How to Lead Multicultural Teams with these hidden Keys to Team Success

What if the biggest communication issue in your team isn't language? What if it's assumption? If your team is as diverse as my teams have been, and let's face it, in Canada, that's probably the case, then your biggest risk isn't hiring the wrong people. It's losing the right people because you never learned how to speak their language even when we share one. Technically, we share a language of communication in our workplaces. And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. Of course, this is where small business owners and entrepreneurs develop new skills to help them create the jaw-dropping, show-stopping experience that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. It is so great to have you here because my guest today is John Edward McGraw, the Culture Clarity Coach and founder of Hayaku Coaching. I'm gonna get that right at some point. Today, we are diving headfirst into how leaders can bridge cultural gaps in their teams, improve communications, and create workplaces where everyone from every background can thrive. My one ask is that if you know somebody who could use this information, please share a link to this episode. And if you haven't done so yet, please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast. It's free. It doesn't cost you a dime. And it'll feed my ego just maybe long enough for me to keep producing more episodes. I mean, this is Episode 257. So, I think I'm on a little bit of a roll. So, you've got the job postings. You've got the applicants. You're even lucky enough to have a team with talent from all over the world. But here's the kicker. Something's not working. You see things like deadlines slipping. Frustration is growing and good people are leaving. And you might think that you have a skills gap. But what happens if it's not a skills gap? What happens if it's a culture gap? And that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, are your communication habits building connection or is it building confusion? Could it be miscommunication is draining your team's performance and you don't even know it? Could it be? I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. Why don't you go ahead and share this episode on your favorite social media platform? Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership. And let's make you part of this conversation as well. As I mentioned, my guest today is John Edward McGraw, a Certified Intercultural Coach, seasoned educator, and founder of the Hayaku Coaching. John is not just another communications expert. He's the Cultural Clarity Coach. Someone who's lived the real-life consequences of cross-cultural misunderstandings and now helps businesses leap forward. That's what Hayaku means in Japanese, by closing culture gaps before they damage teams. He's worked with nonprofits, governments, and organizations across Canada to improve communication, build retention, and strengthen teams from the inside out. John, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

It's a pleasure to be here, Marc, and congratulations on your 257th. Is that a milestone of some kind? I'm not sure.

It's one more than 256. So, who knows?

There we go. There we go.

We celebrate. We just celebrate.

And in the interest of communication and clarity, I should specify that the The pronunciation is hiyaku. Hiyaku. Although—

There you go. Hiyaku.

But A for effort, and you did get the meaning right, which was of course leaping forward, great leap forward, a great progress in Japanese. And the reason why someone like me, who is a white Canadian citizen by birth, has a Japanese name for my company is because I lived and worked in Japan for several years.

Wow!

And it was a result. Yeah, it was a result of being there that I learned about Canadian culture. In fact, that we actually have a Canadian culture because I think if you ask many of us born and raised here, well, what's Canadian culture? We might say, I don't know, it's Tim Hortons and hockey. That would be the extent of it. But in fact, it shows up in the way that we communicate in the workplace, what we consider to be a person who's a good fit in a company, what confidence looks like, what's a good communicator, what they look like, when in fact, it's not necessarily universal. And that actually can be different in many contexts.

Hmm.

And when we make errors around those and assumptions around those, just to your point, as you were mentioning earlier when we were leading in, it leads to a loss, people, higher turnover, people leaving, Or letting someone go because they're just not a good fit. So, that's what I'm here about.

Which is interesting because when we go through the hiring process, we're looking for the best fit. And so, at some point, we perceive the person when we said, yeah, let's hire this person. We perceive them to be a good fit. So, why is this such an issue in our workplaces in the world today?

Well, it's a major issue because Canada, as we know, is a country that thrives on immigration.

Right.

It's been a part of our history for 150, even more years since Canada was officially formed as a country. And it's even more so than ever in large urban centers. I'm in Toronto, so that's quite apparent there. The workforce that's coming in is coming from all over the world. And I think this is a great thing because they bring in diversity of experiences, which is what we're really talking about, the strength when it comes to diversity of job experiences that many of us who were born and raised in Canada may not have. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're better, but when you get a diversity, you get people working together with different ways of doing things. Assuming they can communicate effectively together, that leads to greater production and greater innovation. The problem comes when they can't communicate. And a lot of it comes from assumptions on communication. There's a figure that in the United States alone, for a year, it's about $3 trillion are lost due to miscommunication.

Wow.

