WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:11.960 Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold 2 00:00:11.960 --> 00:00:16.720 conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of 3 00:00:16.720 --> 00:00:21.080 exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging, and 4 00:00:21.080 --> 00:00:25.800 societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a 5 00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:28.920 world where where everyone not only belongs but 6 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:33.640 thrives. You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the 7 00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:38.040 unseen, challenge the status quo, and share storeys that 8 00:00:38.040 --> 00:00:41.120 resonate deep within. Ready to dive 9 00:00:41.120 --> 00:00:45.720 in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, 10 00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:49.720 let's connect, reflect, and inspire action 11 00:00:49.960 --> 00:00:53.710 together. Don't forget, You can be part of the conversation 12 00:00:53.710 --> 00:00:58.670 too. Reach out to joe.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk 13 00:00:59.070 --> 00:01:02.310 to share your insights or to join me on the 14 00:01:02.310 --> 00:01:05.510 show. So adjust your earbuds and settle 15 00:01:05.510 --> 00:01:10.270 in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion 16 00:01:10.270 --> 00:01:10.830 Bites. 17 00:01:15.870 --> 00:01:18.150 And today is episode 18 00:01:18.150 --> 00:01:22.960 217. With the title Leading with Cultural 19 00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:27.720 Intelligence. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Lucy 20 00:01:27.720 --> 00:01:32.640 Butters. Lucy is an author, cultural intelligence master 21 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:37.400 facilitator, and founder of Elembee, who works with 22 00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:42.040 individuals and organisations to strengthen inclusive leadership, intercultural 23 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:46.160 competence, and collaboration in a globalized, complex 24 00:01:46.160 --> 00:01:51.080 world. And when I asked Lucy to describe her superpower, she said that is 25 00:01:51.080 --> 00:01:55.840 her ability to build strong, supportive networks and communities and to 26 00:01:55.840 --> 00:02:00.720 connect people in ways that help them thrive, whilst always being willing to 27 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:05.040 ask for support and bring others together with clarity and 28 00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:08.080 heart. Hello Lucy, welcome to the 29 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:08.360 show. 30 00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:13.320 Thank you, that was a lovely introduction, Joanne, appreciate 31 00:02:13.320 --> 00:02:15.840 it. Glad to be here. 32 00:02:16.720 --> 00:02:21.520 Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely made up to pieces because 33 00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:26.000 you've been in this game, I think you said, for since 34 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:28.320 2013, I think you said. 35 00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:30.080 2013. 36 00:02:30.160 --> 00:02:33.680 Without giving your age away, that's 13 years working in cultural 37 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:34.400 intelligence. 38 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:39.520 Yeah. And before that I was kind of doing so, but without the 39 00:02:39.520 --> 00:02:44.340 language. You know, it's, um, I was asked in 40 00:02:44.340 --> 00:02:49.100 2013 by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education to design 41 00:02:49.100 --> 00:02:52.060 a course in cultural intelligence, and I thought, I've never heard of that 42 00:02:52.060 --> 00:02:56.980 language. But having my own business which supported internationalisation 43 00:02:57.140 --> 00:03:02.020 in universities, I thought, I'll go and do that, because you think you've got to say yes 44 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:06.780 when you've got your own business. And then I discovered about it, and there just happened to be a 45 00:03:06.780 --> 00:03:09.180 certification going on with Dr. David 46 00:03:09.180 --> 00:03:13.870 Livermore. Anyone who's done any thinking about cultural 47 00:03:13.870 --> 00:03:18.790 intelligence will be familiar with that name. In Edinburgh, just quite 48 00:03:18.790 --> 00:03:22.910 close to me in Glasgow, so I had to go. And on discovering it, I thought, 49 00:03:23.710 --> 00:03:26.190 yeah, this approach makes sense to me. 50 00:03:26.430 --> 00:03:31.350 So I— cultural intelligence is not this new modern woke thing that's 51 00:03:31.350 --> 00:03:35.790 sort of come out of the woodwork in the last 2 or 3 years to 52 00:03:35.790 --> 00:03:40.750 disadvantage the super majority of people out there, is, is about helping 53 00:03:41.950 --> 00:03:45.630 people understand more about different cultures. Is that, is that what it's all 54 00:03:45.630 --> 00:03:45.870 about? 