Marco Blankenburgh: 0:00

And just be ruthlessly honest, because the reality is, if you have a super competitive organization, you're not likely to become agile anytime soon, because people are not collaborating, the organization is not set up for collaboration and therefore the we stage will not be achieved. And that's where agility really shows up. And I've seen that on sports teams. Where agility really shows up. And I've seen that on sports teams. I've seen it in the military, with special forces, where everybody knew how to jump in when something went wrong, everybody could rely on one another to have each other's back, to have the skills and the competencies to take over if necessary. 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.

Shelley Reinheart: 1:32

Welcome to the Unlocking Cultural Agility podcast. We are here today with Marco Blankenberg, International Director of KnowledgeWorks. Marco, welcome.

Marco Blankenburgh: 1:43

Thank you.

Shelley Reinheart: 1:44

Glad to have you. We're going to talk today about interculturally agile cultures, what they are, how to build them, how they can be troublesome, and I'd love to start off with just talking about the word agility.

Marco Blankenburgh: 2:02

What is?

Shelley Reinheart: 2:03

it. Why does it keep popping up?

Marco Blankenburgh: 2:06

Yeah, it's a word that's quite important in organizations organizational development, consulting work, working with leaders and teams and I think most of it has to do with the fact that we live in a crazy world.

Marco Blankenburgh: 2:19

Yes we do. There is a lot of change in our world. There is rapid change and there's a lot of forces at play. There's geopolitical forces, there is climate, there is artificial intelligence generative AI, some people say, will be with us for the public in the next five years, which will turn everything upside down. So companies, organizations, are struggling with never-ending change, and that's where the word agility comes up.

Marco Blankenburgh: 2:51

So how do you stay agile in that crazy environment? How do you run projects in that environment? Because you might have a beautiful project plan, but then you start implementing and things change before you're finished. So you need agility in project management. You can't just do contingency planning as in if this happens, we will do that, and if that happens, we do something else, because things come out of left field, as they say in sports, and you need to be creative, agile enough to deal with it. And that requires a whole different way of thinking about agility as leaders. So the leader as a person needs to be almost wired in a different way, and they need to then lead teams and organizations and projects in an agile way, and there's lots of debate about what that actually means, and what competencies, skills, abilities do you then need to develop as a result?

Shelley Reinheart: 3:54

of that? Yeah, yes, I can see that. Yeah, so where does agility even come from the word itself, and what's the history of how we use the word?

Marco Blankenburgh: 4:06

Yeah, I'm not necessarily the expert on it, but yeah, when you go back, it came originally out of the world of sports. So the physical version of agility and you can see that in famous athletes, their grace and their ability to have their whole body in sync. It's always beautiful to watch and that's where the word agile comes from, as well as the military. So being able to be agile on the battlefield or in in military operations especially this, the special forces which I'm familiar with are is each person in in the unit able to take a variety of roles. Can they even take the lead if necessary? Could they? If things go really bad, could they run solo? So that's where agility also comes into play.

Marco Blankenburgh: 4:58

And from there it got into the business world. So in the 60s, 70s, especially in Japan, it got connected to incremental improvement. So the Kaizen method, six Sigma, came out of that. And the interesting thing is Six Sigma has a belt system. So if you're a black belt in Six Sigma, you really know how to take an organization, look at it very carefully and make it more agile, make it better incrementally. And from there it got into the software development world. So in the world of software, especially in the early days. I still remember I had to code in university and even the simple coding I was doing was a few thousand lines already. Now imagine if you have to code big, complicated software products and you discover a few thousand lines in that you made a mistake. How do you go back? So how do you do software development in an agile way?

Marco Blankenburgh: 6:07

And that's where agile scrums came from and taking pieces of code that can be removed and added, and ways to make sure that mistakes are caught early. So there's a whole system in place now that gets ever better, especially now with AI, and from there it really got into the business world. So project management I already mentioned that that had to become more agile but also then in running the organization as a whole. So a big problem that people deal with today is change. Out of most change initiatives, give or take, 70% are not successful, and very often it's either that the culture is not taken into account we might come back to that later on or it's because they still think that they can design a change plan and run with the change plan and that there's only small changes that they need to make, which in today's world is typically not true. So that's how. Agile transformation, agile project management, agile strategy implementation all are buzzwords that people are using now in the business world.

