You're listening to Foresight, a podcast about making work better.I'm your co-host, Mark Edgar, a former consultant and coach who now works as chief people officer on a mission to make work more human.
And I'm Naomi Teitelman, a former big firm consultant and HR executive now striving to make work better, one organization and one leader at a time.
Every week, we'll discuss the latest trends that are impacting the new world of work to help you be a better leader for the future. Welcome to Foresight, a podcast about making work better.
I'm one of your co-hosts, Naomi Teitelman, and I'm pleased to welcome our next special guest to the show, Jose Ucar.Jose is a keynote speaker, international communication expert, and author of best-selling book, Global Influence.
And given how geographically dispersed and diverse our organizations and teams are today, I'm excited to chat with Jose about his research and insights regarding communicating and working with global teams. Welcome to Foresight, Jose.
I'm so glad you're here.And how are you doing today?
Naomi, hello.Thank you so much for having me.It is a pleasure to be here.I'm doing very good, even though it is Friday afternoon over in London.But hey, I still have got some energy in the tank.So let's do this.
That's great.Yes, I did notice that it's, I think, 5pm or 6pm over there in London.So thank you for joining me.Five.Yeah, you never know when time differences happen.We're about to get into that phase, I think.So thank you for joining us at 5pm.
I think we stand between you and the pub, so we'll get going.Yes, yeah. But before we get started, we do like to start each of our episodes with a check-in question.So a really easy one for you, Jose, today is coffee or tea?
Coffee, coffee, coffee.How about you?
Coffee for me as well.Although I find that my body tells me when I'm sick by telling me that I want tea and not coffee.
So it's kind of an indicator in my body that says I'm craving tea, which means that I'm fighting some sort of cold or something like that.So, Tea has its purpose, for sure.Well, absolutely.
Yes.I mean, good point.Whenever I'm not drinking coffee and I don't feel like it, it's because I need loads of water.
Yeah.Yeah.Good point. All right, well, let's get into it and let's start with you first, Jose.
Can you share a bit about your background with our listeners and what inspired you to pursue a career focused on cross-cultural communications and influencing?
This is how I'm going to start.I'm five years old and I'm having a conversation with my mom.I don't remember many of these conversations, but this one It actually made a difference when she asked me, Jose, what do you want to do?
Who do you want to be?And I didn't answer, Mommy, I want to be a lawyer.No, I didn't want to be an engineer.I didn't want to be a doctor.I said to my mom, Mom, I want to be international.That's a good answer for a five-year-old.
I don't know, and I don't know what that meant back then, but eventually it's taken me to lots of different countries and experiencing cultures.But more than cultures, I always like to speak about the human connection.
So for me, it's all being around the people in my life, regardless of where they're from.
And since I am where I am today because of the positive impact incredible leaders have had, I decided to then use my story and the tools I've gained along the way
as examples to motivate and teach people how to connect with human beings and how to lead positively, how to make an impact, how to help people improve their behaviors and achieve what could be their full potential, because we will never know.
And this is what keeps me going today at five, and will wake me up tomorrow morning, and hopefully will wake me up next week as well.This is what I enjoy doing, and this is what I strongly believe in.
Amazing.Well, don't we need more of that in our world today?You talk about three pillars of success in cross-cultural communication.Number one is building trust and respect.Number two is adaptive communication.And number three is global leadership.
Can you please elaborate on all three of these for our listeners?
Yes, absolutely, with pleasure.First, trust.Without trust, there is nothing.Without trust, there isn't communication, or at least not effective communication.So for me, trust is the foundation of everything.
We need to build trust, but on occasions, I mean, how do we build trust?Well, for me, it's a combination of being authentic, which is, again, a word that gets thrown around quite often nowadays.For me, authenticity is being you.
It's being this Naomi I'm seeing, being this Jose I am right now, and sharing from this position I'm in.Then being empathetic with people and also bringing knowledge.The combination of those three will begin to build trust.
Then, Naomi, if we want to communicate effectively cross-cultural or across our desks, yeah, it's important to have respect.What do I mean by respect?Respect is acceptance.
if I'm seeing something different, because imagine, you're in Toronto, I'm in the UK, there is a difference in whatever way, which I haven't noticed any, by the way.
But then if I accept, if you are one of my team members, and I just accept it, then that puts me in a more resourceful position as opposed to not doing it, and then wanting to fight what I'm perceiving as a difference, which then leads me to the next step.
Once there is that trust,
Once I'm thinking, and that is a mindset, respecting people, accepting what's different about them, then I can begin to adapt and look for that, whatever that might be, that connection or that behavioral shift that that person may need in order to achieve what they need to achieve within the organization.
