[00:00:00.000] 
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us in benefits of diverse teams and have managed well. Today speaking will be Renata Urban. She'll be your presenter. My name is Sam Parada. I'm with World Trade Center Palm Beach and I will be the behind the scenes person. I just want to let you guys know we have a closed captioning service available if you need to get subtitles to better follow. The event will also be performing polls and we have the chat open for you. So please ask any questions at any point if you have them.

[00:00:43.000] 
And in the next couple of minutes we'll let more people join the the events and we'll get started with Reneta.

[00:00:52.680] 
Thank you very much, Sam. And welcome everybody. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening from wherever you're joining us. So today's topic is the benefits of divers teams and how to manage them. Well, I hope a few more people are going to join us over the next couple of minutes. So as we're still waiting for a few more to come in, I'm going to get started and share my presentation. So Sam, if you could allow that, then I can go ahead and get started.

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There you go.

[00:01:31.380] 
Here we go. Alright. So let me just say a few words about Wold Trade Center Palm Beach. And so the World Trade Center Palm Beach is all about bringing international business to Palm Beach and its neighbors. The mission of the World Trade Center Palm Beaches to assist Florida businesses and industries to successfully compete for trade and investment opportunities in the global marketplace. This is why founder Alfred Zucaro and I decided to launch a webinar series this year on international business, global markets and cross cultural company. And we are moving on to one other webinar in our series.

[00:02:23.270] 
Today's topic about diverse teams and very important, if you work in a diverse teams, if you're the manager of a diverse team, how to manage it. Well, alright. So before we get started, I'd like to introduce myself. So obviously if you don't know me already to get to know me a little better. So the reason why I provide webinars and I offer training and coaching about topics that have to do with language, culture into cultural communication and diversity is because I grew up that way. And so I want to give you that cultural and linguistic background a little bit before we get started.

[00:03:06.220] 
So I'm just going to put a few flags up there that represent the countries where I grew up and that have influenced me throughout my entire life. Was born in Germany, I grew up in Germany and partly in England and I also lived in both countries as an adult, have done education and worked in both countries. I spend a lot of my time in Italy too and have lived there for short beards of time. And I have been a resident of the United States for more than a decade.

[00:03:37.470] 
So I would say that those four countries and cultures have shaped me and also link with Stickly a lot. But most of my clients come from anywhere around the world. I work with a very diverse clientele. So those flags are probably a very good representation of where most of my clients come from. And what I mainly do is have a linguist in a business background. I work as a language teacher and intercultural and a diversity coach and a speaker. I also work as a communication skills trainer and sometimes as a translator for my two native languages.

[00:04:13.070] 
So that gives you a little bit of background. And today's topic, as you know, has to do with culture and diversity. So I want to get you started off by talking about why different is good. I mean, if you work in a diverse team, you love it. If you think diversity is the way it should be, if you're a proponent of that idea preaching to the choir, but maybe you want some fresh ideas on how to talk to others about it, how to sell the idea to management, then this will give you a good basis for why different is good, why diversity as a thing to pursue.

[00:04:55.160] 
And then if you work in diverse teams, I'm going to give you some tips and tricks on that. The role of the individual and the group, what leadership has to do with it, and how to manage diversity. And two very important factors for building diverse teams, trust and relationships and psychological safety. And finally, I'm going to have lots of tips and tricks like what managers can actually do. So this is what this presentation is going to be about. And before we get started, I'd quite like to know the background of the audience a little more.

[00:05:29.870] 
So we have prepared two poll questions for you is now going to launch just to know what your experience is in terms of working in a diverse team or managing a diverse team. So you're going to see the poll in just a few seconds in the middle of your screen and just go ahead and click yes or no. And then and once most people or all of them have answered, we can also show the second question. Of course, I can also share the response before we do that.

[00:06:21.090] 
So I yes and no. That means for 67% of you, working in a diverse environment is reality, daily reality. And for 33% of you know, but I hope by the end of this webinar, I'm going to convince the 33% that they're also working in a diverse environment. Okay, let's have a look at the second question. Then the second poll question. So now what's your role? Are you actually a manager of a diverse team? Okay, once we have the answers, let Sam publish the results. All right.

[00:07:26.060] 
So only 17% of you are actually a manager of a diverse team. And the rest of you 83% or, let's say, members of a diverse team? Well, the presentation is equally important for either side, the management and the rest of the team. But obviously, it's geared towards management and what you can do to manage a diverse team. Well, like I said, before we get started, let's talk about culture and diversity. What does this actually mean? All right. So let's start with layers of culture and diversity.

[00:08:05.620] 
When we talk about culture, we often mean national culture, one country, another country. It could be regional culture. And on top of that, it could be professional, educational culture. If you work in a particular area, you will see that if you're an engineer, for example, your culture, your work culture, your professional culture is very different from that of, let's say, a realtor also gender, ethnic and class culture is one of those layers that could be religious, philosophical culture. A huge one is generational culture. I've often worked with people who say, well, actually get on much better with my colleagues abroad than the older generation in my own country.

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This is because generational culture is a huge dividing factor, and there's even corporate culture. A lot of companies are famous for having a corporate culture, or many are trying to build a corporate culture. And then on the very top, we have our personal culture, also known as personality. So if you see different elements of this in the team you work in, then you work in a diverse team. So if there's somebody who has a different religion or the philosophical idea or people of different gender from yours, people of a different profession or a different generation, not only of a different ethnicity or country, that means you work in a diverse team.

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Now, there's a whole range of elements of diversity that are often used. So you see the multitude of factors and elements and layers that come into play here and create a lot of diversity in teams. Diversity that a lot of people don't think exists because they only think of it as national culture or that sort of diversity. But there many different elements of diversity. Like I said, age, gender, orientation, ethnicity, and so on. We'll talk about some of those later on as well. No.

