Everybody. Welcome to our session on mastering the art of cross cultural intelligence. I'd like to introduce my cos speaker and myself. I'm Nilo Mohan and my cos speaker is Anu Pakala.We are both women leaders who work at Northwestern Mutual and we work in their engineering solutions delivery within the technology function. Today, we are here to talk to you about the art of mastering cross cultural intelligence. As my coworker anu is presenting her slide.

We'll move on to the first one after this slide. And the first thing I'd like to talk about is what is cross cultural intelligence? And why is it important to you to us? Cross cultural intelligence means the ability to recognize, understand and adapt your communication, both verbal and nonverbal and behavior based on the cultural lens that you find yourself in. And specifically for this presentation, we are going to focus on that cultural lens from a business setting.

Why is this important to you in today's day and age of increasing globalization and remote work? It's inevitable that you're going to find yourself interacting with members of your work team who come from a different cultural upbringing and heritage than yours. And this is going to be universal, irrespective whether you're an individual contributor, a leader or a leader of leaders. It's important to develop language and behaviors that cross those cultural boundaries because this will help you succeed in a problem solving context over and across your regular problem solving and it is definitely correlated to business success. Now, we'll also move on to the next slide before we go into specific verbal and nonverbal behavior and communication. Let's talk about again why it's important. We spoke about globalization and we spoke about also increasing remote work, but it's also important to understand and attribute the behaviors of your coworkers appropriately. Have you ever seen a coworker who appeared standoffish but really they were struggling to speak in meetings or they might have been struggling to build relationships with senior colleagues in the organization because they came from a culture where that was taboo.

It's very important to be able to give those individual coworkers or those individuals the right tools or learning to be able to succeed in their um day to day work. And it's also important as a manager to be able to attribute that behavior and communication appropriately. Now, I would ask the attendees if you have any questions, please feel free to use the Q and A tab that you see over here and towards the end of our presentation, I and and will address your questions. But what we are going to do. Next is I'm going to actually tell you experiences that I encountered as an immigrant into the United States a couple of decades ago. And hopefully, you'll, you'll learn about my experiences. And then my colleague, Anu is going to work you through some strategies on how to really adapt cultural intelligence. So let me give you some examples of verbal communication. When I was new to this country, my first director called me and asked me to hit the ball outside the park. And after the meeting was over, I quietly went to the corner window and started looking out searching for this elusive park that everybody but me understood and knew what, where that park was. I had no clue what ball they were talking about.

Of course, it was much later that I realized it was a baseball idiom and that wasn't the only one that I got exposed to as a new immigrant, right? Sometimes I was asked to touch base. I was asked to be a pinch hitter on a project that was running late. I was asked to provide a, an estimate, a ballpark estimate and it didn't even end with baseball. It went on to football and boxing, right? Sometimes in football metaphors, I would hear of people being Monday morning quarterbacks or doing Friday night football, or sometimes I'd be asked to run interference when a project was fumbling or make sure that it hit its end goal posts and the list goes on. So you can imagine a confused and worried me when I was a new immigrant, just trying to navigate my way through all these metaphors and in terms of verbal communication, it's not just American metaphors that you worry about. If you had a colleague who comes from the other side of the Atlantic where cricket is a popular sport, they might tell you that they're on a sticky wicket, which the equivalent metaphor in baseball would be, hey, life has thrown me a curveball. If they're just encountering a difficult situation in baseball, we might say you've hit a home run and in cricket, they might tell you that you've hit a six.

But the interesting thing in the cricket metaphor is that that phrase hit the ball for a six, which is the highest score you can get by a single touch of the bat is actually used in the opposite context. So it might be used as, and you know, hey, when I heard the news of their breakup, I really felt like I'd been hit for a six. And so, even though the metaphors are similar in different sports across the Atlantic, their usage and the context and how they're used can be very different. And it's important to not just be aware of when you're using these phrases and be aware that the intent might not be crossing through to your intended audience. That's important, but it's also equally important to be aware that when they are using phrases that might be local to their specific culture, that you understand their intent and interpretation. And if not ask them for clarification, let me give you another example that will really uh bring home the importance of knowing the cultural context.

