Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for
Joanne Lockwood: bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood, your guide on this journey of
Joanne Lockwood: exploration into the heart of inclusion,
Joanne Lockwood: belonging, and societal transformation. Ever
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Joanne Lockwood: So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time
Joanne Lockwood: to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites. And today is episode 213. With the title
Joanne Lockwood: Cultural Agility in Action. And I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honour and privilege to welcome Mary Lynn
Joanne Lockwood: Parnell. Mary Lynn is a leadership development consultant,
Joanne Lockwood: intercultural trainer, and
Joanne Lockwood: relocation specialist who helps leaders and
Joanne Lockwood: organisations build cultural agility, trust,
Joanne Lockwood: and belonging in a global and diverse environment.
Joanne Lockwood: When I asked Mary Lynn to describe her superpower,
Joanne Lockwood: she said this is her love of people
Joanne Lockwood: and her ability to bridge worlds across cultures, perspectives,
Joanne Lockwood: and disciplines with curiosity,
Joanne Lockwood: empathy, and structure. Hello, Mary Lynn
Joanne Lockwood: Hi, Jo. Welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. Sorry, I went ahead.
Mary Lynn Parnell: I was excited. You confessed earlier that you've listened to quite a few of
Joanne Lockwood: my episodes, and I'm really honored. I've actually— I'm meeting a listener for the first
Joanne Lockwood: time. I have. I really enjoyed them. They're really enlightening
Mary Lynn Parnell: for some of them, especially the new ones. Balance between what you don't expect
Mary Lynn Parnell: to hear, but then when you hear it, dive down. And it was just really
Mary Lynn Parnell: interesting. Yeah, I've been surprised by some of my guests. I'm looking forward
Joanne Lockwood: to being surprised by you. So we were chit-chatting in the green
Joanne Lockwood: room earlier and we kind of
Joanne Lockwood: concluded, well, you led me to believe that you're a child of the
Joanne Lockwood: world, not necessarily geographically defined.
Joanne Lockwood: Tell us a bit about where you were brought up and how that shaped
Joanne Lockwood: your life. Well, yeah, awesome. I I am,
Mary Lynn Parnell: am a citizen of the world in the sense I, I'm a classic third culture
Mary Lynn Parnell: child born in one country, raised in another. So I'm American born, so
Mary Lynn Parnell: you can hear by my accent a little bit. Really astute listeners will, might
Mary Lynn Parnell: say, oh wait, might, she she's not fully American. She might have something
Mary Lynn Parnell: else in her. And that would be Canada. I grew up in Montreal, Quebec. So
Mary Lynn Parnell: the only French province out of all of the English-speaking provinces.
Mary Lynn Parnell: I spent most of my formative years in Canada and returned to the US
Mary Lynn Parnell: when I was an adult at 18. And so my family in and of itself.
Mary Lynn Parnell: I'm first-generation American, so when you hear about first-gen,
Mary Lynn Parnell: that's that. I'm a very typical— my family's from Haiti, so came up with a
Mary Lynn Parnell: very Caribbean background, and that really made life
Mary Lynn Parnell: interesting growing up Black American or Haitian American or first-gen.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Part of the things I love because it just makes life just that more colorful.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And moved to Europe when I was, I think, back in 2012.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Made Europe my home, so moved to Spain and have been here ever since.
Joanne Lockwood: And you now have a family in Spain, so you're first-generation Spanish,
Joanne Lockwood: I guess. I moved over with 3 children. So 3 of my children, I'm a
Mary Lynn Parnell: mother of 5, so 3 of them were born in the US and the last
Mary Lynn Parnell: 2 were born in Spain. So they, interestingly enough, if you ask
Mary Lynn Parnell: where they're from, they say they're American, 'cause that's the kind of home culture that
Mary Lynn Parnell: we have. So they're an American culture kid, but they have learned both
Mary Lynn Parnell: languages, Spanish and Catalan. They love all things Europe.
Mary Lynn Parnell: They struggle with some things US when we go back. They don't understand
Mary Lynn Parnell: some things when they go back, so I have to teach them as we on
Mary Lynn Parnell: the go, like, oh, this is why this is, and they don't have lived experience.
Mary Lynn Parnell: But yeah, we're, we're a multicultural, multi-continental
Mary Lynn Parnell: family. Maybe you should write a book on understanding
Joanne Lockwood: American culture because I'm not sure anyone
Joanne Lockwood: east of America gets it. No, it's one of the biggest
Mary Lynn Parnell: enigmas. I think even some subtle things I get asked questions
Mary Lynn Parnell: like, because most non- American countries, even America, but
Mary Lynn Parnell: they experience America through culture, meaning movies,
Mary Lynn Parnell: music, headlines, soundbites, you know, what does that look
Mary Lynn Parnell: like? And I remember when I would meet people in the first years of
Mary Lynn Parnell: living abroad, they're like, well, all you eat are hamburgers,
Mary Lynn Parnell: right? No. I met this woman who went on a weekend getaway with
Mary Lynn Parnell: friends and she came back all excited. They went to New York and she
Mary Lynn Parnell: said, Mary Lynn, you can't believe what, what I found. I said, what
Mary Lynn Parnell: did you find? She said, I found salad. I said, yeah, you can't, you
Mary Lynn Parnell: can't. Yes. American food is the most unhealthy food. Yes. We
Mary Lynn Parnell: have an obesity issue. Absolutely. But yes, you can find healthy
Mary Lynn Parnell: food. Yes. You can live a pretty healthy life outside of
Mary Lynn Parnell: what we see in media. So just the, you know, the misconceptions of what
Mary Lynn Parnell: America is. And people ask me questions. I said, the country is so vast.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Our history is so diverse. You can't really sum it up in a
Mary Lynn Parnell: soundbite and say that this is Americana because you have first-generation
Mary Lynn Parnell: people, you have First Nations people, which are the You know, the
Mary Lynn Parnell: first Americans, like this land, like even appreciating where this land came from
Mary Lynn Parnell: in the US and taking even my favourite holiday, which
Mary Lynn Parnell: is Thanksgiving, is one that comes with pain. Like I
Mary Lynn Parnell: appreciate what Thanksgiving is for what it is today, but there's an
Mary Lynn Parnell: acknowledgement of what Thanksgiving meant to the First Nations people.
Mary Lynn Parnell: So there has to be that nuance of that feeling and that
Mary Lynn Parnell: understanding of our history and not see it with rose-colored
Mary Lynn Parnell: glasses. I think that's the part that I do try
Mary Lynn Parnell: to help people that our understand Our history is beautiful, but it's also come with
Mary Lynn Parnell: pain. And being able to hold both things in tension and not ignoring one for
Mary Lynn Parnell: the sake of the other. I think we went in a different place for that.
Mary Lynn Parnell: But just really American culture, can I write a book on it? As a
Mary Lynn Parnell: first-gener, maybe, but not— I don't have like history of
Mary Lynn Parnell: generations of history with American culture because I do
Mary Lynn Parnell: identify more with Haitian culture, with that idea of we
Mary Lynn Parnell: were free and independent. We fought for independence from the French. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: so when I moved to America, and this began my journey of just
Mary Lynn Parnell: learning and racial reconciliation education, that there were certain things that I
Mary Lynn Parnell: didn't tie to my history when it came to even oppression and even the
Mary Lynn Parnell: racism I felt when I came to the US. I didn't understand it because I
Mary Lynn Parnell: came from a mentality of freedom. And so I was living
Mary Lynn Parnell: out and experiencing these dynamics that I didn't, I didn't
Mary Lynn Parnell: have any reference for. So I had to learn all of it. I had to
Mary Lynn Parnell: learn what it, what did it really mean to be Black in America?
