Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Let's do it!

Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. On the other end of this camera with that cultural at the behind her there is Loren Rosario-Maldonado. And this is her book called Becoming The Change. I told her I love the call of the colorful cover with the woman. And she is joining us from South Florida. Good day, Lauren. How are you doing?

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
I fantabulous. Good day to you, Greg, thank you so much for having me on your show.

Greg Voisen
Well, thank you for taking the time to impart some wisdom and knowledge about something that's occurring everywhere. But it's the power of cultural intelligence. Most people look at emotional intelligence, they understand what that is. But we're going to inform them about cultural intelligence today, so they can become a little more culturally aware of what's going on in their organizations. And what might be happening with relation to even the way people work together from different cultures would be an interesting way to kind of frame this up. But I'm going to let our listeners know a tad bit about you, you can all go to cultura.global. To learn more about Lauren and her company. We will have a link to that in the blog. But Lauren is a business-oriented leader. With a proven track record of building high performance, fast growing global organizations. She has been instrumental in transforming businesses of all sizes, by driving financial performance, improving organizational effectiveness, and boosting innovation through people development and engagement programs. She has always been fascinated by the human experience and how it shapes behavior, from her years of experience leading people teams from the ground up, and she understands how to empower employees to grow, while delivering transparent and people centric programs. She holds a master's degree of science in industrial organizational psychology and is currently pursuing her PhD and cross-cultural psychology from California Southern University, she holds a Professional Certificate of coach a PCC designation, through the Go active coaching network, and she's a board member of The Girls Inc, of greater Miami and a member of numerous and other civic organizations. Well, it's a pleasure having you on the show, I truncated that bio a bit. But for everybody, just go to the website if you want to learn more about her company, and we'll put a link to that. So, you know, let's start this out. We were talking about David Luminar, before we actually started the show, and he wrote in the foreword to your bat book, that he spent 25 years researching, writing and teaching cultural intelligence. Many of my listeners out there, maybe have never heard of this term cultural intelligence. And he said that he needed someone like you and your book to help him see what cultural intelligence cultural intelligence looks like, in the real world, from your lived experience, and the academically rigorous research you've done. Talk to our listeners about what cultural intelligence is, and why David Livermore was such an influence on Yeah.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Sure. Cultural intelligence is really, you know, the academic definition is the a framework that helps you relate, understand and adapt to diverse situations and diverse contexts. For me, cultural intelligence is about learning how to relate and, and work effectively with people who are different from me, culture has somewhat of a misguided, a identification or perception, which is, you know, that it's about ethnicity, and national origin. But it's more than that. It's basically referring to a group who does things in a certain way. And that can mean a difference in functional area as much as it can be, you know, being an Android lover or an apple, you know, an iPhone, an iOS lover, right? So, culture comes in so many different ways and forms and David Livermore his work made such a profound impact on me, because at the time when I came across his work, I was head of HR for this global order. enunciation. And so these were nuances that, like your listeners to your point were foreign to and yet played a major role in how it was leading individuals from all over the world. And the more I looked into the liver Mars work, the more I could relate, and the more it resonated with me. And so it really sparked a lifelong mission for me to not only learn about this, but also educate others, and how to use cultural intelligence to navigate not only relationships at work, but at home, as well. Well,

Greg Voisen
if your book does that, you know, quite effectively. And, you know, one of the things I said to you before coming on the podcast was, you know, your Dominican upbringing, right? And coming from the Dominican Republican, and the kind of people that the Dominicans are including yourself, right? You can't deny your cultural background, you can't say, Well, I'm not a Mexican, when you're Mexican. You can't say, Well, I am not a Muslim, when you're a Muslim, you know, you, you have these traits. And you were really influenced by your family, and you use the word or the acronym choice that you could make to become the change? How is it that the influence was so wonderful to you? Yet, you wanted people to learn about not only just how people from the Dominican Republic worked, but also the rest of the world?