Wow! So, it shows that this is a major factor. So, being able to address these matters of cultural assumptions and being able to communicate more effectively, it's not just a nice-to-have because it's the humane thing or right thing to do, which it certainly is. But it actually makes your business better. So, it's very complex.

So, are there any myths that we need to bust about the idea of cross-cultural communication? Because when I talk to entrepreneurs, it's like, yeah, no, I know that they're weak so I slow down. I just want to make absolutely sure they get my message. So, I make sure to talk a little slower.

Well, that can certainly— that's in the right direction, I suppose. That's a start. But that's not the only thing. I think a lot of it comes down to assumptions that it's not just about language. Now, language is of course important and making that opportunity to slow down and simplify your message. Is important, but it also shows up in the hiring process or after they're hired. Things like, what does confidence look like? So, in Canada, we are raised with the assumption that eye contact is an important way to show respect. Very simple thing. But when we come to many other cultures, eye contact with someone who is in a higher position, like a manager, is actually considered a sign of aggression. So, in an interview, a candidate who may be very capable and confident may have a tendency to look away, look down, and because they're showing respect, they don't want to be disrespectful to the person that they're having the interview with. So, that can be interpreted through our cultural lenses, oh, well, this person's not confident, or are they trying to hide something? Are they being disrespectful? And right there, That's just not even something even being said. It's just something nonverbal and how it's being interpreted. And that can already lead to the person being written off. Oh, okay. Well, this person clearly is not confident. So, they're not going to be a good fit. And then, you lose out on the valuable skills or ways of thinking that they can bring into your company.

When it comes down to having kind of a diverse workforce, The— I mean, you picked one particular kind of component on how do we interpret personality based on body habits. Are there any other signs that we might not be as effective as we think we are in our workplaces when it comes down to communication?

Absolutely. Another part is the assumptions around self-promotion is one that comes in particular.

Mm-hmm.

In Canada, you want to speak about yourself in an interview, have those conversations with your supervisor to say, hey, you know, this is where I'd like to go with my career. How do I get there? That's just an assumed thing. If you try that, for example, in India, many places there say, what are you doing? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with this guy being so arrogant coming to me? Wasting my time talking about what they want. You're expected, and that's just one example, but you're expected, you know, if you work hard, your work will speak for itself and your supervisor will come to you when it's time for you to do that. Or they'll look over your resume in an interview and just see, you know, just even how we communicate results, right? We're very results-focused. So on a resume, an interview, you have your STAR story explaining, okay, This is what I did. I was in this position. This is what I did. So as a result, the company's profits raised by 10% for the quarter. Results-focused. But other cultures, again, that's extremely arrogant. It's considered extremely arrogant to do that. So when you come from a place where your whole life you've been raised to think one way and then suddenly it's the opposite, and we don't even necessarily know to explain that. to many people coming in, then they lose out. And even if they're hired, maybe they end up getting stuck in the same position because they never have those conversations because they don't know that that's expected or that it's even acceptable to approach a manager that way. And then you— well, a person who doesn't get any mobility, how long are they going to stick around? How long are they going to be happy? And you lose out. That's true.

To your point, I can see that somebody in a position has other people leapfrogging over them. And they have a belief system that if you want to promote me, you're going to come to me and tell me what an amazing job I'm doing. And you'll come to me to ask me if I want to be promoted. Whereas everybody else in the organization is going to the boss and saying, I want that job.

Exactly, yeah. And they lose out. It's like, oh, what? This person wasn't nearly as qualified as I was, but they ended up talking and they got it. And it's not a case of the person being arrogant saying, okay, well, if they think I'm valuable, they're going to come to me. No, it's more like, well, it's the opposite. It's like, well, I'm going to be respectful and I'm going to wait until it's my turn. And so it's very hard to adapt to that. And even sometimes when you intellectually know that, it can be hard to adjust That behavior. So, if you want to, as an owner of a business, if you really want to take advantage and get the benefits of this international talent, it's worthwhile to take the steps to meet halfway and just a little bit have that cultural flex on your own hand rather than expecting all of the adaptation to be done by those who are coming in.

Yeah, it's interesting because as you were saying that, I've been falling back on this idea that in this day and age, I believe that managers need to become more coaches. And as a coach, you'd be having sit-down face-to-face conversations with your people regardless of their roles and where they are. So, you should have really good clarity as to personality and be able to even ask those questions about whether or not somebody is interested in promotions, what they want for their future, and so on. But to your point, if we keep skipping over because we figure they're not aggressive enough, they're too quiet, they're introverted, they're not as outgoing as they should, right? Then we're pigeonholing them and just restricting them to their job description. And that's where they're going to stay.