Mary Lynn Parnell: I didn't, I didn't know. I really learned that in my teens. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: really identifying with some of the struggle that I had no idea. Part of
Mary Lynn Parnell: this is my naivete that came out of it. When Obama won,
Mary Lynn Parnell: a white woman, I was having a conversation, a white woman,
Mary Lynn Parnell: and she was telling me how important his win
Mary Lynn Parnell: was. And I, as a Black person, as a Black non-American
Mary Lynn Parnell: person, like I have to really quantify my context. I saw a man
Mary Lynn Parnell: who worked hard, who achieved a position, and she
Mary Lynn Parnell: said, wait a minute, but for the country, it's really huge. I said, okay, well
Mary Lynn Parnell: break it down for me, 'cause I didn't have that. I wouldn't call
Mary Lynn Parnell: it baggage, but I didn't have that context to see that this was
Mary Lynn Parnell: monumental for the US, right? I was like, what's going on? And she
Mary Lynn Parnell: said, no, this is, this is, let me give you a little bit of, of
Mary Lynn Parnell: history. And so, so I went to learning, learning about
Mary Lynn Parnell: a lot of what it really meant to be Black in America. What are the
Mary Lynn Parnell: different po— politics that happened, how it shifted from one
Mary Lynn Parnell: party to the other. I'm still not into identity
Mary Lynn Parnell: politics. I don't associate my name with a party, with
Mary Lynn Parnell: a party that will never be me. I think that each party has certain things
Mary Lynn Parnell: that are redeemable and that are important for society. So I'm not that
Mary Lynn Parnell: typical black and white perspective type of person, but really appreciated
Mary Lynn Parnell: having being shared like, oh no, this was monumental and now I can see
Mary Lynn Parnell: it. And I'm like, oh right, but I just came from, you work hard.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Yes, there are barriers, but I didn't know what those barriers were. And then
Mary Lynn Parnell: when I learned what those barriers were, then it helped me get more context because
Mary Lynn Parnell: I'm living out the consequences of these, of this system,
Mary Lynn Parnell: but I didn't know the origins of it. And so now I know how to
Mary Lynn Parnell: name it and now And now I can see it. And now, um, yeah, it's
Mary Lynn Parnell: been, it's been an interesting journey. And then I bring that, but what it challenged
Mary Lynn Parnell: me was to think, wait a minute, there's got to be more than this. It
Mary Lynn Parnell: has to, how can this look globally? And that really started me on my
Mary Lynn Parnell: journey of culture for global perspectives. So going
Joanne Lockwood: back to Haiti, when you were, were you,
Joanne Lockwood: did you ever live in Haiti before you moved to America? So you were born
Joanne Lockwood: in America? Never. Born in America. Haitian culture, but my
Mary Lynn Parnell: parents did. Yeah. So is that where your, your
Joanne Lockwood: move to Canada and Quebec being French speaking, did that
Joanne Lockwood: have any influence? Do you speak French? I do speak French, trying to get it
Mary Lynn Parnell: back. I haven't used it formally in a lot of years, but my mom
Mary Lynn Parnell: is the epitome of an adventurous,
Mary Lynn Parnell: independent, I'm going to make a way for myself kind of a person.
Mary Lynn Parnell: So she left her family at 18, left them in Haiti and went to Canada.
Mary Lynn Parnell: So she went to Canada. So she, she started her life there. Then her
Mary Lynn Parnell: family slowly emigrated to New York. Everyone else went to the States.
Mary Lynn Parnell: She's the only one that went to Canada. And then at some point she reunited
Mary Lynn Parnell: with my father and then they started having us and we went back to the
Mary Lynn Parnell: US. And when I was 8, then we made the final move back
Mary Lynn Parnell: to Quebec, back to Montreal. And so that's how she was
Mary Lynn Parnell: there. She had a life and then she went back and then she brought us
Mary Lynn Parnell: kids. I have, I'm the eldest of 2 younger brothers and the 4 of us
Mary Lynn Parnell: made our life in Montreal, Quebec. Oh. So
Joanne Lockwood: what did you— so
Joanne Lockwood: you've got a mix of background and culture. So you've got your Haitian background, your
Joanne Lockwood: culture, that Caribbean, your parents and
Joanne Lockwood: grandparents and ancestry. You've got the American, you were brought
Joanne Lockwood: up for most of your life, then you moved to Canada, then back again to
Joanne Lockwood: the US. What does Spain bring you or
Joanne Lockwood: Europe? Because Spain is more than Spain. Spain is now Europe,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? It's a very European culture. It honestly,
Mary Lynn Parnell: it amplifies what my life in Montreal was like. I, 'cause I
Mary Lynn Parnell: couldn't go back to Canada. That just wasn't in the, in the
Mary Lynn Parnell: cards. And I remember when I got to the US, it was 1995, and a
Mary Lynn Parnell: part of me was like, when can I get out of here? Like, that was,
Mary Lynn Parnell: it was, it was, that's it. I got there. I'm gonna build my life. I
Mary Lynn Parnell: went to college, I started, started building my life at 18,
Mary Lynn Parnell: similar to my mom. I left Canada at 18, went to go find my life
Mary Lynn Parnell: in the US. My family lived there, so it was just easy to move with
Mary Lynn Parnell: them. And I just, there's something that was
Mary Lynn Parnell: missing and I wasn't fully at home
Mary Lynn Parnell: in America and I really had to come to grips with that.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And it took a while for that journey to realise that, you know, I really
Mary Lynn Parnell: did. And so when I met my husband, we
Mary Lynn Parnell: both had that sentiment. He tried to move to Europe maybe 3 or 4 times
Mary Lynn Parnell: prior. He tried to move to Germany. And so we had that affinity for
Mary Lynn Parnell: more, for diversity, for, for something different.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And Europe just had the values that were very similar
Mary Lynn Parnell: to Canada, that were very opposite from the US. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: so from a culture, from a values perspective, America
Mary Lynn Parnell: is very individualistic as a whole. A lot of their
Mary Lynn Parnell: policies, the way the structure's done, their healthcare, it's very
Mary Lynn Parnell: individualistic. Canada is very collective. It's more about the
Mary Lynn Parnell: wellbeing of everyone. And so Europe has those values. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: so when we looked about moving abroad, we looked at France, we looked at
Mary Lynn Parnell: different places, but we really settled on Spain, specifically in
Mary Lynn Parnell: Catalonia, which is where Barcelona is. And it just was
Mary Lynn Parnell: a right cultural fit. I feel more at home here than I
Mary Lynn Parnell: had in the US, which is crazy to think. It's a whole other
Mary Lynn Parnell: language, it's a whole other culture. But what, what the affinity I have
Mary Lynn Parnell: for that worldview of collectivity, of collectivism, thinking of
Mary Lynn Parnell: others above yourself, and even seeing that played out is something that I
Mary Lynn Parnell: really do treasure. And even though it does have some of its
Mary Lynn Parnell: challenges, and it's— and we can get into that a little bit later when it
Mary Lynn Parnell: comes to culture and opening their borders and things like that.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Europe was just the next right move for us in the kind of life I
Mary Lynn Parnell: wanted for myself and the environment I wanted also for my children. So when
Joanne Lockwood: you're moving around, you know, you've had experience of uprooting
Joanne Lockwood: and settling down again. What's the biggest challenge
Joanne Lockwood: in that process? In your bio, we talked about belonging.
Joanne Lockwood: We talked about cultural agility. You have to, you have to learn that it's not
Joanne Lockwood: a, it's not it's not something that you just have, is it? Or maybe it
Joanne Lockwood: is, maybe you evolve it. I think I do some
Mary Lynn Parnell: workshops on third culture kids to help new arrivals with their
Mary Lynn Parnell: children that are doing also new identity, like this culture. But for
Mary Lynn Parnell: me, I've always said the only constant in life is
Mary Lynn Parnell: change. And with that comes this idea of resilience. And so third
Mary Lynn Parnell: culture kids, people who tend to move the globe, have this resilience to
Mary Lynn Parnell: be able to adapt rather quickly. And what I also believe
Mary Lynn Parnell: is that I do a lot of cultural work, so working with North
Mary Lynn Parnell: Americans moving into European contexts, and some of them
Mary Lynn Parnell: struggle with new environments, some excel, some take a little
Mary Lynn Parnell: longer, but it's being able to see and have a perspective of
Mary Lynn Parnell: if this is difficult, or for example, some of the government work that you have
Mary Lynn Parnell: to deal with, you'd get— there's inherent stress, but there's a perspective to
Mary Lynn Parnell: say, well, this happens in every country, so this country isn't that
Mary Lynn Parnell: worse because it's harder. That perspective of it's a challenge.
