Think Being Honest Builds Trust? Not Always — Learn What Actually Works

What does it take to genuinely connect across cultures, identities, and worldviews? In this episode, we sit down with my friend Melisanda Ginkachavan Shifter to unpack the mindset and skillset behind powerful human connection. Having lived in multiple continents, worked across sectors, and spoken several languages, Meli brings a rare global lens to the art and strategy of Bridging Difference. We explore the essential skills behind meaningful connection, trust, curiosity, and communication, and how they can be cultivated by anyone. Meli shares insights from boardrooms to grassroots movements, showing how cultural fluency and emotional intelligence can drive collaboration and results. Mellie is an executive leader with a global track record in shaping inclusive corporate strategies, international policies, and social impact initiatives. Her career spans Fortune 500 companies, global nonprofits, and international organizations like the World Economic Forum. She's known for turning complex social challenges into actionable strategies that that strengthen both organizational performance and societal impact. Whether you're navigating a multicultural workplace or simply looking to build stronger, more authentic relationships, this episode offers practical insights and inspiration to help you connect with greater clarity, empathy, and confidence. And without further ado, let's jump into the interview.

I grew up between two cultures, two continents of Germany and Thailand, and with that, two different languages, two different religions from both my families, and many other kind of dimensions as well of, you know, different socioeconomic categories of my families, et cetera. And maybe I'm starting there because, Kwame, as we were just talking about my background as well, I many times found myself in areas where I was the only one who studied, for example, theology in a setting that wasn't necessarily then driven by that background. When you find yourself in rooms where you always don't represent the majority, I think it helps to learn to communicate very clearly of who you are and what you do without relying on jargons or assumptions that people know why you're here. So I think maybe there's something there of how my personal background growing up as a child has almost subconsciously always instilled a necessity of learning to communicate very clearly and explicitly of who I am and why I find myself in this room and what I bring to the table.

Can you talk about how you utilize storytelling effectively to create connection and understanding with other people?

Maybe I do want to start there. First of all, why has storytelling been such a big part of my career? Because you're very spot on with that. And I'm picking this up because it links to what I'm talking about with transferable skills. If I think about theology and religion, I learned very early on to having to explain things and see how people can relate. Because I studied something where everyone has an opinion on. So if I had studied math or physics, I'm just making assumptions here, But I think the comments from people would be much less, maybe even disengaging, because not everyone can relate to it. Not everyone actually thinks they understand the area and would leave it as be, okay, you're a physicist. Great. I have actually not much to add to that. Versus religion is something where everyone has one kind of relationship to in one way or another. You know, whether you associate or grew up in a relationship or not. Religion, or whether, you know, you're an atheist or an agnostic or call it whatever you want. But on that spectrum, most people are able to put themselves somewhere and have an opinion of how religion has connected, Served or not served their own life, or served or not served this world. Right? And so because of that, navigating an area where people always have opinions on, I think you learn very quickly on having to relate your subject expertise into their lives. And that's where storytelling comes in very early. Having had that background, I think now serves me very well in corporate, because it might have been maybe an area that, in the corporate setting, has not always been, you know, front and center and prioritized, but the only way you can grow a customer base for the products and services that you offer is. Is to show how you build that relation and that trust. Right? So, again, that's where storytelling comes in on my career path. And then if I think back on, again, how I'm growing up as a child and learning, then how do you create stories that people can relate? You know, if I look at all the organizations I worked at, they're all multinational, they're all global. So you're always facing different cultures, different languages, different backgrounds. You need to tell your story differently. Right?

And.

And that is something I have learned very early on because I grew up between Germany and. And Thailand, between, you know, the German language and the Thai language. And I noticed something actually later in life when some of my friends hear me talk, let's say, you know, Western friends hear me talk Thai for the first time. Even as simple as, like, we're going to a Thai restaurant, and I'm ordering for everyone. I've had the comment where my friend was like, oh, my God, Mellie, what just happened? You turned into a whole different personality. They didn't actually understand what I was saying, but I was gesticulating differently. I actually almost changed my voice tone a little bit because I was translating into A whole different context. And it's true, actually my voice pitch is much higher when I speak Thai, even though I'm obviously the same person. But if we're talking about communication, it's so much more than just words. It's the whole whole kind of the whole aura, the whole mimicking, the voice tone, the eye contact, the, you know, how far do I bow my head, if I bow it at all, etc. And all of these little things build connections. There's more to say. But I do want to start with these very little basics, right? Do I have eye contact or not? Do I, you know, is there physical touch involved from handshaking or not, et cetera, et cetera.

