Managing multicultural teams

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hello good afternoon thank you for joining us my name is charlotte chadeville i'm the senior project and program manager at
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cipd in the middle east and i'm delighted to be your host today um recently the cikde issued a report on
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managing multicultural teams which looked at the dynamics and the challenges and opportunities of
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managing across cultures um focusing on groups across ireland the uk but also the middle east and asia
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um in some regions it seems that we all do it and we do it naturally but does it mean that we get it right
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what are the opportunities of having diverse teams um and how can we get better at it and take
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the opportunity that we have in the context of today to reinvent the ways in which we work these are some of the questions
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that we'll be asking my panel today i'm delighted to be joined by um
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barry lumpkins who's a vp leadership and talent development at dp world base in dubai in the uae just like me
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jake young our research associate at cipd who let on lead on this specific piece of research joining us from london as well as asif
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static senior vice president and head of equity and inclusion international at warner media i will let each of them
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introduce themselves in more details um so thank you everybody for joining us um we do you care to give a few words on
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the how you relate to this topic definitely thank you and uh hi everyone
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um so uh as mentioned i i currently head up um
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equity and inclusion for warner media um wanna media international uh but also
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have worked in the global space uh over a number of years at ey
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at adidas and so on and i think that's why for me this is this is such
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an important topic just understanding uh the importance of working in a global environment in multicultural teams
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at the impact of that and how to create true inclusion within that environment to to to to to
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really succeed and create a sense of belonging for each and every individual
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the diverse the difference between diversity and inclusion is one that we'll explore very shortly thank you asaph and jake a few words
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about this uh about yourself i know you'll be the first one to start anyways yeah of course thank you charlotte um
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yeah so i'm um jake young i'm in the research team at copd um i've worked on several projects over the last
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couple of years um on inclusion and diversity um things like um we did a really important
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project looking at um what works in diversity management a couple of years ago um with
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um colleagues in the research team um but yeah that's mainly mainly for this um for this webinar as charlotte said um
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i wrote the um the report on managing multicultural teams um which combined uh important
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literature with um focus groups um with managers of multicultural teams and um
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came up with some really interesting and important findings so uh in in a few minutes i'll be going
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over those in a bit more detail great thank you jake and finally uh michael lee berry
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hi barry hi charlotte it's great to be here with yourself uh jake and aasif um in so my name is
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barry lumpkins i am currently i'm the uh global head of learning leadership and
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and talent at dp world awards largest port operator as i was uh just kind of reflecting a
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little bit uh leading into this webinar i i i actually have a lot of connection points with
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with this topic i mean i'm myself a dual national i've been both been a part of teams that
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stretch across the globe but i've also managed teams across a number of different countries and i've
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been lucky enough although i'm i'm dying to travel like i think many of you but pre-covet i managed largely due to
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business travel i visited 48 countries actually counted them yesterday i hadn't done that before so uh um
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i'm uh this is something i'm really passionate about and really looking forward to dive deeper
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amazing thank you very 48 countries and just great right now all right before we get started i wanted
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to give you a few housekeeping remarks um so for those of you joining us if you can't hear please try to
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help and support 24 7 and 365 days a year all right that was
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my plug now let's dive into today's topic and to get started i'd like to invite you jake
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to tell us a little bit more about the findings of this report what kind of struck out to you the most
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um and and what did we learn about multicultural teams from this research
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yeah perfect thanks charlotte um and welcome everybody to um hopefully people joining from all
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over the place um so yeah as i said i'll be i'll be giving a brief overview um of this report which looked
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closely at the challenges and opportunities for managers of multicultural teams
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um so if we could go to the next slide please thank you um so to get to give a bit of context on
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um why this research comes at such an important and relevant time um we should first say that
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multicultural teams have seen long-term growth um as a result of things like globalization
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and greater workforce diversity and migration and so the prevalence of teams working
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globally has been steadily growing for a number of years but over 19 pandemic um over the last year
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and a half um organizations have been forced to massively change um change their ways of working um and
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so as we look ahead to homeworking which looks set to continue in the
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future um multicultural teams are only likely to become more and more common
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um and so what's likely to happen is that the spotlight on managers of these teams um who face
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key challenges um in helping not only the teams but their organizations to really thrive is is likely to become
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brighter um and so as we look to see a way out of the pandemic
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it's really it's really important that organizations know how to manage these teams really effectively so moving on to the next
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slide um we wanted to take an evidence-based approach to this research as we do
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with a lot of our research um so what this means is engaging with the best available
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evidence in order to make the most effective decisions and lead to the most positive outcomes so
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this means relying less on things like personal experiences on things like anecdotes
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um sources that on their own may not be trustworthy and so instead evidence-based hr uh
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looked specifically at four sources um so these are scientific literature um professional expertise
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stakeholder concerns and internal people data and on to the next slide um so we looked
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particularly at two of these so scientific literature and practitioner expertise
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um so this was a kind of two approaches to the research the first which was a thematic review of literature on multi
