Loren Rosario-Maldonado - Cultural Shifts for Keynote Speakers

Trisha: 00:00:00

I would like to acknowledge the Tharawal people, the Aboriginal people of Australia, whose country I live and work on. I would like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging and thank them for sharing their cultural knowledge and awareness with us.

Trisha: 00:00:40

Hi there everyone. I'm Trisha Carter, an organisational psychologist and explorer of cultural intelligence. I'm on a quest to discover what enables us to see things from different perspectives, especially different cultural perspectives. And why. Sometimes it's easier than others to experience those moments of awareness. The shifts in thinking, as those of you who's who have listened already to some of the earlier episodes will be aware.

Trisha: 00:01:07

Cultural intelligence CQ the capability to be effective in situations of diversity is made up of four areas motivational, knowledge, metacognitive and behavioural and it can help us as we move across cultures, as we deal with people who are different to us and as we work in situations of diversity. My guest today is another colleague from my CQ fellows 2023 cohort, and she has done amazing things while a part of the CQ fellows Group.

Trisha: 00:01:37

And in the months following our graduation, she's published a book that so many people are saying is bringing them insights and learning. She's spoken at numerous events and has been on panels with other impressive people, all the while continuing to work on her PhD and on her business delivering, coaching, training and speaking. I'm so happy to introduce my friend and colleague, Loren Rosario-Maldonado.

Trisha: 00:02:04

Welcome, Loren.

Loren: 00:02:05

Trisha. It's such an honour to be here with you today. Thank you for having me.

Trisha: 00:02:10

Thank you for being here. Hey, please tell us a little bit about you, about who you are, where you've come from and where you're at right now.

Loren: 00:02:19

I am a rebel with a cause. I am on a mission to motivate and elevate of a 5 million people across the globe. I've managed

Trisha

Wow Loren just 5 million.

Loren

Just 5 Million. And, you know, I figured I'd start small and then go from there.

Trisha: 00:02:39

Good on You. That's amazing. Yeah. Go for it.

Loren: 00:02:41

Well, I, you know, just, person with humble beginnings came in. I grew up with a as a preacher's kid. My father, who's a pastor. And so I was not that your typical or stereotypical preacher's kid. I was actually one of the silent good ones. I wasn't up to any shenanigans. but grew up, you know, across many different environments and locations, and that really piqued and spread my curiosity at the same time.

Loren: 00:03:15

And so I've always been interested and almost, obsessed with human behaviour and how it shifts from moment to moment, how it shifts depending on the environment you're in. And fast forward to, to my adulthood, where I landed in human resources, and that gave me the opportunity to work in, global human resource areas. And that's when I really learned how different we are on a global scale.

Loren: 00:03:52

I had observed it before, but I had never really experienced it the way I did once I started working in global organisations, because, you know, I lived in New York for many years, and in New York, if you speak Spanish, you are Latin. It doesn't matter what country in Latin America or the Caribbean you're from. You are Latin, but I'm on a global scale.

Loren: 00:04:18

All of a sudden you are either Dominican or you are Mexican or you are Argentinian. There was more of a delineation behind your culture and your your heritage, and I was just fascinated about how similar yet different we were even within Latin America. and that's where, you know, I'm a lifelong student. I am still studying. Yes. And so I, I as you mentioned, I'm working on my PhD, but it wasn't until I was working on my Masters that I that I had the tools and the knowledge to articulate all these differences, and that's when I really learned to differentiate what those differences meant from, sociology and anthropology, anthropological perspective.

Loren: 00:05:13

And suddenly I understood what the reason was behind why these differences existed. And I just became so passionate about that, and hence the reason why I have such a small goal of activating 5 million people across the globe through cultural intelligence.

Trisha: 00:05:35

Brilliant. We'll come back to some of the other things you're doing in terms of your book, in your speaking. But right now, I'd like to ask the standard questions that I ask everyone. What is a culture other than the culture you grew up in, that you have learnt to love and appreciate?

Loren: 00:05:52

I love, love, love Indian culture. I absolutely love it. I have a few friends that are Indian, but I had an opportunity to immerse myself in the culture when my cousin was marrying someone from the Indian culture, and suddenly I was immersed in the customs and the foods and the traditions, and it was absolutely amazing.

Trisha: 00:06:21

I can understand that one, yeah. Having experienced one amazing and lovely wedding as well. I also would love to know about a time when you experienced the shift, when you suddenly became aware of a new perspective. Can you tell me about a time like that for you?

