Speaker 1: 0:00

by investing in the relationship. The very investment in the relationship brings a greater worth to the relationship and it removes it. It removes it from being simply transactional Right, because sometimes the right and wrong approach and even like the legal contract, that almost depersonalizes things. So a person is sitting there thinking, well, do I want to take the time for this, is this really worth my time? And so they're looking at it through this right and wrong aspect and wanting almost to protect self in the fact, again, keeping innocence is all cost, almost keeping innocence at all costs, even to the jeopardizing of the relationship.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Welcome to the Cultural Agility Podcast, where we explore the stories of some of the most advanced intercultural practitioners from around the world to help you become culturally agile and succeed in today's culturally complex world. I'm your host, marco Blankenberg, international Director of KnowledgeWorks, where every day, we help individuals and companies achieve relational success in that same complex world. Welcome everybody to this podcast episode, and today I have the honor to be with David Miles from North America, and we're going to be talking about the issue of race and a whole bunch of other topics where intercultural agility can make a difference. So, david, welcome to this episode. I'm so honored that you are willing to invest your time and tell us your story and give us your insights. But, as always on this podcast, we ask people to introduce themselves because they typically do a much better job at it.

Speaker 1: 2:03

Hi, marco, so honored to be with you guys today and really excited about our topic today. I believe that this is something that a number of teams and individuals, families, corporations, businesses, people working together wrestle with this topic and so very glad to be jumping in this with you. And you know, really, the tools of ICI is incredible for helping people bridge and navigate these issues.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Now, thank you, and it's been. It's been a privilege. We are actually meeting for the first time. We're sitting in the podcast studio in the Knowledgeworks office in Dubai, and it's been awesome. We've already had two amazing days together and I look forward to learning a lot more from you and with you. But maybe before we get into it, I think you know that, with Knowledgeworks, connecting the frameworks and the methodologies we have with people's life story is really important for us. So I know you have quite a story to tell, but maybe, and just give us the key highlights who's David Miles? Where's David Miles coming from? What are some of the key journey points for you as we think about intercultural agility?

Speaker 1: 3:12

Yeah, thanks, marco David Miles. You know I am the. I was the youngest of three children in my family. My parents were from the southern parts of the United States and North America. My dad had served in the military, had been transferred to Bitburg, germany, germany area, and you know the running joke was they were trying to make their way back to the northeast Massachusetts where they were from, and the joke of the family was someone crossed out east and put Dakota and so they ended up in Grand Forks, north Dakota, one of two places my mom's girlfriend said you never wanted to get transferred to. Why not? Why not? Freeze is a reason, and Grand Forks? And you know, for our viewers they can't quite see this but I am actually chocolate Norwegian and so you know I lived in a Scandinavian. That actually chocolate part means I'm African-American, so there's a little tan with myself here.

Speaker 1: 4:02

So, moving to an area where there really wasn't any people of color, my parents were some of the first African-American couples on that air force base and serving in that area. So my life journey in that has been extensive, you know. A short part of it was, you know, grew up in a family, had some alcoholism in our family when I was in fourth grade I developed these seizure disorders. When I went to junior high my brother went on to high school. I was at a school of a thousand kids. I was only African-American, so they had diversity me. And one of the dynamics that's actually salient to this conversation is, you know, I really should have been a statistic, but not the statistic that most people think of. As a sophomore in high school I failed my own suicide attempt and so I'm here today, you know, because of the dynamics of understanding intercultural agility, but also part of some of the dynamics of growing up in a setting that didn't have that and even how I saw myself actually almost led to me not being here.

Speaker 1: 5:10

So it's super exciting to be in Dubai with such wonderful people and such a wonderful culture, learning together. So my wife and I, tammy, we have four children, so three boys and one girl. My wife is 100% Prussian, german, german is from Russia. So if you take German and you mix it with chocolate, we have four German chocolate children. So that's just how it kind of works out. But yeah, so I am really glad to be here. I am a business consultant. I've served with nonprofits, I'm an adjunct college professor and graduate school professor and actually do a radio program as well. But my big thing is people. I love people and I feel that every person has a story and their stories are amazing. So the ability to meet miracles that walk by us every day is truly a privilege that sometimes we don't fully recognize.

Speaker 2: 6:02

Well, I just listening to you that short introduction. I think we could spend a whole episode just talking about that. Very intriguing and I recognize that diversity, being different, was very much part of your life from the very earliest years of your life.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Yeah, I mean it really kind of kicked off at an early time. I remember really in kindergarten one day sitting there and asking a kid if I could play with them and he's like no, and I'm like, well, why not? I'm in kindergarten. He's like, well, you're the n-word. And I was like huh. Well, all I knew is that it hurt. I didn't fully understand what had happened and remember going home and talking with my mom about that, and as I'm older now I can see the hurt of that dynamic of people otherizing a person, and so I would have this experience. Growing up I had really wonderful people as well, but had some difficulties in that area that actually were a part of this, part of my failed suicide attempt as well. So I've been kind of navigating this conversation of race and ethnicity and interpersonal relationships for pretty much my life. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:23

So what is it now? Two years ago that we connected, yeah, and he had the privilege of walking through the intercultural agility certification and maybe it would be really good from your side to actually hear you explain what it is. Some of the audience might be new today. So what is intercultural agility?