And then combining all of them, we have global leadership, which is coming from a standpoint of positively impacting people.
Positive impact, positive influence, which is always looking to create a positive shift in whatever you, the leader, seeing them as something that might be beneficial.
Yeah, that's great.And you know, I think at the end of the day, what resonates for me is just the idea of the respect, that first piece, the trust and respect is assuming positive intent, right?
Because sometimes something may come across in one way, but it is cultural in some ways.And so the adaptive communication comes into play because it's okay to ask questions and it's okay to approach situations with curiosity.
But assuming positive intent is really important in building that trust and not thinking that because someone's behaving in a way that's surprising that necessarily means that they have an opposite agenda from you or they don't have the same values as you or whatever the case is.
I think we need to remember that in a lot of conversations that we have these days.I think people are scared of asking questions because they're worried about offending people, communicating in the wrong way, saying the wrong thing.
And therefore, it takes us longer to get things done.And leadership is basically at a disadvantage because of that.
Absolutely, yes.And this is why, Naomi, before we move on quickly, it is important as leaders, linking it back to what you mentioned, it's important that we are, on a daily basis, human explorers.Okay?
When we are human explorers, in our human interactions, yeah, being redundant, we are exploring ourselves, but we're also exploring other people's behaviors.And then remaining within this curiosity, we are, again, more resourceful.
And then we can ask more questions and we can, yeah, find out more about ourselves while we find more about others.But I completely agree about, you know, upsetting people.
And hopefully we get to touch more on this moving forward in today's conversation.
Yeah, for sure we will.So over the years, what do you perceive has changed about how we communicate in a professional context?And what do you think has caused these shifts?
Well, when I came to the UK, one of the things when I started working here, I had worked in Spain before that and then in the States, but the whole thing about diversity and inclusion wasn't a thing that was spoken of, okay?
So that is something that has drastically changed nowadays.And then how communication has gone virtual more than ever after the pandemic.These are some of the things that I've noticed.
But again, many things remain and that are still the challenges, which are communicating effectively in terms of how we get our ideas across.That still remains a challenge for many people and leaders today.
How we provide feedback, which I know we're going to be speaking about. How we handle conflict and how we coach, how we ask questions.
These things throughout the years, yes, have improved some of them, but still a long way to go in terms of how we can benefit from using these tools and using them effectively in a world that has gone more global than ever. and that has gone virtual.
And virtual is creating a huge deal of this connection because everything seems to be about work, work, and work.Those are the changes I'm seeing.
Yeah, great points.I do think that technology enablement can be a blessing in many cases, right?
Especially with global teams, you can communicate asynchronously, you can kind of communicate something and have someone work on something overnight, your time.
but have to be very careful, you know, in terms of the tone and how tone can be misinterpreted.And it can send people on a pretty bad spin if it's not, if it's not communicated effectively.
And I think also being very deliberate about what tools you're using to communicate what and what is appropriate in an email or in a text or in a Slack message versus what really should be a phone call or what really should be in person, if that's possible.
So what are your top tips for global leaders and teams to effectively communicate with one another?Do you have any kind of overall overarching principles?
Yes, I have.I have a framework, which is the one that got me started with the book, because I strongly believe in less being more when it comes to communication and in simplifying things.When I say simplify, it's not about dumbing things down.
It's about making sure your messages are more accurate, brief, and clear.So the framework I have, and I'll go fairly quick through it.It's the simpler method, where I invite everyone communicating nowadays, the S stands for slowing down, okay?
And not just slowing down our speech, but slowing down our thinking in order to be more intentional with our communication.
The I, being intentional, what do I want to get out of this communication with this person, with my teams, or the channel I'm using?
having the M, having a multicultural lens, but not just multicultural nowadays, also neurodiverse and being very curious and open to understand what's coming from the other end of the spectrum.The P for preconceptions.
We have lots of preconceptions when it comes to human interactions, being mindful and challenging our own preconceptions. Then we speak most of the time within the business world, international business world, we tend to speak English.
We have the people that speak English as a first language and the Jose's of this world that speak it as a second language.Then always be mindful, what is the level of comprehension?Okay, and then simplify it if needed.
Then the E, I always invite people to have a level of energy. in terms of how they engage with people.And energy is not the same as excitement.Bring energy, be there, be present, be alive, be caring.And finally, reflection.
If after every interaction we have with people throughout our day, we reflect on what went right, what went wrong, what didn't really work, we will always be improving.So we stick to those principles daily.We make them part of our team culture.
regardless of our countries and the cultures of our different countries and nationalities, we begin to create stronger connections and more effective communication.