Shelley Reinheart: 7:20

Yeah, Okay, so it's been around for a while used in different ways. What about in other languages?

Marco Blankenburgh: 7:27

Yeah, that's a bit of a challenge. Yeah, how's it translated? I still remember we ran a project that was a transformation project for one of the big airlines and the word agile came up and this airline has over 170 nationalities working for them. So we were asked to put the language around the culture transformation in place. And when we started asking people about the word agile, what ideas come to mind?

Marco Blankenburgh: 8:00

And for some languages it is indeed that athletic ability, so it sounds positive. If my team is more athletically capable, quote-unquote, it's good for our business, not physically, but quote-unquote. Athletically as a team Can we ebb and flow and flex and quickly change gears or change direction. But then other languages, it became problematic. So in some languages the word agile can be seen as evasive, you know dodging, so that is not necessarily a good thing. So if you look at languages in the Middle Eastern region so Dari, farsi, arabic very often it's linked to gracefulness. So it's not the agility of a gazelle per se, but it's the grace of a leader who strides into the room and who is deliberate and present, has authority, and that's a very different word. It doesn't relate to what we typically think about in English when we use the word agility, so it's not always easy to translate. And then leaders say, no, I can't be seen as being agile. That's for young people. You know, I'm a gracious statesman or stateswoman and I need to be seen that way. The other thing is that leaders might see agility as something that doesn't add to their position of power or their position of honor. So they need to be seen as deliberate, thoughtful. Typically also linked to it is this idea that I already know where we want to go and I continuously say that to the people around me. Agility could create that impression that I need to be able to say team, we've got a problem and I don't quite know how to deal with it, let's figure it out together. And that way of dealing with agility is in many cultures but not is frowned upon by leaders and it might give the leader a low credibility rating, for instance.

Marco Blankenburgh: 10:35

There's also a dilemma that hierarchical organizations typically find it hard to be agile in the way that it's typically explained. So if you have hierarchy and you want to be super agile, then it becomes really difficult to move the agility up the hierarchical chain and then quickly back down again. So those organizations there are other ways to also become agile, but it often has to do with different listening functions that they need to create in the organization to still have information flow up and down very quickly so that decision making can be sped up. But the quote unquote Western way of thinking about agility is often frowned upon if the organization is more hierarchical and and that links it directly to power. So agility automatically means that I need to give you a chance to figure things out and to do things your way.

Marco Blankenburgh: 11:38

So by default it it involves empowerment, and some leaders just don't want to let go. So true, they just want to hold the reins, they want to sign all the checks, so to say, and they want to be in charge of all the ideation and the decision-making. And that's why, in what we call directed destiny environments versus directive destiny. So directed destiny, the boss tells you what to do, and, and that's where the idea of agility often is frowned upon. So it there's cultural issues, there's linguistic issues, uh, that need to be taken into account yes, that's very clear now.

Shelley Reinheart: 12:24

Yes, you know. So we can talk about agile organizations, but how do we even just backtracking a second? How do we talk about healthy organizations? How do we think about a healthy organization even before agility?

Marco Blankenburgh: 12:45

Yeah, I think that's a really important question because, to be honest, although I'm a white-faced European from Dutch descent, I've lived internationally for 30 years now and have tried to learn from the 70 countries that I've worked in. But at the same time, it's really true that our definition of a healthy organization is, at least in the theory books and in the assessments that have been created. That definition is largely a Western definition. It's the Western way of thinking about leadership, the Western way of thinking about how organizations should run. What is a healthy culture? What's an unhealthy culture? That, by and large, still drives most of the theory and it drives most of the thinking behind the organizational health assessments that have been created. And that's an issue. So, for instance, to make that come alive, like is it true, for instance, that if an organization has a flatter structure that they are likely to be more agile.

Marco Blankenburgh: 13:57

Is hierarchy an enemy of agility? And that doesn't have to be true. And that doesn't have to be true Is having a voice, so creating agency in the system of the organization, which is a more directive destiny way of thinking about things is that necessarily better. Or is being told what to do? Does that make you less productive, as having your own thoughts turn into an action and then you follow through on that action Is that more productive? And when you look at the research, that's inconclusive.