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multicultural teams um so looking at how they're defined and their benefits and their challenges
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and then we conducted online focus groups with managers from three different global
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regions so we had a group in the uk um a group in the middle east and a greece group in asia pacific pacific um
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and we use these focused groups um to identify their challenges um and really highlight the skills that
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they feel are important um to work effectively in a culturally diverse environment and just a little bit more
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on evidence-based practice um if we move on yet thank you it's a really clear process as you can see
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from the graphic and it just helps us ask really practical questions and come to
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effective decisions um so in if we go to the next slide
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um in terms of this um this report then what we wanted to
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focus on was firstly defining multicultural teams but then exploring the unique benefits and challenges that
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they can face um and then we also looked at the idea of cultural intelligence in leaders
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which can be really important and then finally for a kind of covid um
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spin not been a covered perspective on things and we looked at how the pandemics effectively affected these teams in
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really unique ways and so on to the next slide um we looked at uh what multicultural
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teams actually are so um really important to define this and kind of get a clear sense of how we understand
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this um so research evidence and manager insights um frame multicultural teams as those
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whose members share a variety of values and attitudes not only as a result of demographics
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but as a result also of their experiences so evidence suggests that cultural
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diversity can affect teams in three different ways um so first people may be attracted to
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those who they find similar to themselves in terms of values and beliefs um second people
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can categorize themselves into groups and categorize others as outsiders and are likely to be
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more favorable to those who are inside their group and then finally a more kind of positive um take on
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cultural diversity that we focus on a bit more closely um is the idea that um cultural diversity
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is an opportunity rather than a barrier um and something that can bring much
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more varied contributions to teams and unique perspectives um so in our focus groups
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um middle east and asia pacific respondents were particularly aware of multiculturalism in their teams um
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where cultural uh cultural culturally diverse staff are the norm and it's something that's
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encouraged in those regions more than the uk um and managers also highlighted
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sensitivity and empathy as really key things to creating trust and supportive environments
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for culturally diverse staff so if we move on so we identified two key areas in which
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there are challenges to overcome and opportunities to be granted if managers are able to unlock the
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potential of their culturally diverse teams so the first is creativity so moving to the next slide
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um culturally diverse teams are more creative um so especially those with
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diversity so that's um not simply things like different ethnicities
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and nationalities but diversity of attitudes and values uh
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towards culture um and what we found that was um these
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teams benefit both in a professional sense and a personal sense um so thinking professionally um teams
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with cultural diversity are able to view themselves um their products um and their customers
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from loads of different view loads of kind of different viewpoints um so this allows them to produce um really
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unique and creative services for a variety of stakeholders and then on a more personal level um
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simply learning more more about each other as people so our managers highlighted things like traditions um
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things like food and humor um for example um these really encourage
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staff to draw on the unique perspectives of their colleagues um in order to do
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things like innovate and approach problem solving in different ways
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so if we move on again please so the biggest challenge that comes
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to these teams is in the form of language barriers um which present a real challenge to
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effective communication um so they they can reduce um people's levels of trust um in each
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other and their expectations of successful work um they can cause anxiety to those who
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aren't um especially proficient in the shared language and they do sometimes lead called code switching where um
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people switch to their native language away from the shared language um so what's really important is um
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sensitive managers who firstly raise awareness of these barriers um
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and then do things like highlighting the achievements of staff beyond their language proficiency um
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and then also doing things like listening attentively for cultural nuances of communication
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and all of these things combined um help create an environment in which staff can communicate openly and without
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fear of judgment so what kind of became um
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what was kind of notable from our discussions with managers was that creating an environment in
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which diversity and different unique contributions are valued can be more
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important than one that has perfect communicators
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um so if we look on the next slide thank you so thinking about cultural intelligence
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so this is this is kind of about the ability to successfully interact among diverse
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cultures um and it is something that can be developed through things like perspective taking so walking in
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somebody else's shoes trying to kind of empathize um with their circumstances
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um and suspending judgments about others and it's been linked to things
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like enhanced performance greater job satisfaction and knowledge sharing among staff and so managers really need to
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show cultural intelligence and they can do this by being aware of and sensitive to
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cultural diversity and suspending judgment about others until they have enough information about
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them um so one recommendation is to consider a flexible approach to
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managing different people from different cultures and kind of taking a real genuine interest in them
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and their experiences and changing the approach kind of management approach depending on
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the different circumstances of staff um so on to the next slide
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if we the final thing that we focused on then um is um thinking about the pandemic and um
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the rapid increase in homework as i mentioned earlier um so we found that multicultural
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virtual teams have faced some challenges um similar to face-to-face teams but also some that
