Moving Beyond Just Being Respectful (Culturally Agile)

Seven Focus has seven Ways of Being:
Reflective of Self
Awareness of the Present
Curiosity Over Certainty
Culturally Agile
Transparent
Heightened Consciousness of the Past
Diffuse Power and Privilege, Centering Historically Marginalized Identities

In this episode, our hosts define Cultural Agility, as opposed to the ever popular 'cultural competence'.  One of the more easily measured Seven Focus Ways of Being, these two have proven what can happen when learning about self and others leads to great impact.

Add what you learn about Cultural Agility to the rest of the Ways of Being and  see if any of the concepts are a part of the work, organization or communities you're a part of.  This is just a part of a larger conversation, stay tuned to learn where this Way of Being can be helpful to your moving from intent to impact

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Beyond the Training podcast. Hey Jamie, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:04

I am. Give me a second. I'm not going to give an immediate response because I want to give a more thoughtful response about how I am doing today. I am excited later on in the day. The family, we're going to go get some dinner and we're going to go see Inside Out 2, of which I continue to hear wonderful things about. So I'm looking forward to spending some family time and checking out a movie.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Well, that actually helps me uh think about the uh second question I'm going to ask you. So uh just the other uh last month, we went to I went to the Colorado Black Men Collaborative. Colorado Collaborative Black Men. One of the two, CMOC, CMO, Colorado Men of Color Collaborative. That's what it was. A bunch of black dudes in Colorado getting together. That's where we went. Uh we went to their event and they said, you know what, we're going to stop asking each other how you doing. We're going to ask each other, how's your mental health? So, given that you just were talking about inside out, this is apropos, Jamie. How's your mental health?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

If I were filling out a survey right now and I would be somewhere in between, I think I'm good. Why did I have to think? That's how my mental health is. Well, I'm I'm good, and don't know that I have a lot of evidence of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I love the faces that you're making. Y'all can't see them on the pod, but you're you're making a lot of faces, which says that you got a lot going on, uh cerebral, uh, when you're thinking about that question.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah, maybe. So uh more to dig into there. Uh Robert, tell me something good, and how's your mental health today?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Something good in my life. Uh, you know, I don't know that I said this on the pod. I am a recently uh award-winning uh leader in diversity. Um, happen to have gotten an award at the Denver Bit from the Denver Business Journal about being uh in this work with you and with a host of other folks um around the nation. And so uh that's really good. I'm I'm really appreciative of uh the Denver Business Journal and the community that came out to support me and the other people who are also receiving that award this year. Um in great company. So that's something good. And my mental health, I I'm actually in a good place. I'm in a really good place. I I've gotten back into my workouts, I'm eating better than I did last month. Uh, and I am doing good work, which is what fills me. Uh, all those things fill me up, and that that helps me show up for my family better, that helps me show up for uh my community better. So I'm in a good place.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

I'm glad you're in a good place. And yes, congratulations on the DBJ Award. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Thanks. So we have done a number of a couple of uh episodes on the ways of being, and so that's what I want us to circle around today. The seven focus ways of being. There are seven of them, and we talk we've talked about a couple of them so far. So today I want to get into culturally agile. Is that good with you, Jamie? You go with that? Sounds good. Let's do it. I think it's funny that you were nodding as if they could hear you on the part that you were not.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

That's why I was nodding, and then I took me a second for my brain to remind myself that people can't see us for sure. Uh so I needed to verbally respond.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