I love the acronym SIMPLER to create something simpler.So that was very clever.But do you think this acronym applies to all forms of communication or really only verbal communication?Does it apply to digital communication as well?
I would say so.It's about flexibility in the end.And it's about intention.So if I want to communicate with you, Naomi, what is the best medium to use?Which channel should I use?Then that's down to intention as well.
And flexibility in terms of how we receive information.Why on earth and why is because of our different communication styles.
If I receive a message, imagine, from you, Naomi, and you don't put a smiley face, I may think, oh, Naomi's a bit upset today.So again, preconceptions, assumptions we bring to our interactions.
Or if you're too direct, oh, Naomi's upset, when in reality, we are assigning meaning to letters that we're seeing together.
So then all of that leads to potentially having a conversation to clarify things and then agree on how we want to be communicated with.But then the simpler is kind of a foundation to use with flexibility.
But yeah, we say it applies to any type of communication.Flexibility will be key.
Yeah, I think that's great.I love the point you make that making things simpler doesn't mean dumbing things down.It means being more clear and more concise.
And I think too often to your S point about slowing down, we're very quick on the trigger with emails and texts, right?
And so we're very reactive a lot of the time when reality is, is that we have to have a much more empathetic approach and thinking, how is this going to land on the person that I'm sending this to?
So I find, you know, I like to go and exercise before I come back to something that might be heated, actually.And if it's really heated, I pick up the phone and call the person.
Or I say, you know, now you can't even call your best friend without kind of sending a text, are you available to chat right now, right?
So just thinking through how those things may land and, you know, the outcomes that you're trying to achieve with those communications and whether that mode of communication, that timing of communication,
all the elements of Simpler are going to create that outcome or deliver that outcome in the most seamless way, right?
Because if you need to go through a spin every time you send a communication, it's unproductive and it damages people's well-being, right?
Absolutely.Yes.Yes.That's it.Yeah.Yeah.Nothing else to say.
So we're going to talk about actually two particular areas where I think, you know, communication can be very delicate and really impact people's sense of self, their well-being, if we don't treat them with care.So number one is
giving and receiving performance feedback, right?That can be a very sensitive topic.A lot of managers actually shy away from doing it at all because they're worried about having those difficult conversations.
So what are your top suggestions for giving and receiving feedback like a pro?
First of all, training.It's important that we learn as leaders to deliver feedback, but also that we teach our people to receive it.Because it is both ways.Why do we shy away from delivering feedback, if I generalize?
Because generally we don't know how to do it and we don't want to hurt people.So that means we need to learn how to deliver it.Okay, and I'll share, if you like, a strategy I like to use.But then on the other end, We don't like feedback.
So as part of that team culture, even more than the business culture, next, it's important that we share the importance of feedback and start creating that mindset shift because feedback, look, I'll put it this way.
I'm here, Naomi, today doing what I do because of the feedback I received throughout my life and the actions I took on that feedback.And most of the time, I didn't like it. Mm-hmm.Yeah, for sure.I would love to hear your framework.
Yeah, the framework is simple.For me, I stick to the ABC most of the time, which is about being accurate, being brief, and being clear.
Once I've had a conversation with a person about the importance of feedback and, you know, helping them to open up to how this can improve their performance and, you know, even their life moving forward, for me, it's
about the behavior that I've noticed.So imagine Naomi, I've noticed that, you know, you do this thing.Then I speak about the impact, the impact that has on the team and also on you is this.
And then I can go, depending on the person, going back to tailoring, adapting my communication, I can go very direct.This is what I would like you to do different.Or I go, I think you could benefit from doing this.
Or a third one, what could you do differently in order to improve? So putting the ball in my court in the third option.Yeah.And it will be a back and forth, okay?And it will depend.
And once I present that, I let it land and wait for feedback, which is not you just speaking, but feedback.How did that land?
And pay attention to what's not being said, because feedback can go down in terms of, well, you know what, Jose, thank you very much.Yes, I will do it.Or it can be, how dare you, Jose, and I go very emotional about it.
I just go and say nothing, but in the end, inside me, it's just, yeah, how dare you?So seeing that no behind the yes as well.
Yeah, yeah.And oftentimes, thank you for the feedback, but I'm not sure that that's valid, right?And then going into a whole spin in terms of trying to dig if other people feel that feedback as well or feel that feedback's valid as well.
Which is why 360 reviews are really helpful when they're employed in a culture that actually is honest with them, right?
Yes.Look, if you allow me a couple of minutes, Naomi, to expand on feedback and a great way of going about feedback in terms of a culture.Sure.I sometimes deliver training and I have a you know, an array of people from different industries.