Mary Lynn Parnell: The challenge is challenging. Okay, let's move on. Let's figure it out and let's move
Mary Lynn Parnell: on. And it doesn't impact you as much. And so there's a lot of stress
Mary Lynn Parnell: and work that has to be done in that perspective. But for me, I found
Mary Lynn Parnell: it rather easy. I found it rather— trying to think of the
Mary Lynn Parnell: right word. It just was easy. And I say easy,
Mary Lynn Parnell: but it's still challenging. I still had to learn. I still had to maneuver. So
Mary Lynn Parnell: I had to learn the language. I still had to understand the context that I'm
Mary Lynn Parnell: working in, understand a lot of the hidden messages. I really had to become a
Mary Lynn Parnell: student of what was happening, but to me, those things were exciting because
Mary Lynn Parnell: that comes from a, a perspective of curiosity. I wanted to know, I
Mary Lynn Parnell: wanted to learn. I didn't want to feel like I'm
Mary Lynn Parnell: inherently an outsider, which I am, but I'm an outsider that's wanting
Mary Lynn Parnell: to belong and wanting to learn. And so when you find yourself
Mary Lynn Parnell: in that posture, it just
Mary Lynn Parnell: becomes an adventure. It's, yeah, I, I smile and I
Mary Lynn Parnell: think, oh, this is amazing. Many people who have went
Mary Lynn Parnell: from different cultures suffer from, um, we don't suffer, it's not the word,
Mary Lynn Parnell: but we go through this journey of culture shock and
Mary Lynn Parnell: the beginning is a honeymoon phase and then you kind of go down into depression
Mary Lynn Parnell: until you get to acceptance. But I think I've always
Mary Lynn Parnell: stayed in the honeymoon phase because I really just love
Mary Lynn Parnell: the diversity, the learning, the challenge, and the growth. I just,
Mary Lynn Parnell: yeah, I really enjoy all of it. I think you summed it up there. You
Joanne Lockwood: have to want to join
Joanne Lockwood: in. You can self-segregate. You can stay, you can say your primary
Joanne Lockwood: identity. I'm American, I'm Canadian, I'm Haitian. I'm going to keep that
Joanne Lockwood: identity as my primary badge on my chest and tell everybody
Joanne Lockwood: I meet. Or I can say, actually, I'm Spanish, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: European with a Haitian American Canadian background. I've got a bit of
Joanne Lockwood: blend of everything. And it's allowing yourself to become
Joanne Lockwood: or evolve into more and bring in your
Joanne Lockwood: current environment into your identity as well, isn't it? Yeah,
Mary Lynn Parnell: it's, there's, I wouldn't go so much with this idea of assimilation, but I
Mary Lynn Parnell: think it's more of this evolution of being able to grow and become more
Mary Lynn Parnell: of who you are. Some of my clients that I do consultation with
Mary Lynn Parnell: when they come into a new city and they ask the questions, they have this
Mary Lynn Parnell: big fear. They're like, well, do I have to leave my identity at the door
Mary Lynn Parnell: and all the things that I love, all my culture? And I said, No, you
Mary Lynn Parnell: just, you bring that with you, but you're open to new things and then you
Mary Lynn Parnell: become a better, more inclusive version of yourself
Mary Lynn Parnell: because you're involving everything. And do you have to adopt everything of
Mary Lynn Parnell: the new culture? No. Do you have to let go of everything of your old
Mary Lynn Parnell: culture? No, but you find a way to have this new culture.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And so when we think about third culture children, specifically my children, I look
Mary Lynn Parnell: at them and they don't know how to answer the question, who are you? Where
Mary Lynn Parnell: are you from? But they're creating their whole new worldview based
Mary Lynn Parnell: on their experience where they've come from, it's very unique to them.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And they have to get to a point where they're comfortable with the fact that
Mary Lynn Parnell: it's not easily defined, nor it's, you cannot put it in a box.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And so becoming comfortable and sure of yourself
Mary Lynn Parnell: in that identity is what helps you move forward. And so that idea of putting
Mary Lynn Parnell: in a box is something my daughter, she's 19 now, she cannot,
Mary Lynn Parnell: she refuses to answer the race questions on an American
Mary Lynn Parnell: form. She said, mom, this is ridiculous. Why are they asking me what my
Mary Lynn Parnell: race is? That doesn't matter. Because she's biracial. My spouse is white. So
Mary Lynn Parnell: she, for her, she's like, but I'm both. And I said, honey, we were in
Mary Lynn Parnell: America at that time. So she was filling out a form and she said, why
Mary Lynn Parnell: are they asking me this question? I said, this country is based on race. It's
Mary Lynn Parnell: always part of the form. That's it. Answer whatever you want. So she's like,
Mary Lynn Parnell: well, I'm gonna pick both. I said, you have every right to pick both. So
Mary Lynn Parnell: she picked both, but she just was, she was visibly
Mary Lynn Parnell: upset. Why are you asking me that? Because in Spain there are
Mary Lynn Parnell: no forms that has a race designation. They only
Mary Lynn Parnell: ask factual questions. Where was your mother born? Where were you
Mary Lynn Parnell: born? What's your address? Right? Just very factual questions that you
Mary Lynn Parnell: can trace, not this race question. Construct. Yes. Which is
Mary Lynn Parnell: very, it's not, it's intangible. It's not even a tangible thing anymore.
Mary Lynn Parnell: That's not our world. Ethnicity is tangible. Race is
Joanne Lockwood: a construct, isn't it? So. Yes, absolutely. Can I say my mom is
Mary Lynn Parnell: from Haiti? Absolutely. She's born, her passport says Las
Mary Lynn Parnell: Caobas, Haiti with a Canadian passport as her nationality.
Mary Lynn Parnell: That's It's factual. It doesn't say, and Haiti for, if you see my
Mary Lynn Parnell: family, we are the whole spectrum. You have white with blue eyes
Mary Lynn Parnell: and really dark with brown eyes. It's multicolored,
Mary Lynn Parnell: if you call it that. That's the Haitian history. And most people
Mary Lynn Parnell: assume it's just one, it's not black. It's, our background is
Mary Lynn Parnell: very diverse in that sense. What
Joanne Lockwood: surprised you about European, particularly I suppose Spanish culture,
Joanne Lockwood: rather, 'cause Spanish is a, it's a
Joanne Lockwood: microcosm of the general European culture. I'd say
Mary Lynn Parnell: it's not so much a surprise, but it was an affirmation of what
Mary Lynn Parnell: my experience in Canada was. And so when, and I'll bring it back to a
Mary Lynn Parnell: different question and then I'll see if it answers what you're saying. When people ask
Mary Lynn Parnell: me, what's your experience in America versus Canada? And I would paint them
Mary Lynn Parnell: a picture. I said, we can be in Canada in a room, we'll have 5
Mary Lynn Parnell: Caucasian-looking people in a room in Canada, and the
Mary Lynn Parnell: conversations will be Where are you from? And they will say, well,
Mary Lynn Parnell: I'm from Poland, I'm Italian, I'm Irish, I'm
Mary Lynn Parnell: Greek, I'm fill in the blank. That's where the conversation will be.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Take the same 5 people, put them in a room in the United States,
Mary Lynn Parnell: and their response, they won't even have a question because they'll see that they
Mary Lynn Parnell: all look alike. And that's where the conversation starts. We're all white.
Mary Lynn Parnell: So in Europe, it's very much about culture. They don't go a
Mary Lynn Parnell: little step deeper, which I really appreciate. It's about culture. It's
Mary Lynn Parnell: about your background. It's, it's, it's more, it's it's deeper, richer. Culture.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Yes. Are there challenges? Absolutely. But that just comes out of not
Mary Lynn Parnell: knowing. We can solve that with curiosity. That's part of
Mary Lynn Parnell: what I do in cultural agility with my clients. How can we,
Mary Lynn Parnell: how can we be more curious and be more inclusive in our
Mary Lynn Parnell: interactions with people and ethnicities that we don't
Mary Lynn Parnell: know? How do, how do we approach the things that we don't
Mary Lynn Parnell: know? And that's with curiosity as opposed to being
Mary Lynn Parnell: defensive and saying, I want nothing to do with that. And so
Mary Lynn Parnell: I find that in Europe, because it's so culturally rich in
Mary Lynn Parnell: that perspective, that they really deal on a deeper level
Mary Lynn Parnell: with difference as opposed to this surface. I say surface
Mary Lynn Parnell: level, 'cause that's my personal belief, but it's not so
Mary Lynn Parnell: binary. It's not so black and white. It's not ones and
Mary Lynn Parnell: zeros. It's complex. It's the nuances that are there. That's what I
Mary Lynn Parnell: appreciate most about being in Europe. How can
Joanne Lockwood: you walk the tightrope between cultural curiosity and
Joanne Lockwood: invasive questioning? That's such a great question.
Mary Lynn Parnell: The tightrope is there. You hold it. It's like a tension rod. You have to
Mary Lynn Parnell: hold it with both hands and really follow the person and where they are
Mary Lynn Parnell: and engage and try to get to that second question.
Mary Lynn Parnell: It's what I call looking between the surfaces, really getting to that second question,
Mary Lynn Parnell: really asking what are they really wanting to know? Where is the nature of their
Mary Lynn Parnell: curiosity coming from? And I do give people more
Mary Lynn Parnell: benefit of doubt in the sense that if they don't know, they don't really know
Mary Lynn Parnell: what they're asking just yet. So, so I tend to have a lot
Mary Lynn Parnell: more leeway, a lot more grace, a lot more understanding and kind
Mary Lynn Parnell: of going along. And so when I'm at a basketball game,
Mary Lynn Parnell: which this has happened, and I usually wear braids, so my
Mary Lynn Parnell: Afro is not always out, but then when I
Mary Lynn Parnell: have my Afro out and then they're like, can, can I, can we, can we
Mary Lynn Parnell: touch it? Can we? And so I'm like, Okay, this would not happen in the
Mary Lynn Parnell: US. I wouldn't let this happen in the US, but I have a little bit
Mary Lynn Parnell: more grace in European settings, especially if I'm like their first Black friend,
Mary Lynn Parnell: right? Which is very common. And so they'll touch and they're like, wow,
Mary Lynn Parnell: this is a lot softer than I thought. I imagined it'd be coarse. And then
Mary Lynn Parnell: they would engage with questions. And so I wouldn't let them touch my
Mary Lynn Parnell: children's hair. So just in case people are asking, but when it comes to me,
Mary Lynn Parnell: I can, I can handle that a little bit better, but have a lot more
Mary Lynn Parnell: patience because they don't have that
Mary Lynn Parnell: proximity that most cosmopolitan places in the US would have
Mary Lynn Parnell: where they would be able to get it. Spain in general has
Mary Lynn Parnell: a very short history with, with immigration. So they
Mary Lynn Parnell: only opened their doors in 1980. And so the influx of
Mary Lynn Parnell: having others come in, you say others, but anyone outside of being
Mary Lynn Parnell: Spanish. And so their cultural experience, you know, is
Mary Lynn Parnell: growing, not to give it an excuse, But just to be able to say,
Mary Lynn Parnell: okay, I have a little bit more patience in order to walk with people
Mary Lynn Parnell: a little bit more to answer some of those questions. I suppose Spain is the
Joanne Lockwood: holiday destination of Europe for a lot of people, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: Certainly people from Germany, the UK, and other countries where
Joanne Lockwood: we don't have that warmer climate. So I guess Spain has been a destination
Joanne Lockwood: for a while. But yeah, I suppose it is. Spain was a very
Joanne Lockwood: different country before the 1980s. It was the Franco
Joanne Lockwood: government. It was a use the very— word dictator, I think was
Joanne Lockwood: probably the word. Yes. And it's not that long ago, is it?