55 00:03:46.510 --> 00:03:51.310 Absolutely. And the original research started in the year 2000 56 00:03:51.710 --> 00:03:54.630 by, um, now Professor Sunang in 57 00:03:54.630 --> 00:03:59.390 Singapore. And she had been involved— this, you talked about showing 58 00:03:59.390 --> 00:04:02.910 our ages, this, if you remember this, this shows it even 59 00:04:02.910 --> 00:04:07.790 more. But the 90s, everyone was concerned about the millennium bug, the idea that when we hit 60 00:04:07.950 --> 00:04:12.690 2000, All the systems that relied on computers would kind of 61 00:04:12.690 --> 00:04:17.450 implode and different things wouldn't work. And lots of people were involved in how 62 00:04:17.450 --> 00:04:22.250 we respond to that because people had been saving date data 63 00:04:22.650 --> 00:04:26.850 differently in their systems. And in some ways, Sun Ang was 64 00:04:26.850 --> 00:04:31.530 involved. I don't really know how, but her observation was that often you were bringing 65 00:04:31.530 --> 00:04:36.210 the brightest people in their field together from across the 66 00:04:36.210 --> 00:04:39.520 world. And yet together they were often 67 00:04:39.920 --> 00:04:43.120 suboptimal. You know, has a decision been 68 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:48.080 made? Who's to take that forward? What really did we 69 00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:52.560 agree? Did we not agree? And it got her fascinated in what 70 00:04:52.799 --> 00:04:57.600 sits below the surface in that kind of cultural piece that 71 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:02.560 would enable people to communicate and work better 72 00:05:02.880 --> 00:05:06.800 together. So the, the research is quite— 73 00:05:08.640 --> 00:05:11.200 over 2 and a half decades it's been going on for. 74 00:05:12.240 --> 00:05:17.120 I was working in the IT field at the time. I was working for a bank in London at 75 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:22.040 the time. Well, actually just before the time. So at the time, I think we look back on 76 00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:26.960 it and think, well, that was a huge overhype and people worried about their fridge freezer stopping 77 00:05:26.960 --> 00:05:31.720 working overnight or their microwave cutting out or something. Uh, and it was just a big damn squib, 78 00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:33.960 but I think that was down to the fact it was 79 00:05:33.960 --> 00:05:38.690 overhyped. That actually everybody out there who had systems with, with 80 00:05:38.690 --> 00:05:40.810 two-digit date codes actually did something about it. 81 00:05:41.370 --> 00:05:41.510 Yeah. 82 00:05:41.510 --> 00:05:46.450 And it wasn't— we didn't just sleepwalk into this, the new millennia, and watch these dates roll 83 00:05:46.450 --> 00:05:49.890 over and everything crashed. So yeah, I think we did take it seriously at the 84 00:05:49.890 --> 00:05:50.170 time. 85 00:05:50.729 --> 00:05:54.010 Absolutely. And I think there was also that bit of 86 00:05:54.010 --> 00:05:58.090 memory. You talk about fridge freezers and microwaves, there are also nuclear 87 00:05:58.090 --> 00:06:02.330 plants. You know, there was big serious stuff that when you looked at some of the, 88 00:06:03.200 --> 00:06:07.990 um, elements linked to it, you realise the importance of us 89 00:06:08.950 --> 00:06:13.670 being able to interact well and communicate and agree things 90 00:06:13.830 --> 00:06:14.230 together. 91 00:06:14.870 --> 00:06:19.750 I think, I think the actual couple of years leading up to the year 2000, I actually 92 00:06:19.750 --> 00:06:23.470 started my own business. And one of the things I was doing was selling Y2K 93 00:06:23.470 --> 00:06:28.070 audits. And I was, I was running around people's computers with a little floppy disk, 94 00:06:28.150 --> 00:06:31.190 putting it in, switching it on, and it would give a, yes, this one's 95 00:06:31.190 --> 00:06:36.030 okay. And I'd be putting green stickers on these little— and I was charging a fortune just to go around and, and run this 96 00:06:36.030 --> 00:06:39.023 little programme on people's systems. Tick, yes, tick, tick, 97 00:06:39.023 --> 00:06:39.117 tick. 98 00:06:39.117 --> 00:06:44.010 I believe lots of people in IT made good money at the time, which wasn't 99 00:06:44.010 --> 00:06:47.530 the field I was in. I was in education. Yeah, 100 00:06:47.530 --> 00:06:48.370 absolutely. 