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And yes, we do have one comment from the chat for she mentioned that one employee among 45, non majority, is not diverse to her. Do you have anything to say about the amount of diversity in terms of percentage.

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Humane in terms of what is recommendable or what constitutes diversity?

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Understand? Yeah. I feel more along the lines of what constitutes diversity as one employee among 45 doesn't feel diverse according to this chat.

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Okay. So let's say you have ten employees. They're all around 25 and one is over 40 is that the situation is only one that is not in the same age range. I just assume that's what this person means is that already diversity. Well, it's one step towards diversity. That's what it is. Of course, more diversity is always better, but at least that's one step that way. I hope that answers the question.

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Thank you.

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That what the diversity range or the desirable percentage is. Well, that varies from company to company, from industry to industry, or for personal taste or feasibility. And I have a couple of percentages and figures about that later on in my presentation. So let's talk about different layers of cultures and diversity using the famous Iceberg model. So you can use this for different things, different methodologies and things of looking at it. So I've adapted it a little bit to fit not only culture, but also diversity. So what you see on the surface is not necessarily what is looking under the water and what you don't take into consideration.

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So we see ethnicity as a cultural or a diversity factor, but it does not tell us anything about nationality or the region. That is an assumption we make. And as we know, assumptions can be very misleading. Also, ethnicity does not tell us anything about a person's religious orientation. That is just an assumption you make. Language. Well, language can give us an indicator, but it doesn't really mean that we know any of those. We don't know nationality. We don't know languages, values and beliefs that come with that language.

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We don't know anything about competences. And also with ancient generation, it's just a fact that we see, but it doesn't tell us anything about really experience. Also, visible gender. We don't know about this person's gender identity or sexual orientation. So what is visible can be very confusing to what lies underneath the surface. Also, there's visible disability, but there's also invisible disability. And people may not know just from looking at you. Also lifestyle. I put it kind of in the middle lifestyles. We don't really know anything about the person socioeconomic status, about their own assumptions and attitudes and their very personal preferences.

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So this gives culture and diversity a huge spectrum to think about. It's not only what we see on the surface, and this is often done by companies right now. They have these flashy photographs that visually display diversity. But do they really take everything under the surface into consideration and or to what extent, how much efforts do they actually make to integrate it into their corporate culture? Now there are assets to doing that. So you may say, why go the extra mile? Why integrate? Why the extra effort?

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And you might just say, well, because this is the right thing to do, period. However, this is not very convincing to a lot of companies and a lot of managers out there. So maybe some reports out there and studies that have been done are more convincing. So there have been two reports that I keep quoting because I find them very important. By McKinsey, one was done in 2005 and one in 2000. And sorry. 2015 one in 2018. And they come up with these percentages that if you only have gender diverse companies, only that one element, the top quartile of this diversity sector.

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It means that these companies are 15% more likely to financially outperform the ones that are in the bottom quartile of diversity. And that's for just one factor, gender diverse. If you add another element of diversity, if you have ethnically diverse companies, that number jumps up from 15% to 35%. Now, imagine if you add all those other elements of diversity and more and more how much more competitive the company can be, how how much more financially the company can outperform others. Now, these studies have shown that diverse companies have those very particular assets.

[00:15:46.200] 
First of all, they can increase the profit. This is exactly what the McKenzie reports found. They also have more creativity in innovation because you have different viewpoints, different perspectives. That also gives you better customer insight, because whether you like it or not, your customers are diverse. So if you have a diverse team team, you can better cater to the needs of your customers. Also, a diverse team has more objectivity and less cognitive bias. Also, that will eventually boost the value of your company, the recognition worldwide and give you a better global image.

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Not just putting that flashy photograph that headshots on your website, but living and breathing the idea of diversity. And that will improve that value of recognition and global image. And once you've achieved that, it will help you with that. It's often called a war for talent. This is where people want to work these days. You want to have employee satisfaction, an employee retention, and you want to attract new talents. And so it's all a positive circle that will lead in the end again, to more profit, more creativity, and so on.

[00:16:57.440] 
So it's a positive circle that helps companies outperform if they manage to have diverse teams and manage them well. So that is an absolute necessity that you actually manage them well and how much more it does for company. You can see from this overview, and I'm siting it down there where this comes from. It's an overview from many surveys that they put on Clover Pop Com. You see the link down there. If you see how satisfied or how good people in a business think that their decisions are that they make.

[00:17:40.000] 
If you ask them, all male team, 58% of them will say that we made a good decision. Only 58% of barely above half the average team lies by around 66%. And if you have just a gender diverse team, this number jumps up to 73% if you add age. So gender and age diverse, it goes up to 80%. And if you have an age, gender and geographically diverse team, 87% of the team members and management are happy with the decisions being made by that team. So that really boosts your results by 60% but here comes the downside.

[00:18:24.240] 
It also increases friction by more diversity means more friction. So this is why it's so important that we manage diverse teams. Well, you can't just create diversity and then let it sit there without doing anything about it. It has to be managed well. Otherwise you will get that friction and that's the only outcome you have. So I want to ask you a question, but before I ask, I'm going to show you this. So this is what also research has found. And you will see in the bottom where where this research comes from that the majority of teams are homogeneous teams.

[00:19:01.590] 
So on the way up, you see the number of teams. So homogeneous teams are most teams that exist. Unfortunately, the second largest number of teams are poorly managed diverse teams, and they're the worst performing. And in terms of performance, those teams that outperform everybody else, they're not many of them. But the performance is the highest are diverse teams that are managed well. So now that we've looked at this, hopefully some good pointers to why diversity is good and why you want to have a diverse team.