Loren: 00:06:39

Yes, I still remember vividly. I was in the midst of, I was in my master's program, and it was when I learned about the cultural implications behind, behind our cultural norms. What do I mean by that? Societally, the the different rungs of culture and how they they come from a long history of different customs. And up until that point, I prided myself in being very culturally agnostic.

Loren: 00:07:18

And I always thought it was a good thing because I felt like I could chameleon myself into many different environments and be okay. but I've always been a person of service, and I up until that point, I felt like I was a servant leader, and that was when I realised I wasn't that my culturally agnostic tendencies and views were actually hurting me and preventing me from connecting in the way that I wanted to be.

Loren: 00:07:50

To be. as a servant leader. And suddenly I realised that I was not serving others in the way they needed to be served. I was serving others in the way I served myself.

Trisha: 00:08:04

Yeah.

Loren: 00:08:05

And it was such a profound discovery for me because it led to this intense, viscerally intense identity crisis where I had to really question whether my beliefs were my own. suddenly I was grappling with the fact that I, I am, in fact, privileged. Here I am thinking I am this humble servant from very humble beginnings and didn't realise that I am not only privileged, but that I was perpetuating, in some ways a lot of the societal, biases that existed for generations.

Loren: 00:08:47

and many of which I had inherited and had no understanding of. So this led to an intense period of self-evaluation and self-reflection that led into what you see today, led to the book, led to me sharing the story I had to get through the shame and the fear in order to share what I was feeling. and I never intended to write about it, but the more people that I talked to about it, the more they encouraged me to tell this story.

Loren: 00:09:25

Because it was right around that, right before Covid. Right. Where all of this was brewing more intensely than ever before. And it was it was a time that was primed for this discovery.

Trisha: 00:09:39

Was there anything about that situation that you think helped you come to that realisation?

Loren: 00:09:44

Yeah. So the the one particular class that led to this identity crisis I will never forget. And she is a professor that I will forever be grateful for because she pushed us to immerse ourselves in our own culture, to understand what our cultural heritage is about. Beyond the map. Beyond the location and a map. The class. The focus of the class was multicultural counselling.

Loren: 00:10:15

Learning how to counsel diverse people from diverse cultures who are very, very different from your own. It was very different beliefs from your own. You know, imagine yourself being, Dominican American, counselling someone who is, either Asian or who is Muslim. Very different beliefs than yourself. how would you counsel that person in a way that they feel seen and heard and supported.

Loren: 00:10:49

So part of our project or our thesis, our class thesis was to immerse ourselves in any culture of our choosing. And I chose my Dominican culture. Little did I know that it's really my afro Dominican culture. And so I, I went deep into not only our culture and what you see as being metropolitan Dominican Republic that you see today to where it started with like Espanola, right, with the indigenous.

Loren: 00:11:22

Yeah, population and then the slave trade and colonisation and what led to those. So I went all the way back to the beginning. traced all the way back to the beginning and even to, DNA test to understand what my, heritage, what my lineage was. And I remember getting the results and seeing that I, I'm 80% West African from that region.

Loren: 00:11:54

And I remember calling my sister to say, you know, holy Bleep I'm black. And she's like, you're the only you're the one that hasn't gotten the memo that you did. But it was such a realisation really. It was such a visceral realisation that forced me to just implode, shut down and question everything and realise like, yes, I am privileged because of the shade of the colour of my skin.

Loren: 00:12:21

I could pass as a certain thing. I could pass into certain areas that probably facilitated the growth that I've had in my lifetime. And how being clueless about that meant that I was denying that lived experience for others. And so when serving people who are different from me, understanding what that difference represents from a societal perspective was life altering for me.

Loren: 00:12:51

Suddenly I had to reconcile that then and reconcile with the fact that that ignorance was in fact perpetuating the the negation of that lived experience of others in that I may work very hard and that's great, but certain attributes that I have facilitated things for me more than someone who is darker than me.

Trisha: 00:13:18

So true. You know, in reading your book, I referred to it at the beginning and I'll put the link to the book in the show notes so that people can access it themselves. and it read as though You were.

Trisha: 00:13:29

Recognising almost, a little bit where your values are.

Trisha: 00:13:37

And how your values have been influenced by your culture, and also where in some points you have overridden those values. And maybe that's what you mean by the cultural agnostic bit. And, and then you were sort of acknowledging that you can operate different ways that you can operate in one way in the family and in another way in a work place.

Trisha: 00:13:56

And so I'm guessing that was all part of that recognition and discovery period as well. And that's what gave birth to the book is, is is that what happened?

Loren: 00:14:06

Yes. Very similar. You know, this shift, no pun intended here with this show. But that shift was so profound because it showed me the ways that I was code switching and not in a good way. I, I love my husband, I love my, my family. I love both of them. And there's such that they, they're so different.