This is powerful. This is powerful. And really what we're talking about, what we're seeing here is we, we're seeing cultural intelligence on display, but also very, very high level code switching, which is finding an authentic version of yourself within the culture you happen to be in and adjusting accordingly. And the only way you can code switch effectively is if you truly a culture. If you try to code switch without knowing the culture, then it just seems like mimicry or mockery and it does not go well. You actually have to immerse yourself in the culture in order to do this well. And it happens largely automatically. And so that's why it's so important for us to try to get as many experience and experience different types of experiences in life as possible. I mean, even just going to different restaurants, talking to different people, if you have the opportunity to travel, travel. But I think just pushing yourself to have conversations and interact, interact with people who you know are different from you are, it's going to serve you exceptionally well at some point in the future. And I want to go back to the storytelling too, because this is, this is still very, very powerful. Because when you look at your career and you especially not just studying theology, but working in a situation where it was very religious centered, but then you were working with people of different religious backgrounds in a highly polarized topic of global warming and having to address the issues of climate refugees, like these are all exceptionally sensitive types of situations. Now, as you are authentically kind of code switching and communicating and connecting with all of these different people, I'm assuming that there's a different way that you connect with people of one religion in this context and it differs from other people, right? How do you do this authentically? Like conversation to conversation within the same, within the same occupation? Because it seems like there's a lot of social savvy that is required in order to do that without burning out or just kind of like giving up. Hello my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better, difficult conversations? At the American Negotiation Institute, we offer transformative keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands on training for your team, we've got you covered. Don't just negotiate. Master the arts. Will the American Negotiation Institute click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed.

First of all, don't go on on assumptions and you know, what the shared denominators may be. But understand in your audience whether that's now a Hindu community, a Christian community, a Muslim community, or as I said in the business context, you know, whoever you may be selling to understand what are the values they are already holding and how can I appeal to that? And I, I like to often then also give one of the best examples of how storytelling and that value piece for me links to change management. And that actually goes back to the US and the state of Texas, which, which was facing a huge problem of littering on the streets. So obviously we know there are rules about littering on the streets and I think most jurisdictions, but it didn't go anywhere. And so what the state of Texas then started was a campaign to say don't mess with Texas. And that was actually created to address the littering problem that the state was having. And so instead of saying, oh, you ought to not throw your trash onto the street where people then were like, no, I'm an individual with my own choices. I may do whatever I want. They started to see what are the values that Texans hold and it's a deep pride in their state. So coming up with the campaign and the slogan to say don't mess with Texas actually completely over, I think a span, I might get the data wrong now, but I kind of remember over the span of five years it went down by 75% or something like that. That appealed. And I think that's a super good example of understanding what are the values that people already hold. How does what you're doing or your agenda connect to that? How do you tell a story about that that people can identify? Right, don't mess with Texas. And you get the result in this case of esteem of a clean state Amazing.

That phrase is so quintessentially Texan. I never would have thought that it came from a littering campaign. That's fascinating. And it shows again, just how persuasive stories can be, especially when you're able to tap into the value system of somebody else. Because I think in so many cases, whether it's a serious, pivotal, kind of controversial issue or just something more mundane, a lot of times we try to say, listen, my values are superior to your values, so the only path forward is for you to change your ways. And essentially what we're saying is like, hey, you are inferior to me. I'm sorry about that. But hey, if you just do exactly what I tell you, you could be good like me. Most people would reject such an approach, but we don't see it that way, and that holds us back. So what you're able to do is you say, all right, cool, I need to figure out what their values are, and then I need to attach the outcome that I'm driving toward with their values. And I'm not going to communicate in a way that necessarily makes sense to me or is natural to me, but I'm going to communicate in a way that connects with them, connects the outcome that I'm looking for to the values. Fundamentally shifting somebody's values is incredibly difficult to do, but shifting their perspective is a lot easier. And I love how you're that example because it shows us, all right? If you can understand people's values, you can connect and you can persuade, and that's exactly what you were doing in that role when you were working within the religious communities. But even at the high level in the corporate world, that's what you're doing too. And so can you talk about how when you were making this career transition and you started to navigate the corporate world, what were the biggest differences in how your skill set was applied? Those transferable skills, how did it shift?