I appreciate that. So, y'all, we uh Jamie and I both are part of a group of qualified administrators who uh work with what's called the Intercultural Development Inventory. We use that inventory. It's a survey of about 50 plus questions uh that help us to help organizations, individuals, communities gauge what the Intercultural Development Inventory company, the IDI, uh, they call it cultural competence. We actually did an episode a while back about cultural competence, and we like the phrase, if you will, cultural agility more than we like cultural competence. But before we even get into talking about cultural agility, what I wanted to say is that uh the IDI, the intercultural development inventory, measures your level of either cultural competence or what we'll talk about is cultural agility today, along a continuum. And the continuum says on one end, that when we interact with different cultures or cultural differences, uh, that we're more likely to deny that culture exists, or to say, well, that's just how they operate and we operate in a better way, or sometimes it's the other way around. Man, I wish I had a culture like that because I don't have one of my own. So there's one end of the cultural uh uh competence, cultural agility continuum there. And then on the other end of the continuum, you have folks that are adapting their practices, their behaviors and communication styles because of the cultural differences that they are interacting with. And so they make changes based upon those, the acceptance of those cultural differences and the deep knowledge about those, um, those cultural differences and their own cultural reference points. So you can see that there's on the us versus them on one side and the adapting, the mutual adaptation on the other side of the continuum. And then most of us are right in the middle. The IDI, the intercultural development inventory calls it minimization. But really, what that's about is focusing on similarities, the minimizing of those cultural differences, the I don't want to say ignoring of them, but not really paying much attention to them, trying to highlight the similarities, the commonalities between us so that we don't have to dig into the differences and we don't use those differences to harm each other or to divide us in our communities, in our groups, even in our families. And so this inventory measures where you land when you interact with cultural differences along the continuum, on the far end of us versus them, on the far end of adaptation, or right in the middle, or somewhere in between any of those. And I will tell you, Jamie, it depends on the day uh and what's going on in the world where I land on that continuum.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

As you were talking, I was in my head trying to come up with examples of um where to your point, depending on the day, where depending on the moment, I can quickly go into polarization and an us versus them component. Um and you know, authentically what first came up for me was when I see kids without shoes on in public places and parenting.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Where is this going?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Okay, same one I immediately go to an us versus them of why bad parents and I'm I'm on the good side because my kids wear shoes in public. Um it it because of the work we do, and because of the cultural agility that I've worked on building, I get I'm able to get to a point where I say, why does it matter? Um I don't I I wonder if I skip over commonalities around the cultural agility point. Um, and maybe I say like we're all doing our best here. Um, and and mutual adaptation looks like for me, I don't remove my kids from the setting. Um, I don't say, you know, I want my kids, I don't want my kids to be close to these kids who don't wear shoes or whatever it may be. Um so I don't know why that example came up for me, but that's what came up for me.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

What's hilarious is that I'm thinking about the uh person who I saw laying in the airport uh yesterday with no shoes or socks on. Um, but that's beside the point. Here it's something I'm curious about, Jamie, given the story that you just told. What are the cultural reference points in your cultural uh in your cultures and the cultures that you're a part of? What are the cultural reference points that have anything to do with wearing shoes?

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Good question. Um when I think about culture and the reference points, I think about um the culture of my immediate family, my partner and our kids, and my own and my own values and beliefs around hygiene. Um and um that uh you know, when we go out in public, our face needs to be clean, our nose needs to be clean, we need to have a certain uh presence is not the right word, but a certain value around what does it look what does it mean to go out in public. Um some of that comes from I just we can't just go out in public looking like we just woke up. Um in some ways, we're already um three steps behind because of the color of our skin. For me, because of my gender, and and I have to play a little bit of presentable. Um so some of that is coming up for me right now in terms of cultural reference points and culturally agile for me then looks like wait before you do that, don't even don't don't do that yet, because I want to go deeper a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Where did you learn what it is to be presentable? Can you point to a memory or an example?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

In middle school, I I can't I don't think I've shared this with the podcast before, but in middle school I didn't wash my hair every day. And uh that caused it to get greasier and caused it to flake. Um my scalp was flaking, and on the I was played on the basketball team, and um we all were getting our hair done in French braids, and and so one of the other basketball players was doing my hair. And I don't really remember how it all exactly went down, but I do remember that for a few months I was called dirty hamburger girl because of my hair um and whatever the person who was doing my hair then went and told other people. Um and so some of it comes from what society has told me about not washing your hair and having greasy hair and having flakes in your hair, et cetera, et cetera. I didn't know we were gonna go there today.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