Loren: 00:14:33

And yet I always felt like this chameleon that I could kind of fit into all these different circumstances, but never in a way where I could coexist. So there was always some sort of wall or block or because I didn't understand, you know, I grew up in a very Anglo way. So what do I mean by that.

Loren: 00:14:56

We lived in very Anglo heavy environments. And it was this dichotomous experience because here I am in school and it's 100% Anglo, but at home and at church, it was 100% Hispanic. So I felt myself, you know, the code switching, right. All of a sudden I'm in school and it's about me, me, me, me, me. It's all about individual achievement and striving for what you desire and and self-efficacy.

Loren: 00:15:30

And in the Latin, community, it was about, you know, coexistence, co-dependence or a community, very, very cohesive and tight knit environment to where parts of me felt they were somewhat intrusive at times because I'm, you know, I'm thinking there has to be some boundaries here and some privacy. That was and there was no such thing.

Loren: 00:15:58

Yeah. So growing up I always thought that dichotomous experience. And growing in my air career you know I was in many ways doing that. I was yes I would coexist, I would collaborate with others but always at a superficial level, never going deeper because I didn't know how, I didn't I didn't understand it enough to be able to navigate in deeper and really, truly create moments that matter.

Loren: 00:16:30

Right. So as I learned about, cultural intelligence and, and national cultural, cultural values, I learned how they do shaped the way that we operate in the world, whether at work or at home. And I suddenly learned why, even though I may value achievement, why when I was talking about achievement in my personal life or at work, it was never translating because I was always leading with achievement when others were expecting me to lead with collaboration, to lead with relationships first and then people second.

Loren: 00:17:19

And funny enough, I always used to say, well, people first over everything that was that was my motto, right? That was from the very early days of my career. It was always about people. But what I learned is that people have all these different languages, right. Emotional, cultural languages. And you've got to speak the language.

Loren: 00:17:47

If you, if you don't speak that language you can say you value people or anything all you want. But it's not connectedness, not communicating, it's not bi directional. So this is what fascinated me about this shift. It was that all of a sudden I was picking up on how I would navigate discussions, even at home, even even with friends, when I would meet up with friends.

Loren: 00:18:16

Or we are, you know, at some kind of gathering, I would always lead with, oh, guess what I did this week? And I accomplished and I would, you know, regurgitate all my accomplished. But if they would start the conversation, they would ask how I'm doing, how is my husband if he's not with me, you know, have some sort of relationship based question?

Loren: 00:18:42

Yeah. And I'm here thinking, why are they prying? into so much to my personal. So this is the dance that's going on. All because the tunes are out of whack. So cultural intelligence, stuff like this, this tuning. Right. This fine tuning of all that, all these different exchanges with all these different languages and became kind of like a lexicon for me because I suddenly understood why these differences existed, why they were asking me questions about me personally.

Loren: 00:19:16

It wasn't to pry. It's because that's what they got.

Trisha: 00:19:20

And it sounds like you were much more often stepping into that. You know what we're talking about, that whole metacognitive bit and being aware of both yourself and the other people in every conversation and seeing where they're coming from at the same time is recognising where you are. We talk about, there's research in came from New Zealand that I heard about last year at a conference I was attending, which pointed out that thriving children in the school system are linked to awareness and pride in their culture.

Trisha: 00:19:53

And so we often talk about people being able to walk comfortably or proudly or confidently in two worlds, or more than 1 or 2 worlds. But, you know, often there are two worlds that kids need to navigate as they grow up. You know, the home culture and maybe the school culture or, you know, those sorts of things, but they've got to be aware of it.

Trisha: 00:20:14

So they've got to have this, this awareness that you're speaking of and, and, and and sometimes according to this research, it can start with that pride in who you actually are, first of all. So it sounds like, you know, that's some of the journey that you've been on in the past few years.

Loren: 00:20:30

Yes. In fact, I, I've been researching, the concept of resilience from a cultural perspective because we talk so much about resilience, resilience, resilience. Yet. There's not much resilience going on. If anything, it's eroding. And I, I, you know, this I'm a researcher at heart. And so I immediately wanted to understand what is it about resilience that creates such a, you know, such a contentious experience for people and to your point, I read an article about how there's cultural resilience and the more connected you are to that aspect of your identity, of your cultural identity, the more resilient you are.

Loren: 00:21:16

it was absolutely fascinating because it's something that grounds you. It is. It is kind of having a compass. And no matter where you go, you have this compass directing.