Shelley Reinheart: 14:40

Those are all good questions.

Marco Blankenburgh: 14:42

Yeah, and a lot of the organizational health thinking makes assumptions on those things and that becomes a problem can sometimes be more productive than cultures where you have a directive, destiny, orientation, where people are always part of the decision-making process. They create their own way forward, they bring their voice to the group and they have to have their say, which sometimes can actually grind things to a halt.

Shelley Reinheart: 15:21

I've seen it happen, yeah, sometimes can actually grind things to a halt.

Marco Blankenburgh: 15:24

I've seen it happen, yeah. So yeah, those are all things that play a role in thinking about what is a healthy organization, and a big thing that plays into that is how we build trust, and that's maybe something you know. We have a great podcast on trust. How do you build trust within a hierarchy? How do you build trust within a hierarchy? How do you build trust within a flatter organizational structure? And I've heard people say I implicitly trust my boss and I love working for my boss and if my boss tells me to do something, I just go and do it because I can trust my boss. And if you have that type of relationship, it's great. And I've seen the same with teachers, where teachers give their pupils instructions and there's a good trust relationship. The pupil loves to get that instruction from the teacher and move on it.

Marco Blankenburgh: 16:18

So there are quite a few assessments around that try to measure organizational health and they're beautiful assessments. But digging into them and finding well, what assumptions are they actually making? And fortunately our intercultural framework allows us to find those assumptions relatively quickly and then we can make adjustments. So we've worked with assessments that do team assessments or organizational assessments, and once you know what, if there are assumptions in there, then you can adjust. So if you know that they are preferring uh to a more, you know, give everybody a voice approach, for instance, um, then you know you need to possibly adjust for that when you work with an intercultural team. So a lot of these assessments they they are a can be used, but the the two issues really are that they are created in the image of the creator of the assessment. So if the image the creator of the assessments has what we in the Three Colors of Worldview call more an innocence-guilt orientation, right and wrong, then words like equity and fairness and agency are super important. So they would assume that if a team has those, then's a good thing, yeah so.

Marco Blankenburgh: 17:46

And then to realize, no, there are also other cultures where my personal opinion is part of an ecosystem, it's part of a culture of community accountability, where honor is pursued and shame avoided.

Marco Blankenburgh: 18:03

And when that's the case, then we need to make sure that people are aware of those differences. And then, when you start creating culture, people need to realize that there are maybe other ways for your voice to be heard. That might not be in public, it might be anonymous, it might be inside conversations, it might be more quiet. But it might also be that, hey, if the team decides to go in this direction or the organization decides to go in this direction, we all join hands and we pursue it together for the greater good of all involved. So the idea that if I have to relinquish my personal desire or my personal opinion, that means I'm not true to myself, which is another thing that comes out of the innocence guilt world, that is not necessarily true. I've heard many people say who come from community accountability cultures there is no internal struggle or conflict if I have to, let my idea be put aside so that we collectively can pursue something together. And those types of ideas are typically not favored in the way people look at organizational culture.

Shelley Reinheart: 19:27

And they're not brought out in assessments.

Marco Blankenburgh: 19:29

If that happens, it typically is an orange or a red flag. Okay, yeah.

Shelley Reinheart: 19:36

What can that look like in an assessment? What can the results reveal?

Marco Blankenburgh: 19:41

Well, they would ask questions like is there room for your opinion to be heard? Now? Are they asking did my boss explicitly ask me what do you think about this situation? Or are they asking no, my boss is a good listener and he's a good indirect communicator. No, our boss is a good listener and he's a good indirect communicator, and if I tell him a story or if he picks up a story during a meeting, he knows what to do with that and I can trust my boss that two months down the line, changes will be made or opportunities will be created that fall in line with that communication, that little seed that was dropped two months ago in the meeting. So does that mean that my voice doesn't get heard, and does it have to be explicitly direct? Or is a leader wise enough to indirectly harvest that type of information and use that for the betterment of the team, the individuals and for their growth and development? So there's these nuances that you often don't find.