Speaker 1: 7:48

Man intercultural agility. Well, first of all, I'll put it this way, marco If people are breathing and you're across from another person who's breathing and you're committed to your visions, values, missions and actually just want to see your relationships grow, I would say having intercultural agility is a non-negotiable Wait a minute.

Speaker 2: 8:09

So you're saying this is for everyone, not just when you fly from one country to another?

Speaker 1: 8:18

This is for everyone.

Speaker 2: 8:19

And so.

Speaker 1: 8:19

I go back to kind of. You know it might seem kind of basic, but really I feel like if a person is breathing and you're across from another person who's breathing and both of you are trying to make some sort of connection and have a relationship, understanding intercultural agility, which is also intercultural intelligence, is a. For me, it's a non-negotiable Right. If this, if we truly want to honor the people that we're with and even ourselves, I feel like this is paramount. You know, one of the first paragraphs in the disc, one of the disc profiles that I did, it said about self-awareness and that self-awareness and leaders, that people who are self-aware are far more successful because they have an understanding who they are and who they're not, and the things that they should engage in, the things that they shouldn't engage in. And I would say like this particular area of intercultural intelligence is paramount. You know it used to be that people thought IQ was the big thing and then people said, well, eq, emotional intelligence, which is very much important. But I would say now, intercultural agility, which helps with intercultural intelligence, is huge.

Speaker 1: 9:33

The renowned business management person, peter Drucker, he said this.

Speaker 1: 9:38

He said that culture, trump strategy, matter of fact, culture, each strategy for a month. So you can have the most wonderful strategy that there is. But if your culture is toxic or jacked up or a hot mess, that particular strategy and the strategy could be something within your family, because, as a person engages in ICI, they'll find that you can be in the same family with a person and have different worldviews and different cultural preferences within that same family and so, you know so, in that type of near immediate relationship and the relationship and community that you have with your larger family and community in the areas of places where people maybe connect, and civic, social, religious settings, and definitely in the area where most people spend the majority of their time, which is work. I mean we spend anywhere from six to 16 hours a day in a work setting and you know, marco, we've talked about this before that right now I could give you $20,000. What I can't give you is the last five minutes, and so if we're investing in heavy relationships with people, this is mission critical.

Speaker 2: 10:56

So I want to pick up on something that you said. So this idea that even within the same home, people could actually be culturally different and, especially if they start living their own lives and they come back together again and they compare notes, they're actually on a different cultural journey, and that's something that's really important for us at KnowledgeWorks, and that, this idea that we have a personal cultural journey, that each person is on. At the same time, we have affiliations affiliation to our family, affiliation to, maybe, a place that we grew up at, an affiliation in the form of race or ethnicity or a passport that we carry. But, as you know, in the North American context, the word race is often used to create large groups of people that fit under a certain label.

Speaker 2: 11:50

What KnowledgeWorks has been trying to say is we need to, first and foremost, look at human beings as unique, as being on their own unique journey, having their own unique experiences, and we need to connect with that. The technical word we use for it is self culture, self cultural analysis. Talk to me about how that shifts the thinking, the way we engage the mindset, if we think about five major racial groups in North America versus now thinking about, no, that, yes, I might have affiliation with that, but let me set my mind to treat you as a unique human being. I want to connect with you, with your story. How does that shift how we connect with one another?

Speaker 1: 12:40

Well, you know, for instance, being even in a North American context, as I mentioned before, my wife's had a Prussian German and when she did her three colors of worldview she actually had higher honor shame, which would seem like, well, wait a minute. And so the uniqueness of people. I often, when I'm teaching or when I'm speaking, sometimes I'll have people hold up their thumb and I'll say look at your thumb. You know your thumb, not my thumb. I'm looking at my thumb, you look at yours. But these ridges that are in your thumb are formed at three months inside your mother's womb. And even if a person had an identical twin, if we fingerprinted you and one of you was in Argentina and the other one was in Australia, we can still separate you because of the uniqueness of your thumbprint being uniquely yours. And so these large categories of race sometimes.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Well, let me just say this you've heard me say this on the topic of race, which is people will say it's a perennial issue. It's a conversation that many people have an opinion on, but one of the things that I feel is that we kind of get ahead of ourselves sometimes getting into the conversation of race and we don't honor people by equipping them to have these types of conversations, difficult conversations, but especially this conversation and what happens is is that when people get into these conversations they end up getting triggered, and this is more into the neurological part of it. But it trips our limbic system and it causes us to do fight, flight and freeze and because of that we kind of map out this neurological pathway. That's equal to pain and there's a part of us that says I don't want to do this again. Matter of fact, we become fearful of it.