Trisha: 00:21:30

Yeah. Yeah. In the New Zealand research, the researcher who was sharing it at the conference said, some of the Pakeha so that that's the, you know, white Anglo New Zealanders when some of them were questioned about, you know, is your child connected to their culture, they would say, well, we don't really have a culture. You know, that concept of the mainstream culture not being one that people recognise as a culture, they just see it as normal.

Trisha: 00:21:57

and, and those children also were part of their cohort that wasn't thriving as much. So where, you know, the Pakeha children were connected to their culture as well and were proud of who they were, then they were more likely to be thriving. So that whole.

Trisha: 00:22:14

Acknowledgement of who you are depending is valid for both. The if you like, the normative culture as well as other cultures as well. And I say normative in, in quote marks. in terms of more the dominant culture that that makes it that people probably assume is the one that people are operating from. We were going to be talking, Loren, about your speaking.

Trisha: 00:22:40

And we have digressed so far that we haven't even got to the speaking aspect yet, but we wanted to talk about your speaking because I know you've been delivering a number of keynotes over the past couple of years, and that those have been presentations that have had, you know, where the audience have had people have come up to you and said how much they've shifted as a result of your presentation.

Trisha: 00:23:00

They've realised things about themselves. They've you know, I know you've told me about people have, you know, been deeply moved by the experience. So I'm, I do want to focus on that because we want to think about what you do to help people do that. and I know all of the research and all of the experiences that we've spoken about so far come together to make you who you are, which is, you know, a wonderful person, which therefore is easier to be a wonderful speaker.

Trisha: 00:23:31

but the side of being a speaker itself, how what do you do when you prepare to think about how to help people, to see the different perspectives and to help them make those shifts that they make? Because you've told me about people coming up to you afterwards and being, being, having, having had a shift. So what is it that you do as you're preparing to get to that?

Loren: 00:23:53

Yeah, I, I'm a big believer in two things. One is acronyms. I love acronyms, acronyms because people remember things through acronyms. And so what I learned to do was to create acronyms and use those acronyms to fit it into a blueprint that meets the needs of the audience. So, for example, the the most recent, talk that I did was at the, the Women's in Cybersecurity conference.

Loren: 00:24:31

And what I did, I took the cultural intelligence framework and all of the different capabilities, right, and soft skills and turned them into acronyms. and so the framework becomes a QR code, and the capabilities become the CQ algorithms.

Trisha: 00:24:54

Right. You’re speaking the language of the cyber security people.

Loren: 00:24:56

So the CQ code is my signature, speech. It's what I used to base you know, the talk on the book and the choice playbook. But when I am bringing in the the framework, it's all cultural intelligence. toolbox, if you will. I use these acronyms as algorithms. And so we know that, for example, the CQ action, capability requires these three skills that you need to develop.

Loren: 00:25:27

And one of them we know in terms of speech acts, people are going to be thinking what the heck. And speech acts of speaking is a verbal is it not verbal. What is this. So the acronym the algorithm is called TAC. So you tune in right. You adapt your speech. you're going to cultivate the flexibility behind what you say.

Loren: 00:25:50

And then you take feedback. So all of a sudden, you know, they're they're learning what speech act means without having to resort to, you know, the geeky speech act is adjusting how we speak and blah, blah, blah. So I bring them into the experience. Yeah.

Trisha: 00:26:08

That's great. I imagine you're also telling stories and sharing yourself and exactly as you have been here.

Loren: 00:26:15

I am my father's daughter and I don't tell him I said that, but I love to share my anecdote of how many faux pas I've had and how much I've learned along the way, too. But what I find is that people learn through immersive storytelling. So what I'll do is I never like to stand in front but be fixed, you know, mean I'm always yeah, restless.

Loren: 00:26:42

So I always stand within the audience as I'm telling them the story. And then I bring the story to life. And the stories are typically adjusted according to the audience. I know in the talk I did, the, the blusher, I learned to say,. Louisiana Society for Human Resources. It was an HR crowd was human resources.

Loren: 00:27:11

And so.

Trisha: 00:27:12

Different crowd, completely.

Loren: 00:27:13

Different crowd. You know. Yeah. And so I'm thinking, what are their biggest pain points? Employees getting along, running payroll, making sure everyone's paid correctly and the benefits are correct. Oh, and compliance by the way, because we are in the United States and it's very complicated. So all of a sudden I'm bringing stories like, do you remember that employee who submitted their time off their PTO or we call it here in the system, and then they called you to make sure that you received the information in the system.