Again, in one of my earlier jobs, very early on, my uh director asked me to grandfather him in for a project when a new rule was passed. And I went to a coworker and I asked him, well, how do I contact this director's grandfather? And why is he bringing his family member into our work? My coworker just burst out laughing and he told me, no, no, no, this has nothing to do with his actual grandfather. It's just a phrase and it just means that he's asking you to give him an exception for the new rule that was just passed. And that was that or so I thought I started incorporating this phrase into my vocabulary because I was trying to fit into this country. But later on, as I started researching the origins of this phrase, I learned that it had its origins in American slavery. And after the civil war seven states in the southern part of us had enacted statutes that allowed specific voters to get an exemption to pull taxes or literacy tests if their grandfathers had voted prior to the Civil War. Well, because African Americans had not been eligible to vote before the Civil war, they obviously were not able to get these exemptions. So it was another way of just um giving, you know, allowing American slavery to continue and disenfranchising poor black voters.

When I learned the origins of this phrase, I made a conscious choice to stop using it. But I had, I didn't know I might have been offending somebody not knowing what I was saying, thinking it was just a cool phrase to use. And so hopefully this example really strikes home the importance of understanding the cultural context of your verbal communication. Now, we are going to take some examples of non verbal communication. The first one that you see on the screen here is when you bring your index finger close to your thumb. And this usually is a symbol of OK in America. But in Brazil, it's actually a very vulgar symbol. In fact, President Nixon got booed while using it in Brazil and in France and Belgium, it means to be worthless. The other example we have here is a common thumbs up or a thumbs down which commonly signifies approval or disapproval in America or Rome. But in the Middle Eastern countries, it's a crass insult. So depending on the cultural context, nonverbal communication and gestures can also have a very different meaning. Let's now talk about behaviors. And you can see on the right side of the screen, you've got specific behaviors that again vary based on your cul cultural upbringing and how you've been raised. The first one I'd like to talk about, which is very personal to me is self promotion and branding.

I grew up in a culture where I was taught to be modest and my values of humility told me that I really shouldn't be touting my personal accomplishments. However, when I came to us, it was expected, personal branding, self promotion is an expected part of your career. And in my initial performance reviews, when I was more junior, the feedback I would always get is you're doing great work, but you really need to make people aware of it. It took me a long time and a lot of coaching to learn that self promotion of personal branding was really a way of making others recognize my unique contributions that I brought to the table and also a way of controlling the perception they had of me. And so I learned to incorporate self promotion of personal branding into my behavior, but I still print internally whenever I do it. The second one and really important one is the notions of hierarchy. Certain cultures have a very well defined notion of hierarchy that is difficult to break and that you'll find that more common in the Eastern cultures as compared to the western cultures and in the Eastern cultures, if you've been taught as a child to just not speak up, and there are authority figures like your parents or teachers in your presence.

Or even bosses just do as you're told and put your head down and do work. It can be very difficult to change that ingrained behavior when you move to a culture where the notion of hierarchy is less hierarchy is less ingrained, right? And then you're actually expected to not just build relationships with senior colleagues or senior leaders, but also to voice your opinion and talk to them freely when they're at the table. And so how do you give individuals who have been raised in a more hierarchical culture, the tools and learning to be able to appropriately make the change and affect the change in their behavior. So they can go on to have a successful career in a less hierarchical culture. The third behavioral aspect I'd like to talk about is this construct of personal space. Have you ever noticed that how far you stand from someone is a direct notion of their cultural upbringing? I come from India and it's a highly populated country, right? We just surpassed China to be the most populated nation in the world. And so there's not that notion of personal space and social situations, you know, it's perfectly ok to brush by other people to touch other people as you're walking by. But there's a but there is a notion of a personal space when you are interacting with individuals of the opposite gender. And then there is an invisible personal space that comes into play.

So the interesting anecdote I have here is when I came to America in the initial days and, you know, colleagues or acquaintances would go and give me a hug in the hallway. If they hadn't seen me for many days that felt so foreign to me, it felt like my personal space was being violated. Of course, now I give first I give hugs to people all the time. So that just shows you my journey of maturing and being culturally acclimatized to this country. The other thing that I, you know, have to learn in America was just leaving that personal space and walking by people. And sometimes people would tell me, excuse me, even though I wasn't touching them. And it took me some time to recognize that there's this invisible personal space that I need to keep track of and not invading. Let's talk about the fourth behavior which is direct feedback or indirect feedback. Have you ever noticed that there's people who will give you to the point succinct feedback. Exactly. You'll, you'll get to hear exactly what they mean to say. But then there's other people who will talk in really flowery language, they will hint at what they mean, but they'll be very passive about it and you'll never get to hear directly what they really want to say. You'll have to guess or interpret it.