[00:19:37.700] 
Let's talk about the challenges. So I've prepared a Mentimeter question for you. So I'm just going to very quickly go to another page that I have prepared here, and I'm going to give you a website and a code in just a second and then you can type in your ideas. So let me share that with you. You'll see it on screen. So you should be seeing the Mentimeter question on screen right now. And you should also see the the code at the very top. So if you have you can open a second tab on your computer, you can use another device or your mobile phone.

[00:20:29.540] 
Just go on any other website and type in Mented com as you see at the top, and then put in that code. And Sam is going to put that in the chat for you as well. So go to www dot ment com and put in the code 133-6840 three, going to say the code one more time, 133-6840 three. And like I said, Sam is going to put that for you in the chat as well. And you'll see the answers coming in. So let's wait. What you got to say, what are the biggest challenging when managing a diverse team?

[00:21:15.500] 
And if you're not managing a team, if you're on a diverse team as a team member, what you think are the biggest challenges. Okay. So we already have a couple of answers coming in. Let's see what other people said. Alright. So the language, the culture, the communication age to involve all team members equal. See if we have a few more answers, maybe coming in. Let's see. There we go. Okay. So to be worried about offending someone or there could be unequal treatment. Yes. Very good. So these are definitely concerns managers have.

[00:22:11.500] 
And this is why they're so afraid of having diverse teams. This is why sometimes they say, well, let's stick with a homogeneous team. Let's find someone who's a good cultural fit for our company. I hear that a lot. A good cultural fit. Meaning we're looking for someone who fits into what we already have, who's just like everybody else. And then we don't have that element of friction. We don't run the risk of offending someone unequal treatment, but then we're not diverse. So you're missing out on a huge opportunity.

[00:22:45.310] 
Okay, so thank you for that input. I'm going to stop sharing that for now. I have another multimeter question for you later. I'm just going to go back to my presentation and so let me just go back to this. Alright. So you guys some very good answers here. I don't know if there are any other questions or comments in the chat might be just double checking before I move on.

[00:23:16.650] 
We did have another comment from the previous topic. Okay, so Sherry Man, that, for example, with the 145 person on a team that a single African American on a team made up of 45 locations is not a step in the right direction. We look at the Civil Rights Act of 1865 and 1965. Do you have any comments regarding that? No.

[00:23:52.790] 
Yeah, I think what she's referring to is when quotas basically started, quotas was a way of making sure that companies or organizations that persistently do not want to hire a diverse team that they force them to. Basically, that's what quotas is. We still have quotas in place where we have something like, I think the Nasdaq just said they're not going to list any companies unless they have at least two members on their board that are either a different gender, a different ethnicity. So this is going back in history for a very long time that we're trying to force diversity on two companies because for some reason they don't see the benefit of it.

[00:24:44.580] 
So this is why I want to show the benefit of it, because it's another reason of doing it, actually, rather than being forced to. And yes, of course, a huge amount of diversity is always desirable. I hope that answers the question.

[00:25:02.290] 
Thank you.

[00:25:03.450] 
If there are any follow up comments, I do invite this person to to maybe keep on adding something to the chat and we'll talk about it one more time later. Okay. So since there are challenges, of course, an essential part of what I'm going to do today is talk about how can we manage existing diverse teams? Well, what can we do? So one important thing is the role of the individual and the role of the group. This is something we have in all teams that we have to consider what role individual plays and what role the group plays.

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So I'd like you to bear a few things in mind. You can attribute tasks, responsibilities, accountability, even the achievement of certain projects to an individual or to the entire group, and that has an essential effect on motivation. People who tend to be very individualistic need a project that they have individual responsibility for, and they're also willing to assume accountability for it, and that's their source of motivation, whereas other team members, they really thrive on the idea of it's a group task, it's group responsibility, and everybody in the team working on it will be held accountable.

[00:26:32.760] 
This is how also we talk about our achievements. It's not the single person that sticks out as the person that that was the leader or that achieved those results, but it's the entire team, and that gives every single one motivation. So as a team leader, you have to see what your team members are motivated by and find a good balance between individualistic and group tasks, roles, responsibilities, and accountability. Like I said, there's a difference between those elements that play a very important cultural role. Also, you need to define roles very clearly in projects.

[00:27:15.480] 
If you don't make it very clear to the team whose responsibility it is, is it an individual or a group task who has accountability, then people will start being insecure and dissatisfied with their role or the entire project. And also you need to see to it that you balance the common vision and the goals, because that provides inspiration for the team. And at the same time, I provide room for individual growth. This is a balancing act for management, and this is why they often shy away from it.

[00:27:51.960] 
But if you think about it planted well and you keep on doing it, you don't have to get it right from day one. But you have to commit to continuous improvement and working on it in an open mind to find a better way of doing it and taking all these things into consideration. Then you can create that perfect balance between the inspiration that comes from the common vision and goals, as well as the opportunity for every individual for growth. So as a leader, it is very important that you practice what you preach.

[00:28:29.050] 
Most teams I've worked with arrive, I've seen that were dissatisfied with their situation or that had a low performance. They said that they didn't have a real role model in management. So one way to make this work is commitment by the leadership. Also, they're different leadership styles. And the one leadership style that seems to work best for diverse teams is a consultative and a supportive leadership style. Very important for leaders is also that they themselves have self awareness and then create team awareness. If you have no self awareness, like what your personal style is, how you work, how you act as a leader, how you interact with your team, why would you create team awareness or ask people to act in a certain way?

[00:29:22.570] 
So it starts with self awareness. And when working with international teams, I always want to start with the leadership before migrating to the team. And very important for teams that have been in existence for a long time or prepare to collaborate for a certain period of time. We need to create a certain framework. You can call it a code of conduct where you agree on certain behaviors, communication styles, ways of doing things, just a rule book, so to speak, so that people know what to expect and what rules to play by.