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
That's a great question. Because, you know, part of making a choice, CH ice is understanding your background and your heritage. And you're right, I am Dominican, but I never really felt Dominican, right. My upbringing was a dichotomous one, because I had this, this Dominican, these Dominican roots. My parents are both American immigrants, yet I was raised in very, you know, Anglo, influenced environments. And so I had this dichotomous view of the world. And I think I was influenced by that in such a way that helped make me be highly curious as I interacted with different cultures. So even though I wasn't necessarily aware of the differences in a way that I could articulate them, I was aware intuitively that something was different. And even myself within with my own family, and I talk about this in the book where I am highly individualistic. And I value my privacy very, very much. But my, my mom, my, you know, my grandmother, my parents could never understand that. Right. And so I

Greg Voisen
remember, I remember you talking about your father never being on time, which just bothered that bothered the crap out of you. You'd always be 15 minutes late need to act like, Oh, it didn't really make any difference, you know? And again, that's part of the culture, right? I could say the same thing about Hispanic people. We joke here in Southern California. It's like, well, St. Braman Jana, you know, it's just, well, we'll do it borrow, but that actually, that doesn't work, when you're working for companies that expect timeliness, you know, so these are, these are just little jokes I'm making, but they're very real. Right? They're

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
very real. And you mentioned, you know, another key point, I'm talking about privacy, but time orientation, the way they view time is so different, never talked about, but it can impact everything from my view of of a person who, whose value of time is very, you know, with called polychronic. Right, they view time as a, as a, this nuanced thing that you can kind of play around with over time. Whereas I, you know, monitor chronic and see that see time, in a linear fashion to your point. And so your

Greg Voisen
days are, yeah, and

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
I used to think my dad was always late, and he's thinking, what do you mean, I'm on time, right? And imagine this in the workplace?

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, you say that my, my wife was a school teacher, and this is really this is funny yet, you know, that people would invite the families would invite her to a birthday party for one of the kids in her classroom. And they would say it was going to be at one o'clock. And so she was very person she's a teacher, she had a run, you know, be there on time, whatever. She saw up at one o'clock and nothing was put together, there was no cake out. There was nothing sad there was whatever. It's like, Well, you said one o'clock in the invitation. So now she knew just to come at two o'clock, because nothing was gonna happen at one o'clock anyway.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Yes, yes. And there's, you know, there's a joke that sometimes people actually push, push back the time to accommodate for those that will start late, right? Yeah. And it just happened the other day I was with my father, I spent some time with him before I had another meeting. And three hours before the meeting, I start saying goodbye for the same reason.

Greg Voisen
Give me enough time.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Away from Lt. Okay, but remember, it's at five it was like two o'clock at a time between conversations, you know, and getting into different stores and stuff. Of course, he drove me late, I got to the event late. So I had to message the person in my time sentences are like freaking out. And he's like

Greg Voisen
I get it.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Standing how time is viewed around the world helped me not have a panic attack when I spent this time with my dad a couple months ago.

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, you learn you speak about areas where cultural value mismatch. And they complicate matters and can excellent escalate the potential for conflict. This is a great example of that what we're just talking about, we're using maybe a silly example, folks, but the reality, there's many of these examples, this isn't one, could you please mention some of those areas where you see mismatches, and the opportunities for conflict could be conflict? There's one, right there's,

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
there's one and I highlight one in the book, right? There's was a situation where you know, I'm an individualistic highly competitive, and a high achiever. Okay, I didn't understand how that is, you know, that, that cultural preference is tied to individualistic societies like the US Well, I'm always pushing for growth and helping others develop and grow and achieve and achieve and achieve and achieve. And there was just one employee that I, you know, was, was working with that I would push and push for all these accolades and all these things, not understanding that her preference or achievement was viewed in a more collaborative and cooperative way, right. And so that cultural value mismatch caused me to view her as someone who did not necessarily want to achieve, whereas she viewed achievement, you know, as a way through the lens of cooperation and working with the rest of the team and making sure that the team achieved our goals, not necessarily her own personal goals. And so that's an example of many, many different situations that can be exacerbated if you don't understand these cultural value differences and how they influence your the way that you prefer to work and approach your goals.

Greg Voisen
Well, I think one of the things you did really quite well, as you just said, you have stories in there of several people, when they show the difference in the cultural values, if you would pick one of those stories, and why the exercise of reflections on various facets of our Intuit to identify can influence how we relate to one another. Right? So you know, you you have a lot of stories in there, no doubt. And I think those stories helped to exemplify the differences. And I think the listeners would probably get a kick out of one of those stories that you could tell that would exemplify the differences.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Yeah, I would say my favorite story of the entire set would be Sam, because here is Sam, who is neurodivergent. And past his own set of, you know, cultural values, he values time in a certain way needs to be structured in order to perform at his best. But his manager, you know, did not necessarily understand his, his way of viewing time. Because he's not neurotypical for lack of a better word. And so, Sam, really gain got the courage to articulate that with his boss in a way that is not customary of someone who shares his his level of diversity. And what I loved about Sam is that here's society saying that Sam is not supposed to typically demonstrate this level of courage. But he himself knew that he needed to have a certain structure in order to perform. And so he summon the courage to talk about that, that, for me, is the embodiment of not just cultural intelligence, but making a choice, right. And in turn his, it prompted his manager to understand a different perspective, from Sam's lead lens, and from his lived experience, and isn't that what we want to see more of in the workplace that independent of what exists around us, we can summon the courage to, to voice what it is that we need, and help others understand what we require, in order to be and perform at our best,

