the thing that I urge leaders
Ritika Wadhwa: to find. Secondly,
Ritika Wadhwa: whatever it is that gets you up in the morning
Ritika Wadhwa: and doing whatever it is that you do, What is that? What is
Ritika Wadhwa: that? We're all living because not because we're a robot, but
Ritika Wadhwa: because we want to achieve something, you know, when we're all at our deathbed. What
Ritika Wadhwa: did we achieve? We all want to, whether that's providing for our family, whether
Ritika Wadhwa: that's leaving a mark because we made the world a better place, whether that's
Ritika Wadhwa: becoming really rich, like, whatever it is.
Ritika Wadhwa: If you unpack that part, then that's that that will lead to
Ritika Wadhwa: your why and how you can play your part in making the world
Ritika Wadhwa: a better place because ultimately, it all boils down to that.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. What a fascinating conversation. How can people get a hold of
Joanne Lockwood: you and find out more? I'm everywhere. Trust
Ritika Wadhwa: me. It's hard not to get hold of me. Yeah. I
Ritika Wadhwa: know on LinkedIn, Instagram, my website,
Ritika Wadhwa: Ritika Wadwha on LinkedIn, Prabhaav Global, the
Ritika Wadhwa: website, Prabhaav Global on all socials. Yeah.
Ritika Wadhwa: It's it's hard not to find someone these days. So hopefully,
Ritika Wadhwa: lots of people come looking for me. But I've thoroughly enjoyed this
Ritika Wadhwa: conversation, Joanne. It's been absolutely fascinating and I and
Ritika Wadhwa: very unique. I've loved it. Thank you so much. As we bring this
Joanne Lockwood: conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest
Joanne Lockwood: gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your
Joanne Lockwood: ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
Joanne Lockwood: If today's discussion struck a chord, consider subscribing to
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Joanne Lockwood: that matter. Got thoughts, stories, or a
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Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: and let's make your voice heard. Until next time. This
Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return
Joanne Lockwood: with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire,
Joanne Lockwood: and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world
Joanne Lockwood: one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.