101 00:06:49.170 --> 00:06:54.090 I was, I suppose, being IT literate at the time, I appreciated the potential risk, but 102 00:06:54.090 --> 00:06:58.290 to the average small business, it was, it was negligible. I mean, today it's a completely different 103 00:06:58.290 --> 00:07:02.530 world. All the systems are online, it's all SaaS systems, you know, very little investment in the local 104 00:07:02.530 --> 00:07:05.390 machine. So, Yeah, your provider is going to sort most of it 105 00:07:05.390 --> 00:07:09.910 out. But yeah, at the time it was, yeah, it was interesting. But going back to where we started this conversation, 106 00:07:10.310 --> 00:07:15.190 it's really interesting that, uh, the master practitioner of, of cultural intelligence 107 00:07:15.750 --> 00:07:20.630 used that as a, a lever, if you like, or an instigator to see the different 108 00:07:20.630 --> 00:07:22.470 ways people reacted to situations. 109 00:07:22.950 --> 00:07:27.910 Yeah, it got— so the research was what enabled some people to thrive 110 00:07:27.910 --> 00:07:31.990 and be successful whilst others really struggle and fail across 111 00:07:32.070 --> 00:07:34.510 culture. Um, and they discovered there are 4 112 00:07:34.510 --> 00:07:38.250 capabilities. That are consistently high with individuals and 113 00:07:38.250 --> 00:07:43.010 organisations that work well with cultural difference, and 114 00:07:43.010 --> 00:07:47.730 together they called them cultural intelligence. And so there's those 115 00:07:47.730 --> 00:07:52.050 4 capabilities I'll talk about in a moment, but it's also 116 00:07:52.290 --> 00:07:56.450 rooted in that intelligence theories, so it's really 117 00:07:56.690 --> 00:08:01.530 grounded. So, you know, we used to have IQ until in the '60s 118 00:08:01.530 --> 00:08:06.300 somebody went, wait a minute, are you really intelligent if all you can do is think, what about 119 00:08:06.300 --> 00:08:11.180 your ability to use that thinking or your motivation 120 00:08:11.260 --> 00:08:16.100 to use it? So we came up with that construct— I say we, I had nothing to 121 00:08:16.100 --> 00:08:20.020 do with it whatsoever— but they came up with that construct of 122 00:08:20.020 --> 00:08:23.900 multifaceted intelligences, of which emotional 123 00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:29.140 intelligence, I think, is the most well-known. Cultural intelligence, I think, in 124 00:08:29.140 --> 00:08:33.910 this world where there's so much movement, where things 125 00:08:33.910 --> 00:08:36.630 are changing in all sorts of different 126 00:08:36.870 --> 00:08:41.590 ways. There's been research that shows it's more important than IQ 127 00:08:41.670 --> 00:08:46.390 and EQ in our complex, very 128 00:08:46.789 --> 00:08:51.670 changing— both organisations and societies and for 129 00:08:51.670 --> 00:08:55.550 people. So it's kind of, it's rooted in those 130 00:08:55.550 --> 00:08:59.110 theories. And the capabilities, I'd said I would come back to 131 00:08:59.110 --> 00:09:03.830 them. So we've got motivation. What's your motivation to even want to be effective 132 00:09:03.830 --> 00:09:08.390 working with this person or cross this bridge? What's our 133 00:09:08.390 --> 00:09:13.270 knowledge about our similarities or difference? And crucially, self-knowledge, I think, is 134 00:09:13.270 --> 00:09:18.110 a massive piece in here. What creates a rub for you when you hear certain things 135 00:09:18.190 --> 00:09:22.910 or witness certain things, or when people don't respond— these different 136 00:09:22.910 --> 00:09:27.710 things. The metacognition piece, the strategy, thinking about our 137 00:09:27.710 --> 00:09:31.710 thinking, how aware of we— of what's going on with others, with 138 00:09:31.710 --> 00:09:36.490 ourself. We said this is leadership, the 139 00:09:36.490 --> 00:09:41.250 stats on leaders being self-aware are very, very low because they 140 00:09:41.250 --> 00:09:46.170 often don't get feedback. So that bit about our awareness is so important, 141 00:09:46.650 --> 00:09:51.450 and checking and planning. And then of course, I think the bit that's the hardest 142 00:09:51.530 --> 00:09:54.890 piece is changing behaviors, you know, that, that 143 00:09:54.890 --> 00:09:59.770 bit. When I was interviewing people from a book, that was the capability that 144 00:09:59.770 --> 00:10:04.690 most of these people who were experts around the world in cultural intelligence said 145 00:10:04.690 --> 00:10:07.510 this is the capability that was what was hardest for them 146 00:10:08.070 --> 00:10:12.990 personally. And I think lots of us, we get a bit of knowledge and 147 00:10:12.990 --> 00:10:17.910 we think, woo-hoo, and I know what to do, you know, I know how to react with this group 148 00:10:17.910 --> 00:10:22.389 of people over there. But actually, knowledge doesn't take away that 149 00:10:22.390 --> 00:10:26.390 rub when you come up against something different. And so we often 150 00:10:27.350 --> 00:10:32.030 go back into our own ways of doing— I What 151 00:10:32.030 --> 00:10:36.870 you're saying there is part of this means you have to be 152 00:10:38.150 --> 00:10:41.390 highly cognizant all of the 153 00:10:41.390 --> 00:10:45.110 