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And it's not like everybody. Well, do what is normal? Well, I hate this word normal because there is no such thing as normal. So there needs to be a framework for people to understand what is expected of them. And by learning about the preferences of other team members and writing it down as a code of conduct and sticking by it, they can step by step and expand a comfort zone. They understand that certain types of behavior and certain types of communication style are not meant in a bad way or to harm anyone.

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It's just a preference. And this is the reason why these are the underlying factors, why it happens, the values, the beliefs that we hold. By understanding that we increase our agility, we can actually replace fear with curiosity. All of a sudden, we are allowed to ask why and to understand. Oh, and okay, now that's a my preference. But I understand that I can work with that. So you can turn volatility into an asset by doing that. So there are different types of trust that I also want to introduce to you.

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And then I want to ask you what your personal preference is. There are many different ways how people build trust, but you can basically put them into two categories, cognitive trust and effective trust. Now, what is that? So cognitive trust is something that comes from your head and it's very task oriented, and it's based on things like reliability, skills, accomplishments, and honesty observed over time. So you see that you build trust, whereas effective trust. Oh, sorry. He has some keywords too. So if you would describe someone as being reliable, competent, intelligent, transparent, efficient, have a linear idea of time.

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Like I said, 09:00, I mean, 09:00 or yes, no truth. Yeah. Tell me, is it going to be ready by five? Yes or no? So you only have a yes, no truth. There's only a yes or no. There's no maybe. And it depends. Yes, no truth, reliable, competent. If somebody fulfills this expectation, you trust the person, and then you would have a preference for cognitive trust. The other type of trust is effective trust. It comes more from the heart and is relationship oriented. It would be more based on emotional closeness, empathy, friendship, and saving face.

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So somebody does you a favor. Somebody tries to understand you and get to know you rather than just look at the task and your skills and your accomplishment. It's more like understanding who you are. And also, if you make a mistake, they saving your face. They do you a favor. So would you trust somebody more? Who does that? Is that what creates trust in you? And the keywords here would be a feeling of loyalty, mutual faction, reciprocity, psychological safety, flexible time and truth. So I'm not saying that somebody who mainly has cognitive trust does need psychological safety.

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We all do. But it's phenomenally more important for somebody to build trust who is on the effective trust side. You wouldn't trust someone if you don't feel psychological safety in their environment. You don't trust them if they don't have a flexible sense of time, of truth, depending on the situation. Very situational flexible with the situation. So looking at these two different types of trust, we have a poll question for you. Because looking at the two categories, I want to see how our audience today feels about the two different types of trust.

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Which one is more for you? If we had to pick one, would you trust someone according to the criteria on the left? So do you have more cognitive trust or would you trust someone more easily if the things on the right hand side are fulfilled? So do you feel more like you have more effective trust? So if we could start the poll question on that, just asking which of the two types just pick one? If you can only pick one, which one would you be?

[00:34:34.320] 
Okay.

[00:34:44.910] 
Okay. So what are the results? Alright, we're pretty even. So we have cognitive trust and effective trustee. All right. Well, this is a good representation, actually, of Teams and our society. So you kind of have half and half. And see, this has to do with a personal preference and maybe the cultural environment that we grew up in, it doesn't have anything to do with other areas of culture and diversity, like maybe, say, age, ethnicity, nationality. All of us, no matter where we fit on the big wheel of diversity, have different ways of building trust.

[00:35:38.080] 
Now imagine half of you go by words on the left. They build trust this way. Half of you go with the other side. Now, how easily would you lose trust if you have to deal with somebody who just picked the other type of trust? Well, how can you lose cognitive trust? Well, when things are not expressed explicitly, for example, somebody kind of beads around the Bush doesn't say it exactly the way it is and maybe and could be in might and, you know, maybe later. So this is how somebody who prefers cognitive trust loses trust very quickly.

[00:36:15.940] 
Also, when things are not mentioned directly because they think, oh, he's lying to me or she's withholding information. So also when someone has to read between the lines to get the message, if you focus on cognitive trust, you like it when people say it the way it is. But if you have to interpret the information or somebody is saying it very indirectly, and you're not entirely sure what they mean easily. That feeling of lying withholding information or being manipulative can build up in a person who goes by cognitive trust.

[00:36:54.430] 
On the other hand, if you said, well, effective trust is more what I prefer, then how can you lose trust? Well, you lose trust when the person talking to you has no coded language or hidden messages. Everything is at face value. So why is this person so blunt? There must be a hidden message. You would always try to see the the coded language somewhere and you can't find it, and that confuses you. That makes the other person suspicious. Also, when things are said too directly and too bluntly, it's like, yeah, I got it.

[00:37:26.020] 
You don't have to say it three times and then repeat it five times and then write it down and give it to me on a written paper. This is how you lose trust in someone because you almost feel like you're being treated as if you're stupid, or it's a very condescending behavior that you experience from that person who behaves in that way. So without even being aware of that, this is how we lose trust in a team by not knowing, first of all, what type of preference we have for building trust and not knowing how other people build trust.

[00:38:00.130] 
And from trust com relationships, and without relationships, we obviously cannot collaborate. And then there's this one other way of how we describe preferences and cultures that I want to introduce to you today. You might have heard of it the coconut culture and the peach culture or doing it the coconut way and the peach way. Very opposite ways of seeing things. Now you might wonder why those two types of fruit? Well, the coconut is very hard on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside, whereas the peach is very soft and sweet on the outside and has a hardcore.

[00:38:38.980] 
So you see how opposite these two ways are. And so, for example, a country like Germany or Russia, they are generally described as a coconut culture, whereas the peachy way, we would usually use the US or Brazil as two examples of countries or cultures that tend to be more on the peachy side. Now, imagine those two have to communicate with each other or work in a diverse team, and they build trust in a very different way. Now, if your coconut type, you would would find the peach type and their way of building trust very insincere, superficial suspicious, or even obnoxious.