Joanne Lockwood: We think of Spain. Yeah. This is how it I just think of it as
Mary Lynn Parnell: sounds. European. It does. And then even so growing up in Montreal,
Mary Lynn Parnell: Quebec, Canada, Canada. So Quebec and Canada as a whole had
Mary Lynn Parnell: their, have their tension between one French province
Mary Lynn Parnell: versus everywhere else is English. So there's a language and culture war.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Quebec wanting to separate and doing a referendum for many, many years. I remember
Mary Lynn Parnell: when I was younger. And so even Even in Spain, they have that same
Mary Lynn Parnell: dynamic with Catalonia being its own, with its own language, its
Mary Lynn Parnell: own culture in comparison to Spain as a whole. So those are themes
Mary Lynn Parnell: and things that I definitely identify with. It's a minority
Mary Lynn Parnell: culture in that sense. And how do you fight for culture? How do you
Mary Lynn Parnell: fight to be seen? How do you fight to preserve what you have in light
Mary Lynn Parnell: of the majority? And so, so it is a country that has so much richness
Mary Lynn Parnell: in its history and in their fight for, I, I would call it their fight
Mary Lynn Parnell: for individual, not individuality, but it's 'cause it's the
Mary Lynn Parnell: cultural, the, the collective of that culture, but their fight
Mary Lynn Parnell: for their language or fight for their culture. And there's 4, if
Mary Lynn Parnell: you know, there's 4 languages in main languages in Spain. And so
Mary Lynn Parnell: Spanish is one of them, but you have Catalan in Catalonia, you have
Mary Lynn Parnell: Galician in the Galicia region. And so even amongst that, there's
Mary Lynn Parnell: such a diversity within their own country.
Joanne Lockwood: Are they more than dialects? They are separate languages, are they? They are separate
Mary Lynn Parnell: languages. And so when people say, well, Catalan is just a dialect of Spanish,
Mary Lynn Parnell: I beg to differ because there are some people who
Mary Lynn Parnell: speak Spanish that don't speak Catalan or even have an understanding.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Catalan actually dates all the way back to Occitan, to
Mary Lynn Parnell: like, if you look at the history of it and
Mary Lynn Parnell: when it comes to even the closeness. So I
Mary Lynn Parnell: do, because I love culture and languages, this is kind of just a nerd
Mary Lynn Parnell: fact, but you have French and Catalan have more in common percentage-wise
Mary Lynn Parnell: than Catalan and Spanish does. And then Portuguese also has more
Mary Lynn Parnell: connection with Catalan and Italian as well. And so you, you look at the
Mary Lynn Parnell: Romance languages and you see how their relationship to each other is, and
Mary Lynn Parnell: then you can tell that it is quite distinct. I often use the
Mary Lynn Parnell: difference between English from England versus English from America, and
Mary Lynn Parnell: it's English, yes, but I can go to the UK and not understand
Mary Lynn Parnell: a. There's certain expressions, there's words that
Mary Lynn Parnell: they use. And even I had to learn
Mary Lynn Parnell: English from England to pass my driver's exam in
Mary Lynn Parnell: Spain, cuz that's the English they use. And I had to learn
Mary Lynn Parnell: the boot and there was a complete phrase that I knew nothing about.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And so learning that differences between language, even though you, you're, you
Mary Lynn Parnell: have a lot of commonality, the difference is huge. And also I think I
Joanne Lockwood: think one of the challenges is a lot of language evolves around
Joanne Lockwood: similes and metaphors and cultural references,
Joanne Lockwood: television programs, politics, whatever it may be. So
Joanne Lockwood: people talk in this shortcut code that if
Joanne Lockwood: you don't understand, it becomes kind of, what's that about? You
Joanne Lockwood: know, if you're a millennial, you were brought up watching Friends
Joanne Lockwood: on TV. So you understand about Monica and Chandler
Joanne Lockwood: and Rachel and Phoebe, and you understand about the culture there. And some
Joanne Lockwood: of the conversations about that, I grew up in an era
Joanne Lockwood: where, if you've ever heard of it, Monty Python and some of the sitcoms of
Joanne Lockwood: the '70s. And me and my friends will talk about Monty
Joanne Lockwood: Python sketches and sometimes even growing up, some of the children's
Joanne Lockwood: TV programmes I grew up with. If I talk about some things with my children
Joanne Lockwood: or other people who are younger, they look at me as if
Joanne Lockwood: I'm on a different planet and they talk and I go, I've got no idea
Joanne Lockwood: what you're talking about either. So even within a culture, there's these
Joanne Lockwood: layers and rings, if you like, of growth and development that have,
Joanne Lockwood: you've got to cross those cultural borders between your generations as well.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Absolutely. I remember my daughter came home one day. She's such a
Mary Lynn Parnell: sponge when she learned language. When we first arrived, we arrived
Mary Lynn Parnell: when she was 6. She said, mom, I understand the words, but I don't know
Mary Lynn Parnell: why it's funny. When she was talking about jokes, she's like, I
Mary Lynn Parnell: understand all the words, what they mean, but I don't know why it's
Mary Lynn Parnell: funny. So even humor, understanding something why making us funny and
Mary Lynn Parnell: getting beyond those layers. And Catalan has a lot of idioms and
Mary Lynn Parnell: expressions. I mean, thousands. And I'm like, wow,
Mary Lynn Parnell: every day I learn something new, which I love. But getting beneath in that
Mary Lynn Parnell: culture of why they think, where did references come from and references,
Mary Lynn Parnell: those types of things come through our history, through our culture. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: even our children learning English idioms. When one day it was raining
Mary Lynn Parnell: really hard and I said, it's raining cats and dogs. And my kids look outside
Mary Lynn Parnell: looking for actual cats and dogs, right? This is something they
Mary Lynn Parnell: didn't grow up with, right? These sayings. And so then I remember one
Mary Lynn Parnell: time we were walking so much one day and I said, oh, my dogs are
Mary Lynn Parnell: barking and they're looking for a dog. And I said, no, it
Mary Lynn Parnell: means my feet and my feet hurt really bad. And they were,
Mary Lynn Parnell: they looked at me and then when they started adopting, they're like, mom, my dogs
Mary Lynn Parnell: are barking, right? Like, 'cause they do, they finally got this cultural in
Mary Lynn Parnell: and they're, you know, your eyes light up and then you're able to understand. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: so that layer of understanding, I'm a Gen Xer and I feel like people forget
Mary Lynn Parnell: about us. I'm like, even the references I make, we're
Mary Lynn Parnell: like the forgotten generation, I feel like. And understanding that there's certain
Mary Lynn Parnell: things that we've seen all the evolution of how music
Mary Lynn Parnell: is listened to. And then we're going back to vinyls. Like, we've
Mary Lynn Parnell: had— like, I remember the 8-track tape. I remember the vinyls.
Mary Lynn Parnell: I remember then it went to CDs. I remember trying
Mary Lynn Parnell: to put my cassette tape in the radio to record music. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: kind of all the things that we used to do with music, and now streaming,
Mary Lynn Parnell: and then now going back to the stores and seeing vinyls again has been
Mary Lynn Parnell: really interesting even interacting with just music. I don't
Joanne Lockwood: know if you're a fan of sci-fi, but there's an episode of Star Trek:
Joanne Lockwood: Next Generation, I don't know if you've ever come across it,
Joanne Lockwood: called "Darmok." They speak in metaphors and cultural
Joanne Lockwood: references, and Picard's universal translator can't translate
Joanne Lockwood: these references. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, those sort of
Joanne Lockwood: phrases, they don't translate unless you understand the
Joanne Lockwood: symbolic gesture of these two people fighting together to
Joanne Lockwood: overcome something. You haven't got that reference and those
Joanne Lockwood: cultural points. So I thought that's a very infamous Star Trek
Joanne Lockwood: episode that shows the challenge of these cross-cultural
Joanne Lockwood: understandings. And you can actually misunderstand if you don't
Joanne Lockwood: understand the nuance, that cultural reference and cultural
Joanne Lockwood: structure, if you like. So these idioms, these metaphors all
Joanne Lockwood: around the culture. And if we go back in time in our human history,
Joanne Lockwood: we grew up sitting around a fire telling each other stories. And
Joanne Lockwood: Iceland, if you've ever been to Iceland, they have these things
Joanne Lockwood: called sagas, which is handed down over time. So you've got all these
Joanne Lockwood: famous saga tellers who used to recount around the hot
Joanne Lockwood: tub or around the culture there, where they're passing these
Joanne Lockwood: histories down to their generations. And if you haven't been part of that, you just
Joanne Lockwood: don't understand those cultural references. And again, wars, things break down.