Yes, exactly. And exactly to your point that you said about Leaders needing to be coaches rather than just directors. That's exactly— that's the first step. Because as a coach, you need to really listen to your people and understand them, just as you said. And that's the first step of being able to cross any kind of gap, whether it's specifically cultural due to different country, different regions.

Yeah.

Generational culture, all of these things. And just that first step alone, you know, I use one of the acronyms that I use to raise awareness is called LEAP. Ties into hiyaku, leaping forward.

Sure.

Let go of assumptions, right? Engage with curiosity, assess possibilities, and perform with insight. And that first step, let go of assumptions, is just Really comes down to really just starting to listen and realize, okay, so this person's not speaking up. So, uh, well, my gut reaction is they, they don't have anything valuable to say or they don't have any confidence. But well, what else could be going on here? Could it be that they're from somewhere where speaking up is considered rude? And could they have something valuable? And just that, taking that moment to realize, okay, well, I'm Canadian or whatever my background is. So I've been— the reason I feel that speaking up is a sign of confidence is because that's the way we've been raised through our education system, through job searches and everything. So realizing that that's not universal and just having that awareness alone is the most important step.

Mm-hmm.

Until you're aware about yourself and the assumptions, and we all have these assumptions. We all have our own assumptions. Until you have that awareness of yourself, it's very difficult to coach others if you don't even recognize those assumptions in yourself.

Yeah, but part of it as well is we also have to understand that we too have knowledge gaps. I mean, if we're dealing with like, I live in Alberta. So, if you have a hardware store in Alberta and you've never traveled the world, how do you become aware of this? And this is just before you and I went live. I was talking about how I hope that people trip over this episode and they realize, oh my goodness, I have a knowledge gap. Right? And we want to be able to move people forward. But all too often, people are stuck in their little bubble of reality. And so, when they have all these They need the workers. They bring workers in and then they pull out their hair. How do leaders know that they have a problem? Are there any warning signs that this is a communication issue rather than a personality conflict or assumption, an assumption problem? How do they get out of their heads and start asking appropriate questions?

The first part is just, as you said, just even starting to consider that it may be, that may be an issue as opposed to assuming that it's a personality thing. So just, just by, by realizing, okay, there may be something else going on here, I think is the most important step. Because the biggest trap for us is our assumptions about how the world works or how the world is supposed to work. Then Once you've done that, it starts to make it easier to investigate, to find out. Perhaps the easiest or most direct way is to just start those conversations with your people. Something— and the important thing is to do it in a respectful way. So, is it, you know, why aren't you— if it's a matter of, say, speaking up, okay, why aren't you speaking up? When you're saying you want opportunities, you might say, you know, here I'm curious. Just what the best thing to do is to even just start a conversation with them and say, "Hey, so you're here. What is it that you would you would like to achieve? Or how are you feeling so far about the scenario?" And you want to make sure that you're doing it in a way that's. Not confrontational. And also, making sure that they understand that it's all right for them to be a little more candid. And it may take some time because again, they may come from a culture where speaking up and saying what's on your mind or your candid feelings to your boss or supervisor is forbidden. It's a dangerous thing to do. Actually, to be honest, in many workplaces in Canada, for many Canadians born and raised here, there is that. Okay, well, I don't want to tell my boss what I really think.

Right.

But just starting that, starting the conversation directly with them. And again, but as I said, and that's the engaging with the curiosity, asking questions. But the A part is assessing possibilities, which means you don't just go to one source. So, it may be, maybe they do tell you what's on their mind, or maybe they're a little more reluctant. So then what you do is try to investigate, okay, so what culture are they from? What resources can I find? There are people like myself, of course, who talk about cultures, cultural divide, cultural communications. There are a lot of resources out there, some great books about culture gaps. Andy Molinsky's Global Dexterity is one I can think of that's a great one. Erin Meyer's The Culture Map is another great one that just talks about, okay, here are some different things, ways of communicating directly and indirectly. The idea of assumptions of authority, right? We have flat hierarchies versus other cultures of that. Start to— so it's starting to kind of check, okay, here's what might be going on. And just getting that awareness and understanding All right, and and then you can start to approach the questions in a in a bit of a different way by adjusting your approach, seeing if that if that works. I think there's nothing lost by doing that, and then if after taking these various steps, there still seems to be an issue, then that may indicate okay well maybe there's something else going on here. But the thing is to to rather than jumping automatically okay some kind of personality issue, which I think is is the is the tendency when something just doesn't feel right, right? It doesn't match. Then that's what comes up. You know, I think of my own experience when I was in Japan as an English teacher. And this was— there was one particular incident that I recall that really raised my awareness around these kinds of issues.