[00:39:24.970] 
And in the long years of my practice as a trainer and a coach and working with companies and clients from Germany in the US in particular, I have heard this so many times from Germans about the US, whereas if you turn the tables and you ask somebody from a peachy culture about a coconut culture, they would usually say it's very hard to build trust within the very cold and approachable arrogant or even hostile, because it takes a long way to drill down that heart shell, that surface to get down to the soft core.

[00:40:01.130] 
But once you understand that what people prefer and how they build trust and communicate with each other, then you can approach that in a way that you can actually build well managed and highly functional diverse teams. Now, all these things, I've tried to weave it together, like in a template of recommendations, what to do with diverse teams? Well, first of all, you need to create a feeling of safety, inclusion, psychological safety and empathy are key for a diverse team to function well. Also the feeling of being human, that element of loyalty and friendship.

[00:40:41.540] 
And see me very important. You need some sort of moral ground. And this is why a framework and a code of contact is very important to lay down some rules for integrity, honesty, and also a certain level of reciprocity, even if it's not everybody's favorite thing to do, depending on how you build trust and what you prefer. But building in elements of all of this is going to help a lot. Transparency is an important point on international teams. Teams in general tell me that they have no access to information.

[00:41:18.700] 
Information is withheld from them. Maybe because part of the team they think they have, they know where to get the information. Just go get it. Why do I have to serve it to you on a silver plate? Well, the Opendoor principles. So think about transparency and what every team member needs. Also, the commonality sharing the same vision and goals. They need to have an opportunity to build a relationship above and beyond the job and to see what it is that they work on together and that unites them.

[00:41:51.050] 
Then also, the element of competence. You saw that to build cognitive trust, somebody's skills and competence is very important. Various to build effective trust. This is not so important. So you have to make clear to the team that the contributions they have, they should be in accordance with their strengths and weaknesses. And we should talk about this in a very open way. And finally, the element of reliability, we have a different sense of time and schedules and procedures that is very important to lay down in a framework and in a code of conduct to come to an agreement how to handle these these important elements.

[00:42:34.200] 
Now, I have one more Mentimeter question for you before I move on, and I'll show you an overview on how to build a psychological safety. As I switched to the Mentimeter, I'm just going to ask Sam and say, are there any other questions or comments in the chat that you want to share as I'm moving on to the other website?

[00:43:01.080] 
No, at the moment.

[00:43:04.110] 
Okay. So then let me share this again. And so let's move on to the second one and you can see the code is still the same. But here's the second question. If you still have that website open, the second question should have just shown up. If you need to log in again, go to Mint dot com again and use the code 13368 403. It's the same code as before. And our question here is if there is psychological safety, team members can or will. So what can they do?

[00:43:39.660] 
Let's assume we have managed to establish psychological safety. What can they do or what will they do? What's this ideal scenario to you? Alright, I can see some answers coming in. Perform better. Well, that's the whole idea from a commercial point of view. That's exactly why we want diverse teams from a commercial point of view, feel more comfortable to perform better. Yup, and inclined to feel part of the team for confident, be happy, give hugs. And that's exactly the variety. Wonderful. Thank you. It's like not everybody wants to give hugs, but the ones who do need to understand to what degree it's allowed or it makes other people feel comfortable, or how we can work together, how we can share our happiness, how we can trust each other, build a relationship, discuss things without hurting each other's feelings and the business part, or form better meet targets.

[00:44:46.380] 
So basically combining the element of we need to outperform as a team, we have commercial goals, but also we are human beings and we need to find happiness in working together and then realizing that this is actually going to lead to better performance. In turn, it is really a positive upward spiral that one enables the next. Unfortunately, there's also a negative downward spiral and getting things wrong will lead to animosity even hatred, distrust. So it can take a negative downturn. So it's in the hands of management and team leaders to actually steer this towards a positive upward spiral to achieve all of that.

[00:45:31.090] 
Wonderful answers. Thank you for sharing that because that's really what we want to have on a diverse team. Alright, thanks for that. I'm going to stop sharing this and I'm going to go back to my other slide where I want to show you this graphic about these elements, these points and they're probably very similar to what you just said. How would you define psychological safety? What statements would people give you if they feel psychological safety? They would probably say, I'm not afraid to be myself. I feel respected, appreciated and confident.

[00:46:15.110] 
I think I saw words like confident on your answers. I'm not afraid to speak up and give negative feedback. This is extremely important and this is probably the hardest to achieve to get to a level where people feel confident enough and safe enough to speak up and then even if they have something negative to say, to have such a good relationship with the other team members and with management, so that the negative feedback is understood as constructive feedback and not criticism. This is something you can learn and train.

[00:46:49.090] 
And this is what I do in team building and in working with diverse and international teams. It's not something that will come overnight, but it's definitely something you can work on and learn over time. Yeah. This is exactly what I just said. Understand it as professional advice and not as personal criticism. Also, everybody makes mistakes, so develop a feeling of it's. Okay. When I make mistakes, because this is the source of progress of improvement. And then overall, this will create a positive feeling towards work. You're not afraid to go to work in the morning?

[00:47:27.080] 
No, you like going to work. You like seeing your colleagues. You're not afraid when your boss has come to my office, please. So if your boss has come to my office, please, and you feel like, oh, no. Then you probably don't have psychological safety at work. If your boss has come to my office, please, you go like, yeah, sure. What's up? Then? You're in a good place. Also, if you start feeling curiosity, if you feel so safe to venture out and you feel like you have permission to explore, you can think outside of the box and you're not afraid of the negative consequences of this behavior.