Shelley Reinheart: 20:51

Right, yeah, right. Have you ever used an assessment, or used an assessment to decide the health of an organization that just did not land and had to adjust?

Marco Blankenburgh: 21:02

Actually, yes, we've had a situation where a classical survey was used and it was designed in one part of the world and then implemented in another part of the world, and that already was something that we shouldn't have done. It was partnering with another organization and we were sort of the ears and eyes on the ground doing the implementation, building the stakeholder relationships, and they were doing the assessment, the data, the interpretation of the data. And there was a classic example. The organization we were working with was much more honor-shame oriented. There were some pockets of the organization that were power-fear oriented and there was very strong community accountability and ascribed status. People that had long-serving years in the organization were revered to the point sometimes that they were kept on the payroll in an honorable role for even after retirement. And the survey had very direct questions with a Likert scale so you could rate yourself on a scale Is this mostly true for you or mostly not true? And one of the questions was do you know the mission, vision, values of this organization? And 40% of the people answered yes, but they didn't exist yet they were working on it. As a classic example where you make the assumption that the questionnaire, the people who fill in the questionnaire are more right, wrong, innocence, guilt-oriented, individual accountability by default. Most of the time people who are like that culturally, they will want to volunteer the right answer. But now a survey designed for that audience was used in a more honor-shame-oriented audience. So what does the survey taker think? When they see that question, they say, hmm, they're asking about mission-vision values. Oh, maybe it actually it must say, hmm, they're asking about mission vision values. Oh, maybe it actually it must exist, otherwise they wouldn't be asking about it. So what is the most honorable answer to give? Yes, I know them, I'm supposed to know them, so I better say yes. And that's just a small example.

Marco Blankenburgh: 23:24

Another one was where we did a survey that was supposed to lead to organizational change. It was with a big organization in Africa, 19 countries and we ran the survey together with the HR team and we had about 3,000 answers back and the head of HR said well, it's pretty good, let's close the survey. And I said to her well, let's look at the names of the people, because this was not an anonymous survey, we could actually. The names were given and, lo and behold, almost all of the names were names that alluded to a more Innocence, guild-oriented way of thinking, and if they would have closed the survey and designed a change process based on that section of the population, it would have totally gone wrong. So we had to wait and find other ways to get other people also to contribute, who were more power, fear, honor, shame oriented, maybe a bit more community accountability or directed destiny.

Marco Blankenburgh: 24:31

So surveys are tricky. There's actually quite a few things that potentially could go wrong with them and that's why, knowing how to interculturally navigate them, recognizing that they were typically created in one part of the world and then implemented in many other parts of the world, a lot of the surveys have been around for a long time, so they were often created like from the 80s, 90s onwards, and that meant that there was more of a monoculture around them as they were creating these health assessments. So it's knowing that and then knowing how to be interculturally agile enough to navigate it and it's not always saying, oh, this is rubbish and we're not going to use it. We've seen the same, for instance, with some of the team tools that we've used, but some surveys are really problematic.

Marco Blankenburgh: 25:32

So I worked with one tool where the questions were so innocence guilt-oriented. They assumed people want to volunteer the right answer and they will want an accurate self-reflection. And I got the survey results back in preparation for a leadership initiative and I realized these are all inflated. And I started to look at it and it was roughly a 30% to 40% inflation of the results where, in essence, the questions were designed for a certain audience and this audience was answering the questions to make sure they looked as good as possible and I was still able to tweak things and to still use it for growth and development. But it it was and my first impression was okay. I'm going to have to throw this in the bin because the questions were not embraced in the same way as the audience for which they were originally designed. So we talk about social desirability. So the more social desirability slips into the way the questions are designed and the way people answer those questions, the more tricky it becomes to use the results of those surveys.

Shelley Reinheart: 26:55

Yes, yeah, I see that. Wow, there's a lot to consider, yeah, and it seems like, because there are dangers to consider that there's so many pieces to considering, to creating an agile culture.

Marco Blankenburgh: 27:15

Yeah.

Shelley Reinheart: 27:17

So I mean, if we're looking at intercultural agility and creating agile culture, how are the two connected?