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are unique um so firstly um geographically dispersed
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multicultural teams also see a boost in creativity in kind of similar ways to static teams
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so where there are kind of unique and varied perspectives being considered
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um however one unique challenge they face um is maintaining a healthy work-life
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balance and communicating effectively while working in different time zones
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so managers here are really important to be aware of the best time intervals time intervals
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sorry for team members to meet not only to ensure effective collaboration
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and teamwork um but to reduce the likelihood of employees working outside their usual
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hours and we also found that something really important and kind of
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everyone's been talking about it but simply bringing the team together for things like catch-ups um
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meetings hangouts those kind of things really brings the team together it keeps everybody involved and engaged
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and then if we go to the next slide please um so in terms of key takeaways then um
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we kind of have three three main areas here so there's overcoming language barriers showing cultural intelligence um and
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making the most of virtual working um so in terms of overcoming language
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barriers then as i mentioned earlier raising awareness of these language barriers in team meetings to ensure that
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everybody understands instructions and tasks and does doesn't feel hesitant to contribute is really important
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um also speaking to people who um do um code switch or change into their
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native language um to kind of um understand why they do this and what can be done to promote
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more effective open communication across language barriers um rather than expecting flawless
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um communication can be really important um as i said highlighting
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um highlighting the achievements of staff beyond their language proficiency can kind of help their colleagues
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recognize what they do besides that and then if we look at
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showing cultural intelligence so managers should show sensitivity not
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to not only to employees demographic diff to their values and their experiences
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and their attitudes um managers should also encourage
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employees to seek these attitudes out and use the different perspectives of others
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not only to enhance team decision making things like that but to learn more about each other
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become more rounded kind of get to know each other on a more personal and professional level
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and then finally in terms of virtual working um encouraging the use of things like
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video calling or what's called rich media where possible would be really useful um so because
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this allows staff to share feedback and resolve differences quickly um
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also thinking about um the best as i said the best timing tools for team members to meet
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getting to know the communication preferences of your staff can be really important so some may feel more comfortable
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communicating in certain ways such as over email and being flexible to their desires will
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help boost their confidence in communicating and then finally as i mentioned
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regularly bringing the team together being creative with this so as well as
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work meetings and project updates things like that creating kind of team games social
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sessions um sort of tasks that people can do together just provides that opportunity to touch base
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and allows the team to provide support for each other as well
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so on to the penultimate slide i think it is um just a few resources here um if
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anybody wants to look uh more closely at this you've got the link to the full report here um that was well i tried to be quite
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brief i'm not sure how brief i was um but there's a lot more information in there um we've got a
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culture and culture change fact sheet um and also as i mentioned earlier there's a report
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that we looked in which we looked at diversity management that works
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so just just a few more resources there to look at if anybody's interested um and yeah i think that's all from me
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so thank you for letting me quickly give that overview sorry if i was a long time i
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couldn't quite tell um but i tried to try to get through quite quickly no it's a it's perfect thank you so much
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jake for taking us through the through the through the findings of this report great to great thought for
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discussion so there's quite a bit to unpack and we'll try to bring as much context and practice as we can
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and for those who want the resources we'll link them back at the end and uh in a in the chat so my first question
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to uh to you assif and barry what exactly do we mean by managing
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multicultural teams how does it impact your work as an hr as managing diverse teams
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and perhaps i'm interested in hearing the similarities all differences between the middle east
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europe the different versions that you've worked in in terms of the makeup of your team
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um but also trends that you've that you've noticed uh asif over to you first perhaps yeah
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sure thank you thank you and um thank you jake for the presentation as well which which was very informative
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um i think the first thing to acknowledge uh uh yes there's differences in the
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different sort of continents and countries and so on um but i think one of the difficulties that
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arises in this space is where we assume that the right way is the dominant cultures way or the dominant
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markets way and what i mean by that is if a company is headquartered or in a dominant country or environment so
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let's say the uk or new york and so on then the view is that yes we're very multicultural but the culture in the uk
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is the best right and that's the one you have to adhere to i think that piece needs to be addressed
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so when we're looking and thinking about multicultural teams even if you're based in your head office doesn't mean that that culture is
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the dominant culture so you have to reflect on the on the different markets and the different cultures
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and it's about that sort of meeting in the middle rather than okay we value multiculturalism but actually what
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you're going to do is you're going to join our meetings and behave the way we do and and come
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or fit into the cultural norms that we're used to that doesn't mean it's a multicultural environment it just means
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that you are replicating your culture into other countries and assuming that they will sign on um and and i think those are
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those really really important areas and also understanding what different things mean to different people and jake touched on this
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but why what's right in one location what's right in one way of thinking or doing things in a certain way