I think what is the most important thing when you, particularly when you're in a role like mine, when you come in new as an outsider, right. I gave the example of being cutting into the pharma industry, where most people have spent the whole career and they're not a lot of cut ins, et cetera, is that you have to establish trust. And meaning people have to trust you. They don't necessarily have to like you and they also don't necessarily have to agree with you, but they have to trust you. And there's a difference between these three, right? And I think how you establish trust, and I'm Talking trust is such a big term, so many different ways of defining this, etc. I'm looking at it right now in one angle of how do you establish trust with internal stakeholders at an organization is to be very clear, first of all, again, of what I like to call procedural justice. So explaining very clearly what you're doing, why you're doing it, and where this will lead. And that effect already is, brings people along, even if they don't necessarily agree, but they have full transparency on what you're doing. Secondly, it is about, you know, building credibility. And I think I want to start there because we often talk about vulnerability these days, and that is very important. That is very great. But you cannot be vulnerable if you haven't had. If you haven't built credibility yet. Actually, if you do that, it will hurt you. So I'm about, as you know, Kwame, to join a new organization if the first thing that I'm going to do on day one is put myself on stage and say, look, this is my track record of failure, of all the things I've done wrong in the past and, you know, missteps I've taken. And. And this is where I'm super anxious and insecure. That will hurt me because, you know, my new colleagues have no track record of who I am, what I have already accomplished, where they can trust me, where they can rely on me. So coming in with that would hurt me. Right. So I have to build credibility first and show that I'm actually capable of contributing to where this organization and where we want to go together as a team. And then I can make myself vulnerable. And I think sometimes that has been missed in the conversation about vulnerability. But that's why I'm also leading with that, where I'm saying I have to show my credibility. I have to show what my expertise is and where I am incredibly good at and how that relates to where you need to go. As my colleague, how does my expertise help you and your goals and your KPIs? That also helps to build trust. Now, that's an interesting one because I think trust, if I want to paint it in left and right extremes in many different cultures and communities, builds around two elements, either its competence or its character. And I think the U.S. for example, is very largely driven by competence. So you will trust me if I deliver on time, you will trust me if I deliver all the things that I've promised to deliver fully, etc. Versus in cultures. Mine from Thailand as an example. Character, if you had to choose, would be much More important and much more trustworthy. Right? There's a context there. I mean, our societies are designed differently. One arguably is more around individualism, the other one around collectivism. But also look at the economies of both. Right. Thailand is largely driven by family business. Even if they're like huge conglomerates driving billions of revenue, they are still family businesses. So if a family friend who has known you since a child and can speak to your character is vouching for you, that is much more important because you are someone that can be trusted. In a culture where I grew up, every day being told, blood is thicker than water, meaning you can only trust family. So in that context, that is how trust is built. Hence also the importance of sharing a meal and things like that in a business context versus in the US it's more about competence, right? Show me that you deliver, then I can trust you. I'm saying this purely analytically. I think both has, you know, a good and a bad. But I think having that awareness. How does trust build in different contexts is as important as your, you know, looking at how can you relate to people and establish yourself in an organization as if we talk about trust, I think there's a very good example about how trust relates to transparency. Because we sometimes think that trust builds by being completely transparent. Right. And I think partially that is true. We don't want to, you know, have obviously lies or, you know, hidden truth and all of that, but the relation is not entirely straight. And what I mean by that is transparency can lead to trust. Because I'm being very upfront, I have nothing to hide. But having nothing to hide can also be read the other way. Because if I'm telling you a story now and I'm saying to you, I am being so honest with you, I have nothing to hide, doubling down on that, you'd be like, why are you saying that? Actually, that makes me trust you less. And I'm giving this from an example of my. Of my other country, Germany, where transparency is not necessarily the thing that builds trust. Historically too. So if you look at Germany's context after the Second World War, when the country was divided into, you know, West Germany and East Germany under the Stasi, they're like, what happened was that everyone was constantly had to be the transparent human being. Everything about them were known, right? Like people were spying on each other. And that was the opposite of trust. Nor a good political system. Right. But that's where now when you're in the German context and people talk, for example, let's say about Open Calendars, because I have nothing to hide. You can see all my meetings. It doesn't build trust because people are like, why do you need to know what I'm doing? And it's kind of where the mentality came from. Because transparency can also actually, in its worst expression be totalitarianism and surveillance and build the opposite of trust. I'm giving this example because again, transparency in one context can work really well and then in another one not. And so again, understanding what is the society you're facing, what is the history and the culture you're facing, where are people coming from? And it links back to what are the values we hold. You may need to find different expressions for it. Again, that's not saying you can't have certain values globally. You can talk about, let's have radical feedback everywhere, let's have an honest culture. But you might need to find different ways of how to operationalize that. So the open calendar will not work globally. Will a culture of honesty work globally? Of course. But you need to figure out how that, you know, translates into each context.