Speaker 1: 14:33

And you know there's a book by Jane Burka and Lenora Yoon. It's a book on procrastination, and there's this fascinating part in it where they would say if you stick out your hand and you touch your hand, there's a thing called just noticeable difference, and this register registers when you touch your hand in five to 600 milliseconds. But they note that fear registers in 14 milliseconds. And so that fear thing is so very strong and as people begin to learn ICI, when they begin to learn worldviews, when they begin to learn cultural preferences, it really gives them ability to almost put, almost to put a buffer gap in there, because you have a perspective, you have a vantage point, you have a way of looking at things, to be less triggered and also to walk that journey as a leader, leading others and also being led by others.

Speaker 2: 15:29

Wow. So in other words, you're saying most people might not be equipped enough to have the conversations. So you're saying you need to actually reverse, go back to basics, almost.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Yeah, I would say that, if I can speak specifically to one thing and this is not this is not a it's not a criticism, but like being a certified level two practitioner with intercultural intelligence, with knowledge works, also being an intercultural inventory, an IDI qualified administrator a number of people have actually experienced that in leadership settings. Now, one of the things with IDI is that it actually takes an X-ray, and so because it takes an X-ray, you know when you look at an X-ray period it doesn't often look that pretty all right, it doesn't give the full context. So sometimes when people go into an IDI setting, they'll see things and some folks will be a little bit reactionary. So from our North American framework of Innocence Guild, I've had students where we've taught at the university that I'm at and they've reacted like, oh my gosh, you're saying I'm a racist or you're saying I'm a bad person. Because they look at this particular assessment and tool that gives an X-ray and then it's like, well, something's got to be wrong with this.

Speaker 1: 16:58

And because people get triggered and reactionary, then they're like, whoa, I never want to do this, so that any conversation that comes up. Now again, I'm dealing with college students. So they're going to graduate and they're going to go work at some company or in relationship with other people, and they have had this experience. So that guess what? When you're wanting to help grow your team and this topic comes up, what do you think is going to happen? They get triggered again, right? So what ICI does is that it brings people back to a common, shared humanity and it helps them to see the richness of culture that exists in them and around them and that, in essence, gives them tools so that, when they actually engage with an IDI or some other type of assessment tool or in some type of workshop or training thing, they now have tools to see their humanity and even how they're reacting to, something that allows them to stay on the pathway towards growth and towards what people are intending to do.

Speaker 2: 18:04

Yeah, and even just the way you're talking about it, I can see you're passionate and animated about this. So, before we talk about application, I'm just curious how did going through the certification, how did that first level of application, how did that impact you personally? What did it do to you?

Speaker 1: 18:25

Well, for one. What it did is that you know how do you put it being here in Dubai, where I'm staying at in the morning, I have these shades and on the other side there's these thin shades, and then there's these room darkening shades and outside my window is the beer, the Bur Khalifa. Yeah, bur Khalifa. So I'm not saying exactly correct. What I would say is that I could wake up in the morning and I can see that there's light coming from around the shades and stuff. What I see I did for me is that being that same person in that environment was literally opening the shades and saying, oh my goodness, there's so much light that's been shined on things and shown on things that I've experienced interactions, relationships and the like, and it really does give you a new set of lenses. I mean not to overuse this illustration or metaphor, but it really is the red pill, blue pill thing. I mean like, and one of the incredible leaders and facilitators, hassan, who presented, I think he said something like once you're an ICI and once you see things through those lenses, you literally can't unsee them, and so when you walk into rooms or when you're having conversations with people, it so equips you and it also helps you deal with the various pain points. So it gave language to a lot of pain points on conversations, a race, that seemingly were going nowhere in the past, and it really helped me to understand, even for some people, their engagement Mark I've mentioned this before Sometimes we attribute to character and motive things that can be explained by wiring and temperament, and so how ICI changed for me was some of the conversations that I was having with people.

Speaker 1: 20:31

It wasn't necessarily that they were their motives or even their character that a person may be inclined to make that assumption. And again, for those who don't know, they're making assumptions before doing DIR, which is describe, interpret and respond, which is another thing. Again, shameless plug. This is why, if you're listening to this podcast and you've not gone through the ICI certification, I really would say that you need to do it before the end of the calendar year or make sure that you do it within the first quarter of the next year. That's just me personally. Again, my reasoning is kind of simple. Again, marko, if you're breathing and the person across from you is breathing, that's a really good reason for you to be doing ICI. So this gave tools when I was having conversations with people to say, wow, okay, I'm understanding more, without pitch-a-holing people. What I felt that it did is that it gave me the language and the tools and the perspective and the insight actually to better honor the person sitting across from me.

Speaker 2: 21:44

So let's see if we make this practical. So you mentioned the DIR describe, interpret, respond which is one of our intercultural perception management tools. There's other tools we could talk about, but maybe top of mind, any story that you can think of. Any specific conversation might not want to mention the name of the person totally leave that up to you but where you were able to use some of these tools and where it shifted the way you engage with one another could be a group, could be a person, any stories that come to mind.

Speaker 1: 22:20

Yeah, actually one just popped, as you were in your question that came to mind. In the states, in the particular faith community that I was a part of, that dealt with evangelicalism. There's been this really interesting dynamic with race and politics and those things and even just a way of thinking. So one day I was actually teaching a class with an older population and you have to understand, I once taught a class that dealt with race and ethnicity and honoring people and, interestingly enough, when I finished teaching that class, literally half the people left our church because they so struggled with this. So I was asked to come back in and teach and I remember teaching this particular class. It was two weeks. I spent the first week actually teaching on culture and the three colors of worldview, and this is an older population. And I'll just say what.