Joanne Lockwood: Use communication. And that could be the biggest challenge you face,
Joanne Lockwood: as you were saying, these little idioms that you pick up every day.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Yeah, I think you've unpacked so much in what you just said, and
Mary Lynn Parnell: it's making me think on the corporate level what that looks like when we're
Mary Lynn Parnell: forgetting legacy. We're no longer learning how to pass down
Mary Lynn Parnell: knowledge between one generation to the other, to the new workers, the cultural
Mary Lynn Parnell: behaviours that we're looking at and the nuances about how to respond or how to
Mary Lynn Parnell: behave or what am I looking at. And it really, really highlights the part that
Mary Lynn Parnell: we really need to be learners all the time, How do we
Mary Lynn Parnell: interact? What does this mean? Being able to have a cultural
Mary Lynn Parnell: insider to be able to help you, right? And
Mary Lynn Parnell: to be with the culture to say, hey, I heard this thing. What does that
Mary Lynn Parnell: look like? And be curious about what's happening and not give you
Mary Lynn Parnell: the message of, I don't understand what's happening. I'm never going to be a part.
Mary Lynn Parnell: That is a human response. Most people will stop there. Some will say,
Mary Lynn Parnell: I really don't know what this is, but I want to know, and I want
Mary Lynn Parnell: to know more. I may not know this one, but I'll learn something else and
Mary Lynn Parnell: continuing along the journey. But that part of being able to
Mary Lynn Parnell: translate it And there's some challenges and downsides. I would
Mary Lynn Parnell: probably say that we lose a lot because we don't go back to
Mary Lynn Parnell: recuperate some of those things and those concepts and history
Mary Lynn Parnell: and stories that we need to. And I see that in my children. So
Mary Lynn Parnell: there's certain things that I need to do better on. But what does
Mary Lynn Parnell: it look like to continue to, to keep it part of the conversation,
Mary Lynn Parnell: to watch history things, to expose yourself to how things were
Mary Lynn Parnell: done in the past? In the cultural work that I do, there's this
Mary Lynn Parnell: cultural spectrum or dimension where it calls— it talks about
Mary Lynn Parnell: innovation. Innovators are always forward-thinking, right?
Mary Lynn Parnell: We talk about forward-thinking, but there's a part that talks
Mary Lynn Parnell: about tradition. And I'm more of the tradition where I do look to
Mary Lynn Parnell: the past to help identify our present, to help us move forward.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Part of my makeup is to always think, well, what did we do? Where
Mary Lynn Parnell: did we come from? How did we do this in order to understand where we
Mary Lynn Parnell: are today in order to then move forward? And then other innovators creators
Mary Lynn Parnell: disregard the past completely and are just moving forward, and they
Mary Lynn Parnell: tend to always repeat the past, right? Because you hadn't looked back to see what
Mary Lynn Parnell: we've done. And so helping people understand that they're— that we're
Mary Lynn Parnell: all on this spectrum and all parts of it's important to be able to
Mary Lynn Parnell: move things forward. And when we talk about cultural behaviours as well,
Mary Lynn Parnell: that's really important. What have we done? How have we done in the past? Some
Mary Lynn Parnell: are really good at acknowledging their past, and then so they don't repeat the same
Mary Lynn Parnell: things. Some are really poor at acknowledging their past and are doomed
Mary Lynn Parnell: to repeat it over and over. And then are actively looking
Mary Lynn Parnell: to incorporate, I would say incorporate the past in order to
Mary Lynn Parnell: reshape their future. There's some classic, going back to some filmography here,
Joanne Lockwood: there's some classic films, Groundhog Day is a classic example
Joanne Lockwood: of having to go around the cycle and repeat the mistakes of the past
Joanne Lockwood: to eventually learn how to break out of the loop. There's also
Joanne Lockwood: lots of classic Star Trek episodes where they get stuck in time loops as well.
Joanne Lockwood: But so you always have to find that way of breaking out out
Joanne Lockwood: of the mistakes of the past and making incremental,
Joanne Lockwood: slow incremental gains that take you somewhere different. It does.
Mary Lynn Parnell: People, I think we get stuck. We look at the idea of change
Mary Lynn Parnell: or culture change. It's, it's so monumental. I don't think we'll ever do it.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And we may not see it in our lifetime because changing culture is like
Mary Lynn Parnell: changing. It's a slow, long game and people want it fast,
Mary Lynn Parnell: easy, and tomorrow, and that's not going to happen. But what does it look like
Mary Lynn Parnell: to make those small things to be able to make tomorrow that much easier? Easier,
Mary Lynn Parnell: that much more agile. I think that's the word, like we're a
Mary Lynn Parnell: little bit more aware, a little bit more sensitive, a lot more kinder.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And these are small steps that we make in that direction. And also recognising
Joanne Lockwood: that not everyone's on the same page, in the
Joanne Lockwood: same boat, speaking the same language with the same references.
Joanne Lockwood: So it's all very well in your head, you're saying, well, fast, easy, and tomorrow.
Joanne Lockwood: People are still on 4 months ago. It's There's all, hang on a
Joanne Lockwood: minute, where are we? And it's learning how to
Joanne Lockwood: communicate your ideas, your thoughts,
Joanne Lockwood: your direction in a way that is understandable by
Joanne Lockwood: every different personality type in the team as well, isn't it? That's the challenge.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Absolutely. I think that what I love to help people understand,
Mary Lynn Parnell: and this is when I'm like, hey, let's talk more about this a little, because
Mary Lynn Parnell: you have a room of people that come from so many different
Mary Lynn Parnell: backgrounds, not just from their ethnicity to their, but for where they're from,
Mary Lynn Parnell: their worldview, and you can communicate a vision that
Mary Lynn Parnell: really speaks to you. You're like, this is amazing. And everyone's on board
Mary Lynn Parnell: and you communicate this vision and you're all excited about it. You've done
Mary Lynn Parnell: all, you have your PowerPoint charts and you only reach
Mary Lynn Parnell: 33% of the room because you haven't acknowledged for the other two-thirds
Mary Lynn Parnell: of the worldviews that are presented. And you haven't communicated and
Mary Lynn Parnell: answered the questions that they need. And so the worldviews,
Mary Lynn Parnell: they're summarised into three. One is innocence and guilt, power and fear,
Mary Lynn Parnell: and honour and shame. And so people who come from an honour and a shame
Mary Lynn Parnell: worldview or paradigm, their internal question is to ask, is this gonna
Mary Lynn Parnell: bring us honor? And your pitch could be, this is the right thing to
Mary Lynn Parnell: do. We are going down the right path. So you're answering that innocence and guilt
Mary Lynn Parnell: paradigm, which, which really sees the world between right and wrong. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: so if you come from a right and wrong perspective that speaks to you, then
Mary Lynn Parnell: everyone who's on the same wavelength with you, everyone from that same worldview is
Mary Lynn Parnell: already on board. But the honor/shame are struggling because they
Mary Lynn Parnell: don't see how is this— they see it's right and wrong, but is this really
Mary Lynn Parnell: bringing us honor? Or is this bringing us shame? Where are we in that
Mary Lynn Parnell: question? Because that's their internal question. And then the other one is power
Mary Lynn Parnell: and fear. And their internal question is, are we empowered or are
Mary Lynn Parnell: we disempowering someone in this process? What does that look like?
Mary Lynn Parnell: And so understanding how we shape our messages that will
Mary Lynn Parnell: reach globally, culturally amongst the masses,
Mary Lynn Parnell: a lot easier than just the little. I think we struggle with the idea
Mary Lynn Parnell: that if we get, reach an average amount of people, then we've
Mary Lynn Parnell: reached everyone. And I come from the other perspective. If we've
Mary Lynn Parnell: reached the least of these, then we've reached everyone because
Mary Lynn Parnell: we'll get mostly, we'll get everyone in that conversation. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: really understanding or taking stock with how we communicate is
Mary Lynn Parnell: not just for those who are in our echo chamber because we tend to only
Mary Lynn Parnell: surround ourselves with people who think like us, act like us, right? That will,
Mary Lynn Parnell: that are in our wavelength. But then we find ourselves in these multicultural
Mary Lynn Parnell: settings where there are many that don't have that same
Mary Lynn Parnell: perspective. They don't come from things from that same worldview. View,
Mary Lynn Parnell: and they struggle to get on board with your vision because you're not communicating
Mary Lynn Parnell: it in a way that they understand. And it's not that your vision is wrong,
Mary Lynn Parnell: it just needs to be communicated in a way that answers
Mary Lynn Parnell: those basic internal questions for people to really come on board.