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isn't necessarily the same in another another market and that's important to acknowledge and
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the the final bit and then i'll pass it over to barry is um the piece around uh language and and
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language comes out quite a lot um i i must highlight this because the amount of times i've heard this
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over my 20 odd years of doing this is unbelievable but english is a language it is not a test
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of intelligence it is nothing beyond the language the problem is we we we classify how well we're working
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in a multicultural team or an international team based on or that person is really good why
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they're good are the english is good or that person's not good because the english is not good it's a
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language so and i think we need to get over that barrier because what that does is they actually automatically creates uh
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insider outside the group and also uh this is sort of throwing big words into
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um i mean i see powerpoints coming out from uh main markets and and i'm like why
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like it's a simple why not just call it diversity why the three paragraphs talking about everything but diversity to describe
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diversity because when you start translating that into other languages or trying to explain it we're over complicating something um so
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those those are some of the key points i think are really important but the language piece is one of my my personal frustrations
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that's that's really interesting and i i'll i'll be interested to hear your view very because um in the middle east in dubai uh
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english is almost nobody's language and yet it's a language in which you work we work i'm french um very i think uh
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you're half swedish half american yeah well i'm i'm a dual national swedish american yeah
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interesting combination
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and what would you like to say in comparison to assets point and we'll pick up on the language shortly
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because i think that's an interesting one well a couple of things i mean one i just i couldn't agree with asking more
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on everything and you know i've been i've been lucky enough for some great global organizations
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and to assets point where those organizations grew up even though they
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have a footprint all over the globe the the sort of the headquarters the national culture where the group
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in my case denmark germany it really sort of permeates through the
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company uh it's kind of that national culture really drives kind of the way things with the way uh people do things so
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that's one um on the on the language piece i just wanted to say one
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thing it just struck me you know in i had an experience many years ago
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in in a company where every this was probably 10 years ago where every friday
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morning there was this kind of departmental breakfast and a few of us in the department didn't speak the local
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language in this case it was uh for some reason of the function
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insisted on speaking danish for those breakfasts which kind of was a was a
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sort of push some of us out that didn't speak that much that that has kind of stuck with me and then this just reminded me of that
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this whole thing around the indian crowd outgrounded the power of you know excluding people because of
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language yeah the thing that keeps coming up is the idea of inclusion exclusion and a
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lot of what we talked about when we talked about managing multicultural teams and defining that um jake showed are not exactly just
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specific to cultural diversity are they um a lot could could be could be true of after
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different races of religions of neurodiversity of gender diversity um i know both of you have a vested
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interest in diversity and inclusion as if is do you manage cultural diversity in a
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different way than you manage other types of diversity or do you think it should be
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yeah so i think it's really important to um i mean the cultural diversity piece intersects
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with different elements of diversity and i think the challenge is that we we have a tendency to to group people into
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boxes because we're good at boxes right so you choose a box based on your visible diversity
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and then it's assigned to you for the rest of your life with your needs and what your development needs are and how we're going to progress you and so on
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the truth is intersectionality means there's more layers to one person right firstly but secondly a person's interpretation
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of some of their diversity elements whether it be gender sexual orientation religion disability
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is interwined into culture so unless you get the cultural element of that you are making assumptions
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on someone's needs based on you know whatever wikipedia says or you know any other platform so we need to get beyond
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uh sort of traditional matrix and actually start exploring what the intersect is and where does
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what does that unique identity mean i mean in the middle east i mean it's interesting one of the things um
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uh that always comes up is for example uh ramadan or you know the month of fasting and so on globally
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companies tend to do this sort of and i've worked for numerous companies who've done this they send out this sort of
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you know fly into line managers and so on say hey all your staff you know will be fasting your muslim staff will be fasting and
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here's 10 things you can do for them and i'm like how do those 10 things globally relate to every single person
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what we should be saying is actually they might and i say might because not every muslim fasts
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and that's fine um but there might be some people this month coming up explore have conversations be human
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speak to people rather than here here's a ten point checklist that you sit there with your staff and tick off
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because it's not the same some people might want to leave early some people might want to start later some people might want flexibility some
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people might not want anything they might just want to get on with it without you interfering in their business so but it's that unique cultural
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perspective around their religion that might be important to them so so it's really important that we go beyond
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traditional uh matrix i agree it's what you were talking about going beyond these assumptions and and not
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necessarily trying to to put people into boxes or tell them what to think um i have a i want to pick back up on the
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question of culture organizational culture which is the first thing that youtube wrought um not not not necessarily assuming that
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the culture of the company has to do with wherever you are or that it is a culture of the dominant
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country neither that it is the right one to follow um someone
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bridget is asking us how in your experience um and i'll ask this to you barry in
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your experience how do you ensure that the culture the organization culture that you create
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isn't necessarily that of the dominant country and that you make space and room for your own organizational