Speaker 1: 23:29

The leader of the class came to me after day one and said wow, said David, this was really amazing, thank you so much for coming in and teach. I was honored to come and said he goes. No, our people really needed this. And I said, well, this is great growing together with one of the. He goes. No, you have to understand, this particular group has a steady diet of a certain type of media and so they're super resistant to these types of conversations. And I was like, wow, so we got into that conversation so that the very next week, refreshing on the three colors of worldview and culture and then jumping actually into the conversation on race and ethnicity, there were people in the class who were like. They were like amen, yes, that needs to change. And one person I knew that had wrestled with it. They were like can you say that again? Like people need to hear this. And I would say what had happened is in helping them walk into the shared culture that we had and honoring and caring for them and for us all being able to have conversations around our shared humanity and for them to do it at their tables. Then, when we got into a conversation that previously would have been like match to gasoline, it actually became like this very, we need to lean in, and so the practical application is I have consistently found, by equipping or giving or sharing some of this framework and tools, that has actually helped people lean in.

Speaker 1: 25:07

It's actually what DIRR does describe, interpret, respond. So often we jump to interpretation and then we respond emotionally, we don't describe. So what ICI does it actually gives that buffer space for a person actually to describe not only what they're looking at but even themselves, so that when they jump to interpreting and responding, even when they respond, they have a more, shall I say, a more substantive and stable platform from which to do that and even better understand where they are at, they engage in a better self differentiation, which is kind of a counseling term to be able to engage that, so they don't become so mesh and reactive, so that I mean like that's literally the thing when I tell business leaders and I work with businesses and non-profits and universities again the earlier tool that I mentioned, idi great tool If left to me and to budget and I don't use this word pretty much anytime, but I can almost say strongly, if left to me, I would never do an IDI without doing ICI.

Speaker 2: 26:22

And you would flip the sweet sequence. Yes, that's what.

Speaker 1: 26:27

So I would not do intercultural development inventory. It's great as a tool because it's an x-ray. I would not do that particular assessment If left to me and if resourcing was not an issue. I would not do that without first and primarily doing intercultural intelligence.

Speaker 2: 26:46

And the example you just gave, I think, is a beautiful example of talking. You mentioned fight flight to freeze those trigger moments. If people have had bad memories or bad experiences with tough conversations like race and what you just explained the same group in the past, half of them walk out or a third of them walk out and then bringing or almost injecting ICI into the equation, then they lean in, they stay in the conversation, they want to be there. That's a profound shift. So when you could you think of other ways, because it's sometimes hard to imagine. Okay, I hear David is excited about it, I can hear that he's been able to impact. But how do you take practical steps to get to that point where people start leaning in and they say they stop saying, well, I was forced to be here, but instead they now say, wow, this is profound, I want to be here. But how do you take those small steps? Because you had the luxury of like two weeks with people.

Speaker 2: 27:54

You don't always get that right. So what are the small steps you would advise people to take to eventually to bring ICI tools work with people like yourselves? Or, as you mentioned, thanks for the plug, get certified yourself. But what could they do to take small steps in that direction?

Speaker 1: 28:13

Well, one of the things I want to say first is and even with your question is, sometimes we think that a person is actually starting at zero, like what are the steps that they could start from here to get to there? And what I want to say that happens with ICI is that you, in some ways, have already been operating this way in your life. It's just that the curtains haven't been opened to shine on the muscles that you're already using and that you used in other ways to do that, to understand different cultures I mean even within your own family, because not every person in your own family is that way. So you've had to pivot, you've had to adjust, you've had to explain things differently, you've had to have patience, you've had to clarify and clarify some more. So in this particular situation yeah, having two weeks of the class, but I'll use ICI in a conversation that may only be a few minutes and what I'll do is actually take some of the overviews of the three colors of worldview.

Speaker 2: 29:24

And so even how?

Speaker 1: 29:25

we kind of explain it, that innocence, guilt, that there could be some rules and doing right and the goal being innocent and in a Western context, not completely because there are people in the West who don't feel this way, but saying we have lots of legal contracts and that's something that's really huge for us. And then talking about some things with honor, shame, cultures, and I'll give some illustrations that for people in North America, they can go back and look at things that have happened in our culture as well as in media, where they're like oh yeah, I remember this event and oh yeah, I was kind of confused on why this president of this company apologized for the actions of one person. That didn't make sense to me because I thought to myself well, that person didn't do anything wrong, and now you're able to talk about innocence, guilt, which is right and wrong, instead of understanding honor and shame, which was belonging and what it did to the community. And so what it does is that what I want to say? This is super helpful because it almost like Fills in gaps or it almost puts the mortar in between the gaps and you start saying, oh, wow, and so All my conversations, an extra majority of my conversations aren't lengthy conversations, but I'm still engaging within the framework of culture and Intercultural intelligence and I think one of the other things mark on this is because, because of how this is is formatted in a framework, you're able to have entry points.