time. You can't, you can't be consciously inclusive by 154 00:10:45.110 --> 00:10:49.990 default. It's an active state of mind, constantly checking yourself 155 00:10:49.990 --> 00:10:52.830 as to who aren't I thinking about? What, what's going on in this 156 00:10:52.830 --> 00:10:57.790 situation? Subroutine going on in your head, really, really testing out these 157 00:10:57.790 --> 00:11:01.000 scenarios. That requires a lot of effort for 158 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:05.760 people. And people generally default back to 159 00:11:05.840 --> 00:11:09.200 the comfort lane. This is just, I'll just go back to my default 160 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:14.160 position. And it's not until you, you put yourself into this heightened state of conscious awareness 161 00:11:14.160 --> 00:11:18.720 of what's going on, self-awareness, awareness situation, that you can start to 162 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:22.320 manage and self-regulate. But most people don't want to do 163 00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:27.310 that. And I think that's what you're saying there is this rub, this, this, this thing, people are coming across, the hardest 164 00:11:27.310 --> 00:11:32.030 bit is actually putting all the strategy, the knowledge, and the drive and everything together to 165 00:11:32.030 --> 00:11:33.710 actually take logical action. 166 00:11:34.830 --> 00:11:37.550 I love what you said there, Jo, that bit about 167 00:11:38.110 --> 00:11:41.310 intention. You have to be intentionally 168 00:11:41.390 --> 00:11:44.697 inclusive. I think there's an awful lot of it, tok 169 00:11:44.697 --> 00:11:47.511 tok. If only we were X, Y, and Z, then we'd be 170 00:11:47.511 --> 00:11:52.110 inclusive. But actually, our contexts, our organizations, our 171 00:11:52.590 --> 00:11:56.280 societies keep changing. And so there's always something 172 00:11:56.360 --> 00:12:00.760 new. And I think once you experience the 173 00:12:00.760 --> 00:12:05.640 benefits of being more inclusive— so for example, on an individual 174 00:12:05.640 --> 00:12:10.639 level, I'm aware I hold a lack of trust for much longer than I used 175 00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:14.400 to. I used to think, I'm not very sure what's going on here, so back 176 00:12:14.400 --> 00:12:19.320 away. Whereas now I'll still feel that, oh, there's something that I'm not 177 00:12:19.320 --> 00:12:24.170 aware of, but I can explore it. And it's led to me, for 178 00:12:24.170 --> 00:12:29.130 example, do some fantastic work in interesting places in the world because 179 00:12:29.130 --> 00:12:34.010 I can hold on to that and explore the opportunity for 180 00:12:34.010 --> 00:12:38.970 longer. And I think once people experience that 181 00:12:38.970 --> 00:12:43.930 there's benefits to inclusion, then you can kind 182 00:12:43.930 --> 00:12:47.930 of get drawn in and You can't do it all the 183 00:12:47.930 --> 00:12:52.890 time. You're absolutely right. We need, we need downtime. However, when we're at the 184 00:12:52.890 --> 00:12:57.730 start, for example, of projects, of programs, whatever, that's 185 00:12:57.730 --> 00:13:02.330 a really crucial time to be really paying attention and being really 186 00:13:02.490 --> 00:13:03.450 intentional. 187 00:13:03.530 --> 00:13:08.090 Inclusion, or DEI, EDI, however you want to do it, is getting a bit of a bad, 188 00:13:08.730 --> 00:13:13.650 bad rap at the moment. You know, we saw a political party come out and saying if they 189 00:13:13.650 --> 00:13:18.430 ever got into government, Scrap the Equality Act and all this stuff we're doing 190 00:13:18.430 --> 00:13:23.070 now is, is a waste of time, it's a waste of money, it's 191 00:13:23.070 --> 00:13:26.790 denying the best people the opportunities, it's promoting people beyond their 192 00:13:26.790 --> 00:13:31.269 capability. And that's got everyone, you know, obviously the purpose of that, that, 193 00:13:31.590 --> 00:13:35.310 that news article was to stir debate and to, and to try and control the 194 00:13:35.310 --> 00:13:38.550 narrative. Yeah, let's not be, let's not think it is actually a real 195 00:13:38.550 --> 00:13:40.550 thing. So where's it, where's it all going wrong? 