Hmm.

I was teaching A lesson to a student helping them to prepare for an English test where getting a score would open up a lot of opportunities for them. This was within the first 6 months of my teaching. The goal was when you're doing the multiple choice section, if you don't know the answer, Just choose an answer. That was the entire focus of the lesson. Very straightforward. My student's name was Kenji, and he was very eager to improve his English skill and to do very well on this test. So, I went through different practice exercises, and I got down to the final activity, which was A short section of multiple choice questions just to demonstrate the concept that if you don't know the answer, you always choose something because there are no penalties in marking something wrong. I went through this explanation with the instructions. I looked at Kenji and I said, Kenji, do you understand what to do? He looked at me, he said, yes. And I thought at the time that he really did understand. What to do? So I was excited, and as it turned out, he ended up leaving a number of questions blank. Keeping in mind that the entire focus of this lesson was about don't leave questions blank, and I couldn't understand what was going on. It this was one of these moments where it's just like thing this doesn't feel right. Something is wrong here. How could anyone do this? And I realized that he hadn't understood what to do, but he had told me that he did. And I was frustrated. I was like, well, if you didn't understand what to do, why didn't you just ask me questions? And I actually— I was not proud of how I acted in that moment. I actually got very frustrated and said, you know, like, why didn't you Say something. Why didn't you say that you didn't understand? And he was kind of terrified, and he just couldn't respond. And I actually yelled at him. I said, "Just circle things," and "Just circle answers." And he circled them just out of fear because I was so angry and upset. Which and then I got back to the teacher's room, and I said, "I don't know what was going on with." What's going on with this student? Why wouldn't he just say anything? And one of my Japanese colleagues said, well, John, of course he didn't say anything. He's Japanese. He would never say no to be disrespectful to his teacher. And I just— that moment just hit me. I was like, oh, wow. And the worst part of it was He never came back. Kenji never came back after that. And that was when I just started to realize, wow, okay, there are different ways of communicating, doing things. He didn't understand, but he thought based on his culture, the best thing to do in the circumstances was just to say yes because he couldn't say no. You know, it did— for wrong— it felt wrong to him to say no, uh, but I still had to do my job as a teacher. So I learned from that that I had to adjust my approach.

Mm-hmm.

Because if I tried to force, you know, because this was not the only time, um, this happened with many other students, you know, I didn't, I didn't lose my cool like I did in that incident with Kenji. But this frequently happens. Students would say, you know, I would ask them, do you understand what to do? They would say yes, and then they demonstrated that they didn't. So just telling them, hey, it's okay to ask questions, you know, it's part of our culture and everything, to some extent that's valuable. You want to share that, but you can't expect them to suddenly turn, especially considering I was in Japan They were with me for 40 minutes a day, and then they were out in their own culture. So for me to— Yeah, I mean, these were, you know, many of them were adults actually, you know, working out.

So they spent their whole life with that behavior.

Exactly, exactly. And so for me to try and force them to my way of doing things wasn't going to— not only was it, you know, ethnically questionable or ethically questionable, Mm-hmm. It wasn't going to work. It wasn't practical to expect that. So I had to adjust my approach to be more effective. And this didn't mean that I suddenly became more— suddenly became Japanese or something. I was still true to who I was, but I had to adjust my approach. So what I did, rather than asking a question like that, I would simply give the instructions, And then I would ask the class as a whole, okay, please explain to me what you're going to do. And then they would kind of answer as a group because they would feel safer because it was a group dynamic, being a bit more of a collectivist society. And also, I was this— I was the teacher asking the questions and they were answering, so they weren't disrespecting me, you know, in their minds by questioning the way I explained it, but I was just hearing back from them what they understood.

Right.

And then based on that, I could adjust how I would do it. I might demonstrate or something. And that was far more effective. I fit the expected role that they expected for the teacher as the students. And I also, more importantly, I learned a new way to communicate and a new way to adjust. Rather than sticking with my old assumptions. Right.

Translating that into the workplace, we could see this time and time again where the boss comes in and we have the same dynamic, don't we? I mean, I hire Filipinos and I can't get them to shake, please don't call me Mr. Marc.