Speaker 1: 31:11

I'm not sure if this was intended, but, for example, the 12 dimensions of cultural preference the first one is growth and then one is people and the other one is material. So when I'm working with C-suite executives, I'll say I'll explain that to him. I said so. How's that ever been word? Where you're? You're your director of sales, but your director, rightee, you, you've had to have this pain-point Conversation yeah, because the person's like well, you know what, if we're really committed to the company's value, we really want to succeed.

Speaker 1: 31:42

We need to build out our infrastructure. You know we need to change our CRM. You know our contact, you know just our manager. And the other person's like no, we need to invest in our people. Yeah, okay, there's no race.

Speaker 1: 31:53

Sometimes in that particular conversation like in my area, where it's a lot of skin and avian people Mm-hmm, that person can be in a company and that C-suite where there are no people of color and even could be no women in that city, and that conversation, that pain point is real.

Speaker 1: 32:11

And then, when you actually begin to talk about 12 dimensions of culture With that, they're like oh well, wait a minute. Okay, and because they are able to see their own experience, because they're able to see their own pain points with this and their own things with leading, it actually becomes a. It becomes like it becomes a cup of cold water on a hot day. Yeah, because people, all a number of people, have had these pain point issues and leading and working in these settings and what's one of the things that actually keeps people from engaging they're like I don't know what to do, like what do we even do with this, like, where do we even start? Yeah, so all those various things that leaders say all the time, when they're able to come to three colors of worldview and at least have a degree of Actually putting containers where all that messy spaghetti is going all over the place, and it just kind of feels like it's well.

Speaker 1: 33:07

Yeah, it allows you to actually put it in a container so that, as you're making sauce, you can actually pour that in there and people can actually have a meal that they actually share together. Yeah, and then something that's typically messy, yeah, and sticky, actually becomes something that builds community and has a purpose.

Speaker 2: 33:24

Yeah, wow, there's so many touch points there. So the one thing I'm thinking of is, as I'm listening to you, that tools like the cultural mapping inventory using that to to give people personal understanding, but also it gives people a neutral language, so it's not judgmental, mm-hmm, it's a neutral language. And the other thing is that once you can name something, it opens up a door for understanding, conversation, decision-making, which the example you just gave about growth.

Speaker 1: 34:01

Yeah, so, yeah. So one of those things, marco, you know, one of the differences with, with knowledge, works, materials, that it's, it's you have psychosomatic and you have cultural. So, like the uniqueness of of ICI, through cultures, of worldview and the Dimensions, is that this is dealing with an area that often gets overlooked Because, like for the leader or the person listening to me, if we start putting out things like Myers-Brack Strength finders disc, you know, 360 review, people start thinking to oh yeah, you know what this really helped me as a leader. What did it do? It gave a greater self-awareness of who you are right and also who you're not, you know. And so, which is equally important, it's equally important. So I for the for the larger world, when, when you say football, they're talking about soccer, you know, in the American context, we're talking about Americanized football with pads, mm-hmm, and where I live at, the Minnesota Vikings are a football team and they have this one guy who's like one of the top receivers in the NFL named Justin Jefferson. So, in my particular, because again, the other thing about ICI, it helps you understand context. So even what I just talked about the context of the world when it comes to football and the context of America and now even the regional context of where I live. Well, I'll share with someone you know, justin Jefferson. He's a wonderful, wide receiver. He makes a horrible left guard Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And it doesn't matter how nice of a person that he is, if you put him in a left guard situation, that's gonna be a recipe for disaster, right? Because there's a certain self-awareness and there's also an understanding of His skill sets and even the things that make him him. Yeah, that actually leads to the potential for being successful and also leads to one of your major Players actually having broken bones and being out for the season.

Speaker 1: 36:03

Now, on the psychosomatic way, because people are able to look at that and say, okay, here's some things of which I'm strong on my D in my disc, which also means I might be dropping balls that the S and C parts of our team, that like studying us and conscientiousness and Understanding about yourself. Well, what I see I does is it gives that to you in a culture, mmm-hmm. And again, I love how Ming Jin Tong, one of the ICI Practitioners, shares about culture, cultures, the lenses that we look through. We don't look at our glass lenses, we look through them, yeah, and so ICI helps you as you look through culture. Remember Drucker said culture Trump strategy. Sometimes people can't even name their culture. Yeah, yeah, so this provides tools, practical tools.

Speaker 1: 36:54

Yeah, again, to go back to what I said, it allows you to take the blind shades and open them up and shine a light, and I I've strongly feel that, as people engage this, it, it has an as you can talk, like metaphors it really will.