I well, so one, I appreciate you going there sharing uh vulnerably with us here on this pod. Um, it's amazing what we can learn about culture, our cultures in middle school, uh, the the between 10 and 14 years old. That that is an amazing way to learn about a culture. And sometimes, or usually, it's not even sometimes, usually it's not good stuff, not good ways to learn uh about our culture. Uh and what's really important to me right now in this conversation is that that has an impact that that was decades ago, that has an impact on how not only you treat your family, your own kids, but other people's kids do, or at least you know, how you how you move in the world. And we don't often have time or take the time to think about how the lessons I learned in middle school impacting me today. A lot of our adult brains just leave that stuff behind. And so you reflecting on that can be really positively impacting as you do the work. And that's what you were getting ready to say. So you were about to say cultural agility around this idea of presentability looks like this. So go ahead. What does cultural agility look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 12:01

And you and I will expand it to clean like what does cleanliness mean? Um it it cultural agility for me means I'm reflecting on what's the impact of the other person's behavior on me. And sometimes it's nothing. Sometimes it does have an impact. Um, and and how do I navigate through that? So when I'm out in public and somebody's kids are in the restroom with no shoes on, my first reaction is and my second reaction in moving in a more culturally agile way is why does it matter? That their behavior has no impact on you, and your kids are still wearing their shoes and they're fine. Like keep it moving. Um, what it means in my home. Um, do you know what the rule is in my home, Robert?

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Do not wear shoes beyond much further than the threshold in your house.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Um, and it means that, and I don't know that I offered this to you. I think I maybe I told you in advance, like, hey, FYI, we don't wear shoes in the house.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Um I do want in fact you didn't. Oh, I you didn't know. But here's the thing, though, just like those middle school teammates of yours, I saw the shoes at the at the threshold when I came to the house. I saw the shoes were there. There was either your shoes or somebody else's shoes there at the at the door. And I'm like, oh, that's a signal. Take my shoes off, also. And before you say it out loud, I will admit that I also did walk through the kitchen um once with my shoes on because I was going back for something I didn't remember to get. And then I got a um reminder from you about the rule in the house. There's no signs, there's just cultural uh reference points that you have to pick up. And if you're not really good at picking up those cues, somebody's gonna tell you about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

And so that's one it that you noticing the social cues is an example of you being culturally agile. So coming into a person's home and looking around and recognizing some things um matters. And um uh, I wasn't gonna bring it up. I think I actually forgot about it. Um, but it also culturally agile means that I recognize that that's not how everybody enters their home. And so I can't vilify you for I can't believe you did that, Robert. How could you not know? Because that's not how everybody navigates. And I have to remember that and recognize that. It also means when I go to somebody else's home, I often immediately ask, Do you want me to take my shoes off? And some people are like, Yes, please. And some people are like, Oh, don't worry about it. And I have to say, Are you sure? Because for me, I would worry about it, but are you sure? And they say, like, no, no, no, it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Um, do you actually say that? Are you sure you don't want people taking shoes off in your house? Because that's pretty gross.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