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identity but also for those nuances and for um your leaders to adapt whether
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you're working across africa or europe the middle east well this is a as you know charlotte
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this is a real uh topic i'm quite passionate about um it it's uh it's not easy particularly as
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organizations uh as organizations grow but i i think that
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one way to think about it is is is to think about culture at least one way to think about it is to
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think about being through the analogy of personality so your organization's culture one way
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to think about it is it's it's what most of the people most people think feel and do most of the time uh
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and if you think about it that way the way that you sort of can shape culture it it's
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there's all sorts of ways it's when you bring people in i i've tried to encourage people to stop
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talking about culture fit when we're recruiting and talking about culture ads so what person adding to the culture as opposed
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sort of like will they fit in and can we make them you know fit in into what we we already have and so what are they
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adding to the culture um and then of course you know all these other levers you can pull on like when you when you communicate a new
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policy when you when you what's your stance on you know remote working which is a very relevant topic
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the way that you communicate that to your people how are they going to think feel and behave based upon on
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those decisions so that's just one way to think about shaping culture um yeah i i'm sorry charlotte i just want
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to go back and comment on something as if said and um this building on what he said
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around um thinking about just this multicultural teams through the to
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the lens of let's say a passport you know what their nationality is and putting people in boxes i mean i couldn't agree with them
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more i think that my experience in working across so many different
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uh countries is that you know you can memorize and look at all these do's and don'ts lists you know this is
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this is the way uh people behave here and this is the way they show up for work i mean i can tell you that
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i work for one of the biggest uh organizations in the world that happens to be german
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and i met plenty of germans that weren't punctual despite the fact if you look at these lists you see oh all germans are
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always on time and everything's very structured so i think it's uh it's it's better to look at people through kind of this
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uh look at think about their perspective their experience etc rather than just
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labeling them with stereotypes based on the passport that's a great point that um
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it sounds obvious right we want to to want to avoid stereotypes and generalizations
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at the same time when you're inducing somebody you're sending somebody to a new assignment in a new continent on
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your country you're giving them some form of a guideline right the do's and don'ts um and particularly i'm thinking of you
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know whether you've got africa asia or cultures that is totally different from yours you'll kind of give them some full
33:13
guideline that's helpful at the same time could would you say that if i said well
33:20
hierarchy you know be mindful of hierarchy when working in asia because the way in which they see bosses is very different if you adopt a coaching style
33:27
you might be seen as you're not being authoritative or knowledgeable enough would you say that giving this type of guideline is then stereotype thing is it
33:34
helpful is it not i would say proceed with caution
33:39
assume nothing and just be curious but the the best the best help for
33:46
example my fur this is my second time in the middle east and my first time i simply adopted a colleague
33:53
from here that helped me you know understand about the local nuances and i sort of use that person as a
33:59
as kind of a an onboarding buddy for the region i guess you could say but i think it's all about being curious
34:05
being genuinely curious and listening uh as opposed to taking these sort of
34:11
you know stereotype lists too literally yeah i agree um as of you also obviously
34:19
have a huge remit internationally you've worked for some of the biggest names in the uk and known
34:24
internationally as well um in your experience what have been some of the biggest
34:29
challenges of working across cultures um and and perhaps some of us also some
34:36
other of the biggest opportunities that yeah kind of what you've learned over the course of your career so far
34:46
as if if you're speaking you're on mute sorry uh i think the biggest i knew i
34:52
was going to do that at least once um but uh the biggest challenges i think
34:57
have been uh the point i mentioned around the perception that someone's not good and not doing a good job
35:04
because they're not aligning to our way of thinking um and then rather than educating or
35:09
working and finding a good working way or working way forward the assumption is
35:15
that the the individual or group must adapt to us uh however on the piece of advantage i think the biggest advantage
35:22
or biggest way that we've we've benefited from global teams is cultural insights
35:28
you can't get better than cultural insights you know i still remember um we were and i say cultural insights in every way
35:34
right you can utilize your staff to gain new momentum in markets or financial gain
35:40
to to gain better ideas more innovation all the great things that diversity and inclusion do
35:45
we recent well when i was adidas we opened our store in dubai uh the big store
35:51
and it was interesting that we were trying to do the the ad and marketing campaigns around that and um initially it was a team in the us
35:58
that was looking at it and looking at it from the u.s perspective uh but then we involved some of our
36:04
some of our local staff around like hey can we can we you know use a camel in one of our marketing campaigns and put
36:10
three stripes on a camel or can we use the teapot and put three stripes and things like that and we got some reassurance where there was
36:16
interestingly hesitation from our us teams to appropriate culture that didn't
36:22
belong to them and be seen as doing it in the wrong way but we worked with the with our staff on the ground we
36:28
worked with the dubai chamber of commerce and so on to try to really understand what can we do authentically so if we
36:36
are appropriate in culture we do it authentically but benefits organization and it had huge benefits for us because we
36:42
were then producing uh products or you know campaigns that truly captured
36:48
and engaged with with the local markets similar i remember a couple of years back
36:54
and i'm only referencing the the the the middle east because this this example in particular is linked to
36:59
it but bmw did a campaign uh uh ad campaign uh during a couple of
37:05
years back during ramadan and they based it on two brothers making up and coming together over that period
37:11
of time and it was one of the most successful campaigns because they utilized local knowledge culture
37:17
understanding of something that was important from a religious perspective to run a campaign around it now that
37:22
campaign could have been different and i've again seen big companies like uh uh interesting now speaking some
37:30
companies in africa the other day around cars and what they said was range rover
37:35
hadn't in the past done a good job in africa because what they would do is they would pitch a range rover with a
37:41
middle class white family flat cap in a farm in middle england and and try to sell to africa and people
37:47
in africa were like we have our own identity so we want to see what range rover looks like to an african identity
37:54
not to this so it benefits a business in a lot of ways and we can embrace it and neutral but to do that you have to
38:00
increase your teams internally to really get those insights to give the new voice to give give people
38:05
you know to let people challenge you and disrupt the patterns and the the ways of thinking that we
38:11
currently have yeah well um that links absolutely to
38:18
the broader diversity inclusion belonging equity agenda um i mean i think the example that just
38:25
gave to us in africa and i think you saw my face thinking oh my god what are these companies thinking but it's true of
38:31
any company trying to tap into any market i mean um we know that black americans in the us
38:37
are worth over a trillion billion a trillion dollars of in terms of market share but how do you tap into
38:43