Greg Voisen
I think transparency, no matter what is important elements. And it's very important to let people know how you work hard you identify with work. And you You spoke in the book about Daniel Goleman. And everybody here knows Daniel Goldman's work around emotional intelligence, EQ, social intelligence. And there's actually one that I've just recently came across in another book, I did an interview, spiritual intelligence. So there they've used spiritual intelligence, emotional intelligence, social intelligence. And now you've got CQ cultural intelligence. Why, in your estimation, obviously, you've written this book, because you want to see change. That's the main reason is knowing what the culture is, so that we can change that workplace environment. Why is it so important?

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
It's important because, you know, we talk a lot about how we spend the majority of our time at work.

Greg Voisen
13 113,880 hours will spend at work

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
with plastered and like embedded in the wall somewhere that's visible all the time. 13

Greg Voisen
years is what it is. And I was doing an interview earlier this morning, which is why that guy used it in his book. We're seeing about seven, and now it's about $8.4 trillion in Lost engagement $8.4 trillion a year, because people aren't engaging. It's a mismatch. There's no fit, right? I mean, you were an HR director, you get this very much, but but now you bring the culture into it. And you can see, like, Hey, we got we've all talked about the great resignation here and COVID, and what occurred and the movement of people between jobs because they're unhappy? Well, now you add cultural intelligence on top of this, and it just makes it more of a challenge for people to try and manage. Right?

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Yeah, yeah, it can be a challenge. But it can also be a tool. It's definitely not a magic wand, but it's a good, it's a good tool to have in your toolkit. And a lot of these differences, a lot of disengagement transfer comes from a lack of understanding. And because we are so focused on deliverables, we forget that it's through people that we achieve success in this, right, when it comes to engagement, you know, do you have a workforce of many different diverse perspectives? Your first priority is to understand those perspectives so that you can build a workplace that where all those different perspectives can coexist. Right? One of the biggest things I harp on is that we are all multi dimensional. And a lot of the people I interviewed reflect that, like Sam, right? We are, there's more to the what you see, there's way more than what you see. And working effectively in diverse cultures is about that is about understanding all these differences and how they play out in the workplace. So that we can create an environment where everyone can contribute effectively while still navigating and and having the resources to navigate those differences.

Greg Voisen
will speak to the listeners about how they form There are cultural preferences and prompts you use to help a reader in this book better understand our cultural preference. In other words, I think people say, Okay, there's a cultural difference. But there's a cultural preference I met, I might rather work with X culture than I would why culture? Because I know I can get more done. Right? So we're actually being biased, because we've actually put a label on a culture, and how do we get rid of those labels? And how do we better understand how we're doing that? Because, you know, we maybe subconsciously don't know we're doing it. But we are doing it.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Right? No, we're a great point. And one thing to understand about biases, that it's not something you get rid of it is there because it was built time over time, right? So our biases are there to, you know, to, in essence, as human beings and biologically to protect us from harm. Where we were they can become harmful is what we do with those biases, right? We use them for, you know, for, for with bad intentions, well, when

Greg Voisen
we use them Lauren for and we don't really realize it, but I'm going to use the word alienation. In one sense, we alienate others from us as a result of our preferences. Right?

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
And because we have these cultural preferences, to answer your question, they are shaped based on our experiences, you don't necessarily have to be born in a foreign country or in a different region to necessarily inherit these preferences, right, because they're influenced by our generational influences. They're passed on generation to generation, even if you've never left a particular country. And so these preferences are shaped through those social interactions. And so they, they are a part of us. And understanding those preferences, helps us then gain perspective into understanding others. And once you understand them, and how they impact the way that you relate the way you work, the way you interact with others, then helps you navigate those nuances and why cultural intelligence complements emotional intelligence?