Right.

Right? But it's something that's just inherent in their in their culture. It's a sign of respect. And so, after a while, after they've been calling me Mr. Marc for— it's like, okay, fine. I'm not gonna fight it anymore. But having said that, when it comes down to, here's a task. Do you understand? And they say, yes. And you walk away thinking you've done your job as the manager. And you come back and go, what the heck just happened? You told me you understood. Right? And so, I can absolutely see that these kinds of miscommunications, these kinds of cultural differences can really take much longer to get through a project if we don't ask the appropriate questions.

Exactly. And that's all it takes is just adjusting your approach to ask the appropriate questions. Okay, so you just in the workplace, you can do the same thing. So just if you could Could you just explain to me what you understand of what to do next? And this also applies to feedback because I'm not sure if it's the same in Alberta, but certainly in Toronto and Ontario, my assumption with Canadian culture in general is that we tend to be pretty polite in our feedback, right?

Yeah.

We use this sandwich technique. Hey, compliment. Here's the critique, compliment. And again, this can be very confusing For cultures where there's a greater distance in authority and the manager tells you, hey, this is what you did wrong. Fix it. Right? Which we don't want to do because it feels wrong because it's like, well, one, we like to be polite. We'd want to avoid confrontation. And then, there's a question of, oh well, if I'm too rough, are they going to go to HR if it's a larger company or will they quit? So then, you give them the feedback. And then they don't follow it. It's like, why didn't you follow the feedback? Well, because you had this really thick sandwich that they're not used to eating.

Yeah.

In their culture, they're used to something that's more direct. So, and it doesn't mean that you want to suddenly become really harsh and say, hey, do this. But it's good to have the check-in. Okay, so what do you understand that you, you know, is the next step that I'd like you to do? And that's a way to check in with that, still being kind. Still being polite but just taking that extra step. And again, it's worth it.

So, I'd like to get into kind of— you talked about the LEAP framework. I'd like to get into your SPEAK framework to uncover even more tools. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! I hope you're getting a ton of value from our discussion so far. John, we've talked about— you mentioned respect a couple of times. What exactly is inclusive communication in comparison to what we think is respectful?

That is a great question.

Right?

Being respectful. Yeah. So, in the sense, being respectful is what we assume about being polite, right? As we've just talked about some of those examples, avoiding confrontation, using those things. Whereas inclusive communication is more about listening. I would say when we think about maybe being respectful communication or the assumption of what inclusive is, it's like avoiding saying the wrong thing.

Yes.

Avoiding offending people. Whereas, so it's kind of seen as like this thing that we have to do that's maybe interpreted as a bit of a hassle. Okay, there are these certain phrases that we have to avoid using. Whereas being inclusive isn't about not doing this. It's more about what you do, which is taking that time to really listen. To people. And I think a lot of our understanding of what active listening is at times can be performative. In other words, okay, so I lean in, make eye contact, nod every once in a while, but it's all about— it's not really about what's going on here. It's about what's going on deep inside, deep inside here.

Right.

Are you really taking that time to appreciate what they're saying? In the case of Kenji, was I just listening to his words or did I— could I have paid more attention to his body language, how he looked when he said yes?

Mm-hmm.

Even though I didn't have the awareness that I do now at the time. So they're just picking up on those kinds of cues, picking up, okay, maybe there's something going on here that I'm not seeing fully. And I think that giving that space The safe space where people feel comfortable sharing. And it may take them time to do that, particularly if they're from a culture where you're not supposed to do that. But it's just making that. And I think part of the example is also demonstrating that you're willing to take those steps. Because nothing makes a person feel unsafe when it's like, okay, Well, we're going to have all of this inclusive communication and so on. So, we'll get our frontline people to do it. But then, the top management doesn't adopt. They don't practice what they preach.

Right.

So yeah, it's really about walking the walk, which is why it's important to take that step halfway even though there might be assumption, well, we're in Canada so they should do the way things are done in Canada. And I can understand the reason for thinking that way, but it's important. Again, if you want to really take full advantage of this talent, it's important to demonstrate a willingness to understand other people. And that's not even across cultures, that's any employee. If you show an interest in them, they're going to be more loyal to you than any pay raise is going to do, right?

Well, and to your point, I think The more time you spend with people individually, the more trust you build. And so, once we've created the trust, we create— that's where the crux of our relationships come in. Then, you can start asking tougher questions when the trust level is very high and people won't feel so insecure about giving you a proper response.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's all about building that safety.