the market if they're not represented in your leadership teams and you don't use those insights similarly with gender diversity and all
38:49
types of visitors i think it's really really important to to to remember who we are serving and try to
38:55
um to to to serve to serve them products that that they want
39:01
um barry sorry i was just saying on that point though one of the interesting things as well is
39:07
just because i remembered something as you were speaking was even when we're talking about communities how they differ
39:14
culturally by country to countries so important so you know with some of the the importance of some of the campaigns in america with the black community
39:20
really relevant but if you're trying to target the black community in europe the same campaign cannot work because
39:26
the history you know everything is completely different and the same with the black community in africa so it's just understanding that piece
39:33
and and goes back to our initial point that it's beyond the traditional sort of boxes that we've created and truly understanding the
39:40
cultural differences yeah yeah absolutely so no absolutely and you're right to me that was obvious
39:45
it was obvious but it perhaps isn't everybody so really making sure that you are also
39:52
linked and integrated with the culture as well with the countries or regions or communities that you serve
39:57
um be that be them wherever they may be um i'm quite interested so we've talked
40:02
about uh the advantage of getting cultural insights um and it's linked to productivity
40:08
innovation and the bottom line which is always the biggest argument for dni but one that i feel hasn't been hard enough yet um
40:16
recently we've we've heard i think overall diversity equation and belonging has gotten a lot of press thanks to
40:22
recent movements uh and perhaps a bigger bigger attention even though we're not there yet
40:29
um where do you start and i'm thinking many organizations have just recently
40:35
started this inclusion journey which you've been on both of you for so many years where do you start when you are seeking
40:43
to create an inclusive environment whether for multicultural teams or just
40:48
diverse teams in general are there any examples of initiatives or approaches that have
40:55
worked for you for let's say fairly immature companies and i know perhaps as if you read the telegraph before but
41:02
um barry what would you say to well i i would say
41:07
sorry it's a bit of background noise charlotte this is the new way of working um i would say it really starts with it
41:13
it's kind of a buzzword and has been for some a number of years but it starts with psychological safety
41:19
and and what's interesting and i think most everyone on the call will be familiar with this concept of
41:25
creating a creating an environment where everyone can show up as their true authentic selves
41:30
and the interesting thing is that when you look at at kind of the the tenants around this i
41:36
mean there's four five six things that leaders can do to really drive psychological safety and it costs
41:43
nothing it actually costs nothing it's not like it's some sort of big investment or
41:49
um so i think it i think that's the starting point but of course it's much easier said than done
41:57
isn't everything
42:04
sorry yeah i thought that as if we're saying something that no i couldn't no i was just gonna add i
42:09
mean i i couldn't agree with barry moore around the psychological safety piece and uh exploring difference i i think also
42:16
for companies uh what one of the things we we tend to do is predict find people's learning diversity and
42:22
inclusion which is my new uh uh challenge to companies at the moment right so this predefined
42:27
that we're going to teach you about inclusion here's the ten ten things we do and here's the five steps and this is what it means to us
42:32
it means different things to different people let people explore create the environments of psychological safety
42:37
create the environments of learning and development let people determine what that learning looks like black
42:42
people discuss different things the dni police and i call this the i say the ni police because we
42:48
predetermined everyone's learning there was this over the years and and can probably remember this where you know we ran went
42:53
around telling people what you can and can't say what you should and shouldn't say what you you know what terms to use and not use unique identities mean
43:01
people are different but we need to create an environment that people explore that learn self-taught learning experiential
43:07
learning disagreeing when was the last time we just i mean there's this misconception
43:12
that for us to be truly inclusive we must all embrace inclusion the same way no we can
43:18
argue i mean me and barry probably have different views and different things that's fine but if we were working towards a common
43:24
objective right that's the big thing how do we get to the end goal whether we take different parts whether we see
43:29
things slightly differently that's fine we respect each other but there is and especially now in the current world that we live in
43:36
and uh you know i hear this a lot that you're no longer able to have one view whatever that view
43:43
might be and you can't even sit on the fence right with with anything you have to take a strong view it's
43:48
either this side or that side and i disagree we should be able to really
43:54
create a safe space where everyone can share views of course with respect we're not saying that you should discriminate against anyone saying
44:00
negative things but we cannot go away from basic human that's how we learn human interactions
44:05
through engaging with each other i think some really really important
44:10
points here so psycho psychological safety but also that comes through employee voice
44:16
and that comes through the ability to have open communications and conflict and we know that cultures
44:21
we do actually have acute uh reports from this happy on the topic and more coming up but we know that
44:27
teams that have a healthy approach to conflict and where conflict is unavoided because healthy
44:32
conflict doesn't mean there is no conflict i mean we have those healthy disagreements um actually end up being
44:38
more innovative more agile and do and fair better better in crisis um another thing that we've seen a lot in
44:45
the past year and and as a result of the epidemic perhaps is enhanced you know we've talked a lot
44:50
about and seen a lot of vulnerable leadership um of we've talked a lot about the
44:56
importance of empathy whether when dealing with with mental health um and all but also when just generally
45:02
leading an uncertainty um how does empathy with empathetic leadership first
45:08
of all how does it show up and how does it in your opinion support positive outcomes in multicultural teams
45:15
what does what is good look like if you could give us a couple of examples i knew that
45:20
might be of the top of your head but that would be really really helpful um barry i'll start with you
45:26
yeah sure sure so i i will uh i'll maybe contextualize this around what's
45:31
happened during the past you know 15 16 months i mean i was lucky i i've done a lot of remote working etc
45:38
and being a part of and leading uh remote teams in the past but you know
45:44
some people this has been new for them but i think what's happened over the last 15 16 months is
45:50
authenticity um the opportunity to to leverage authenticity to really
45:56
build connections with people you know again across across cultures has been pretty extraordinary i mean i
46:01
don't think i've ever experienced in my career so many meetings with executives in
46:07
tracksuits and t-shirts you meet people's pets their partners their kids um
46:12
and and as you all heard of my kids in the background earlier this is this is kind of the new reality but it's
46:19
but it's actually really refreshing and and my my hope is that you know we've now
46:24
in many cases seen the much more full version of especially a lot of our
46:29
senior executives and my hope is that we we retain that in some way because it would feel quite
46:34
strange if all of a sudden as many organizations are thinking about when are we going to get back in the
46:40
office and what does that look like to all of a sudden close that off when you've opened up your
46:45
your truce your full self to people particularly for our executives
46:51
yeah absolutely and this is something that you and i we've talked about are flying but it's really just having seen whether
46:57
news anchors or executives in their homes with their cats their dogs their kids their problems their fears some of them
47:04
you know isolating from the rest of the family with you know because of covet to just suddenly go back to wearing
47:11
three-piece suits and not talking about anything but work um seems seems really really unlikely
47:16
what do you what do you think um that return and future looks like for organizations is it something that
47:22
you're thinking about uh in in your organization are you seeing this time as an opportunity to
47:28
rethink some of the of of your culture i i for me charlotte i'll say this that
47:35
i i think it's without even pushing i think a lot of our most senior leaders that can
47:41
speak for my organization i think they've had a real sort of breakthrough during the past 15
47:46
16 months they've had a realistic breakthrough that you know i've opened this up i see a completely different side of my people
47:53
and i don't think they actually want to go back to the way things were before for the most part
48:00
[Music] yeah i i i think just to sort of um add to that there's there's there's a
48:08
few elements i think to this return to work um i think we will never go back to whatever uh
48:13
normal was it would be a hybrid working environment i think one of the things we must learn
48:18
from this period of time is that uh and actually very the point
48:23