196 00:13:40.550 --> 00:13:44.790 I don't know if it is going wrong. I, I wonder if there's a reaction against it, which is 197 00:13:45.050 --> 00:13:49.930 different. And one of the things that cultural intelligence, you know, you, you've got 198 00:13:49.930 --> 00:13:53.490 to want it. Same as inclusion, you've got to want 199 00:13:53.490 --> 00:13:53.850 it. 200 00:13:54.010 --> 00:13:57.570 Well, the first one is drive, isn't it? You have to, you have to want 201 00:13:57.570 --> 00:13:57.620 it. 202 00:13:57.620 --> 00:14:02.250 In the young, for example, numbers who have the expectation is much 203 00:14:02.250 --> 00:14:05.490 higher. It's looking, as I said, societies keep 204 00:14:05.490 --> 00:14:10.090 changing. And obviously in the States, you know, we have people 205 00:14:10.250 --> 00:14:14.610 who are in, have been in EDI roles for years, are 206 00:14:14.610 --> 00:14:19.270 struggling. However, What I think is the need for people 207 00:14:19.350 --> 00:14:23.590 to thrive, however you want to describe that, is always 208 00:14:23.590 --> 00:14:28.430 important. You know, I think we were— before we came on, before in our chat, 209 00:14:28.430 --> 00:14:33.230 I was talking about my great-auntie Ruth, who had always said, where there's house 210 00:14:33.230 --> 00:14:37.710 room, there's— where there's heart room, there's house room, about us visiting all the 211 00:14:37.710 --> 00:14:42.230 time. Now, my great-auntie Ruth, who's no longer in the world, um, but 212 00:14:42.880 --> 00:14:47.680 She was dux of her school, you know, the person who won the prize for the brightest 213 00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:52.440 person there. But when she left school, she went into service because that's what people from 214 00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:56.960 her background did. All her grandkids, they're doctors, 215 00:14:57.120 --> 00:15:00.920 they're radio producers, they're, they're bright, bright 216 00:15:00.920 --> 00:15:05.640 people. And I think what a waste that this super bright woman cleaned 217 00:15:05.640 --> 00:15:09.400 people's stuff for years, because that's what you did when you were from that 218 00:15:09.400 --> 00:15:13.920 background. Even you say about, you know, getting the best people into jobs, 219 00:15:14.620 --> 00:15:19.500 you've We've got to have things like the Equalities Act that enables people 220 00:15:20.300 --> 00:15:25.260 from different backgrounds. I agree that we need the best people in the jobs, and 221 00:15:25.260 --> 00:15:27.980 there's lots of people who could be that best 222 00:15:27.980 --> 00:15:30.900 person. You know, they look very different, they sound 223 00:15:30.900 --> 00:15:31.260 different. 224 00:15:31.660 --> 00:15:36.140 Do you think some of the problem is that we've, we've ended up disenfranchising people 225 00:15:36.940 --> 00:15:39.700 through some of these language, some of the 226 00:15:39.700 --> 00:15:44.100 identities? And I mean, we haven't put enough cultural intelligence into 227 00:15:44.100 --> 00:15:47.220 understanding people who are seen to be the default 228 00:15:47.220 --> 00:15:50.820 privileged. And then we've just written them off as being okay and having it 229 00:15:50.820 --> 00:15:55.760 all. We need to create equity down here, but we've, we've kind of, 230 00:15:55.760 --> 00:15:57.820 we've, we've forgotten that we're chipping away at somebody else's equity. 231 00:15:59.020 --> 00:16:03.620 I think there are things like that. And I was thinking recently about, um, the 232 00:16:03.620 --> 00:16:08.460 Glasgow Film Festival is starting this week and it's 233 00:16:08.460 --> 00:16:13.120 opening with the film Everyone to Kenmuir Street, which is about a spontaneous a 234 00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:17.840 civil protest about a dawn raid on people, you 235 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:22.200 know, people who'd immigrated. And the people created a 236 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:24.920 shield around it, that— around the Home Office 237 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:29.960 van. And so it ended up that 5 years ago, those men are 238 00:16:29.960 --> 00:16:34.880 still in Glasgow. But next to that narrative, you've also 239 00:16:34.880 --> 00:16:39.160 got the narrative of people protesting 240 00:16:39.700 --> 00:16:43.340 outside asylum hotels that are being used for people seeking 241 00:16:43.340 --> 00:16:48.220 asylum. And so it's kind of the two— you can't say one is Scotland and 242 00:16:48.220 --> 00:16:51.460 one isn't because the two examples 243 00:16:51.540 --> 00:16:56.340 coexist. And I think often when there's tension, you get that 244 00:16:56.340 --> 00:17:00.980 fight or flight or maybe freeze kind of, um, 245 00:17:00.980 --> 00:17:05.700 reactions. And there's bits about understanding where 246 00:17:05.700 --> 00:17:10.029 people are with identity that I think sometimes space isn't 247 00:17:10.029 --> 00:17:14.869 created for that conversation. I volunteered for a number of years with 248 00:17:14.869 --> 00:17:19.549 an organisation called Saliha, which was set up post-9/11 about 249 00:17:19.549 --> 00:17:24.429 establishing constructive dialogue between students in Arab countries and 250 00:17:24.429 --> 00:17:29.229 students in America. We worked with people over a semester, and it was fantastic 251 00:17:29.229 --> 00:17:33.229 because you sort of moved from arguing the position 252 00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:38.560 to thinking, who were you when you started to think that? How do people around you 253 00:17:38.560 --> 00:17:42.440 think? So you