No, I don't, I didn't say that. You added that last part. I did. Yeah, are you sure? Because sometimes people are incredibly kind and are like, Yes, please take off your shoes, but I don't know how to tell you to take off your shoes. And so it's a bit of like a, are you sure I can? I'm happy to take off my shoes.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Um, that it was the second part you said because I would worry about it. It's like, I'm looking at your floor right now, and I think you should probably have people take your shoes off. That's how I heard it.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Well, no, because if it's the floor is dirty, I don't want to take off my shoes. Anyway, right. Anyways. Um and you know, sometimes some people might feel like we're talking about shoes right now on a DI podcast around being culturally agile. That's actually incredibly for in some cultures, it's really, really important to take off your shoes. And it is a huge sign of respect if you do or do not take off your shoes. And so um, it's being culturally agile is working to build our knowledge and understanding of cultures, cultural archetypes, and building our ability capacity to check in with people and to ask. Um, and I don't know that um I wonder I don't go into a lot of other people's homes, but I'm curious about the question of how do you want me to show up for you today in your home? Or, you know, are the things you want me to know about as I enter your home. Um, and that might feel like a really weird question for people, but I wonder if it will signal like, I want to respect your home the way you want me to respect your home versus how I treat homes.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Yeah, I I think you're right. People would feel awkwardly about that phrase, and it's it, I think it's a huge sign of respect. I'm coming into your space and like how like to know how you would like me to act in your space. I think that's cool. I think there's a slippery slope there to that, because uh in someone's home, that's one thing. But when we're at, like say, school or work, um, we have cultural archetypes around how I'd like you to show up. For example, we talk about professionalism at work, right? You're you're getting paid to work at this place, therefore, it is your profession. Therefore, I would like you to show up in a professional manner when you come to work. And a lot of organizations have actual codes, either the dress code or the professionalism code or standard that they want you to follow. And that can be pretty oppressive. But yes, it's cultural, right? Organizations have culture themselves, but it can also be pretty oppressive. So I wonder how does this idea of cultural agility work at work?

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, I it's a great question that I have some examples, and I'm sure you have some examples too. So I would love to hear your examples. And what if somebody came and said, I don't want to wear shoes at work?

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Like at what point? Is this in the new employee orientation? Is this in the interview? What any of them? I'm just uh this uh yeah, I think I'd like to ask why. I think that's what I'd like to. I that's the person I'd like to be to go, why why are you saying this? Why is that the case?

SPEAKER_00 17:56

I would I I what I where I thought you were going, which is not, is curiosity over certainty. Uh your why felt a little bit more a little judgy, the why. Yeah. Yes. Um, so I do think there's an opportunity to say, tell us more about why it you want to show up in this way, um, and and get some curiosity around it and and learning. And and maybe the person says, you know what, I have I don't really have terrible arches, and I haven't been able to find a shoe that works for me. And what really does work for me is to just um not wear any shoes. Um and I, you know, maybe I'm the leader and manager and say I want to honor that. And there's some things that we do have to be mindful of.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Safety Yeah, for sure, safety. And what I thought you were where I thought you were going is is not in the physical. So, yes, physical accommodations of physical needs. So my feet don't work in shoes, for example. Um, I won't be able to do work in shoes, uh, is one way to take the conversation. And then you can have a then you can be talking. Well, if you're at your desk, can you take your shoes off and be safe? Uh, when you're walking the hallways, we have a safety standard. You have to have some kind of protective uh shoe on or something like that. Where I thought you were gonna go is culturally, shoes are an impedance to what we're supposed to do in our lives. I don't I don't know what somebody might say. I I have not met anyone whose cultural archetypes don't include shoes as like a uh a part of undoing their culture. There are a lot of folks in their cultures that don't wear shoes. That's that's just not a piece of how they how they move. It's not a piece of a garment for them. That's not a useful tool, the same way it is for me. And I've never met someone who would go like to work here in the United States, here in Colorado, and go, Yeah, I don't wear shoes. Um your job, I want the job that you have, but I don't want to wear the shoes that everybody else is wearing. I haven't been in come into contact with someone like that. If that were to happen, uh I would hope we'd have that conversation at the interview process, right? Hey, um here at our organization, we wear shoes and notice that you're not wearing any. Um, is that gonna be a problem? Because we have a safety culture here that says that we need to have them, and then we've got that squared away in the interview process, and then they don't show up at the interview with shoes on and then all of a sudden don't have shoes on later, uh, you know, two or three weeks after orientation. I do like what you're saying, though, and that's a way of being that we have is curiosity over certainty. Certainty is man, this person is out of their mind not trying to wear shoes at work. Who are who are they? Who do they think they are? Where are they from? What kind of civilization? Dah da. And being well, tell me more about why that's important to you. What what is it that is bringing this up for you? And and how do you think that might impact your work here at said company is a whole other way to go about it.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