Marco Blankenburgh: 27:25

Intercultural agility- yeah, so look, we work with organizations that are inherently intercultural. How are the two connected? Intercultural agility yeah, so, look, we work with organizations that are inherently intercultural. So they might have started in one part of the world, but when we connect with them it typically means they're on at least four continents or more, and that automatically means that the organization still has what Hofstede calls the blueprint of the place where the organization was founded, and that is, of course, always interesting to look at. So a German organization that's now global, or I sit in the UAE. We have a number of organizations in the UAE that are now global.

Marco Blankenburgh: 28:08

Currently we're working with another organization in the gulf with that has gone global from another country and all of a sudden give you an example one organization we worked with they wanted to franchise the business and we have a franchise partner in singapore and we they were invited in to do an audit on can we do this, Can this company be franchised? And their conclusion was that the concept was going to be likely, globally applicable. Global clients would embrace the concept, but the culture of the organization? They said, if the culture stays the same, you will struggle, at least on three or four continents in the world. So is there a link between agile culture and intercultural agility? Absolutely. We had another organization we worked with in California. They got a brilliant opportunity to work with two of their clients, very big names in Japan and China. But this organization so far had only worked on the west coast of the US. And we sat down with the owners and they said, if we want to work in China and Japan, we have to change the way we do business and the way we support our clients, which means our staff, our processes, our workflows, the way we do financing in other countries, sourcing, All those things have to change. That level of agility they were not ready to just to sign up for, so they actually let it go.

Marco Blankenburgh: 29:51

Yeah, so using intercultural agility to decide. You know, are we actually interculturally agile enough and we talk about? You know, is your d DNA global enough as a business? Can you really go to other geographies? Is your organization able to absorb staff and talent from different parts of the world? And I've seen, for instance, one of the. There's a number of franchises. I don't want to mention names per se, but there's a number of franchises. I don't want to mention names per se, but there's a number of franchises either food franchises from North America that tried to get into, for instance, the Gulf region and the culture. The Midwestern culture did not connect with people in the GCC. There was another franchise I can think of from South Africa. They have a really, really good concept and their food is amazing, but the concept failed in Southeast Asia and it wasn't just the food, it was actually also. The food was accepted, but the culture of the organization was not in that local context. Right yeah.

Shelley Reinheart: 31:02

Wow. So you're almost saying that you have to create the culture of the organization first and then add the method later?

Marco Blankenburgh: 31:16

Yeah.

Marco Blankenburgh: 31:17

So that is something that I'm bumping into in so many disciplines now.

Marco Blankenburgh: 31:33

Now, so, for instance, one of our facilitators, dr Omar Ayyash, is a brilliant facilitator on design thinking and iterative design which comes out of Stanford University, the D School, and he used to facilitate design thinking workshops.

Marco Blankenburgh: 31:47

But one of the things he was saying is that when you want to bring techniques like that how to do design thinking, how to come up with the craziest designs and craziest solutions think outside the box or beyond the box, he said the first thing that has to happen you have to create the culture with the group of people so that those methods can actually be used successfully with that group. So being able to create the third cultural space first and then say now, let's look at some some creative fun. You know ways of doing design thinking together. And it was especially true with design thinking because in design thinking you have to be willing to, for instance, fail quickly, fail early and fail quickly, and in some cultures that is not something people might be used to. So you have to first create a neutral zone where people say, okay with this group of people, I'm okay with it or I'm learning to be okay with it yeah.

Marco Blankenburgh: 33:02

So there's a number of these types of disciplines where the way that's that's the problem. And you could think of a classroom You've seen that, shelley where your program culture in the classroom is in essence saying the same, because it's like, no matter what pedagogy you bring, if you don't create culture in the classroom, then you will have a disconnect between you and the pupils, and probably amongst the pupils and maybe even with the parents. So create the culture first and then find ways to be agile within that context.

Shelley Reinheart: 33:39

And you said the third cultural space. Can you describe that?

Marco Blankenburgh: 33:43

Yeah, that's the dilemma I mentioned in the beginning talking about agile leadership. And one of the things about agile leadership is that the leader doesn't dictate the culture. The leader helps create the culture is the facilitator of the creation of the culture. So in the old days, it was I'm the boss, you're going to do it my way. In the old days it was I'm the boss, you're going to do it my way.