start to develop a sense of who this person, 254 00:17:43.320 --> 00:17:46.920 or who this community, is in terms of things like 255 00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:51.800 identity. And I think often that time and 256 00:17:51.800 --> 00:17:56.360 curiosity isn't taken, and it creates barriers 257 00:17:56.840 --> 00:18:01.320 later. You know, it's like if you don't create scenarios where you can get people 258 00:18:01.480 --> 00:18:06.380 on board, it creates problems later. And we often rush to 259 00:18:06.380 --> 00:18:11.060 solve issues. And that would be, if we're talking about leaders, I often hear about 260 00:18:11.060 --> 00:18:15.940 leaders and they rush to solve without sometimes 261 00:18:15.940 --> 00:18:19.380 thinking, well, how can I empower this group here? Think about 262 00:18:19.380 --> 00:18:19.700 that. 263 00:18:19.860 --> 00:18:24.820 You, you touched on a couple of times around the first, uh, 264 00:18:24.820 --> 00:18:29.740 capability is, is, is the drive. You've gotta wanna find out, you've gotta 265 00:18:29.860 --> 00:18:32.750 want to be more culturally 266 00:18:32.750 --> 00:18:35.830 intelligent. You gotta be, have that self-will. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta want to do 267 00:18:35.830 --> 00:18:40.790 something. I can speak from my own experience that, you know, going back in my 268 00:18:40.790 --> 00:18:45.311 life 15 years ago, I didn't care. I, I, I didn't think I had to, I didn't need 269 00:18:45.311 --> 00:18:49.710 to. It's only when you, something happens to you in your life with you're getting older, 270 00:18:50.430 --> 00:18:55.310 your eyesight fails, you can't hear as well, you're stiffer, you can't walk as quick, 271 00:18:55.310 --> 00:19:00.040 you need an escalator. And then you develop other marginalised 272 00:19:00.040 --> 00:19:05.000 characteristics, whatever they may be, then you start to realise and appreciate that you need 273 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.880 to find out more. And I started working with some charities around, um, 274 00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:12.640 deafness and hard of— being hard of hearing and hearing 275 00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:17.480 loops. And I spent a lot of time just finding out about the different dimensions 276 00:19:17.640 --> 00:19:22.560 to being deaf and hard of hearing. And I just thought, well, everyone lip reads or sign 277 00:19:22.560 --> 00:19:26.560 writes and you got this, And it turns out this is a 278 00:19:26.560 --> 00:19:31.480 multifaceted characteristic. And at that point there was, I think, was my first 279 00:19:31.480 --> 00:19:36.240 venture into the drive to find out more about a different community, a different 280 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:41.214 culture, the deaf community. And if you've never come across that, that, that 281 00:19:41.214 --> 00:19:45.680 thing that sparks you, you're always just going to keep walking on by. That's, that's where we are really, isn't 282 00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:50.160 it? To get the CQ into people's heads as something that is Actually, 283 00:19:50.560 --> 00:19:51.920 it benefits me as well. 284 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:57.720 I think it's definitely something needed. I had been working with the 285 00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:02.160 British Council, soft diplomacy, and it really changed 286 00:20:03.120 --> 00:20:08.040 my focus out to the world. So when I first did— when I set up my own 287 00:20:08.040 --> 00:20:11.760 business in 2010, I was very clear I still wanted that kind of international 288 00:20:13.120 --> 00:20:17.920 possibility as part of that. So I thought my CQ drive would be really 289 00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:21.470 high. Certainly my highest 290 00:20:21.470 --> 00:20:25.950 capability. When I first did an assessment in 2013, it was 291 00:20:25.950 --> 00:20:30.750 okay, but it wasn't all that, and it wasn't my highest capability, 292 00:20:30.910 --> 00:20:35.070 and it really made me pause and 293 00:20:35.070 --> 00:20:39.830 reflect and think about, you know, dunnae, diversity when 294 00:20:39.830 --> 00:20:44.750 it's kind of like me. And I think that's quite an uncomfortable 295 00:20:44.910 --> 00:20:49.870 question. So things like, for example, politics was a space I wasn't comfortable 296 00:20:49.870 --> 00:20:52.640 in. I'm now much more comfortable in that 297 00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:56.760 space. Like you talking about hearing and the personal 298 00:20:57.240 --> 00:21:02.080 experience, absolutely. And as we go through life, so, you know, I had a week where I 299 00:21:02.080 --> 00:21:06.920 found out I was expecting triplets, and when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, 300 00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:11.760 