you raise about insights we've learned more about each other than ever before because we were always taught that you come into the office and
48:29
you put on this work uh face and just you know like that's it you don't talk about anything
48:34
beyond that so we're doing a lot more of that now however i think it'd be crucial for us to understand
48:40
as we as we go back into this place of work what is that flexibility that we build into this
48:46
because i don't think it would be one size fits all for any group uh there'll be some people who want to come back i know younger people who
48:51
share accommodation with four others and they're struggling and they want to come back to the office i know others like myself who selfishly don't want to
48:58
travel an hour into london so i'd rather work from home and save that hour and others without the needs and so on but
49:05
what we need to do is start looking at it from a very different perspective of that unique identity rather than
49:10
okay so let's go back to the boxes so okay who are the women who have parenting responsibilities okay you you want to work flexibly okay cool so
49:17
but it shouldn't be like that we should start just now if i want to run the marathon and i want to work flexibly
49:22
because i'm running the marathon so i want to take an hour every morning to to run and start meeting later
49:27
that's fine but also that the last point on that is how do we not predetermine this because
49:34
a lot of companies and it's interesting i've been watching companies these companies are saying we'll just work remotely forever and i'm like that
49:40
will cause panic and anxiety for some and then there's others like certain big financial institutions we're like oh if
49:46
you can go into a shop or a restaurant you can come back into work and i mean it's not it's not the same thing um but but what is
49:54
the middle ground but i think the middle crown shouldn't be predetermined and that's the problem we live in a society and
50:00
what last year has shown us is people don't like being told what to do and especially from a uk context
50:06
you can see people rebelling now because they hate the fact the government's telling them where they can go what they should when they should wear a
50:12
mask when they shouldn't what they get people hate it people want ownership of their decisions but what are the boundaries so if we as
50:18
a company decide hey we can go up to three days flexibly that's great we shouldn't tell everyone
50:23
hey everyone worked three days flexibly we should give the power to teams line managers
50:28
to make that decision knowing what the boundary is of how far we're going to go but speak to your people you know back
50:34
to the human interaction ask your people what would you like what works for you how do we ease you back in
50:40
rather than we've got three days everyone bang do three days it does i don't think that's going to work for each and every person
50:47
yeah absolutely and i think it goes back to other forms of flex when we talk about flexibility in the past
50:52
in the past we used to think that flexibility means being able to work from home now we knew that working from
50:58
home wasn't flexible because it was the only thing we had to do it wasn't a choice and so flexibility is always about that
51:03
never one-size-fits-all and that's something that we'd like it very much it's about those individual needs
51:08
um whether people where wherever people are in the world what their situation is at home what they need but
51:15
also of course it has to be to be done in agreement with your line managers but being able to um to have that flexibility and i think
51:22
that's one thing that i do a lot of webinars on this topic and i can see the questions come in and it's really tricky because the questions
51:27
people want you know we would love to give you kind of a to-do list it's like the do's and don'ts but actually when
51:32
we're talking about nothing one size fits all that flexible approach is really about being agile in the way in which you come
51:39
up with these solutions and listening to your people um rather than having a checklist even though we have issued some fantastic
51:46
checklists about how to return security to the office but when it comes to this it's more sheets of gray what what do you think of
51:52
very well i two things i'll say i mean asif is very diplomatic because he also he
51:58
didn't mention another ceo that that made this ridiculous claim that people who don't to
52:04
not engage uh that and he got blasted thank goodness on social media for that
52:09
crime um but but i couldn't agree with acid more i think that the moment of truth
52:16
that so many companies have about this now about kind of ways of working going forward is
52:21
is ask why don't we just ask people what they want as i said why don't we just ask them but
52:27
of course you know that that's a that's a big moment of truth and requires a lot of courage because if you if you ask them then of course you you
52:33
need to sort of act on you know voices heard actually and that's uh that's where i think a lot
52:39
of a lot of organizations are not they're not willing to do that so therefore they don't ask
52:46
yeah i mean it goes back again having that two-way communication keeping those channels open um keeping
52:52
the opportunity to also shift things around as we try and back to our topic as well i think a lot
52:58
of what we're saying right now applies to managing multicultural routines listen ask what they need ask what ask
53:04
you know what is working what is not working and try it out um there is so much more that we can see about this topic but i'm just very
53:10
mindful that we've got only eight minutes left and we do have a few questions that have come through
53:16
um so the the first one that i start with uh is uh jennifer
53:22
uh who's asked us two questions so the first one was about disability in particular but i
53:28
think it could apply to all types of diversity and she was asking when it comes to disabled employees what can be done to
53:35
avoid managers thinking only in terms of making adjustments to meet their practical or communication needs and move them
53:40
into positively leveraging a difference and just to link that to our topic it's a bit similar to how can we avoid
53:47
assuming that muslims need to finish early all muslims need to finish ramadan
53:52
and instead move to something a little bit more flexible asif would you like to take that one
53:57
sure sure and i think it's a really important point so you look at visible non-visible disabilities i mean even our current pandemic
54:04
long-term colvid is a disability you're not a disability and how are we going to treat that what about you know illness we've got an
54:10
aging society especially in the uk we've got an asian society as people get older they're more
54:15
likely to develop a disability as they get older how do we manage that so there's all these bits i think what
54:21
is important is we we don't choose for people that's that's our that's my bit so how do we
54:27
allow the autonomy of people feeling included you don't have to you know i was i was actually at an
54:32
event this morning speaking there and i was saying one of the frustrations for me is again when we create things so we we have in the uk we'll have disabled
54:39
toilets and then they're locked up and locked locked with a key and the argument is that people will have access
54:45
or if you don't have a physical disability and you walk towards this toilet everyone looks at you you know funny like ooh they're just
54:51
taking advantage why not just take all the toilets away and just make them all single sort of you know uh accessible
54:56
toilets for everyone you know it's things like that that we need to that we need to definitely start
55:02
to um to really address when it comes to disability and the other big thing as well is you know with this
55:07
whole choice piece i think it's going to be so important even um and i'll end on this very point
55:13
but even with the mental health and the impact of mental health as we return back to work it will affect people differently there
55:19
won't be one solution you can't say oh anxiety here's the treatment it'll be different culturally some
55:26
communities talk about mental health some don't some communities you know we will see in
55:31
a different way all those things have to be talked about we need to go back into the essence of what it means to people and
55:38
the reason this doesn't happen in organizations and and i know barry sort of uh
55:43
sort of sided with me on this that more conversations seem to happen it requires a bit more effort
55:48
the easiest response is you come to work and say oh i'm suffering with anxiety because of this return to work
55:53
here's a number for our employee assistance program rather than as a manager having a conversation with you to find
55:59
out what is your needs same with accessibility disability conversations
56:04
that's what's missing but it's it's more harder it requires more effort yeah absolutely and and on that point i
56:11
think one thing we haven't talked about but it's the two-way relationship right so you do want to meet the needs of or or
56:18
adapt to the cultural norms of the country in which you operate at the same time large multinationals
56:25
also have an opportunity to sometimes push for progress and press for progress in countries that are not there yet
56:31
um and and you know i know that we work with one of our members who's at the body usb a large engineering firm and
56:37
alfred z hilton were telling us how you know they went to countries in africa they were operating in countries in africa
56:42
where let's say maternity leave didn't exist or in the middle east where mental health is not recognized as an
56:47
issue just a few years ago we didn't talk even about having cancer so little mental health but as a large organization it was their
56:53
opportunity to free the organization culture start to push for change um and
56:59
eventually a lot of this often ends up in policy change as well so i think that's that's an interesting