And again, I found that's a function of cultural upbringing. You know, some cultures, they're just taught to be nice. Right? Even if you didn't like something or you want to give someone direct feedback, which might actually help them in their coaching in some cultures. That's a complete.

No, no, you just hint at it and you hope the other person could interpret what you're trying to say. Let's talk about time and how time is viewed as linear or cyclical across different cultures, especially in Eastern cultures, time is more cyclical. But in western cultures, time is very linear, there's deadlines, there's milestones. And so imagine the situation you're working for a global company and you send an email to a colleague who's half across the world expecting you to get a response in a day. And when you don't get a response for a day, even two days, you might start questioning the work ethic of this colleague thinking that they're just not paying attention to their work. On the other hand, this colleague lives in a culture where time is cyclical and they need to manage time with other competing priorities. And in this colleague's mind, it might be more important to maintain harmony and get consensus amongst a group of stakeholders before they respond to your email. So while you might be thinking that this colleague has a poor work ethic, they might actually be trying to get consensus on their side of the fence with other colleagues before they send you a consolidated response.

And this can lead to, you know, as you can imagine misinterpretations and poor problem solving across the different cultures unless you had a very good understanding of how the cultural lens plays in here. So hopefully these examples, both for verbal communication and non verbal communication and behaviors that you've now learned are different based on different cultures. Have opened your eyes on how important it is to master the art of cultural intelligence. I'm now going to turn this over to my colleague, Anu Pakala who will walk you through some strategies to grow and adapt your cultural based on situations. And again, I'd say if you have any questions, please feel free to post them in the Q and A tab. Also, we'd love to hear your comments as you're going through this presentation. If there are questions, we'll try to address them in the last few minutes of our presentation. Now, back now to you an

No, thank you, Needham. Uh I hope uh you know, many of you got to check a lot of some of the uh examples Needham Needham shared. You know, that's what happens uh when we're going through it, it's very confusing. But when you look back, some of these uh are definitely uh cause for some laughter here. Um So now that Neelam has uh shared some of those situations which made us feel like we couldn't connect as closely with our coworkers as we would like uh where I want to. Now take this uh topic is what did we do with that situation? How did we uh adapt and what are some tips that uh you know, we wanna share? And then also, uh as Nina mentioned, hear from you uh through chat or uh later on as to whether any of these resonated with you or if you have additional tips. Uh So with anything, uh you know, it starts with an awareness of we were feeling a certain way like we couldn't integrate. So hav having that awareness. Then the next thing is what do we want to do about it? Uh Do we care enough, you know, to do something about it for Neelam?

And I, we felt like uh we needed those deeper connections with the people we're working uh because it needs us to uh better engagement, better motivation and more important than anything just makes us feel better. So here's a, here are some tips that uh we tried. So the first one is uh being vulnerable. Uh when you let your coworkers know that you didn't understand something or you don't know about a certain topic, they're more than willing to help you. Many years ago. Uh There was a project that uh we completed successfully and the team was uh planning a celebration. So they were thinking about going to a place which has a really good beer. Um So I shared that I don't drink beer and then they said, uh, well, we'll take you to, to a place which has really good beer as well as really good root beer. So I was a little puzzled but I went along with it. And then, uh, later during the course of that evening I realized that, uh, root beer is actually not a beer and a root beer float is ice cream. Floating on top of that root beer. I had a great time. I learned something new if I had not shared my uh you know, the fact that I didn't like beer, uh I may just have decided not to go that evening and I would have missed that whole experience.

So many such examples where, you know, we can share when we feel like uh it's something that, you know, we're not familiar with or that we don't understand. Uh The second tip is uh being curious uh being observant and adaptive and adaptable. Uh When we talk, talk about the concept of uh growth mindset. Um It's all about that learning uh versus knowing. And I think that's the same concept we can bring to cultural intelligence when we are in situations where, uh you know, there's a pattern of behavior where certain teams discuss certain topics like before or after the meeting. Uh We can choose to uh have the attitude or the outlook of while they're just wasting time and they're talking about things that I don't know anything about. So I will zoom off uh or we can take it as an opportunity to actually learn something new when we do that. Uh you know, it's a way for us to expand our own horizons as well. Uh This also leads to the next step which is uh the informal chatter uh before the pandemic. Uh There were a lot of certain uh lot many subit situations where, you know, you had the meeting before the meeting and then the meeting after the meeting.