and you definitely— and 20 years ago now— you definitely discover through lots of 301 00:21:11.760 --> 00:21:16.640 that things that, you know, trying to get about the physical 302 00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:21.580 environment with that with 3 babies, you realise that nothing 303 00:21:21.740 --> 00:21:26.460 is made for you. And people who park up on pavements, for example, you 304 00:21:26.460 --> 00:21:30.940 realise that's really unkind for all sorts of different 305 00:21:31.660 --> 00:21:35.900 people. So it kind of— absolutely personal experience 306 00:21:36.460 --> 00:21:41.420 shifts focus and makes you realize— I was at a— 307 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:44.740 the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow has been reopened 308 00:21:44.740 --> 00:21:47.860 recently. It's meant to be for everyone, you know, totally 309 00:21:47.860 --> 00:21:51.500 accessible. But I went in and the only 310 00:21:52.700 --> 00:21:56.860 staircase in this theatre space was up the middle with no 311 00:21:56.860 --> 00:22:01.540 handrails. So I don't really have very good depth perception, I don't have very good 312 00:22:01.540 --> 00:22:06.020 balance. The idea of going down, let alone up, a 313 00:22:06.020 --> 00:22:10.780 staircase with no handrail— and I was like, you know, they think they're accessible but they've got 314 00:22:10.780 --> 00:22:15.670 spaces if you're a wheelchair user and then and 315 00:22:15.670 --> 00:22:20.550 then be able-bodied, please. Nothing in between. And I thought, who exactly, as you were saying, who have 316 00:22:20.550 --> 00:22:21.390 they spoken to? 317 00:22:22.510 --> 00:22:27.070 Yeah. And that, that's one of the— I think I discovered a shortfall in the 318 00:22:27.070 --> 00:22:31.870 Equality Act is that to be classed as a disabled or a 319 00:22:31.870 --> 00:22:35.830 disability, it has to be something that is perceived over more than one 320 00:22:35.830 --> 00:22:40.590 year. So for anybody who's like my wife, just had a total knee replacement, 321 00:22:40.910 --> 00:22:45.780 or, and we've had some surgery and are— or got a family member who's going through 322 00:22:45.780 --> 00:22:50.580 some cancer treatment. These are temporary disabilities and you're not entitled to 323 00:22:50.580 --> 00:22:53.900 disabled badges or parking or certain other benefits and 324 00:22:53.900 --> 00:22:58.780 things. So sometimes the laws we have are very 325 00:22:58.860 --> 00:23:03.260 binary and absolute. You either qualify or you don't qualify. Yet you still 326 00:23:03.580 --> 00:23:07.980 experience, although it may necessarily on a long-term, but maybe a temporary basis, 327 00:23:08.300 --> 00:23:13.140 the same impact as someone who suffers it long-term. So we, we've gotta be careful here that we're not designing systems just for the 328 00:23:13.140 --> 00:23:17.830 law. Design systems to, yeah, the equity to enable people to 329 00:23:17.830 --> 00:23:22.670 succeed. And I think that cultural intelligence aspect to understand how it 330 00:23:22.670 --> 00:23:26.430 impacts people who are— have that characteristic, albeit 331 00:23:26.430 --> 00:23:27.070 temporary. 332 00:23:28.190 --> 00:23:32.030 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, MS, it's temporary, often, 333 00:23:32.350 --> 00:23:37.190 symptoms. So it never comes under that, anything that I've had comes up, but 334 00:23:37.190 --> 00:23:41.960 sometimes even walking is quite problematic, but there's nothing within 335 00:23:41.960 --> 00:23:46.360 that. So as you say, and I think generally things are 336 00:23:46.360 --> 00:23:50.800 messy, but the law is binary, 337 00:23:51.120 --> 00:23:56.040 you know, so we look to the law sometimes, but actually for organizations, they need 338 00:23:56.040 --> 00:24:00.840 to think about in this more messy situation where 339 00:24:00.840 --> 00:24:05.800 we want people to contribute well because we want to achieve whatever it is 340 00:24:05.800 --> 00:24:09.600 that we are trying to achieve, how do we design things well in 341 00:24:09.600 --> 00:24:14.320 this? For this context, for this group of people 342 00:24:14.560 --> 00:24:19.160 in our policies and procedures, which can't 343 00:24:19.160 --> 00:24:22.160 upend the law, but they can add nuance into 344 00:24:22.160 --> 00:24:22.560 it. 345 00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:29.560 Hmm. So, when we talk about cultural intelligence, I, I always think one of the biggest mistakes is, is the word culture 346 00:24:29.560 --> 00:24:34.400 because people latch on to that meaning someone's faith, 347 00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:37.841 someone's race, someone's ethnicity, those kind of sort of things we associate with being 348 00:24:37.841 --> 00:24:41.560 culture. And I, I just touched on, you know, the deaf community and the culture of 349 00:24:41.560 --> 00:24:46.460 deafness. Us. So we, we often think culture is just