[00:48:01.280] 
And finally, this gives you room to grow. If you really feel I feel so safe that I have room to grow, then psychological safety was cheap. But like I said, it doesn't happen overnight. And this is an overview by Timothy or Clark about different stages of psychological safety. Obviously, total exclusion at the bottom is zero permission to do anything in zero respect. This is probably when people cry in the bathroom, go home and quit their job. This is absolutely horrible. So inclusion and feeling safe at work is the first step.

[00:48:40.540] 
And if you have learner safety where you can experiment, make mistake, give each other feedback, learn from your mistakes. Move on. Be creative. This is the first step into a really psychologically safe environment. In this state, we're still at risk of seeing exploitation or paternalism where the management may not be fully aware of what to do next and what other steps to include to get it to the contributor safety level, which means that you do not fear negative consequences of your behavior and you see potential for growth and all that.

[00:49:24.060] 
Finally, the innovation threshold that's what is usually called is the challenges. Safety. When you get really bold, you think outside of the box, you don't worry anymore. You stop worrying. You basically stop worrying and you start enjoying and living and creating. And this is where we see the advantages of diverse teams. But before we get to this point, we don't really see those advantages. Okay. So I want to move on to what managers can do, and it's kind of the letter part of my presentation. So before I do so, I'm just going to check with Sam one more time.

[00:50:06.760] 
Any comments or questions so far? No.

[00:50:09.830] 
Nothing yet.

[00:50:11.510] 
Wonderful. Okay, so if you're a manager or if you want to know what your manager could do, here are a few pointers things that management can actively do. First of all, you should recognize the differences without over emphasizing them. So you have people of different ethnicity, gender, age, ability, and so on in your team. Don't over emphasize it, recognize it, act accordingly. But don't stress it because that makes them feel they're still like outsiders. Then understand the composition of your diverse team, so and act accordingly by recognizing not just their physical or ethnic differences, but their cognitive diversity.

[00:50:59.240] 
Cognitive diversity means the way how they act, feel, behave, communicate, find out that what the cognitive diversity of your team is, and find out what their blind spots are. And then you can develop this strength of a diverse team. If you don't, you underutilize the assets that you have and then recognize the diversity is a lot more than just ethnicity or the LGBTQ plus community. These are very popular elements. A lot of companies use it for advertising, image campaigns, but this is not really what it's all about.

[00:51:38.520] 
There's so much more to it, and the more you start creating an identity safe environment for all everyone, even though you were not aware of this, is why you have to dig deeper. Try to understand, listen to others what they tell you. Unless you create that safe environment for all, you will never be able to fully benefit from a diverse team. Also, the feeling of being valued and appreciated. For all I know, this is a challenge. So this is why it's a step by step process over time.

[00:52:11.730] 
So you also want to foster the psychological safety and well being being that we talked about, and you have to reevaluate frequently. Like I said, this is not going to happen overnight. So you need to have patience and you need to practice active listening. Listen to what people have to say. Once you have the learner safety that level in the middle of the graph I showed before, people will start telling you what else can be done, what you've overlooked. Listen to them and act accordingly. Be aware that you don't have to be perfect.

[00:52:47.640] 
Manage sometimes. Tell me, but I don't know how to do this. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes, and I don't want to hurt anyone. Well, yes, you're coming from a very good place, so be aware that you don't have to be perfect. But spearhead initiatives, act as a role model. Like I said, act accordingly. Do what you say, say what you do, and invite people to come forth with their ideas and concerns. You can only achieve that if you ask everybody. If you hear everybody, if you let them tell you what you're missing and where we can improve and then get help and delegates get advocates to help you in your own environment, in your own business.

[00:53:29.220] 
When you make a mistake, admit the mistake. Keep improving. Let people see that we're making improvement. We're not perfect yet. We probably never will be, but we're working on it. And so allow these initiatives to grow organically in your organization, not just what is allowed to do, but let people come up with ideas on their own. This is the creativity threshold where people come up with ideas or tell you about something you were not aware about without you asking them to do it without you telling them it's in their job specification.

[00:54:03.330] 
They just come up with something on their own and then communicate honestly and authentically. No lies, no game playing. So basically live and brief the lifestyle of diversity, equity and inclusion. You got to mean it, really mean it. And then step by step evolve. Now, one area where I say where managers can start because where do I start? What's my first step? I say, okay, one area where you can start is the meetings. Start with your meetings, because this is a great platform to create a safe space because in a meeting, well, we have very different characters, preferences, expectations.

[00:54:47.820] 
So how can we create a safe space during meetings? I mentioned that framework or code of conduct. You should have that for meetings. It should include areas such as agendas, the timeline, something about speaking and listening and turn taking. This is not clear to everyone. There are people who speak more than they listen. There are people who listen more than they speak. Those that are more quiet have brilliant ideas, so you have to provide a platform for all of those preferences. Also, how decision making is done, how we disagree with each other like framework on disagreeing and giving feedback.

[00:55:28.250] 
There's lots of more. So I do work on these frameworks and code of conduct with teams to help them establish a safe space. Then set rules and clarify expectations and give autonomy major team members and send some room to explore for themselves. If you can, and you might find that difficult, you should limit the game playing and the fights for dominance. But well, as a manager, that is something you should get under control and also respect every individual and not just what you think is normal or what is a good standard for yourself.

[00:56:05.720] 
Like not what you want. Don't treat everybody the way you want to be treated, but treat them the way they want to be treated. So, for example, pay attention to pronouns, ability, preference that can create the safe space in meetings. Also, you should create opposite ways of building trust. And this one here is according to the Lewis model of building trust, there's a difference between a balance, or you should balance the two opposite models of reciprocity and saving face on one side. That's important for some people, whereas for other people.