For sure. So what examples do you have around culturally being culturally agile in the workplace?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

So for me, think something I'm learning a lot about is the pace of work with regard to my cultural agility. I talk fast and I move fast, sometimes at the detriment of people that I'm working with. And I have to pay attention to that because I'm moving at that rate, not only because it's been successful for me, but also because I know we've got a lot of things to get done. And so I don't often take time to demonstrate patience, demonstrate um uh the deliberateness, uh huh to to demonstrate the deliberateness of uh an activity of a conversation. I'm moving and grooving and I want to get through this thing to get on to the next thing. Culturally. There are some folks for whom taking time and being deliberate in their practice is not only important so that they get it right or they they they are accurate in what they're doing, but then it also shows reverence and respect to the work that they're doing. Think calligraphy, think um martial arts, think any arts, as a matter of fact. Um, and there are a lot of people who do work like in information technology, where they want to take the time um and even more time than would be necessary because culturally, and even in organizational culture, it's important to do that because you want to give the respect and the effort to that particular activity. Me personally, I'm moving fast and I'm I'm pretty sure it's going to be great as I'm going through it. And not everybody moves that way. And so paying attention to, so this is one of our ways of being is reflective of self, paying attention to and reflecting on how fast I'm moving at any given time and remembering, reminding myself that not everyone moves that way that fast and can do it successfully. And in fact, it might be disrespectful for me to expect that of team members that I have who come from different cultures or come from different organizational cultures, to expect they're going to move at the rate, uh, at the pace that I move. And so we have to revisit uh as a team leader, especially. I need to revisit expectations of work and workload, expectations of speed or um efficiency and efficiency so that we're all having the same conversation. And sometimes I have to explain, like, well, the reason I'm moving this fast is because this is what's on the other end of that project, or this is what's in the other end of that goal. And that's why I want to get to it. And explaining that can be really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

What are your cultural reference points that brought you to the pace and speed at which you approach work?

SPEAKER_01 23:54

I'm a military brat. So my father, uh, shout out to my father who's in the military. He's in the in the army. Uh I thought I was gonna be in the army, you know, or some kind of military, uh, for much of my my youth. And uh much of what I learned about and loved about the army, I was even in ROTC for a while. Um, was a Boy Scout. There's some military stuff in the Boy Scouts as well. Uh, all of that, there wasn't much space for going slow to get a job done, or uh the artistry of a thing. As a matter of fact, now that you're asking me, I remember as a as a Boy Scout, uh the Derby, the wood, the soapbox racers is a wooden car that you had to build to race against others. And it was a it's a timed event, it's a speed thing. So you needed to get the thing built so that you could race it fast, speed. Um, I remember in RLTC, I was a marksman. And uh the um uh the slower you went with your firing on the on the firing line, the less likely that you were to get as many points as you needed because you had to get so many in a in a timed uh event. I can't remember, I can't remember anything that in my military life that wasn't done fast, efficiently, but quickly. And I value that. I have we have in uh in our military spaces, in our regimented spaces or uniformed spaces, even in sports, we value speed um and efficiency in speed and proficiency in our work, um, but not the kind of patience and deliberateness that you might see in the arts or um in other forms of of work. So yeah, that's that's where I would think I would get it. I'd start thinking about my experiences in those spaces in the military and programs like ROTC and even in the Boy Scouts.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Thanks for sharing that. Um so you know that about yourself, you know where it's coming from. I I think I heard you say you value that approach. Um how do you then show up for your teammates who are different? I I heard you talk about the importance of showing up for your teammates are different, but what are some tangible things that you do to be culturally agile for team members, colleagues who move in different ways?

