The Communication & Culture Podcast

Welcome to this latest episode of the Communication & Culture podcast. In this episode, I thought I wanted to begin at the beginning with communication and I use my background as a biologist to delve deeply into communication in general and how it developed.

When we think of communication, we mostly think about human communication. Because this is what most of us are interested in. 

A lot of us are amazed at how apparently complex our communication is, how clever, intelligent or whatever adjective you want to come up with, we are. I might offend some of you here, but this is narrow sighted. Because all living organisms communicate. 

So, when did it all began? Well, it probably began as soon as life began. To stay alive, the first organisms needed to be able to sense messages from their environment, food, potential danger, temperature and so on. This was the first type of communication to evolve because many reactions and processes in a cell need receptors and thus the blueprint was there for evolution to stumble on chemo and olfactory receptors. Visual communication was probably not very far behind. 

Chemocommunication is still with us, coming from our most ancient ancestors. 

Then, as organisms got bigger, evolution had more opportunities to come up with different ways of communicating and making sense of the world. This is how all the different ways of communicating arose.

Species come and go and while they are around, they do so because the ways of communication they have fulfil the kind of messages they need to send. And of course, every species make full use of what evolution has given them. It just happens that a random mutation has made our larynx move further up into our throat and allowed us to make more sounds than many of our ancestors.

It has nothing to do with being superior to other species. We are just one of the results of the always ongoing process of evolution. The more we look at it, the more we will learn and understand about how other species communicate and discover how intricate it is.

Welcome to this latest episode of the podcast, now called the Communication & Culture podcast. A change of title, a change of direction but the same philosophy. 

How did it come about? Since the end of last summer, I had the opportunity to take a step back from what I was doing, to pause, question and reflect. 

The final outcome of this process is a change of direction for my business and hence this podcast.

It is how we communicate with others that dictates our interactions and relationships with them. How we communicate is influenced by and is the result of our culture, our upbringing, our values, our biases, our assumptions, our personalities, our education and many more. It is how all of these are externally exhibited. It is how you show respect, empathy, compassion, care, love but also disrespect, contempt, dislike, even hate to others. 

This is why I have decided to change direction to help people understand what communication really is and how to communicate better. 

In this context, to me, it is about how to adapt our communication to our various audiences to get our message across, each time.

So, are you ready to embark on this new path with me and my guests on this podcast? So, then, until the next episode.

Culture fit, culture add, culture what? Welcome to this episode of the Culture & Inclusion podcast. What is this all about? You may have heard about these terms of culture fit and culture add when it comes to hiring new people. How you should, or shouldn’t hire for culture fit or culture add and so on.

I want to give you my take on this subject. Hiring for culture fit, for culture add, none of those, something else? I’ll give you my points of view, and I insist on the plural, and then you can decide what you want to hire for.

Let’s take culture fit. Culture fit is seen as hiring more of the same. This happens when for instance you rely on your network when hiring, because most people in your network are just like you! It happened when you think you need to hire people coming from certain schools or universities or having a certain degree. These people will be more similar because they have experienced the same culture.

Now, this is not the best if you are a homogeneous group because you will keep on getting people from that same homogeneous background. It is not the best either if your culture for instance is totally results driven, however the results are achieved. You keep on hiring results driven people who will see their quarterly targets as more important than their people, their team.

Now, in contrast, let’s say that your workplace is diverse, inclusive, innovative and anything positive you can associate to a culture. Then, you would want more of that, wouldn’t you? In that case, culture fit doesn’t seem so bad.

Shall we turn to culture add now? As it suggests, hiring new people is about adding to the existing culture. This is a great approach when you have identified a gap in your organisation. It is the way to go when you decide you need people with different experiences than what you already have, people from different backgrounds that who you already have, when you want to bring different ideas and expertise to your organisation.

However, if you are already not sure what your culture is actually, if you have let in people whom you’d rather not have in the organisation, then adding to an already suboptimal situation will not help.

I this episode I am giving you my take on the relationship between culture and inclusion. Is there a relationship? Is inclusion all what culture is about? Is it part of an organisational culture?

A culture is shared by people who share the values, what is important, appropriate for that culture. They share behaviours, communication patterns and ways of seeing the world. Cultures are made by people. People within a culture choose what they want their culture to be. This is true for your organisation. Its culture has evolved and is shaped by its people.