[00:56:40.560] 
Compassion and closeness is very important. And then for a third type of people or group of people, according to the Lewis model, which is the linear, active, multi, active and reactive preferences, the performance and the candor are very important. Now you can see how maybe candor and then compassion or candor and saving face could be absolute opposites or performance and reciprocity could be opposite. So there could be opposites in how people build trust. And by integrating that into your framework and creating selfawareness and the awareness among your team, you can create that safe space they need.

[00:57:21.720] 
And don't forget the one to five ratio of positive experiences. If you have a team that has for years and years had bad experiences with management or with trust, with working together, and then you give them one positive experience, that's not enough. Usually one negative experience is enough for us to change our mind and see things negatively. To balance that out, we need at least five positive experiences to change our mind. So you have a lot of work to do to turn things from negative into positive.

[00:58:02.100] 
So don't give up and keep going. You need a lot of positive experiences to achieve your goals. Also in meeting, summarizing, repeating, explaining and following up is very important and it should be outlined in the framework how it's done, and also for user manager to follow through, be transparent on your decisions and actions that you will take and provide equal access to information. And finally, make time for relationship and team building not just all business, but give them time to connect and grow as a team.

[00:58:38.040] 
So this is what I often talk about in my workshops or when I coach teams or work with managers. And to come to the end of this and where we start our question and answer session where we can discuss your situation in your company or in your team. I just want to show you this. As an intercultural trainer, I have this way of building intercultural competence and I find it quite useful for also building diverse teams because people who have a high level of intercultural competence or who want to build intercultural competence, those elements that lead to it are equally beneficial to build highly functioning and international diverse teams that really trust each other and are effective are effectively collaborating.

[00:59:35.040] 
So the first thing to consider is attitude, curiosity and openness. The second one is skills and knowledge, and the third one is adaptability. So I have a few points for each of those. So what do I mean by the first one? Like I said, it starts with self awareness or self reflection. You got to have an ability to listen, watch and learn, and it starts with management. If you are not the role model, then why would your team follow you? So this is where it starts and you need to bring a lot of patience.

[01:00:12.610] 
People with patience, empathy, and tolerance are usually a lot more successful in diverse teams or when communicating international interculturally. Also, an appreciation of difference is very important. So instead of fear of difference appreciated, be curious about it, ask questions, learn, listen and learn. And if you have a sense of adventure and you really like exploring, that's going to help you a lot. Also, their skills and knowledge. There are things to learn. For example, when we deal with other cultures, other countries, national culture. Yes, you can learn about their customs and norms, how they behave, the dos and don'ts what I call protocol for certain countries.

[01:00:59.440] 
But you can also find out more about other cultural groups, other generations, for example, to understand them better, to learn about the other cultures and to build good communication skills. There are certain values, norms, Belize, or perceptions. Do this gap analysis of what is my preference? What do I know? What norms or values do I Act upon? And what does the other person or the other team members do and do that? Gap analysis and finally, adaptability. If you have an attitude of change is bad, then this entire process is going to be particularly difficult.

[01:01:44.220] 
But if you say change is good, I will commit. I have the flexibility, the agility to do that, and the emotional intelligence to do that. And I can actually work with quite a bit of ambiguity and uncertainty. Then you're probably going to be very successful. Also, the why beyond the what I find is extremely important, especially with the tool that I use that I work with when I work with teams called double disc, where we evaluate the what, the how and the why. And once we get to the Y, we explore the reasons why, the underlying beliefs and values.

[01:02:24.510] 
And this is where we start understanding, opening our mindset, and stretching our comfort zone. And this is where we start communicating better with others. Okay, so what are some pitfalls of communication? What could happen to you in a diverse team? Well, in general, people do what they consider right, act according to their values. Nobody says I'm going to do the wrong thing. Now, everybody always thinks they're right. Well, from there very personal point of view, maybe you have a different opinion, but how can you do the right thing and another person do the right thing?

[01:03:05.180] 
And you could still disagree? Well, this is exactly how miscommunication starts. Also, what we do is based on what we consider true, that's based on our beliefs, you would not do something that is false. Absolutely not. And you would act according to familiar. You would use familiar actions so behavior and communication style that you're familiar with, and you would go through a familiar thought process. These are your norms, assumptions. And of course, you would have the best intentions and you want the best outcome when communicating with others, yet you fail.

[01:03:42.470] 
So why is that? Well, because we don't really recognize what other people's values, believes, norms, and assumptions are. And with Global Disk, that is a tool that I use. Like I mentioned, we expand our comfort zone and communicate more successfully. So this is kind of the end of my presentation, and I would just want to mention the tool I work with to help diverse teams or international teams. And I want to introduce Global Disk to you very briefly, just because I will give away one free assessment and work with one team.

[01:04:22.630] 
If you have one today, that's the special benefit of participating in this workshop today. So I'll tell you a little bit more about it and then will come to the question and answer session. So the system that I use lower disk, it does a lot of things. It unlocks potential. It supports the growth mindset. It increases your agility. It reveals those preferences that we have in terms of behavior and communication style. And it creates that very important awareness that I was talking about. First selfawareness, then team awareness.

[01:04:59.530] 
And it helps once you've covered all that, it helps you develop strategies to communicate successfully with others. Now, this is how it translates diversity into synergy. Like this is where diversity can become an asset, the cognitive diversity you have in your team. You can benefit from this by finding out all of this. Now, what I want to do for one lucky winner today is I want to give away one basic Global Disk package. So what does this include? It's actually a value of up to $950.

[01:05:34.000] 
If you really sign up with five participants, for which is an online questionnaire, you'll get a report for you to keep. And there will be a 90 minutes debriefing coaching session with me. Usually after some time has passed, I do a 30 minutes follow up session, and you'll get access to an online learning program called Disc Quest. Now, this is not all that I do. Usually I have an advanced package. I do deeper dive coaching session, team building events, and other training programs. But this is the basic package, and I'm willing to give it away to one of you today.