Speaker 1: 37:14

It will change their their life from seeing things in black and white To seeing things in 8k Technicolor, full surround sound. Well, well, like it really does. And actually last night because Ming Jin Tong's the one who actually Introduced this to me we were walking and I actually told him. I said, ming Jin, thank you so much, like this is and I'm not saying this because you're in front of me, but this has been one of the greatest gifts given to me and being able to navigate the conversations on race, because I've had a lot of painful conversations, okay, and I've gone through a lot of different pain points. I've led in a number of different situations where things have gone well or things have gone bad, and the one thing is I wish that I would have had some of this understanding Even earlier as a leader, right, right. And so now in the last couple years of having these new lenses and having this insight, it's really been exciting. It's been really neat to see the conversations and even having self-care for myself, mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 38:16

Yeah, so you mentioned in a number of ways that it starts really with, you know, having those blinds open up and and shed light on you, on yourself, your own journey in life and what's happening with you as a person. So that self-awareness is fundamental. Now, very, you know, one of the ways that I've seen people think about self-awareness is, for instance, through In Discovering more and more biases. For instance, at the moment there, I think the clock is ticking at a hundred and eighty eight biases that they've identified. Yeah, so I don't remember. Maybe, even if you asked me on the spot, can you name 20, and I don't think I could. And it's important that we start to recognize that these exist. But, at the same time, that level of self-awareness is so fundamental, especially in the conversation around race. Talk to me about how the Intercultural agility approach can help people navigate biases and stereotypes In, not just in a better way, but in a way that relationship is built.

Speaker 1: 39:31

Yeah, I come back to the fact of saying what it does is. It helps us to enter into our shared humanity and even the, the important part of living in community, which etymology is common unity. Okay, so On the bias parts, a hundred and eighty eight, my wife Tammy will say you know it's, it's easier track flies with honey than in its vinegar.

Speaker 1: 39:58

Okay, so if we start off with the biases and the negative, yeah, and almost coming from a place of scarcity and deficiency, how much do people want to continue going at my people? You've heard leaders say like I really don't have a conversation about race because it's just gonna be about how bad of a person that I am, okay and so like. So they already feel like they're coming to fish into it, only to be made more deficient and so it begins this attack. So so I again say this whole aspect of shared humanity and actually journeying together, and Actually not only journeying together, then being able to appreciate the things with one another, marco, one of the things that I I feel that's been lost with kind of these Social logical constructs of race, especially as it comes to black and white. But even for for, and the American context with European Americans is all asked some things about just their last name and Like explaining their last name, and like where's that come from? And a lot of people drop blanks Because in ways because it's just like flat paint white people lost the texture, the tenor, the beauty of ethnicity Because it's been truncated to this thing called white. So there's also there's often a freeing up of the other person.

Speaker 1: 41:21

I've had students go away who had broken relationships. I remember this one guy she had a broken relationship with her mom went home and because I asked her something About their last name on a monotology the study of surnames and she wasn't really sure. So she went home and asked her mom. She had a broken relationship and instead of being at each other, they were beside each other trying to solve something. And then mom said well, we should talk to grandma. Well, mom had a broken relationship with grandma. So then you have these three people sitting around a table having a conversation about the culture of their surname Wow, and they weren't fighting, and this guy came back to class in tears. So there's no black and white there. That's just a family and looking at some of the culture things. So the practical ways will become as as diverse as the relationships and interactions that people already currently have.

Speaker 2: 42:14

Yeah, so starting with that shared humanity, having a few more tools in your toolbox to actually have that conversation and keep the conversation going. But I also see that ultimately that that's a beautiful starting point but, as the family example you just gave, eventually relationship needs to be restored. We talk a lot about creating the third cultural space, creating culture together, and to me, that's what I always look for or drive towards, no matter if I have one minute with a person or I get to spend a whole year of doing a whole bunch of stuff. How do you see the shift there? Because what I often find is people are innocence, guilt-oriented folks, right Wrong-oriented folks. They want to make sure they see the issue right and they spend a lot of time talking and debating that, and then they want to fix the issue, but they don't always want to then be in relationship afterwards.

Speaker 1: 43:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:21

So talk to me about this idea of, okay, we deal with our biases and our stereotypes from almost a backdoor through the backdoor of humanity, the backdoor of being in conversation, learning even about our surname, and that brings people together and then, as a result of that, the ultimate step really is that that relationship is restored and culture gets created together. How do you see that add to the dialogue around race?

Speaker 1: 43:54

Well, I think one thing is that it helps that for people to see that it's not that the only conversation is about race, and that's another thing that kind of gets truncated as well, so that you actually have a more full-orbed view of a person and a lot of other places even to go in developing the relationship and the understanding of self and understanding of that person and them with you, so that if there's this one aspect of race you can actually have a conversation. So in marriage counseling they would say an unresolved issue, like a person could have something and it's not as big as an issue. But if there's no other life around it, that issue seems much larger and all-consuming than it really is because things have been reduced to primarily this and maybe a couple other things. And so when you understand that there's more to a person, that also if you're creating a third cultural space, that means people are bringing something into that space and even we're having an understanding. What ICI does is it helps you understand another person's worldview and even part of their cultural preferences. Well, as that person is learning that about themselves, you're actually learning the authentic them. That's beautiful. So the authentic them who previously maybe was more reactionary on conversations of race, but now understands things culturally, on worldview and these parts of them that is unknown and unseen to themselves. And there's this thing about fear of the unknown. So now we're back at fear and as you uncover those things, it allows that person more fully to enter in and if you have something that's shared, that actually helps you to come together too. That's why people in medical school they can form these lifelong relationships or in graduate school or any sort of things, or even through a particular event that's happened because they have this shared experience together and they live this together. Though they're diverse and different people, they've shared those things together.