And I had a delegate, and it's happened a couple of times now, but there was this delegate and he said, I don't, I don't understand the whole thing about the feedback.I mean, what's the, what's the, what's the whole issue about it?
And I said, remind me, what is it that you do?I'm a chef. Okay.And whenever I say something to someone, they just go and do it.And the penny dropped for me.And that person has got a point because then things move on quicker as well.
And I said, yes, if you come to me with a plate, with a dish, and you said to me, chef, Try it.What do you think?"And the chef goes, yeah, but it needs a bit of salt.What I do, I add a bit of salt and go check.Again, fine.And then that goes out.
What that means is the process is shorter and then the benefit for the client is almost imminent.And I've learned that next time I need to add more salt.The thing here is about the mindset of embracing it quickly, doing something with it instead of
taking it personal and ruminating and going down the rabbit hole.Feedback can be a communication piece that is, look, what do I need this A, B, C?Yeah, great, I do.
And then you can have a conversation later on if you like, but be more open, be more flexible, be more like a chef when it can be more like a chef, because there will be specific situations when feedback needs to be dealt with differently.
But this is a culture that enables things to move quicker.
Yeah, and it's not personal.It's about improving the outcome and the behavior.It's about the dish!For everybody, right?And it's not something personal.
And the other thing that also brings to mind that it's really important to be timely with your feedback, period, right?
So, the more you sit on it, the more you ruminate, the more you say, maybe that's not something that I need to share feedback on, I'll kind of put that to the side.And then you see the behavior again, and you're like, maybe not this time either.
And then all of a sudden, it becomes a thing.And then it's a whole thing to have the conversation about the thing. And then bringing in the global aspect of our teams and how am I going to deliver this thing in a way that resonates with them?
You know, it can turn into quite a big, a big deal when it doesn't have to be if you deliver things more regularly.
And that's why, you know, this, this idea that performance discussions happen kind of once a year, maybe twice a year is ridiculous because, you know, things happen every single day that need feedback in order to constantly improve and not wait until the end of the year.
Absolutely.Our dish may need salt or different types of salt on a daily basis.
And you may lose your customers because they think that your dish is not salty enough and they don't think that you can overcome that or too salty, not salty enough.I guess they can add some more salt.There we go.
All right, well, the next scenario that I wanted to talk about is managing remote teams, because we're talking about global cross-cultural communication.
So what are some things leaders should do to better communicate with their teams, who may be in different locations, different time zones, perhaps even speaking different languages?What are some tips that leaders should keep in mind?
Look, one thing I've been recommending more and more, because there is communication, but if there is no connection, then communication fails.So one thing I keep on suggesting is to make time for human connection.What do I mean by this?
We can, it is possible, to bring some of our behaviors from our face-to-face environments into the virtual world, okay?And I will expand.
If it was your birthday today, Naomi, I know in the UK, someone would have brought a cake, someone else would have brought something else, and we would have had 15 minutes to celebrate your birthday.
That doesn't tend to happen in the virtual environment.Or when we fancy a coffee, we just go and have a coffee for five minutes.That doesn't happen in a virtual environment.
So I think bringing in behaviors from our face-to-face can definitely help to build more human connections and to break up the daily new habit of having back-to-back meetings, which is very unproductive, by the way, and it can lead to burnout.
That is one.Hey, we have synchronous and asynchronous communication.
As leaders, it's important that we look for times where we can connect with all of our people one way or another, depending on their needs as well, because there will be different styles.
The people that want you to be there more often, and the people that are more self-reliant and are just happy seeing you every now and then.And you know what I've been seeing more and more to break this, let's call it cultural divides or differences.
is having conversations slash presentations around food and music.Giving people that opportunity to connect, it doesn't take long, 10 minutes.
every week or every two weeks and one person presents a little bit about the country, their cultures and the things they do, it also helps building connection.
I'm not giving you some other strategies as to, I mean, yeah, of course you need to coach your people, you need to live with conflict, sorry, deal with the conflict, encourage it even, feedback, but this is the foundation to build more trust, to begin to understand what makes people tick.
when we are only seeing them virtually.So those would be some of the things I recommend in terms of strategies that I know work.
Great, thank you.Those are great tips and very easy to execute, right?And just build that foundation of trust, as you said, and create better connections in our teams.So you work with some top tier global organizations.
Can you share an example of how a shift in communications has led to positive business impact?
There is one, and this is about presentation skills and how getting someone to speak and present using powerful storytelling instead of reading a script has led to greater impact when launching their products.
And it's just a matter of incorporating a good storytelling that can actually build more connections and enable that person to be more authentic on stage.That is one Naomi.And I've helped many people.
with their communication skills in order to inspire and motivate and get people to take action.Yeah, I think that's a powerful one.You asked me for one, I've given you one.