[01:06:12.630] 
And so what is it that you have to do? Well, you can for up to five team, even four more people up to. If you only have three or two, that's fine up to five. And so first of all, you need to be a manager of an international team or you need to work in an international team because we need your team members to participate in this. Then, of course, you're not already a client of mine. So if some of my clients I need today, I'm sorry, you have to be a new person to me that I haven't worked with yet.

[01:06:44.580] 
And of course, you can't be another teacher trainer coach. I want to give this to a company, an organization that has an international team. And finally, how do you claim the price? Well, if you're the first one to claim the price by sending me an email with details about your company, your team, and the goals you wish to accomplish, then I'm happy to give you that price and work with you. And of course, if you're the second or the third, I will still extend sort of discount to you.

[01:07:14.590] 
I'll work with you. I'll happily do a consultation with you and talk to you about what I do and how I can help your organization. I really want to offer this to one person. So the first one to send me an email. Yeah. What is my email? Okay, be quick. So this is the email address you want to send it to. So if you tell me who you are, what your company is, what your team is, what you're working on, I mean, team members, you have what the situation is, what the problem is, what issues you wish to work on, then I'll be happy to extend that offer to you.

[01:07:51.400] 
And it doesn't matter where you are. I'm located on the East Coast in the US, but you don't even have to be in the US wherever you are. I will work out something that works for both of our time zones, because all I do is online. I coach people online doesn't have to be in person. All right. So that's the end of the official part of the presentation. We added a bit more time, so we have time for questions and answers. And I hope we have some comments and contributions or even questions I can answer.

[01:08:20.710] 
So I'll hand it over to Sam and let me know what we have in the chat or in the Q amp a box, and I'm going to stop sharing for now.

[01:08:31.160] 
All right. Thank you, everyone. And as Renetta said, please, if you have any questions, feel free to us in the chat. We'll be here to read them over and answer them as best as we can. And thank you, Net, for the thorough webinar. It was very informative.

[01:08:52.440] 
Well, thank you very much. So we extended it usually will do 1 hour. So we said we're going to add half an hour or at least 20 minutes to it. So we have an opportunity for participants to share of their own experiences. If you have experiences in your own team to share, please feel free to do so. We'd be glad to hear about that. And we'll be definitely here for as long as you need us anywhere between five and 20 minutes. We just wanted to extend it so that we can include a Q and a session.

[01:09:25.780] 
We do have a comment from one of your previous slide. It says there's a fine line between best intentions and best outcomes. Do you have any comments on that when it comes to diversity and adding people to the team just for the sake of diversity?

[01:09:45.810] 
Yes. So that fine line is exactly what leads to misunderstanding and animosity and loss of trust in teams, because most people do have very good intentions. Like I said, nobody says, okay, today I'm deliberately going to do the wrong thing, and I'm going to walk in with bad intentions. I'm going to lie and be evil. People don't go in with intentions like that, but it may seem as if to others because they're doing something that is not familiar, that is not recognized. That is not common. That is not acceptable to someone else on the team.

[01:10:28.820] 
And this is exactly what I usually work on to show people where people are coming from. The why why do I say things like that? Why do I Act and behave like that? And once we understand where we're coming from, we can we can collaborate much better. We can say, I don't like what you're doing, but I understand why I understand where you're coming from. And maybe we can find some common ground. Maybe you could stop doing this. Or maybe I could get used to this and that.

[01:11:00.690] 
And this is when we can build trust and collaborate.

[01:11:05.740] 
What do you recommend on how to find the blind spots? May this one of the most difficult parts because it's provided to us too much in the work environment.

[01:11:18.240] 
Yes. So I mentioned the tool that I use, Global Disk, and by doing the online assessment and then going through the report and evaluating the results, this is how you discover your blind spots. You learn things about yourself and others, and you can compare. And this is how you reveal what the blind spots in your team's. Cognitive diversity is. It even gives you a percentage of how big or how small it is. So let's say if you have a team that and the team says, oh, we work very well with each other.

[01:11:54.610] 
We have no problems. We don't need any of that. Well, they probably have a huge blind spot and a very narrow cognitive diversity, because remember when the cognitive diversity is low, there's zero friction. But there's also zero insight into other areas of development, of innovation, of creativity, of Adam Pin to the ever changing world around you. So you may not actually not be in touch with the world around you and may not be able to help you very diverse clientele. So what you do want is that cognitive diversity, but with cognitive diversity, friction goes up.

[01:12:34.270] 
And this is why you have to learn how to manage it. Well. So measuring cognitive diversity is something that Global Disk does as part of the assessment, and then it would be addressed in the coaching session how to help discover that blind spot and improve the situation.

[01:12:55.160] 
Thank you very much, Renata.

[01:12:57.780] 
Okay, very good. So I hope this was insightful about what diversity is, what the benefits are. So if you're already an advocate of diversity, but you're in a discussion with other people who say, yeah, but who needs that? So maybe I gave you some good pointers as what to say, like the pros the business reasons also for diversity. And then as it comes to the point where I say, yeah, okay, fine. Let's have a diverse team. How do we do this? And how do we manage them well?

[01:13:32.300] 
And how do we maintain and even improve over time? I hope I had some good tips and tricks for everybody who works in a diverse team. And a special offer. If you have a diverse team that I can show you how global Disc works and help your team to go above and beyond what's possible. So thank you very much for coming. And you know where to find me, how to contact me. And until next time. This is the World Trade Center Palm Beach Webinar series. That means we will have more for you coming in September, October, the rest of the year.

[01:14:05.650] 
So stay tuned. We'll announce our next webinars as soon as we have one plan for September. I believe so. Thank you for coming and have a great day. Bye bye.