This is so good. I think we don't often think about the, the cultural nuances of trust. We always think about it through the psychological perspective. What's the trust equation? We have credibility plus reliability extended over time, divided by self interest. Right. And so, yes, I think that kind of holds true, but we were missing out on the cultural nuance too, because the way that trust is expressed and built is going to be different because each behavior is going to be filtered through the unique culture that you find yourself in. And it's really important to recognize that some of the things that might be trust building in one culture or community might have the exact opposite approach effect in another one. And that's, that's really fascinating. And the only way that you can know that is by studying, but more importantly, by actually living. By actually living and immersing yourself and spending time with people who see the world differently. And it allows you to build these skills. And throughout this, we've been talking about your transferable skills, but one of the things that I've, I've started to pick up on is that these skills were built in largely through experience. So yes, of course there are going to be some things that we got from school, but it seems like the majority of the time it was you ran into a situation, you had to figure it out and built a transferable skill in order to bridge that gap. And it just shows that from the outside looking in, when somebody looks at your really impressive resume and everywhere that you've worked and all of the things that you've done, they'd be like, how? How is this possible? Who is this person? But now we can understand how, what the through line is, it is the, the cultural intelligence. It's the transferable skills, it's the willingness to adapt and connect and the ability to tell great stories, to convey meaning in a way that connects with the values of the person on the other side. And that's really what it's all about. And so, Meli, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing all of these cool nuggets and helping it seem more doable because, like I said, it can feel like magic when you're observing it. But now you've kind of given us a pathway to figure this out ourselves. So I appreciate it. And before you go, I want you to leave the listeners with a parting piece of advice. So for folks who are trying to connect, trying to build their career and maybe embarking on something new and scary, what advice would you have for the person listening?