Greg Voisen
Well, you you had mentioned in the book, Lauren, that we all carry a cultural blueprint, wherever we go. I like the term blueprint, because it's like, look, it's it's, it's who we are. That's kind of that's it. And there are particular influences are in their influence, y'all, they're they influence the workplaces. How do the cultural differences play out in the workplace, and I was reading in the book, mainly, like communications decision making these kinds of areas, because now we're talking about the big thing, cultural intelligence. And we're saying we have a blueprint of it. And then we're, now we're getting down to how this plays out, you know, how does it actually play out?

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Let's say communication, for example. It's something we do all day, every day, right? We know, when you're looking at the cultural values that influence communication that's take high and low context, right context involves people or cultures that prefer to leave the meaning behind the communication to the interpreters. You know, perception, right, so they'll use less a less words and the more that's open to interpretation, those who value low context will be very explicit in their communication and more direct, right and their communication. Well, this does mean that we view someone who speaks indirectly and implicitly as someone who's less effective and communicating, if we value low context communication, this this one nuance can impact communication in so many ways, in the workplace, because all of a sudden, you're forming a perspective and a perception of someone whose communication style is different. And because It's misunderstood, or, or because it's not well established and well known, then you can, you can, you know, take away a different meaning behind that exchange. And that's one little example how, you know, these cultural values can impact so many of our daily interactions, a from the way we build trust, from the way we manage performance, does this mean that I, you know, will rate this person's communication performance any differently than someone who communicates in the same way that I do?

Greg Voisen
Oh, considering you are an HR director for a global company, I have a question for you. Because I've had this happen now twice in two days, you know, we looked at, we don't think about cultural intelligence. But when we get on the phone for customer service, and we can't understand the person on the other hand, and we own a global company, and they're basically just speaking over you, right? They're just like, it's a script, it really does a lot to deter somebody from wanting to do business with that company, if they're, and I'm gonna say the language difference, but it's not only language, it's literally how they relate to people as well on the phone. Right, and having an emotional intelligence. Like, I think the people honestly that are working in many of the call center centers are emotionally intelligent, devoid. They don't have it, I don't know what it is. But in many of the companies now, I will not say that about Apple, I will say Apple has the best customer service. And literally, I think that's why Apple stays at the peak, I'll say another company jobra, does a wonderful job at customer service, they bend over backwards, right? And many of these companies are trying to cut, you know, their budgets. And they're using people that don't relate to people that are buying their product. Right? It's like, okay, really? I know, that's an off the wall question. But it's really not it's, it's a, it's a cultural thing.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Well as making sure that you're, you know, your workforce has the skills they need in order to work and relate effectively with the audience they serve, and service is not at her. Right. To your point, that's a perfect example of not only emotional intelligence, but understanding the cultural nuances behind the audience that you're serving. And so when you are developing those skills in your employees, helping them become a to to that, right that when you you know, if you are, let's say that polychronic, high context, communicator, very indirect communicator, that you have the preference to speak over others when you are speaking, understand that these are skills that you can adjust when you're speaking to a culture or an audience that does not have that cultural preference after dominant preference. And so it's a skill that they may not bring with them, but they can certainly learn with development over time. It is a skill that can be developed, or

Greg Voisen
it can be learned, you know, people say that people aren't natural born salesman, but they can learn to be salespeople. Right. And, and you stated in the book that the world is more connected than ever, making cultural intelligence and cultural humility essential. I like that term, cultural humility. Can you speak with us about the choice playbook? Which we had a few questions back? And how this can help us solve our differences? Because your acronym choice stands for C H. O ice has. It's an acronym,

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
though. Yes, it's an acronym. And so it's you know, it's courage. It's humility for cultural humility, its openness to new experiences, but integrating those knowledge into your you're taking action, right, taking the curiosity behind all these differences. And last, but certainly not least, is empathy. It's that big E word that everyone particularly when it comes to engagement loves to pitch but not necessarily understand how to cultivate that. And so the choice play work came about after you know, long and extensive research on how we can create situations, what I call moment Things that matter whether at home or at work, that help us, you know, connect better. And what I like about humility, for example is that it calls for that critical self evaluation, that, that ability to stop and take perspective on how we do this, to your point, that customer service person that's on the phone doesn't necessarily have to wait for the organization to help them develop the skills, or the the crying on the opposite end, they don't have to wait for someone to help them understand why this person speaks over. That there is a a cultural definition behind this, and how we can all learn to build that bridge through understanding. So the choice was a play work that was developed to help people understand how we understand what we understand that we need to connect better, we understand that we need to collaborate better, we understand that we all want to be engaged. But how do we do that? And so that's what the choice playbook helps people do.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, and I just want to tell my listeners, this book has the choice playbook in it. And it it, I love the acronym. And I'd like for you to repeat for the listeners, the main for each one of the letters again, because sometimes in sets of three, that's what you remember. So let's do for number two here. So just go through them one more time. Of course,