So, you mentioned your LEAP framework. Can we, before we jump into your SPEAK framework, could we just summarize again what this LEAP framework is and what it does? And then, just define those 4 steps again?

Absolutely. So, the purpose of the LEAP framework is to avoid jumping into assumptions. When you are And confronted with a situation or an interaction that doesn't make sense to you, you leap over the gap to avoid that gut reaction. So again, the 4 steps of LEAP are to let go of assumptions. Engage with curiosity, asking questions. To assess possibilities by checking in with more than one source, ask more than one person, check with reliable sources, books, reliable sources on the internet. And then finally, perform with insight, which is to take all of this knowledge that you've learned and put it into action, like I did in the situation with Kenji, right? Adjusting my approach on confirming my student's understanding.

Love that. I think that's such a succinct little framework that I think we could test ourselves against. For the people who are tuning in who might want to get in contact with you, how can people reach you?

Best way to reach me, I'm very active on LinkedIn. I like to post up there a lot. So, you can certainly reach out to me there. Yeah, John Edward McGraw. Also, my website, hiyakukoaching.com. So, that's H-I-Y-A-K-U A-K-U coaching. Do a search for me there. I'm also active on Instagram and I have a YouTube channel. But obviously, LinkedIn is the best way for messaging or to connect with my website.

Perfect! Your SPEAK framework now. The SPEAK framework, what is it and how does it help in the day-to-day communication that we Trying so desperately to be successful at?

Excellent. Well, for LEAP being more about changing the mindset, the SPEAK framework is more about practical steps that you can take towards inclusive communication. And SPEAK, obviously having 5 letters, has 5 components to it. Simplify your message. Pause and listen actively. Enunciate clearly and pace your speech. Ask questions when unsure and clarify when necessary. And the last one is keep respect at the center.

Hmm.

So, it's a very simple framework, but it's something that's really helpful to keep in mind, especially with business when things are stressful. We talk about Crisis situations. We talked about this earlier, crisis situations being the real test. This is why we have these kinds of things so that in crisis situations, we can default to these behaviors as opposed to the natural inclination. Okay, we'll walk and talk and talk rapidly and maybe just kind of mumble out expectations. Okay, so you've got that because I've got 5 other things to take care of. But then if you're doing that, then Maybe the message doesn't get across clearly, your expectations, or what you wanted to hear from the other person, or what they were trying to communicate with you because you weren't in that speak frame of mind to take that time to really communicate clearly.

To your point, the crisis component of it, we always tend to fall back into our sometimes worst behaviors. How do we become intentional? How do we test ourselves minute to minute and kind of be intentional That this stays top of mind? What tool, what technique can we do that as we get into having our own conversations with our own congees, that we are able to check ourselves and have that level of intentionality?

There are a couple of ways that you could do it. If we're focusing particularly on the mindset like the LEAP mindset, start by Being curious, look around, see what you can learn. Take some time to learn about Canadian culture. Believe it or not, we do have a culture here, despite what many people, even politicians, might have said that we're a post-nation state, right? Learn about that. Read, there are books that even talk about that and understanding, oh, okay, so this is how I think. And this is what my influences were. And because, not necessarily just because I'm Canadian, but I'm Canadian, I grew up in Alberta, we had these experiences, and this informs the way I'm thinking. And then from there, then you can start to learn more about the cultures of, say, the people that you're interacting with the most. Ask them questions before it becomes a crisis situation. Show that interest. Get to learn that. Maybe set aside some time to have those conversations. Even encourage that amongst your people if they're from different cultures to get beyond. And the easiest way, start with some of the surface stuff. Like food can be a gateway into getting to some of that deeper stuff, right? And really tasty way to do it, of course, too.

Mm-hmm.

But make sure to get— use that as a way to get a little bit deeper. Because it's very easy to stop with that surface-level stuff because it's easy to see. And certainly it can be more attractive, but take that time and make that part of the practice. And then for those practical tools like speak, take some time to bring those in, perhaps in a meeting. Let's say, let's focus on one of the letters. Okay, simplify our message. All right. So, here's a message that was sent out. Analyze it. Okay, was this something that— could it be simplified in a different way? Or analyzing maybe past circumstances, making sure that everyone's safe, not using anything that's going to single out anyone. Make it a practice. If you're not a large company that has a dedicated HR department, make it a simple practice, maybe 10 minutes once a week. Okay, so here's this problem. Let's analyze this. What letter can we use from the framework to do this and how can we do better? So, it's all of these things about the concept of microhabits. It's not necessarily spending several hours and really digging in. Sometimes, it's just taking 5 minutes a day or 10 minutes a day, wherever you can fit it in to make it a routine and make it a habit. So then, it becomes second nature so that once you do hit those crisis situations, you've already got it as part of your DNA.