Joanne Lockwood: As you're talking there, mine was wandering off into something I came across the
Joanne Lockwood: other week, which was Bain and Company, their elements of a value
Joanne Lockwood: pyramid, which is based a bit on Maslow's hierarchy of
Joanne Lockwood: needs. And what it's doing is it's trying to break What
Joanne Lockwood: allows people to value your products and services? And you
Joanne Lockwood: could turn that around from products and services to your internal brand.
Joanne Lockwood: What do people see in you, in the service you give them as
Joanne Lockwood: a leader, as a team player, whatever it may be? So how do you
Joanne Lockwood: align with the values and the needs of the people you're interacting with? So
Joanne Lockwood: I often think that you have to sort of really try and understand your room,
Joanne Lockwood: your audience, your environment. And what people are looking for.
Joanne Lockwood: And sometimes you need to be adaptive, and
Joanne Lockwood: that's not being two-faced, it's not being
Joanne Lockwood: inauthentic, it's recognising that people want to see a different part
Joanne Lockwood: of you depending on their needs. And
Joanne Lockwood: often what we do is we communicate from ourself without
Joanne Lockwood: understanding how people want to receive that information. And as a
Joanne Lockwood: multicultural person yourself, you recognise that you can't have one face,
Joanne Lockwood: one voice. You have to go, actually, this or this or this.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Absolutely. I think it comes with, it takes you a while to get there because
Mary Lynn Parnell: you wanna be you. You wanna, I wanna be authentically me. I wanna show up
Mary Lynn Parnell: on how I am. But that when we think about the art of communication, it's
Mary Lynn Parnell: not to be heard or to be seen, it's to understand. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: even more than that is to understand the other person and what they need to
Mary Lynn Parnell: understand from what you're trying to communicate. And so to that end, you don't
Mary Lynn Parnell: change who you are and you're not really changing your message. What
Mary Lynn Parnell: you're changing is how this message is being communicated.
Mary Lynn Parnell: So do you need to be a little bit less quippy? And
Mary Lynn Parnell: they'll highlight points that really, really attract those charismatic
Mary Lynn Parnell: people that just want the highlights? Or do you need to come in with a
Mary Lynn Parnell: little bit more principles? This also goes back to a book I really like, which
Mary Lynn Parnell: is from Erin Meyer, that just talks about the 8 dimensions of
Mary Lynn Parnell: culture. And one of the— about even with when you're selling something, for
Mary Lynn Parnell: example, some really only want to see, how does it work? Just
Mary Lynn Parnell: give me the punchline. Does it work? But others really need
Mary Lynn Parnell: to I wanna know why does this work? I need the
Mary Lynn Parnell: principles, not the application. So it's principles versus application. I
Mary Lynn Parnell: don't just wanna know this works and it'll save my life. Lose weight in 10
Mary Lynn Parnell: days. Oh yeah, I'm sold. No, how does this work?
Mary Lynn Parnell: Here's my research behind it. Here's the stats. Here's
Mary Lynn Parnell: all the details that I need to know to make sure that it works. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: when we come in from one aspect, we've lost those who want to know the
Mary Lynn Parnell: why and not just the how. And even with direct and indirect
Mary Lynn Parnell: communication, same. Do they want to know a little bit more story? Do they want
Mary Lynn Parnell: more high context or low context? Do we— how do we need to manoeuvre
Mary Lynn Parnell: in order for my commu— my message, how do I need to manoeuvre so that
Mary Lynn Parnell: my message comes through for everyone? And it's a lot of work.
Mary Lynn Parnell: I'm not gonna lie. You have to ask many more questions of
Mary Lynn Parnell: yourself. You have to pass your things through many different eyes
Mary Lynn Parnell: to be able to say, who am I— who are we missing? And how am
Mary Lynn Parnell: I missing it? And how can I make sure that I'm answering those important
Mary Lynn Parnell: questions? And so what I love is that with the cultural agility
Mary Lynn Parnell: piece, there's like a litmus test that kind of helps guide you in that, being
Mary Lynn Parnell: able ask some of those fundamental questions that people are asking, but
Mary Lynn Parnell: not being afraid to do the work and not seeing it as,
Mary Lynn Parnell: I'm making less of myself because I have to change in order for
Mary Lynn Parnell: you to understand me, but flipping it and saying, I'm giving a gift to be
Mary Lynn Parnell: able to package it in a way that you can interact with it because
Mary Lynn Parnell: ultimately you are the one who's important in this conversation. You are the one
Mary Lynn Parnell: I'm trying to speak with, interact with. So I'm giving the importance
Mary Lynn Parnell: of this to you and not to me. I'm releasing that power, that
Mary Lynn Parnell: need for my recognition, cuz that's not At the end of the day, that's not
Mary Lynn Parnell: the point. It's the receiver. The receiver is the one that's important.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And what do I need to do in order to honour that receiver
Mary Lynn Parnell: in my communication and in my interactions so that they feel what? Not
Mary Lynn Parnell: only seen, because we all have the deep need to be seen,
Mary Lynn Parnell: but understood. Wow, they understand a bit about me to be able to
Mary Lynn Parnell: structure this in a way that I can understand and engage with. And to be
Mary Lynn Parnell: given space to be able to say, wow, I I can, can interact, I can
Mary Lynn Parnell: engage, I can wrestle with whatever this
Mary Lynn Parnell: Because they've made space for me. And then what happens? They want
Mary Lynn Parnell: to participate. They want to engage. And then we have this interaction that's
Mary Lynn Parnell: just so intangible that you think, wow, this is what a truly
Mary Lynn Parnell: inclusive environment looks like when everyone feels like they can play. I
Joanne Lockwood: sniggered at one point when you were talking there, because what flashed in my head
Joanne Lockwood: is I'm the kind of person that wants people to have a
Joanne Lockwood: skip intro button on their forehead. They start talking and they're sort of going, I
Joanne Lockwood: don't was I just, tell me, tell me, skip intro, tell me what I need
Joanne Lockwood: to know. Then I can process that. Then I can ask you a question to
Joanne Lockwood: clarify what it is. But some people go into this huge,
Joanne Lockwood: great prologue. It's like, okay, tell me when I, tell me when
Joanne Lockwood: you get to the bit that allows me to make a decision on whether this
Joanne Lockwood: is interesting or not. I almost like need this live
Joanne Lockwood: TL;DR filter. Sort of like just talk it, talk it to my
Joanne Lockwood: ChatGPT for 30 seconds, tell it everything you know, and then I'll
Joanne Lockwood: TL;DR that and then we can go, right, now I get what you want. Now
Joanne Lockwood: I can ask questions. So that's me. But And when I talk back, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: very conscious about the fact that I need to talk in a multitude
Joanne Lockwood: of ways. One is the TL;DR, this is what you need to know and the
Joanne Lockwood: why. And some of it is the story. And I learned from somebody that
Joanne Lockwood: the important thing to do is you don't start on the story before
Joanne Lockwood: you explain why the story is important. Because sometimes what
Joanne Lockwood: we do is we start telling the story, you get halfway through it
Joanne Lockwood: and then you start to introduce the facts, but I've already
Joanne Lockwood: turned off. I I don't, don't know why I'm listening to the story.
Joanne Lockwood: So it's always when you've got this cadence of knowledge and training and
Joanne Lockwood: things, always start with the, you need to know this because, and here's
Joanne Lockwood: some key stats. And now let me tell you a story about that, because I've
Joanne Lockwood: already locked in. And it's again, it's learning those techniques from an
Joanne Lockwood: L&D perspective or a cultural intelligence perspective, whatever it may
Joanne Lockwood: be, so that when you do talk, You really are trying to tick as many
Joanne Lockwood: boxes as you can. You can't, we have to adjust
Mary Lynn Parnell: everything in the sense that you have people who are auditory, so they really like
Mary Lynn Parnell: to hear everything. You have those who tune out, they only want to hear key
Mary Lynn Parnell: points. And so you have your PowerPoint to be able to do the highlights. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: so you can't, we can't get everyone, but you want to try to get as
Mary Lynn Parnell: many as you can to be able to say, okay, here's the information. But it
Mary Lynn Parnell: also, it really boils down to knowing your people, knowing your
Mary Lynn Parnell: audience, knowing what they need, and adapting your message to be able to
Mary Lynn Parnell: answer to them. And even sometimes having something extra. So for
Mary Lynn Parnell: example, I have, I used to lead a group of 50 individuals
Mary Lynn Parnell: across 3 countries in Europe, and everyone had a different communication
Mary Lynn Parnell: style. And I have a very specific communication style, very brief.