Speaker 1: 46:19

This helps people to have an understanding of what's already shared but sometimes just gets overlooked. And again they already have the tools and muscles. They're already using those things, Just sometimes are aware that they've been using those things. And it's just slightly tweaking. And I mean, like Marco, if you have to come with a slide ruler and a pencil to solving a major Excel spreadsheet type of thing, if you're coming bringing your computer and an IT person and someone who really understands Excel, or you're coming by yourself with a chalk and pen and a slide ruler, how confident are you feeling to engage the conversation? Yeah, absolutely. Now notice I didn't say anything about race, but I gave an illustration that deals with real life, that a person could say, oh well, yeah, of course I'm going to feel Okay, now scratch the conversation of math and Excel and all these sort of things, Now bring in the conversation of culture and race.

Speaker 2: 47:22

Now, one thing that goes through my mind as you're speaking is that the relationship-centric approach very often results in a number of things. First of all, we want to be together, but also the issues that we thought were between us now get perspective, and I've seen often that those issues either shrink or disappear altogether.

Speaker 2: 47:54

But also if there are still issues between us, if we now have relationship, then it's actually possible to discuss them. So one thing that we've discovered through the three colours of worldview is that, you know, innocence, guilt-oriented, right, wrong-oriented people have a tendency to put the problem at the centre of resolving the conflict, While what we've learned from many parts of the world working in over 70 countries is many cultures put their relationship at the centre, they work on the relationship. They don't pretend that problem doesn't exist, but they work on the relationship. And then in that, even if the relationship has grown just a little bit, they then see if the problem could be addressed If the relationship is there, and if it's, just strong enough.

Speaker 2: 48:45

Let's bring the problem back in and see if we are able to discuss it. How does that shift from being problem-centric and we need to understand the problem and we need to understand it in the same way before we can sort of make a go away? First is relationship-centric. How would that potentially shift things and add to the conversation of?

Speaker 1: 49:07

race. Well, the first thing that you're saying even by investing in the relationship, the very investment in the relationship brings a greater worth to the relationship and it removes it from being simply transactional, because sometimes the right and wrong approach and even the legal contract that almost depersonalizes things. So a person is sitting there thinking, well, do I want to take the time for this, is this really worth my time? And so they're looking at it through this right and wrong aspect and wanting almost to protect self in the fact again keeping innocence at all costs, almost keeping innocence at all costs, even to the jeopardizing of the relationship.

Speaker 1: 49:56

I've seen that as well, One of the things that was super fascinating about Hassan's study was looking at those or actually Bart, his teaching on high performance.

Speaker 1: 50:13

High performance, intercultural marriages and what builds and breaks trust. And I came back to this issue of the person apologizing and admitting mistakes. Okay, like that, and an innocence guilt type of thing. It's like oh no, I'm going to make sure that I'm right in this, and if I'm not right in this, then there's someone else to blame. So I'm still not wrong. And if there's anything wrong is that I didn't realize how wrong the other person I trusted to do this, Whereas in apologizing, that is dealing with the relationship and saying I care about the relationship. So when you become relationship focused, you're investing in the relationship and you actually begin to see that the relationship is more than this one issue and that there's so much more to develop and keep and nurture than this one issue and the other one. It's because this issue grows to be the main thing and again it becomes a point of pain.

Speaker 2: 51:14

Well, either I want to fight Okay, I want to freeze or I want to flee, yeah, and then emotions start to take over, and then conversation it gets killed, basically. And the relationship gets killed in the process.

Speaker 1: 51:30

Yep, and so that's one of the things that I'm it's interesting enough in navigating because I also do conflict resolution.

Speaker 1: 51:38

But I have students, I have leaders where they have family, that's, in a place where there's literally no people of color and their families are broken over this conversation of race or politics or these various things. Because this framework and so now back to I want this is really important. I do a number of things with conflict resolution, working with C-suite executives and things, and even families, and I've sometimes, to the surprise of people, said, you know, you're really kind of seeming knuckle to knuckle and the truth of the matter is you're really a lot closer, you think, to actually clasping hands. Yeah, and one of the first things that I do, especially when I'm working with leaders and I've been called in to do conflict mediation, is I'll actually assess the two people and so for one particular situation that I was in, those people had familiarity and actually gone through ICI types of things. So it was really interesting understanding these two leaders, then also looking at some of their other leadership styles and also getting to know them as a person again, relationship, not just task and when we finished I was like, oh wow, as I was preparing, I'm like, oh, wow, this is yeah, this makes sense on how you guys have missed each other, right, right. And so, marco, we got into it and we began having this conversation and being able to diffuse Innocence, guilt, being able to diffuse some parts that could have went wayward on honor, shame and even power fear, and actually keep the relationship intact. You know how that meeting ended. It ended with me leaving and these two people in tears apologizing to each other Beautiful.