As you were saying, I thought to myself, the best place to start would be with that binder of policies and procedures. Because we tend to use so much jargon and so much shtick in these policy and procedures under the guise of wanting clarity. But maybe, pick a policy and procedure and look at it through the eyes of somebody who might not understand all the components and all the different wordings that you might use within your policy and procedure, especially if you're asking them to read it and sign off on it.

Exactly, exactly. And all of this language that we use to simplify things in our particular industry, which does simplify everyone as long as they know it, as long as they've been part of it. But yeah, exactly. That is a great Great way to do it. And to that also, another simple tip related to specific jargon and language, idioms, right? Language that we use every day to simplify concepts. One of the things that was, of course, most recent in news, elbows up.

Yep.

Elbows up, right? And I had so many people ask, so, what does elbows up mean? Like, I don't get that, you know? And that was an opportunity to teach that. And just— but it's just mindful, you know? Many times we tend to default to different idioms like, okay, well, in a nutshell, we want to do this, you know, kind of things. Or, you know—

I can't believe I fell flat on my face.

Right, right. All these things. Oh, did you hurt yourself? Yeah. And it's not even necessarily something that would be, you know, that can be confusing to other people. who speak English as a first language because they don't have the cultural context for that, right?

Right.

So, it's not even that. And that's just a simple step right there is just being aware of that as well. All these things that we use that we think simplify things but actually can complicate people who don't have the same understanding, right?

So, when we come back, I'd like to talk a little bit about some pitfalls and cautionaries because I know that our intent is good. But sometimes, impact is much, much different. And so, when we come back, let's talk cautionaries and pitfalls.

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Welcome back! I am speaking with John McGraw. We're having a great conversation. And as you can tell, John and I have a passion for helping entrepreneurs and business managers just like you. So, if you belong to an industry association or an organization that may be planning a conference or a leadership retreat, or you feel that we could be of service, feel free to drop us a line or do a connection request. Our details are in the show notes. We're here to serve. So, please make sure you reach out if you need us. Marc, we've pinpointed some successful principles involved in creating a more open communication within our organization. From what we've been talking about today, are there any pitfalls or cautionaries we should be aware of? Do you have any examples of how people thought they understood what they were supposed to be doing but then fell flat on their face?

Absolutely, absolutely. I can think of so many different cases, particularly from the newcomer side, from those who were the employees simply because matters weren't effectively communicated to them. So many stories of one I can think of in particular of you know an employee from from Mexico who had a background in finance started working at a company in Canada came with years of experience and you know a master's degree so very top tier talent not someone you know kind of the general assumption that they were coming into like a low-level job. And again, they came in with the assumption that, okay, I'm going to work hard and when I get— I'll get opportunities for promotion. And to your point, even as we talked about earlier, they got leapfrogged by other people who were speaking up over them. And finally, It came down to the point where this particular guy came in to his manager and said, hey, you know, there were these 2 opportunities that came by and, you know, why didn't you put my name up for them? And his manager's response was, oh, I didn't know you were interested. It was as simple as that because he just— the manager just assumed, okay, well, obviously, he's going to be interested. He'll come talk to me. So the manager never took that time to just— if he had just, you know, taken time to sit aside and say, hey, um, yeah, so what is it that you want to achieve here? Then all of this would have happened, would have come out much better. As, as it turned out, you know, that finance person from Mexico ended up leaving the company eventually because, well, he just didn't have the opportunities. And, you know, that just speaks to so many Things that where the person maybe leaves and you don't know why because you never had that conversation. And I think that's one of the biggest things is just not having that conversation.

And it's such a simple solution, isn't it? To sit down with your staff once a month, once every 2 weeks. Just and again, putting on that hat of a coach would help kind of solidify all the different All the different frameworks that you've been talking about today.

Exactly. It all comes down to really just taking that time to listen.

Yeah.