And typically there's a pattern to those conversations. Um In the beginning, I would not partake much of those conversations. I would just uh kind of be a bystander. Uh Later I realized that, you know, that also then sets a pattern where even if the others want to include you in certain conversations, they, they may think that, you know, you, you don't want to be disturbed so they don't make an effort. Uh You haven't made an effort for some time. So then you don't want to try something new. Uh And the pattern continues. So it's almost like you have to force yourself to be a little uncomfortable and uh get into those conversations. So that over time, uh you become more comfortable and the discomfort goes away. Now, the most important tip that uh Neil and I wanna share is that uh it's really about finding commonalities despite our uh differences in background. Uh Finally, we all have those human experiences of ups and downs and when we lead into those, uh and connect to other people through those commonalities. Some of these differences that seem so challenging are not, those are not challenging anymore. So now where um we wanna take this topic too is that, uh you know, the first half we discussed about situations where maybe we were feeling a little left out and what are some things that we did to integrate that now where we want to take the topic too is that we also have a role to play in creating that inclusive environment.

So just like we have situations where uh we may have felt left out, we may also be in situations where we are the people who know the topic or we are the people who have others. Uh And we have something in common and there may be a few others who don't. So it's also upon us to now make sure that we are not contributing to making uh others excluded. So some of the same things that we talked about in terms of integration are also the things that we also need to watch out for when we are trying to create that inclusive environment. So as an example, being observant, so if you have uh you know, teams where certain people are, uh you know, talk more and then there are certain people who talk less uh being observant of that and then maybe drawing out some of those less uh communicative folks. So by just asking them, hey, what do you think, or asking them to lead a discussion or maybe having a one on one of them so that you can draw them out a little bit more and make sure that they are not feeling excluded. The second is uh uh kind of uh complimentary to the growth mindset where uh there we were talking about how we can look, uh look for opportunities to learn similarly. We can also look for opportunities to educate.

Um So I have many themes where a pattern that I see is that um you know, there are a lot of uh young men and they're talking about uh video games as an example, just as uh you know, team uh team boarding. And then there may, there may be a few female engineers who um you know, they're not into video games. So it's one of the topics that they do not know much about. So typically, what happens is uh some of these people are not involved in those uh in those bantering or uh you know, before the meeting start uh chats. Uh So in those situations, what I advise my uh team members to do is that you can still bring some of those other people along by a simple thing, like explaining what the video game is about, how do you win it, you know, saying, OK, you know, I'm doing, I did really well. So that the next time uh those other team members at least have a lead in or an avenue to ask a question. How did the game go or um you know, just having some um way of inclusion inc including a, a uh making them inclusive. Uh The next step is something which is uh so simple but yet so powerful, which is the uh team building opportunities. Uh many years ago. Uh This is almost a decade ago.

Uh India was in the World Cup cricket final and it was a Monday and we were all really distracted. Um So one of the managers noticed that and he actually created a viewing party for us. Uh We had a great time and then a week later, we went and uh watched a baseball game and then discussed the differences and it was one of the best team experiences uh we ever had. So looking for ways to create those uh opportunities to interact informally uh outside of work is a great way to create that uh inclusive environment. Lastly, which is what we're doing here is uh sharing our learnings with each other so that we can uh piggyback on that and then uh start reading that. So now we come to the key takeaways. Um So if you're feeling, uh and we're just going to wrap up

because we are over time. So I know we'll just wrap up with the key takeaways.

So if we are uh if you are feeling alone or lost, then uh you know, our takeaway is that you're not alone, but at the same time, you do have to make an effort. Uh It is also upon each of us to create that inclusive environment. And lastly, and most importantly, if there's only one thing to take away it is connecting us humans because that makes it all so much simpler. So with that, uh here are some of uh if you're interested, here are some of the references that also talk about this topic and our uh linkedin profiles. Um And then I see uh we have some. All right, I think we are done then. Thank you all. Thank you all.