And it is here that inclusion comes in. An organisation, via its culture, can choose to be inclusive, or not.

Inclusion is an action. As an organisation, and as an individual, you decide to behave inclusively or not. This is how inclusion becomes part of your culture, or not. But this is not just an add-on to your culture. Because being inclusive has ramifications to everything everyone does and says in the organisation. Deciding to be inclusive will shape your messages, your procedures, processes and rules.

Inclusion is part, or not, of your organisation culture because it is underpinned by the values of the organisation and is exhibited, or not, in the behaviours and actions of the people within the organisation.

And it all needs to be in sync. No point of saying you value diversity and you are an inclusive organisation if you are not really diverse and if people do not feel they can express themselves, their ideas are belittled and they are not valued and recognised.

Inclusion is not words. The people interacted with your organisation, whether employees, customers, suppliers, partners; they will judge if you are inclusive. So, yes you first decide if you want to be or not, and by the way, I would more than strongly encourage you to be, and then put in place what is necessary to translate inclusion into actions, which it is. When you do it well, people will notice!

In this episode, we are going to talk about where the culture of an organisation applies. So, in short, the answer to the question in the title “Is an organisation culture only internal” is no, an organisation’s culture is not just internal.

Any culture is internal because it is based on very deep underlying assumptions. These deep, basic assumptions are the internal layer of a culture. It is about what we hold as true or false. For instance, how a culture views time is a basic assumption of that culture. Another assumption is our relationship with the wider world, our environment, nature. Basic assumptions are what that cultural group holds as true or false. What do you hold for true in conducting business, dealing with customers, suppliers and so on, providing products or services and about everything an organisation is at a fundamental level? This is the basis of your organisation’s culture and that is internally focus in the sense that it is the basic assumptions of the people within the organisation.

The second layer, the intermediate layer of the culture of your organisation are the norms and values of your organisation. Norms are what is considered right, appropriate and acceptable in a group. Can you talk about politics, religion? Can you say openly how much you earn? Is it ok to challenge your boss if you have a different idea? What is the dress code? And it is here that your culture begins to get external, even if your values and norms are internal to the organisation. Your organisation probably has a list of values somewhere on its website. Your norms and values are also the filters through which you will judge, even if is unconscious, the people you interact with, whether they are internal or external to the organisation.

And finally, you have the external layer of culture. This layer consists of the artefacts and products of your organisation. This is what someone experiences first when they come in contact with your organisation. This how you do things in your organisation, your standards, the expectations, the behaviours you encourage. This is also, if you have offices, the plan and deco the organisation has chosen. It is what your people say about your organisation. It is all the external aspects that everyone in contact with your organisation, its people or any of its messages or products that people come in contact with. This is the window for the world into your culture. And this is purely external. It is driven from the more internal layers of the basic assumptions, norms and values of the organisation. It is how these are translated into actions, behaviours and messages. But all these are for other people, hence the external aspect of it.

So, I hope now you can see that with everything your organisation and its people do, say and so on, you show the culture of your organisation.

You may have a thought here that it will also reflect the culture and personal opinions of the person involved. But this is also a reflection of your organisation culture: that actually your people haven’t been transmitted your culture consciously in a way that they can convey it. If people express their own view when representing your organisation, you need to make your culture stronger.

Today, I want to talk about what is required to understand culture and inclusion, particularly when an organisation is looking for people to work in that field and improve inclusion in their organisation. This topic came to me after seeing many times that if basically, you are not from a minority group, you cannot understand inclusion. In short, it seems that you have to experience being in an underrepresented group, having been discriminated against, maybe bullied or harassed because of your differences.

Here, I want to raise the view that this is not enough and that lived experience doesn’t give you all the tools to tackle diversity and inclusion. This lived experience needs to come alongside a robust theoretical knowledge. It doesn’t replace it and cannot substitute for it. So, when you want to improve your organisational culture and inclusion, a crucial step is to bring this knowledge to people and that people with the responsibility for your culture and inclusion have a strong knowledge about the subject.

Finally, the last thing that is required to fully understand inclusion is the need to understand the specificities of your organisation.