SPEAKER_01 26:23

One for one, I just I say it out loud. I recognize that that's something that I do. And the expectation, so when I am a leader, I say the expectation is for you to do your job at this pace that um we are higher, we've hired you for, that we brought you onto the team to do. You need to do it in a way that you can be successful. So here's the goal. We're very clear about what the goals or the metrics are. You need to get to those goals or metrics by this time. How fast you get there or how you do it, um, you need to get to these measured uh measurements. And for a lot of folks, uh I have an idea as to how they might do that and might even train and onboard this is how I would do it. What I have to do, what I have to continue to do is say out loud, this is how I would do it. You need to find your own way around and in and in this work. And that might not look like how I'm doing it, uh, or how I would do it, or even how I trained you to do it. Here's the goal: can you do it your own way? I have to say that out loud a lot uh because I know because of my social identity, so I'm a six-foot, 250-pound black dude uh with a master's degree um and four decades of uh living on this earth that give me power and privilege in spaces where people are younger than me, not having the same experiences, not uh have as as many letters after their name, so on and so forth. So being aware of all those things, I have to say out loud, you don't have to do it like I do it. Here's the goal, here's what we're trying to get to. Let me know how you're what you need to be successful to get to the to the end. Uh, and being like me is not that end. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 28:07

For sure. And a lot of what you shared aligns with um what we we offer in in support of the IDI that you mentioned at the top of this podcast, that it's one, the ability to understand my own cultures, the ones that I'm a part of, my ideas, my values, my beliefs, and understand where that comes from. We've used the term cultural reference points a a few times. And so continue to explore who am I and what does that mean with how I show up with my colleagues and um in the workplace, et cetera. I heard you say being able to name that. So not only figure it out for yourself, but name it for other people where it makes sense and where it matters, continuing to learn about others, um, what matters to them, what are their values, beliefs, cultural reference points, how does that show up at work? And then third, to know what to do with that, to figure out okay, I know this about myself, I know this about my colleagues, what actions am I taking to navigate through that and mutual adaptation? We are really nearing the end of our podcast. And one thing that I I don't know that we'll have a lot of time to dig into, we won't, we don't have time to dig into today, but want to be really mindful of to think about cultural agility is around mutual adaptation. And it we have to be incredibly mindful that it doesn't spill over into cultural appropriation and be mindful that we're being cautious of cultural assimilation. Um, and um, so maybe those are the two things that we can get into our next podcast, Robert.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Leave it to Jamie to put us on a cliffhanger at the end of the episode, uh, things that we need to define that are so tantalizing and engaging to get into. Um, I think the thing that I would add to what you said though, so those of us who were just listening to you probably have to rewind um about two minutes back into the episode to get that list of things. Because what I'm gonna say is that those things are a part of a practice that you have, cultural agility, any kind of agility. So if you're thinking from a sports reference, um, physical agility comes from practice. Most of us don't just uh turn out to be able to move our hips or move our feet or move our bodies in ways that uh help us to be agile in any situation. And similarly, when interacting with different cultures or people from different cultures, we have an opportunity to be agile, but we need to practice that. And so all the things that you named on that list, Jamie, are some things that we need to put into practice on a regular basis, and it won't be perfection, it'll just be something that we were working towards. And so um, that's what I would add is that the the tangible takeaway for from our conversation is to practice the stuff we're talking about, practice the way of being culturally agile as opposed to trying to get to cultural competence, because that's not something that I think um is going to help us in the end of this work.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Awesome. And isn't that what marketers do is leave you waiting for the next, or at least most of the TV shows I watch that are part of a series. There's this like moment at the end that you're like, what?

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Sure. It's a Hollywood moment. Thank you, Jamie, for the Hollywood moment in our Beyond the Training podcast. Uh, y'all, this has been uh another fabulous conversation where we are trying to move from really good intentions to really great impact. And we know that we gotta go beyond the training to be able to do that. So this has been the Beyond the Training podcast. We appreciate you all being here and listening and sending us feedback. So send us a text, send us an email at impact at seven-focus.com or check us out on all of our social media. So that's the LinkedIn, that's the Instagram, and all those things. And you know what? If you want Jamie or myself to come out to your event and uh do a keynote or a particular session on any of our podcast topics, or maybe something that you're thinking about that you want to hear us to work on, let us know again at that email at impact at seven focus.com. We'll see you out there.