Yeah, no, that's great.And I've noticed, you know, in organizations where town hall meetings are very heavy on data and sales and growth and numbers and charts,
you're not gonna get the outcomes, the business impact that you think you will, because that's not very inspiring, right?
So I love your idea of encouraging, you know, the CEO or the executives who are getting up in front of their organizations to really tell stories because all those graphs and data can be asynchronously shared, right?
Like that doesn't have to be the main stage presentation.So I really liked that idea. So let's shift to HR because many of our listeners are in fact HR professionals and many work globally and all work with people from diverse backgrounds.
So do you have tips for HR professionals to better cultivate relationships and improve their own influencing skills in their organizations?
Yes, I call this, Naomi, the three Cs, okay?And for me, it's something to cultivate, not just by HR professionals, but yes, as well. is how you convey information.Okay, the conveyor has to do with how you deliver feedback.
Keep on holding this and keep on embedding it into the culture of your organization, the importance of feedback, the importance of effective presentation skills as well.How you convey information, that's the first C. The second one, coaching.
learning how to coach properly, learning how to enable people to find their own intrinsic motivation, the quality of the questions we ask.And finally, the third C is the challenger, which has to do with difficult conversations and conflict.
You cannot have enough.The more you begin to unpack timely, difficult conversations, the more you can experience innovation within your teams, better relationships, better connection.
So keep on improving how you convey your information, how you coach your people and how you challenge and delve into conflict with them.Those are three Cs that I strongly recommend because that's really what I tend to focus on the most.
And I see the change in days or almost immediately when people leave a session and they just go, look, Jose, you mentioned that, you know, I could have benefited more from conflict.And they go and have a discussion, a healthy discussion with someone.
And that problem that looked this big is now reduced to nothing.And that relationship is better.
Yeah, that's great.And so I see that as a bit of a meta, a meta situation.So HR professionals should think about doing this themselves, because they can then create better connection with the people that they work with, right?
Some shy away from the conflict piece, for example, because they want to be able to, you know, do what they're business leaders want them to do, you know, they want to please the business.And so they avoid the conflict.
And then the second part of my question, which you've already answered, actually, was how can HR enable others to embrace kind of these three Cs?Because that's really part of their role as well, is teaching others to embrace those three Cs.
Yeah.Well, I would say teaching, I mean, teaching people, absolutely, leading by example, and also bring in external consultants. but not just to deliver a session on these things and then tick the box and leave.
It's important, the most important thing is to work on embedding these behaviors in the culture.And most of the time it will work better if you work at the top of the pyramid and you let it cascade down.
What I tend to see in practice a lot of the time is that we go and cover bits and pieces, whatever we can, filling holes. And then you don't see the change or the exponential effect of that training or those new behaviors.
And the sustainability of it is really important, as you mentioned, either figuring out if there's some sort of peer coaching, you know, sessions that happen afterwards or some sort of Slack channel even just to keep each other accountable and keep each other honest.
The follow-up and getting, I mean, if you are my leader, my manager, then it's important that you get involved in my training process because then you know what I'm learning and then you can support me and also I can bring to you the new things I'm learning.
And then it's a two-way thing if you really want to see change.So there we go.Don't get me started.
I think we've gotten started, but unfortunately we're getting to the end of our time together.And we do like to end each episode of Foresight with a feel good.So Jose, what are you feeling good about today?
Oh, I'm feeling very good about this cold and about the fact that I've been exercising regularly.I've been doing CrossFit, so I'm feeling healthier.Oh, good.
It is the weekend and next week I've got a few, yeah, a few good engagements with amazing people.So this is what keeps me going, Naomi.
Oh, great, great.And is it rainy in London right now?It's on and off, which is normal for this time of year.I don't care about the weather anymore.So you can feel good about that.Yeah.That's great.
So thank you so much for spending time with us today on the podcast.But before we sign off, can you please tell our listeners how they can learn more about the great work you're doing?
Yes, thank you, Naomi.Look, if people, if you go to Google, type my name, Jose Ucar, you're going to find me, my dad, and maybe someone else.So you can recognize me.And yeah, that's all in there.
You have my website, which is joseucar.com, my YouTube channel.I'm actually at the moment investing in more videos.You have my book, Global Influence, available on loads of different book outlets. and social media, of course.
If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook, please, yeah, have a go as well.I look forward to connecting with you.
Sounds great.Well, thanks so much again.You've been a great guest on our show.And until next time, everyone, take care. Thanks for listening to Foresight.If you enjoyed the episode, we would love to hear from you.
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