Marco Blankenburgh: 34:07

In an agile organization with agile leadership, the leader needs to now become a team coach to facilitate the process of culture creation so that everybody feels at home, everybody feels they belong, they can thrive, they can bring their best to work, and that's a shift in mindset.

Marco Blankenburgh: 34:26

And that third cultural space is not the space of the boss, it's not necessarily even the space that is dictated by the organization. I'm sorry to say that on the mic, but we've often worked with organizations where there is values defined and there's maybe a definition of those values, and then you start working with a team and they say, okay, those values, we agree with them, but how do we live them and what does that look like on a day-to-day basis? So, even going to that point where you say, yeah, we'll adhere to these values. But this is us, this is our group, our department, our division in the business, and we want to move forward together, create a culture where we can be agile in our sales interface, in our logistics interface, in the way we practice HR in this organization interface in the way we practice HR in this organization.

Shelley Reinheart: 35:29

That's amazing and sounds wonderful and challenging. And so what does it take then? What does it take? To create this agile team and agile organization.

Marco Blankenburgh: 35:42

Yeah, so there's a number of forces at play, and the way we always like to start is it has to do with how we define organizational culture.

Marco Blankenburgh: 35:52

So we believe that the collective or the sum total of the thinking, speaking and acting of the contributors that eventually creates the culture, and a leader's role is to create room for expressing that. So the collective thinking, speaking and acting needs to be expressed, needs to be quote-unquote, harvested, create room for it and that becomes the raw material you use to build the culture. But in order to do that, you need to typically have a deeper understanding of yourself and of others, so that you know who is my colleague actually. What are they bringing to work and what are they uncomfortable with that? They feel they are actually more or less forced to leave at the door. So we use tools for that, assessment tools either.

Marco Blankenburgh: 36:48

On the cultural side, We've developed the Three Colors of Worldview and the cultural mapping inventory with 12 dimensions, and that's really answering the question who am I as a cultural human being, which is really important if you want to create culture together and the other side is more the psychometric side. So who am I as a psychological human being and what am I psychologically bringing to this team? What are you bringing to this team and how do we go about bringing that together in that third cultural space. So we always like to start there and then at team level or at department level or business unit level, and from there work our way up. Basically and yes, there's always meeting Most organizations nowadays have values, have definitions of those values, some behavioral descriptors, but we always like to start in the smaller units of the organization and use those.

Marco Blankenburgh: 37:54

We call it the two spotlights approach. So really answer those two questions who am I? Who are you as a cultural human being? How does that influence your thinking, speaking and acting? Who are you as a psychological human being? How does that influence your thinking, speaking and acting? Who are you as a psychological human being? How does that influence your thinking, speaking and acting? And how can we use that to craft culture together? I?

Shelley Reinheart: 38:15

love that. It's beautiful. Yes, that sounds like a worthwhile goal, and so when we're trying to create culture that is not interculturally agile, it does seem like things can be difficult. So what do you say? What do you think we should avoid in the future?

Marco Blankenburgh: 38:44

Yeah.

Shelley Reinheart: 38:45

And why do we struggle, just as organizations, to create cultures like this? What holds us back?

Marco Blankenburgh: 38:53

Yeah, it's fascinating that we theoretically we know what it might look like and a lot of organizations talk about that agile culture only really can be created at the we level. So when we create a collective we, then we can ebb and flow, we can give and take, we can sow and reap much more easily in a team. So the we is always part of agile in a team, so that the we is always part of agile. But statistically uh and I'm talking about a friend of mine who, john king, who wrote the book tribal leadership they discovered five possible ways that cultures manifest in organizations and the first three layers. The first two are typically very toxic, very aggressive. People are literally stealing time, stealing resources from the company. They are typically quite aggressive with each other, etc. The third layer is a super competitive layer where colleagues are pitched against each other in sales and in KPIs and key performance indicators. And John King in his book, those first three layers of organizational culture represent 75% of all companies they've researched. So only 25% reaches the fourth level, the we level, and then the fifth level. There's very few up there. They are more serving community, they're serving society and they're profitable at the same time. But they have that much bigger, almost altruistic vision of why their company exists. So we're talking 25% is in the place where agile culture more naturally shows up.