Speaker 1: 53:28

And then scheduling lunch. Wow, because what they thought was actually opposites, they actually found they were so much on the same page. One was speaking Portuguese, the other one was speaking Swahili, but with what ICI did and with an understanding that actually provided a shared language that translated all of that for both of them and they actually didn't jeopardize the relationship and, to be transparent, without sharing any information, Both of them had come to me separately and were ready to resign. Wow, because they cared so much about the mission that they didn't want to hurt that, but the conflict that they were having. They were like, yeah and wow, I mean the amount of leadership, personal, relational capital that this group almost lost because of missing each other, but them also having the language to come back to them and say do you remember doing your ICI?

Speaker 1: 54:24

Okay, so how does looking back at your own report, how does your particular way of handling the cultural preferences versus conceal and reveal the one person? They were very much a reveal. The other person that they were having conflict was more concealed, mm-hmm. And so they were attributing that person being cold and not caring. Because they conceal again what I say earlier we attribute to character and motive, some things that can be described by temperament and wiring and culture Mm-hmm. And when that person began to have a conversation, relationship and understand, oh no, I actually care about you, I just don't necessarily Share everything. Again to another part of the 12-dimension is your work relationship situational or universal? Mm-hmm. For the one person who was revealed, they were also very universal relationship. For the concealed person, they were also situational.

Speaker 1: 55:20

So work was work and outside of work there was that same relationship didn't carry over beyond work, yeah, so that the person that was left to make assumptions, which is now the interpret response, without actually describing that there's a concealed reveal, a universal situational, an honor, shame, innocence, guilt, so from from Both wanting to resign, to actually restoring relationship, having lunch and Continuing and still continue to grow their relationship.

Speaker 1: 55:56

And and also, both of them were oh my goodness, they're both phenomenal leaders and both of them so needed and Contributing to the success of what's happening with this group. Mm-hmm, so that you know, they almost peeled off. Now here here's another part. Because the CEO had actually gone through ICI and was familiar not only with the three colors of worldview and culture, but the 12 dimensions of preference. That person also was spearheading at this issue. They were wanting it resolved and Not even not from a right wrong, and even being careful to make sure that they weren't doing shame Because they had the, they had positional authority, right. So that person even being able to have those conversations with those various leaders, to still honor them as leaders, to still engage on this particular thing, to bring it to a point of resolution, but still understanding all of these various variables that sometimes go unspoken and people are just left to interpret them and we interpret them, leading to not trip our Olympic system. So meaning we're we're interpreting them Most often from a negative perspective. Yeah, then a positive perspective.

Speaker 2: 57:17

Wow, we could talk for hours, I think, yeah, I really have enjoyed this conversation and I I'm sure that, if people want to reach out to you, we didn't even say that you're actually in Minneapolis.

Speaker 2: 57:34

Yes but you are, so people want to reach out to you. David's contact details will be in the notes section of the podcast that you found, so he's available from a coaching point of view, from a learning and environment point of view, an advisory, consulting point of view. So reach out to him if he's in your part of the world, especially, I would say, when it comes to applying intercultural agility into the Challenging topics of race. If you give you, thank you for beautiful examples on on how you've done that and I I'm really excited about the work you're doing and I look forward to maybe comparing notes in there in the Not-to-distant future and hear more of these beautiful stories of, yeah, how you're making a difference in the world.

Speaker 1: 58:26

So thank you for joining this well, thank you and Marco, thank you for you and your team's work, and I mean like for those listening. I'm not saying this because Marco's in front of me. If you, if you call me and contact me, or if you ask my wife and people who work with me, you're gonna hear them say he talks about this, he leads and he uses this on a daily one-on-one to group interaction. It really did revolutionize, especially on this issue of race in the American context. Oh, it is. It's.

Speaker 1: 59:02

It's helped me and others stay engaged in ways and actually to diffuse certain things that cost people to have these bad reactions. So again, marco hasn't asked me to say this. You know I'm not paid for any of these things. I Personally, as a testimony, want to stress to your listeners, you know, to really stop to go to knowledge works website, read up on these things, have conversations with Marco and his team and and I'm I'm certified in a number of different Assessments, so I'm not, you know, so coming from doing assessments and administering assessments and working with leaders and stuff like this. This is one of the key tool Assessments and things that I practice in my work.

Speaker 2: 59:50

Thank you. Thank you, david, for this fantastic conversation. Thank you, marco, and we look forward to hearing more about you from you in the future. And listeners, please reach out to David and start connecting and interfacing with him. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 1:00:06

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:00:06

Marco, thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the cultural agility podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, share it with someone. Best way to help us out is by leaving a review on your favorite podcast app or channel or Forward and recommend this podcast people around you. As always, if any of the topics we discussed today intrigue you, you will find links to articles Discussing them in greater depth in the podcast notes. If you would like to learn more about intercultural intelligence and how you can become more culturally agile, you can find more information and hundreds of articles at Knowledgeworkscom. A special thanks to Jason Carter for composing the music on this podcast and to the whole Knowledgeworks team for making this Podcast a success. Thank you, nita Rodriguez, ara Aziz-Bakyan, rajitha Raj, and thanks to Vip and George for audio production, rosalind Raj for scheduling and Caleb Strauss for marketing and helping produce this podcast.