Listen to Vinay Raman sharing his view on how data can help with inclusion.

We tend to think that culture is something intangible, fluffy, a soft aspect of an organisation.

Not at all. Like many other things in an organisation, culture and inclusion have results that can be measured.

This is what we discuss in the episode.

- People management and data are not often used together, in the same sentence. - How can data and their analysis help with knowing where you are in your organisation with inclusion?  - What kind of data should be collected when it comes to inclusion?  - How could you relate these data to more conventional KPIs?

Raising your level of awareness, and the ones of the people around you will improve inclusion and belonging in your team or organisation.

I am going to touch on two subjects. In the first part of the podcast, I will delve into why we react the way we do to diversity. In the second part, I will discuss some steps you can take to raise your awareness to differences.

It was found that the more familiar something becomes by repeated exposure, the more we “like” it. How does this occur? Our brain has both an avoidance reflex towards the unfamiliar and an approach reflex. The studies showed that familiarity decreased our avoidance reflex. It did not change our approach reflex. So, it seems that familiarity reduces the “fear” we have for something.

This is why familiarity makes us feel safe. We may not like it but we feel safe in familiar environments.

On the other side, novelty attracts us because it activates a different part of the brain, the motivation centres. This is what allows us to try new things, explore new territories.

How could this then explain and be used with how we react to diversity and our view of inclusion.

It looks like exposure is a very important part. Without exposure, something cannot become familiar. Now when we think to our exposure to diversity, we should recognise it is not that much for most of us. Let’s take the UK for instance, where I live and the idea of race/ethnicity I mentioned earlier.

In the second part, I am going to give you 5 steps that will increase your awareness.

There is a lot of talk about becoming more inclusive. We may think of it at the level of an organisation but at the end, it is all about people. It is people in whatever group they are part of who exhibit inclusive behaviours or not. So, becoming inclusive begins (and ends) with people, with you.

So, let’s go through the 5 steps.

The first step is to Become self-aware

The second step is to keep learning

The third step is all about respect

Then, accept

Finally, integrate, make the differences yours

Remember from episode 3, go listen to it if you haven't, diversity is numbers. Putting different people together is not a recipe for success on its own. What matters is what you do with your diversity, how you build inclusion and safety.

When you combine diversity and inclusion, then you will reap the benefits. In this episode, I am going to talk about 5 of them.

Benefit 1: different ways of thinking and working

• More ideas
• More innovation
• Better solutions

Benefit 2: More understanding

• Better team work
• More harmonious relationships
• Less conflicts and silos
• More risk taking

Benefit 3: Different strengths and abilities

• Better problem solving
• More efficient work
• Less time lost

Benefit 4: More adaptable organisation

• Handle unexpected turn of events better
• Flexible strategy and procedures
• Benefits derived from other benefits

Benefit 5: The bottom line: more profit and customers

• Meet customers’ expectations
• Adapt communication to each audience
• Better adapted products and services

Welcome into this new episode of the Culture & Inclusion podcast. Today we are going to talk about the usual categories of diversity we think about when we think diversity. I am going to look and discuss two aspects. In this episode, I want to present my view about this subject, which will not be everyone’s view. First, do we really think that diversity is important and second, are the usual categories of diversity helpful really?

So, open your ears and mind and see what you think yourselves. If I raised some eyebrows, some thoughts and emotions, then I will have achieved my goal for this episode.

This time, I am on my own once again and I want to talk about awareness. What kind of awareness? Well, awareness of differences. Why is it important to know our level of awareness of differences? Because your current level of awareness will influence how inclusive you are likely to be. To be inclusive requires higher levels of awareness.

Today, we are going to talk about various aspects around Diversity and Inclusion. In my work and interactions with people, I came to realise that the various concepts involved were not clear to many people, used interchangeably when they have very different meanings. So, as we talked about culture in the second episode of this podcast, in this episode, I will talk about the concepts of diversity, equity, equality, inclusion and belonging. I will explain how they are different but fit together to get you this inclusive leadership and inclusive culture in the workplace.

In this episode, we will start at the beginning. I will explain what a culture really is, its various layers to external, superficial to very deep and how it affects everything within and without each of us.

This episode is an introduction to the Culture and Inclusion podcast. I will briefly cover what the podcast is all about!