Marco Blankenburgh: 40:48

And then people say, well, we need to get there. And then they don't realize where they are today and they don't want to do the hard work to get out of that super competitive mode. Or sometimes they say no, we need that competition, otherwise our salespeople don't score, say no, we need that competition, otherwise our sales people don't score. Or we need that competition, otherwise people don't give their best. And there's a huge debate about that where I won't mention names, but there's a famous theory of every year, 10% of the workforce needs to go. Because they are and through this aggressive way of pursuing the business, you 10 always ends up at the bottom. And then they have to go and and then they wonder why they never reach that we stage? Because everybody's always competing against everybody. So, recognizing where you are in an organization and just be ruthlessly honest, because the reality is, if you have a super competitive organization, you're not likely to become agile anytime soon, because people are not collaborating, the organization is not set up for collaboration and therefore the we stage will not be achieved.

Marco Blankenburgh: 42:03

And that's where agility really shows up. And I've seen that on sports teams. I've seen it in the military with special forces, where everybody knew how to jump in when something went wrong. Everybody could rely on one another to have each other's back, to have the skills and the competencies to take over if necessary, have the skills and the competencies to to take over if necessary, and that we stage. You see it in sports teams that fail, where that falls apart. And you see in sports teams that succeed that we just shines and comes alive. And you see that people are filling gaps. Even if people make mistakes, they are quick to to to come alongside and that's where it's so hard.

Marco Blankenburgh: 42:49

So, for instance, a lot of articles right now are talking about toxic work culture. So they are all saying this is going wrong at work and this is going wrong at work and people are leaving and sick leave, you know, know, burnout and who knows what. And it's really, you know, disheartening to read some of those articles and I really hope that people who are in those situations can get out of it. But at the same time, they're not digging into the why and the articles almost create the idea that quick fixes are possible, but you need to then dig below the surface and really do the hard work to reset some of those cultural drivers at the bottom end, and that's where, again, those two spotlights are really important.

Marco Blankenburgh: 43:44

Who am I, who are you as a cultural human being, as a psychological human being?

Marco Blankenburgh: 43:46

And that's where, again, those two spotlights are really important. Who am I, who are you as a cultural human being, as a psychological human being? What is the organization driving us to do? How is that potentially setting us up against each other, and is that really the organization we want to have? So, yeah, there's a lot of those forces at play where creating agile culture actually it starts with you and me, goes to the team, goes to the department, goes to the organization, and I prefer to create pockets of success than create. You know, try to create a large organizational shift and and those pockets of success always I call it the jealousy factor. You create the jealousy factor with a team that's successful or a department that's successful and that starts to attract others who say I wish I could work, or can we have what you have? And then to get the leaders to talk to each other and say here is what we did in order to get there, and you could potentially reach that as well, but you have to be willing to roll up your sleeves.

Shelley Reinheart: 44:59

That's excellent To get to the we to get to that place. Wow, that's brilliant. Thank you so much, marco.

Marco Blankenburgh: 45:10

Thank you, this has been a great conversation. And it's such a needed topic and something that we, as humanity, need to figure out, because we're talking about organizational level now, because we're talking about organizational level now, but it's the same between nations and between tribes and geographies, and we're not doing a great job right now.

Marco Blankenburgh: 45:34

So I hope we'll learn better and I have high hopes for the young generation, who naturally wants to collaborate, wants to build bridges, wants to do good in the world more frequently. So, yeah, I'm hoping we'll see some fresh blood come into that?

Shelley Reinheart: 45:52

Yes, that's good. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time. And to learn more about KnowledgeWorks, some of the tools that Marco mentioned, and also about getting certified as an intercultural intelligence practitioner, check out the website in the notes below and learn more.

Marco Blankenburgh: 46:12

Thank you, thank you everyone and thank you, shadi again for a great conversation.

Shelley Reinheart: 46:16

Absolutely. See you next time.

Marco Blankenburgh: 46:19

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. The best way to help us out is by leaving a review on your favorite podcast app or channel, or forward and recommend this podcast to 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. Oh and, by the way, 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.