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
it's us the first day for courage. Okay, H for humility, cultural humility. I for integration, what about oh, I'm sorry, oh, for openness open to new experiences. Right, I stopped that sorry, I for integrating what you learn from those experiences. The second C for curiosity, remaining curious at all times. And last but an empathy?

Greg Voisen
Yeah, you know, if we just took those words and strung them together, and we attempted to build all of our relations around those, you know, Lauren, the world would be a better place, and especially the last one with empathy. It's so challenging sometimes to reach the empathy when there's such a big gap in understanding, right. And I think to bring that understanding, one of the things that you have to do when there wasn't an Allen there is we've got to listen. And that's a big one. So with that, in kind of wrapping this up, what I'd like to ask you is to leave our listeners with three actionable bits of advice that they could use both personally and professionally within their organization to help better help them better understand the differences amongst between themselves and others, and how to better understand the CQ, or cultural intelligence. And what would your advice be, to them to an act? In other words, an action kind of situation here? What can I do to be the change? You said, Let's Be the change? Well, we're going to be the change. I think Medaka Gandhi, that was like, be the change that I want to be, I actually have to act it

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
100,000% And I would be here with this. First, understand that our cultural values impact everything, every area of our lives, to understand that we are all no matter what we're from multi dimension. And what does that mean, we have many different dimensions behind our identity. And third, nothing happens if you don't take action, understand your cultural value preferences and how they impact you not only as a leader, but as a person navigating the world.

Greg Voisen
Great bits of advice. One last quick question for you. You know, years ago, I used to go to conferences in San Francisco, spirituality in the workplace, and he would always find companies like Patagonia their Clif Bars, people like that, who, literally Okay, call us here in California, a little freaky, sometimes we are. But the reality is, I wouldn't say that all HR directors were like, Hey, let's beat a drum and Kumbaya. But they did understand that spirituality in the workplace is a huge factor if I couldn't bring My spirit to work. I mean, I can't bring myself. Right. What would be your position around? I'm just going to be this the final question because I kind of threw this one out you which the cultural intelligence and the spiritual intelligence that needs to blend together to make the workplace a better place for us to work and will and be? Right?

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
No, that's a great question. Anything that helps enhance employee experience is something to be mindful of, and certainly learned more from. And honestly, this is the first time I hear of spiritual intelligence. So I'm, I'm very keen on learning more, I would say, you know, spiritual ality, oftentimes is misconstrued with religion, which is why it's a, it's something that employers may want to kind of steer away from. But I would say that anything that enhances a person's lived experience, whether at home or at work, is certainly a great tool to have in your in your inbox.

Greg Voisen
And I would concur with you on that. And I would say, when you're done, look up the word spiritual intelligence, you'll find it well, there's been a lot written about it. But I also would say when a company is seeking to improve performance, improve engagement, increase profitability, increase innovation, all of these things that they want from, you know, okay, the balance sheet is our biggest expenses, salaries for employees, right? Why wouldn't we invest, and I'm going to say to my listeners, in the end, go to her website, which we're going to give up, and we'll have a link to it. But it is I have to bring it up is cultural, cu l t, u r A dot global. And go there because you would want to engage somebody like Lauren, to help you look at the culture and work with cultural intelligence. And as she said, in her bio, greater levels of organizational effectiveness, greater levels of innovation, greater levels of engagement. And if these are the things that you're lacking, go to Juan's website, check it out and look at all the resources and things that are there and get a copy of the book. Lauren, it's been a pleasure having you on inside personal growth, to speak with all the managers, CEOs and people that are running these companies. And I know they get the message. The question is, are they going to take action about it? And so I'm encouraging them to take some action, because this is something that next year in 2024, can make your company a better company. Go work with Lauren, go get a copy of this book. And check it out. Lauren, thanks for being on inside personal growth.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
Thank you so much, Greg, thank you for having me and letting me share this story. Thank you very much.

Greg Voisen
You're quite welcome. Have a good holiday season.

Loren Rosario-Maldonado
You too many blessings, blessings.