these, yeah, it's, it's someone 350 00:24:46.460 --> 00:24:51.180 else's music, someone else's dress codes, but cultural intelligence is actually around 351 00:24:51.340 --> 00:24:55.140 the culture of menopause, the culture of feminism, the culture of wherever it may 352 00:24:55.140 --> 00:24:59.860 be. There's a whole load of little micro cultures that the 353 00:24:59.860 --> 00:25:04.740 cultural intelligence also allows you to use the same capabilities to explore those as 354 00:25:04.740 --> 00:25:05.420 well, doesn't it? 355 00:25:05.740 --> 00:25:10.690 Absolutely. And one of the things I often start with people is 356 00:25:10.690 --> 00:25:13.130 even thinking about what they mean by the word 357 00:25:13.130 --> 00:25:17.730 culture. You know, that's often a— and always so many 358 00:25:17.730 --> 00:25:22.490 questions, and typically everybody's got a different word that they would maybe use 359 00:25:22.490 --> 00:25:26.530 to describe it. And so instantly you see how complex it 360 00:25:26.530 --> 00:25:30.330 is. And so for me, cultural intelligence is around navigating that 361 00:25:30.330 --> 00:25:35.090 complexity. And I think as soon as we get into groups, 362 00:25:35.330 --> 00:25:38.610 we start creating culture. You know, who gets heard 363 00:25:38.610 --> 00:25:43.060 here? Do we joke? Do we snack? You know, all these tiny little different 364 00:25:43.140 --> 00:25:47.820 details that if we keep meeting or keep communicating in 365 00:25:47.820 --> 00:25:52.740 whatever networks we've set up, we create a kind of 366 00:25:52.740 --> 00:25:56.740 culture. So in every place, as you say, there's lots of 367 00:25:56.740 --> 00:26:01.340 subcultures. And in organizations, you know, that could be— I remember 368 00:26:01.340 --> 00:26:05.500 reading something about how we learn. I think it was a— Kolb was one of the 369 00:26:05.500 --> 00:26:10.420 authors. And it was, you know, the most important thing— they were looking at 370 00:26:10.420 --> 00:26:15.340 postgraduates, people doing a second degree, and the most important thing and what 371 00:26:15.340 --> 00:26:19.460 people like, why people like the approach you did, was about their first 372 00:26:19.460 --> 00:26:23.780 degree. So how we've learned to think about things more so than 373 00:26:23.940 --> 00:26:28.740 nationality, age, gender, you know, these different things that, as you say, 374 00:26:28.740 --> 00:26:32.740 we often instantly jump to when we're thinking about 375 00:26:33.450 --> 00:26:34.010 Culture. 376 00:26:34.170 --> 00:26:39.010 Yeah. Uh, and I think that can be seen as a bit of a turnoff and it's just trying 377 00:26:39.010 --> 00:26:41.770 to think about what's my culture as a white 378 00:26:41.770 --> 00:26:44.530 person? Are white people allowed to have 379 00:26:44.530 --> 00:26:44.970 culture? 380 00:26:45.930 --> 00:26:50.810 Everybody, everybody has culture, Joe. It's all— it's— 381 00:26:50.810 --> 00:26:51.290 yeah. 382 00:26:51.930 --> 00:26:56.890 But, but we look at some of the nationalisms going on, you know, being Scottish, you're allowed to 383 00:26:56.890 --> 00:27:00.050 be nationalistic. You're allowed to have the saltire, you're allowed to have the 384 00:27:00.050 --> 00:27:03.060 St. Andrew's flag everywhere. You're allowed to be proudly 385 00:27:03.060 --> 00:27:07.780 Scottish. I think there's always been a stigma about being overly proud to be 386 00:27:07.780 --> 00:27:12.740 English. And you know, you could be Welsh, you could be Scottish, you could be Irish, but English is just seen as the 387 00:27:12.740 --> 00:27:17.540 oppressor and you should never be proud to be English. And I think that's what's come out of some of the, the 388 00:27:17.540 --> 00:27:22.420 rhetoric coming out of some, some circles at the moment is why can't we fly the English 389 00:27:22.420 --> 00:27:27.180 flag whenever we feel like it? We can fly the Ukrainian flag, we can fly the Palestinian 390 00:27:27.180 --> 00:27:29.780 flag. Why can't we fly the English flag or St. George's Cross 391 00:27:29.780 --> 00:27:34.250 occasionally? And I think sometimes the British 392 00:27:35.450 --> 00:27:40.410 nation, if nations have, have been split and the English have had a, a, 393 00:27:40.410 --> 00:27:42.851 a poor rap on, on, on having it, you know, to be 394 00:27:42.851 --> 00:27:43.491 nationalistic. 395 00:27:43.491 --> 00:27:45.451 And what would you like to see? 396 00:27:46.810 --> 00:27:50.410 I'm proudly British. I don't class myself English. I wasn't born in this 397 00:27:50.410 --> 00:27:55.370 country. So yeah, I, I don't, uh, I, I don't, I'm not, even though I've lived in England for 398 00:27:55.690 --> 00:28:00.580 all my, all of my life, except for when I worked in Scotland for a while. Um, I'm just curious, you know, it's— 399 00:28:00.580 --> 00:28:05.460 maybe this is where we're disenfranchising people, where people see that they can do this, but why can't 400 00:28:05.460 --> 00:28:05.740 we? 401 00:28:06.700 --> 00:28:11.660