Mary Lynn Parnell: If it's email, it's very short. If it's text, it's even shorter. This is,
Mary Lynn Parnell: that was me. And then I had this woman, she was older than me, and
Mary Lynn Parnell: she said, okay, we had our meeting. I was, you know, speaking with everyone to
Mary Lynn Parnell: get to I know know them. And she was very clear. She said, Marilyn, if
Mary Lynn Parnell: I send any communication, I just need feedback that
Mary Lynn Parnell: you've received it. You can tell me when you'll answer it, but I just need
Mary Lynn Parnell: an acknowledgement. That is my one requirement. And I had to say,
Mary Lynn Parnell: okay. So for this particular person, every time I had to make a
Mary Lynn Parnell: mental note, acknowledgement is very important to her, even
Mary Lynn Parnell: though the email that was sent is informational and it didn't
Mary Lynn Parnell: require any response from me. But for her, she needed
Mary Lynn Parnell: a response. And so going forward, and that was just knowing This
Mary Lynn Parnell: was a communication style that, that really led towards intimacy. It
Mary Lynn Parnell: established me as her leader, and she really appreciated that. And then I, I was
Mary Lynn Parnell: able to do that going forward. But then I also know how
Mary Lynn Parnell: to, if I'm in a high-pressure situation and I'm leading a group of
Mary Lynn Parnell: people, we're putting on an event or meeting or whatnot, and I'll say from
Mary Lynn Parnell: the beginning, I said, okay, this is, this is who I will be for the
Mary Lynn Parnell: next 48 hours. And I will be very short, to the point, because
Mary Lynn Parnell: I'm focused on this. I love you all. Helping them frame what they're
Mary Lynn Parnell: about to experience because certain my environments environments demand certain
Mary Lynn Parnell: ways of me showing up. And I'm understanding that I know that, but not
Mary Lynn Parnell: everyone around me. So helping them also in the process of knowing what they're going
Mary Lynn Parnell: to experience. And then after that, you know, getting back
Mary Lynn Parnell: to my normal. So I'll say a blanket apology. If I'm short with you, it's
Mary Lynn Parnell: not, it's not personal. It's because of this. And I just need
Mary Lynn Parnell: information for the next 48 hours very quick so we can get moving
Mary Lynn Parnell: because I have no idea what the next 48 hours will bring and I need
Mary Lynn Parnell: to be sharp. And it has made a world of a difference. Being able
Mary Lynn Parnell: to help people understand that in different environments, this is
Mary Lynn Parnell: what you're going to experience and this is why. And many have come back saying,
Mary Lynn Parnell: thank you so much for that because we always think you're mad at us. I'm
Mary Lynn Parnell: like, no, I'm not mad. I'm just focused. That's how we're going to move
Mary Lynn Parnell: forward. I introduced the, I call it the coffee chart. In
Joanne Lockwood: every office on the back of the door where the cups are, there's John
Joanne Lockwood: likes tea, one sugar, coffee black, or whatever that you always have
Joanne Lockwood: your little choices on the back of the door. So when you're making a
Joanne Lockwood: round of coffee, you know what people people are having. I encourage
Joanne Lockwood: leaders, teams to produce their communication charts so that I know
Joanne Lockwood: my style is, I like to be contacted in the morning, I prefer text or
Joanne Lockwood: WhatsApp, not email. If you're going to send me— so you almost like
Joanne Lockwood: map it all out. So when you join a new team, when you join a
Joanne Lockwood: new project, you've got new people coming in, you just reaffirm how
Joanne Lockwood: you work best together. And that allows everyone to go, okay, so
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, you like that, so you're more like me. Without— you don't want
Joanne Lockwood: to do these DiSC profiles or these Myers-Briggs or personality. I
Joanne Lockwood: used to say, how can we communicate? How can you communicate
Joanne Lockwood: effectively with me? And then everyone listens to each other and go,
Joanne Lockwood: okay, so I recognise that I'm like this, you're like that. Okay,
Joanne Lockwood: when we talk, I'm going to press the skip intro button because you're going to
Joanne Lockwood: drive me crazy otherwise, or you're going to know that you need to sort of
Joanne Lockwood: halfway house it with me, a bit less intro and get to the point first,
Joanne Lockwood: and we can work on it together. I think that really is a good way
Joanne Lockwood: of building a strong team across cultural for us as well.
Mary Lynn Parnell: You hit it right on the nail on the head because often we go to
Mary Lynn Parnell: these trainings and we get the ideas, which I think our trainings are great,
Mary Lynn Parnell: but it's the how do you put this in practice? What practical
Mary Lynn Parnell: steps can you then bring together these themes, these theories,
Mary Lynn Parnell: these concepts? And that's a great example of saying, this is how we are.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And team buildings are often, or teams are often challenging
Mary Lynn Parnell: in the sense that if they're a new team and they're starting all together, do
Mary Lynn Parnell: that. What I find that breaks teams down is when
Mary Lynn Parnell: they start to transform by bringing a new person on and they
Mary Lynn Parnell: skip out on that onboarding for that person. Now, you have to go back.
Mary Lynn Parnell: You have a— in essence, you have a new team. You have a new person,
Mary Lynn Parnell: you have a new team. So how can we continue to have effective
Mary Lynn Parnell: teams? Go back to the beginning with this new person and start over.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Do that whole conversation of how do we communicate best together?
Mary Lynn Parnell: And then that person feels like they are really onboarded well, right? They feel
Mary Lynn Parnell: And then they're able to have this opportunity, that legacy, that history,
Mary Lynn Parnell: those sagas, the thing that they haven't had, because you have to start somewhere.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Most teams struggle for getting to that
Mary Lynn Parnell: normalising and then performing because they don't go back to that
Mary Lynn Parnell: brainstorming phase where they are learning how to work together again.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And those are culturally inclined. Here's how you understand my culture.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Here's how you understand if I'm a person from a different
Mary Lynn Parnell: worldview, brainstorming won't work with me. I need to have
Mary Lynn Parnell: permission to be able to participate. So those are the Are things. things that
Mary Lynn Parnell: should be talked about every time a new person comes, or even when a new
Mary Lynn Parnell: person leaves, because that person also has an effect. Really marking those
Mary Lynn Parnell: transitions in the life of the team in a way that you can work on
Mary Lynn Parnell: making those teachings that we learn practical. Yes,
Joanne Lockwood: indeed. You're right. Any change to the team
Joanne Lockwood: is you have to rebond, make the bonds between the links.
Joanne Lockwood: What can happen very quickly if you're not careful is you end up having these
Joanne Lockwood: parallel conversations, these hidden conversations, these little cliques, these
Joanne Lockwood: groups in a group. And the communication breaks down where sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: everyone's talking about somebody behind their back or behind the leader or behind the project.
Joanne Lockwood: Everyone is trying to— how do we get people to sort of—
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose it's psychological safety, isn't it? What we're trying to do is create psychological
Joanne Lockwood: safety so people know they can speak up and go, actually, I need to
Joanne Lockwood: be heard. And we go, okay, we need to create time for you to be
Joanne Lockwood: heard. The challenge of safety needs to be there and we can really, really get
Joanne Lockwood: into it. And the learner, all aspects of psychological safety,
Joanne Lockwood: because that's what often breaks down and people don't know they have permission
Joanne Lockwood: until you give permission. Absolutely. And then if you come from a worldview that
Mary Lynn Parnell: needs that permission, they won't step outside. And then from
Mary Lynn Parnell: the leader's perspective, they think this person isn't participating. This person,
Mary Lynn Parnell: who is this person that I don't know anything about who they are, what they
Mary Lynn Parnell: think. They're just lazy. A lot, there's a lot of value assignment.
Mary Lynn Parnell: They're lazy or they're nonconformative or they're not performative or they're
Mary Lynn Parnell: not really adding value. You have to go back with, wait a second, have
Mary Lynn Parnell: I given them the space space to have I, have I given them the
Mary Lynn Parnell: permission that they may or may not need? If they come from, I would say
Mary Lynn Parnell: if they come from an American background, it's just more innocence and guilt. They don't
Mary Lynn Parnell: really need permission. They just think their voice is important already and they'll share.
Mary Lynn Parnell: But other cultures are not the same way. They respect authority. They
Mary Lynn Parnell: respect order innately. That's how they show
Mary Lynn Parnell: up. And they have to learn that this is our team culture,
Mary Lynn Parnell: that your voice is welcome, that you can share and establishing those
Mary Lynn Parnell: norms from the beginning, but taking the time to do that and
Mary Lynn Parnell: Recognizing when you have what we would call in
Mary Lynn Parnell: a performative or performance evaluation, non-performers,
Mary Lynn Parnell: ask the question, why are they not performing? Is it something that we
Mary Lynn Parnell: have done that has inhibited their performance? And that comes
Mary Lynn Parnell: back to the culture talk. Have we created an environment that they can actually
Mary Lynn Parnell: show up? And if we haven't, what are the changes we need to do
Mary Lynn Parnell: in order to do that? I'm definitely a lurker. Anchor
Joanne Lockwood: on a new team. So I'm the person that'll sit around the
Joanne Lockwood: table, listening to everybody, absorbing,
Joanne Lockwood: learning, becoming competent and confident in
Joanne Lockwood: what's going on, the dynamics. And it might take me about
Joanne Lockwood: 3 or 4 team meetings, 3 or 4 weeks, a month, and
Joanne Lockwood: I'll maybe chuck in a couple of things and say, ah, some contribution here, a
Joanne Lockwood: bit of contribution there, see how it lands, then build confidence.