And avoid just because this is the way things have worked. It's, well, life is a learning journey. We want to learn about all sorts of other things to be better. I'm sure this show is very much about that, learning different things to be better, to become better entrepreneur. And this is just another skill that you can pursue with intention, just like you would a language skill or how to make a better business plan or how to market better. This is another thing that's going to improve the outcome for your business, particularly when you're working across cultures or even when you are partnering with other businesses, maybe around the world or with other clients, potential partnerships. So, it's not just about employees. It's about partnerships with other businesses in the future as well.

I do know that I've come across personalities that would be looking at the whole adage of, well, they're coming into our country. So, they just have to learn how to contend with what we do here in Canada. It should be up to them to change. It shouldn't be up to What do you say to people with that kind of a mindset?

I can understand it to a certain extent, but I think in that case, they're dividing it up into binary thinking. Either they adapt to us or we adapt to them. When you come into those kinds of extremes and assuming, okay, well, it's one or the other, It's never good. The best way is to strike a balance, because if you're expecting them to do all of the work, it's not a case. I think the image that many people have of immigrants is that they are tired, the tired, the poor who are desperate, and we are so wonderful in giving them opportunities. And you know, it's it's kind of a. Kind of something that we're doing to, you know, out of the goodness of our hearts to help them. And that's not really the case necessarily anymore. It's not like the majority are refugees. Many of these people have valuable skill sets that many people haven't developed here because maybe, let's face it, in Canada, it's not necessarily the most competitive environment, right? It's a very safe, comfortable environment. And I'm very happy here that I don't have to worry about ending up being on the streets because I can't pay for healthcare or something like that. But it does mean that sometimes we don't develop certain skills because there isn't that demand for it. So, we can bring in people who have that, we actually benefit from that. And we benefit from that innovation. So, if you want people with these valuable skills to stick around, it only makes sense to at least start to meet them halfway and show that you care, just like any employee, right? You want to show people are going to be loyal when you demonstrate that you care about them and that you have an interest in them. And it's a bit away from sort of the old-school idea of like the boss being You know, kind of hard-nosed and doing that. But we know that doesn't really work anymore.

Well, and ultimately, we bring people into our business to help us grow our business. And if we can't keep them, you can blame them all you want. But unless we're changing to be able to keep them, people will keep on moving out. And that causes us grief and it affects our business. So, I think the onus— I think we have a vested interest And putting the onus on our shoulders to make sure that we adapt and we can change as well.

Yes. And it makes sense not only in the sense of keeping the people that you have in your company. But it's also what kind of reputation your company is going to have in the wider community. Because when we have more people coming in, they're starting— we have more diverse communities and word gets around. Hey, You know, Mark, very, you know, very helpful. He's very helpful. You know, he really looks out for us. He helps to, you know, takes an effort to understand us and has really helped us to adapt. Hey, you know, maybe apply to him. And, you know, hey, we'll go patron his business. But, you know, Joe over here, you know, he seems to be of this whole mindset and, you know, complains all the time. I don't think we want to do business with him, right? So, it only makes So again, it's a matter of survival for your business. Like if you're not doing it and your competitors are, you're going to be losing out in a pretty significant way.

This has been a fabulous conversation. John, do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today? Anything that we didn't cover?

I would say if there's one thing that you could take away from what we discussed today, it's to just listen, open your mindset, and question any assumptions you have. It's not thinking about it as being, oh, well, okay, am I a racist or something like that? Because if you start to think in that extreme, then you're not going to want to do it. But it's just, It's realizing, hey, we all have these assumptions. It's part of being human. But when we can recognize them, we can adjust and become better. And as a result, our businesses can become better because of the way we do it. And that's the one thing. If you're going to take it away, just one thing, take that away with you. I have to say that.

Yeah. Love it. Could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Okay, you can reach me at my website hiyakucoaching.com. So H-I-Y-A-K-U coaching dot com. You can also find me on LinkedIn where I'm very active. John Edward McGraw. I post very frequently short videos about cultural assumptions and how to adjust. So that can be a good resource. I also share them on my Instagram hiyakucoaching. And YouTube. Also, Hyaku Coaching.

Love it! And we will have all the links in the show notes. So, just feel free to scroll down and click on the links there. You'll be able to reach John without any problems. John, thank you so much. Appreciate this conversation. Like I mentioned to you before we got started, I've had— we've talked about diversity, equity, and inclusion before but never really from the perspective of communication. So, this has been hugely, hugely valuable. Thank you so much.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book some time on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. It would be my absolute honor to be of service to you. And while you're at it, why don't you leave a comment a review about this episode. I'd love to get your feedback. Was this valuable for you? Thanks again for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. Bye for now.