57:04
nuance and important for people to remember it's not just about compliance
57:09
[Music] sometimes um okay one uh question on compliance
57:16
um somebody is asking us how do you encourage compliance such as report writing and i
57:21
assume we're talking about pay gas and extra training extra which is necessary and legal according to our uk regulations
57:28
within all within cultures that don't value these things in the same way and have other more informal ways of
57:35
approaching these issues okay so when you're in a quite a regulated environment and you have to meet this you have to be confined how do you
57:43
encourage people to follow it when in their culture it's not something you normally do i'm not sure if it's a good question
57:50
um but if someone wants if either of you has if you want to take it as before berry
57:58
yeah i'm not sure i can feel that when charlotte i'll be honest no but i think overall
58:04
yeah i was just going to say sean that one one of the things with any of these things like the gender pay gap or other things
58:10
these are a good indicator and a good test in time to to measure things right um however if we're talking about what
58:15
the real essence of any of those things is it's to drive change within an organization so the people who might not
58:20
understand the regular regulatory requirements around it we shouldn't be we shouldn't be running around for two
58:26
weeks before the gender pay gap trying to complete it because actually you're trying to then
58:31
just complete it for the sake of doing we should be working for the 12 months to address the gender pay gap
58:36
within our organizations and then it's not a compliance thing you're doing it because it's the right thing to do it goes beyond that you have to do it
58:44
the reporting is is the bit that should be easy but a lot of companies focus on you know
58:50
that prior couple of weeks before you have to you know do something um or don't understand the equality act disability
58:56
we must do something no no it's the right thing to do but the equality act keeps us in check
59:02
to ensure that we're accountable for it leading with ethics and doing the right thing um last question
59:09
on the impact of today's situation which means that we have a lot less face-to-face time we know it's
59:15
impacted our mental health it's changed the ways we've we've talked a lot today you you
59:21
both have highlighted the importance of creating psychological safety and having open communications but it's
59:27
not as easy when you're in an environment where people are behind their screens and you can't see them how would you mitigate the impact of
59:34
having less face-to-face time on especially when it comes to understanding and the lived experiences
59:41
that have traditionally informed our multicultural teams
59:46
i for me charlotte i would say kind of alludes to a little bit around some of
59:51
the things i mentioned earlier i i think it's a lot of the speakers you know technique
59:56
and often with routine and also the leader kind of role
1:00:01
modeling by not always just talking about working business i think you know there's there's
1:00:09
we all need this sort of time and space now to as a as a leader you know taking some
1:00:16
time to ensure that people are in a good place and what what they need that should be part
1:00:24
of the conversation every time and and also just these small things like you obviously force people but ideally
1:00:32
you you want to have people turn their cameras etc because it makes it feel like more like you're having a real genuine
1:00:37
conversation rather than an old-school conference call
1:00:43
it happens less um perhaps less um spontaneously but we need to be even and
1:00:48
and which means we need to be even more intentional about to be more you have to be more
1:00:53
proactive than before absolutely yeah about cultivating that inclusive environment about ensuring we
1:01:01
make space for these informal conversations and that we're checking on people which is what we've heard over and over again
1:01:07
about the past year but it's important to remember it so moving forward
1:01:12
um how what do we do to keep this momentum going this momentum of change we've seen
1:01:18
a lot of positive change in in both of your worlds even though it's been a difficult time for many
1:01:24
um what do we keep what did we what we did do you think we did well when it comes to multiculturalism and leadership
1:01:31
and what would you like to keep
1:01:36
asked sure um i i think one of the things um
1:01:42
i think we all did some things good some things bad i think what's going to be really important maybe
1:01:47
is when it comes to leadership showing vulnerability um being being
1:01:53
authentic as barry mentioned genuine is going to be big um it's very different because every
1:01:59
harvard cambridge oxford leadership program told you that leaders must have all the answers
1:02:05
leaders must say all the right things leaders must have this that all faults now um people want to see
1:02:11
leaders who don't have answers people who show vulnerability people who are ready to engage so i think that's one of the things we must learn
1:02:17
that you know having all the right answers is not going to help you because people will find gaps in that you'd rather work with the people than
1:02:24
tell them uh so so that would be the big change that needs to be driven the other thing is um look i mean in the dni space um
1:02:32
i i've been in this space long enough to know when no one cared about dni uh to when you know all of a sudden
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everyone wants to do something some for the right reasons some because it's the right thing to do some because they want to look good and some would
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only risk losing their job without doing anything so there's different reasons for the interest in it but what is there is
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doors are open and my view is that we somehow need to wedge our foot through those doors
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to ensure they don't shut back i've seen them shutting back when we had me too it went up we did a lot of work
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and then shut the door and similarly this door will shut again at some point
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but how do we ensure that we create sustainable change interventions that can continue or we can continue to work on over uh
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the near future i'd love to think and i am an optimist but i'd love to think that we'll continue this journey
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in a great way but i do know the reality something will come we'll get too busy we'll start losing money or we'll have a
1:03:26
new thing that we need to focus on and then people will forget but how do we ensure that especially those who can impact this hopefully
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people on this call that you create meaningful change and create those avenues to continue the
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discussion consistency um very any last words
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yeah no i i think uh my well two things i i couldn't agree with
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that more is that i i hope and i already see this happening but people will not quickly forget the
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lessons learned over the past 15 to 16 months about multicultural teams about leadership etc and
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the second thing i would say is that those of us who work in some way with leadership
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development know that over the last you know 10 to 15 years that this whole sort of
1:04:13
command and control microphone style leadership was already in decline and i i jokingly say that i think code had
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killed it it's extinct it has no place for the future and and
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you know going forward it really is about being an authentic leader and i think those those organizations and leaders
1:04:30
that really embrace that i mean that's that's the future
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thank you so much um very and asif i hope everybody that this has been helpful
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i i know perhaps not as a um as as concrete as as some of you would
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like but these are some of the topics where it's really important to have these open conversations um so yeah we've highlighted the
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importance of agile leadership hopefully the importance of keeping vulnerable and open in the future
1:05:01
um um fostering psychological safety focusing on employee voice and most of all
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having open communications and creating those opportunities for teams to get together to get to know each other regardless of the type of diversity
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um today i was joined by barry lamkins vp leadership and talent management at dp world and asif sadiq um vp or
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svp diversity inclusion and belonging at warner media thank you everybody for
1:05:27
joining us if you have missed out how the webinar the previous recorded the recording will
1:05:32
be available on youtube i believe and on our social media channels um you can check us out at cipd middle east on
1:05:39
linkedin or cipd um just crpd um and uh connect with
1:05:44
uh with our panelists if you have any further questions thank you so much for joining us have a great afternoon
1:05:50
thank you thanks guys thank you thank
1:05:58
you