Joanne Lockwood: And then once I've got my feet under the table, you won't be able to
Joanne Lockwood: stop me. I'm kind of full in. Whereas I've noticed that in
Joanne Lockwood: teams that I've been on, other people join and they're
Joanne Lockwood: full on, you know, as you said, the American model, I'm going to go straight
Joanne Lockwood: in here. I'm going to talk without listening. My voice is important. And I
Joanne Lockwood: sit back and think, hang on a minute. If you'd have just listened
Joanne Lockwood: and absorbed first, what you've said has been brilliant.
Joanne Lockwood: However, Then we all land, everyone has to park
Joanne Lockwood: everything, right? Okay, we'll put everything down for you. We'll explain why we're
Joanne Lockwood: doing it. They go, oh, okay, right. Yeah, if you just listen to the end
Joanne Lockwood: of the meeting, you might go, okay, all that's been covered now. Or I actually
Joanne Lockwood: read the minutes or read the notes or read the project plan. Yeah, yeah,
Mary Lynn Parnell: absolutely. That's that part. That's the part I, when I work with North Americans, when
Mary Lynn Parnell: you come into a global environment, I said your number one job is to
Mary Lynn Parnell: listen. Do not say anything very quickly, take
Mary Lynn Parnell: time to listen because culturally you may not think that this
Mary Lynn Parnell: has an impact, but you come in with this bravado, for lack of
Mary Lynn Parnell: a better word, that isn't welcomed, but you just have to stop and
Mary Lynn Parnell: listen. And then how other cultures respond to that is they're like, oh
Mary Lynn Parnell: wow, they have this perspective that Western culture is really important. So
Mary Lynn Parnell: they'll acquiesce to everything. And that might not work
Mary Lynn Parnell: because you're speaking from a totally different culture. It happens in mergers and
Mary Lynn Parnell: acquisitions, which I also help with that idea of culture. They don't think
Mary Lynn Parnell: about what that culture look like, looks like when you're merging
Mary Lynn Parnell: these two companies together, these two different ways of working
Mary Lynn Parnell: together and taking that time to stop, listen, and assess the
Mary Lynn Parnell: culture to be able to know what to go in and not to come in
Mary Lynn Parnell: and make these drastic changes immediately. 'Cause then you'll
Mary Lynn Parnell: find that that doesn't work or it doesn't translate. So, for
Mary Lynn Parnell: example, my favourite story when it comes to mergers and
Mary Lynn Parnell: acquisitions is when Coca-Cola, which was trying to get into Peru.
Mary Lynn Parnell: And so, in Peru, I travelled to Peru, they have this soda called Inca
Mary Lynn Parnell: Kola. It's very sweet. It's very good. Coca-Cola was trying to
Mary Lynn Parnell: introduce Coke into that marketplace and it didn't, it didn't take.
Mary Lynn Parnell: No one was buying Coca-Cola and they were like, what's going on? We
Mary Lynn Parnell: have Coca-Cola, it's the best. Well, the Inca Kola from the Peru,
Mary Lynn Parnell: that's what they liked. So what did they do? They bought Inca Kola. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: so that was, they just bought it and to be able to have market share,
Mary Lynn Parnell: but to understand you're bringing something into a market that's not, you have to
Mary Lynn Parnell: do the research first. You would've done the research, you've stopped, you've listened, you've
Mary Lynn Parnell: seen what's happening, and then you'll see what's acceptable, what's not, what's
Mary Lynn Parnell: successful, what will work, what won't work, how do we go forward.
Joanne Lockwood: In UK banking, there was a big merger, oh, 20
Joanne Lockwood: years ago, and we'll just call it one company or one
Joanne Lockwood: bank was a kind of green logo and one bank had a kind of light
Joanne Lockwood: blue logo. And I had a friend who came from the green side
Joanne Lockwood: and he was telling me about even after 5 or 6 years, they
Joanne Lockwood: were still green people and blue people. And generally the green people had
Joanne Lockwood: the senior positions because they were the buyer or they were the senior partner
Joanne Lockwood: in the whole thing. And the blue ideas were kind of assimilated and
Joanne Lockwood: they, yeah, but there was still this us and them,
Joanne Lockwood: even 5, 6, 10 years later, the IT
Joanne Lockwood: systems, the way things were working, the language was all
Joanne Lockwood: aimed to be green, but the blue people were never brought on board. And
Joanne Lockwood: then the two companies demerged probably 10 years ago, back to
Joanne Lockwood: blue and green, and they're both thriving independently again. So it's a lot lot
Joanne Lockwood: of effort to actually bring those two cultures together. And if you're not careful,
Joanne Lockwood: that, that's your fault line. That's where the fault lies. And you're never going to
Joanne Lockwood: resolve that unless you proactively manage it. Absolutely. And that's done from the
Mary Lynn Parnell: beginning. When you talk about mergers and acquisitions, I do corporate training as well.
Mary Lynn Parnell: So I do mergers and acquisitions and you do the due
Mary Lynn Parnell: diligence. You're looking at each other's numbers. You're looking at the market share. You're looking
Mary Lynn Parnell: if it's horizontal or what's the purpose, what's our why in this merger. But the
Mary Lynn Parnell: part that gets left behind is the culture. What will be our new
Mary Lynn Parnell: identity? How do we get people on board that it's no longer us and them?
Mary Lynn Parnell: It is now we, it is a collective. We are all together.
Mary Lynn Parnell: We are all one. And, you know, you work it on branding. We've got our
Mary Lynn Parnell: new logos, we've got our new things, but if we haven't met the
Mary Lynn Parnell: underlying layers of that identity of who are we,
Mary Lynn Parnell: because now we are a new we, we are now— what colour does blue and
Mary Lynn Parnell: yellow make? Green. So we're gonna be— we'll do it. We're now green. We're no
Mary Lynn Parnell: longer blue. We're no longer yellow. We're now green. But working on that from
Mary Lynn Parnell: the beginning, before you even sign that letter of intent, before
Mary Lynn Parnell: you understand, are these cultures that can to be merged together. And
Mary Lynn Parnell: if not, then we really don't want to do a merger. Maybe we might just
Mary Lynn Parnell: want to do an acquisition and have two people work. Asking those questions at the
Mary Lynn Parnell: beginning so that you don't go 10 years down the line and then have to
Mary Lynn Parnell: divorce in the end. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: And it's been absolutely fascinating chatting to you for an hour. We could carry on.
Joanne Lockwood: We were talking for half an hour before we went live. We could talk, we
Joanne Lockwood: could carry on. And if I was in Spain right now, I'd, well, actually off
Joanne Lockwood: to Amsterdam Amsterdam or today? Tomorrow for a week and
Mary Lynn Parnell: then back in Spain in the weekend. So yeah. Well, next time in the, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: in the north of Spain, the Catalonia region up there somewhere. And
Joanne Lockwood: I'll sure will. I'll look you up and we'll pop in, but absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: fascinating. So how could people get a hold of you? I'm on LinkedIn. So
Mary Lynn Parnell: LinkedIn, Mary Lynn Parnell, as opposed to Marilyn, as you've
Mary Lynn Parnell: heard for now. I have a website. I mostly interact on LinkedIn and I
Mary Lynn Parnell: do have a website as well, which is marylynparnell.com. More than
Mary Lynn Parnell: welcome to get any inquiries questions if you wanna continue the
Mary Lynn Parnell: conversation about culture, what does that look like? If you're
Mary Lynn Parnell: ready to look beyond what does that look like to navigate
Mary Lynn Parnell: complexity across cultures and borders, I'm the person to talk
Mary Lynn Parnell: to. I love it. Love to challenge leaders to lead well and to lead
Mary Lynn Parnell: holistically. And that means the full spectrum of leadership,
Mary Lynn Parnell: not just management, but really getting to know your people.
Mary Lynn Parnell: So if you're looking for cookie-cutter leadership frameworks, that's not me. I'm really
Mary Lynn Parnell: on the ground, really looking at the truth of what's really
Mary Lynn Parnell: holding your leaders back, what's really holding you back into creating these
Mary Lynn Parnell: environments where everybody thrives. And so I would welcome the opportunity
Mary Lynn Parnell: to talk with you. So just, just in case you're reading the transcript, so Mary
Joanne Lockwood: Lynn, M-A-R-Y space L-Y-N-N, and then
Joanne Lockwood: Parnell, P-A-R-N-E-L-L, or pronounced Marilyn.
Mary Lynn Parnell: Yes, absolutely. And that's the whole story. So if you're curious, ask
Joanne Lockwood: Mary Lynn about why her name is spelled one way and also what her
Joanne Lockwood: grandma used to call her. So that's even more different, and what people tend to
Joanne Lockwood: call her when they name wrong. She's been everything from Marilyn to
Joanne Lockwood: Mary Lou. So yeah. I have. Even Marlon once, and I
Mary Lynn Parnell: raised my hand. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to
Joanne Lockwood: express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener,
Joanne Lockwood: for lending your ear and heart to the cause of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord
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Joanne Lockwood: Lockwood signing off with a promise to return with
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Joanne Lockwood: world, one episode at a time. Catch you on the next
Joanne Lockwood: bite.