That's a very big question, Kwame. But I, I think in the context of everything we just talked about, maybe let me give, you know, my, my final thought on this, of what can you do if you don't, if you're not in a position right now of getting, you know, the kind of international exposure that we're talking about. Because, yes, there's a lot that I was, you know, fortunate enough to learn, by the way I grew up by, you know, my travels that I did for work and life, etc. But what if you don't have that chance, right? What if you're not in a position right now where you're traveling a lot or you're like facing a lot of, you know, other cultures? And my advice would be learning to communicate with other communities, cultures, etc. And building that relational piece. What is very helpful, even if you don't know another culture, because I was giving an example right now on Germany and the trust and transparency piece, and of course, I know the German history very well. What happens if you don't have that context yet, right. Where you can analyze that and translate that. And I think what I would give as an advice is have a high level of self awareness first and understand your own culture and how you act. And I think when you know that, how does your culture operate? So as an example, in the US I know your audience is very US based, right? The US Even in language is so very explicit, right? There is not what we call like a Lot of in between the lines. The French call it like sous Anton du. You don't have that. Right. You're very explicit in the way you communicate. So even to the degree when you make a joke, you're saying at the end of it, just kidding, right. Or if you're hearing the joke, you often say as a response, you're not laughing, you're saying, that's funny, that's hilarious. Sometimes there's even this hand clap coming with it. That's a, you know, I'm just giving an example of how explicit the US culture is in their communication, both verbally and explicitly with, you know, your gestures. And German culture as an example is very different. I think that's why German humor is so misunderstood because it's a highly sarcastic humor and you don't clarify that this is a joke. So that's why it doesn't translate internationally. I know we have a bad reputation, but we're actually funny if you understand it. Anyway, to come back, have a level of self awareness, how does your culture operate? How do you show up? You know, also the US is a very, is a very loud culture. A lot of times when I'm in a, in a group setting in a room with different cultures, the first one you hear and the loudest you hear is a US American who is in the room. Right. But again, that comes from an educational system where you are actually graded and rewarded on your participation. You get a participation grade regardless of what you actually say. Right. It's showing. Are you engaged? That's again, not the case everywhere in every culture. But that's why you show up in that way. So know a little bit. And having self awareness of your culture and how that influences a culture that might be different, you know, a counterpart that might be different and come from a different culture and show that self awareness. Because now we're talking about stereotypes, Right. And in order to relate and how to build trust is sometimes also to show, hey, I'm self aware and either say this is how I am and I know it and sometimes that can be obnoxious, or to say, this is what you think I am, but this is how I'm not. That even though I come from that culture, that helps to build trust, actually. So start with self awareness. Even if you don't have all the historical and whatever context that you might need and where you need to spend time with the culture and study it. I think that's a good starting point. Even if you haven't had exposure to.

Other cultures, this is so good Meli, you have me wanting to keep on asking questions on this, but this is great, Meli. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. You have a very rich background. What is the value, the most important value that you inherited from your parents that made you who you are?

Okay, my answer is it's not necessarily that I display that at every time, but I know it is something that my parents have exemplified for me and whenever I remind myself of that, it really very much grounds me and it makes me more successful. And what I want to say by that is that my parents have taught me with, you know, their own. Okay, let me start there without going too deep into my parents background, but my father is a little bit older. He was still born in the second world War, you know, growing up in that context and post war rebuilding. My mother, you know, had her own upbringing in Thailand too and I think come from, from, from with their learnings. I think they had always a strong focus on what defines humanity when all else falls apart and what defines community right in their own childhoods and upbringings already, let alone then, you know, starting an intercultural marriage in the 70s facing you know, very strong racism from both families and from both societies. So when they're looking, you know, with, with that, I think what my parents have taught me is to have low ego and high self esteem. I don't think I display that all the time, but I know that that is something that they have instilled in me to say don't do anything necessarily for your self interest or for your ego to look greater and bigger and wider and faster. So have a low ego, understand your own fallibility and understand what you're doing and why you're doing it and how does that serve community around you at the same time have high self esteem. Right, know exactly. Have an unshakable sense of yourself, particularly when you're, you know, when that is being questioned. As I said, you know, also even in the context of racism, et cetera, et cetera, have a high understanding and level of self esteem but a low ego. And I think whenever I had that in my workplace, I actually led to my best work. And why is that? Because this high self esteem allowed me to display what are my skills actually, what am I good, what am I contributing to this team, this organization. That's where I know exactly why I'm here and why they brought me here. But I have a low ego. I'm doing whatever I'm doing. I'm actually doing it because I want to help this organization because I want to help this mission because I want to help the individual colleague that is standing in front of me. And I'm not thinking in any kind of way of competition like a territory, so whatever. So that low ego bringing me back down. And I think my parents, who are wonderful people and I love them deeply, have very much taught me that. And. And I'm trying to. I strive towards bringing that to life.

What a. First of all, great question. Great answer. Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically, automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We're excited to have you, and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.