Loren: 00:27:47

And then they walked to your office to make sure that you got the voice note, that they had to leave you because you didn't pick up the phone. This is this is a cultural difference that we are experiencing. contrast that with the employee who sent you their PTO request on TikTok. You have a generational difference where, yeah, you're having to navigate these personalities all day, every day, all while you're trying to do your job.

Loren: 00:28:17

So cultural intelligence then helps you understand why they have different approaches to one thing requesting time off and how now that you understand, you can then if then. So if they do this then you plan for them. Next time you see some random person calling you 100 times about their PTO, you respond with that because now you have that knowledge.

Loren: 00:28:45

and you can act differently.

Trisha: 00:28:49

And hopefully you can be aware of the judgements in your head and stop them.

Loren: 00:28:53

And you could keep the judgements in the parking lot and then acknowledge them later after you leave the office.

Trisha: 00:28:59

I'm wondering other ever moments when you're on the stage and so you're not on the stage because you're telling me you're walking through the audience, but are there ever moments when you are walking through the audience and you realise that something you are about to say is not what you need to say, and and your shift in the moment, has that ever happened?

Loren: 00:29:18

Oh my gosh, all the time. All the time. Because I'm always gauging the audience. If the if the if the anecdote didn't really click, you can kind of see them look down.

Trisha: 00:29:28

Okay.

Loren: 00:29:29

And so in those moments, what I'll do is I'll pause and I'll say something some Loren ism like, okay, I know you didn't like that. That was that was certainly not right. But what about this is resonating for you? So I use it as a check in. Yeah that's.

Trisha: 00:29:48

Great. Yeah. Good decision.

Loren: 00:29:51

And then I. And then they you know they all of a sudden like oh my gosh she's looking at me I better start working.

Trisha: 00:29:55

Right, right.

Loren: 00:29:56

you know and then I look for input from then and then go from there. And according to what they say, I'll adjust the rest of the presentation to make sure that I am leaving them with the nuggets they need. They don't need any more anecdotes. What they need to know is how to use the CQ code in real life.

Loren: 00:30:18

Yeah.

Trisha: 00:30:18

It sounds like a lot of a lot of what you're doing is recognising who they are, where they are at and their preferred ways of operating and then adapting to it. and so yeah, it's, it's successful and positive code switching if we want to go back to that word. But it's code switching, I think, from a place of love and from a place of recognising who you are, and not because you want to not be who you are, but because you want to serve them in the best way possible.

Loren: 00:30:49

Exactly. And, you know, I play around with these all the time. and it's like, a research experiment for me. The, the most fun I have done is the cell phone in that, you know, the cell phone is the the cultural intelligence framework. but then the operating system becomes, you know, that that, CQ knowledge because you're constantly updating, upgrading, upgrading, upgrading.

Loren: 00:31:20

Right. CQ drivers that are the battery if you don't have a charged battery, you can't operate the phone.

Trisha: 00:31:27

Oh, very good.

Loren: 00:31:29

So all of a sudden people like the cell phone. What if what the heck does that have to do with cultural intelligence? You know, they're staring at the screen trying to figure out where I'm going with this. and once I explain it, all of a sudden, their interest is peak. And then I go into the no offence to, you know, Cultural intelligence centre.

Loren: 00:31:54

The boring explanation and cultural intelligence because it is it can be a very heady subject. It can be very, very heady, very nerdy, bit too intellectual. But what I want people to walk away with is something that they can use today. Why is CQ so powerful here is why it's so powerful. And this is how you use.

Loren: 00:32:20

That's it. I don't care about you know the story so much as I do the Ah - HA.

Trisha: 00:32:27

Understood. Fantastic. Well I want everyone to get in touch with you. So how is it best for people to do that. How would you like people. Should I put your LinkedIn. Obviously the book. Are there other things that you would like me to link to that I can put in the show notes as well?

Loren: 00:32:44

Yes. Thank you so much. Definitely LinkedIn. You can share my LinkedIn, profile and my website. https://www.lorenrosario.com/.

Trisha: 00:32:53

Fantastic. Put the website. Yes, yes. And and links to the book where they can purchase the book as well. And if they want to reach out to you for a speaking engagement, then they can do that through your website. Fantastic. Loren, really appreciate, I really appreciate, you know, the last year and a half of working with you in our mastermind team, it's been wonderful, and all the learning and growing that we've done together has been amazing.

Trisha: 00:33:21

and so thank you for giving. Not just me, but, everybody who's going to be listening to this this time today. I really appreciate it.

Loren: 00:33:29

Thank you. So much, Trisha. I appreciate you as a friend, as a colleague, as a fellow human, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and thank you for letting me share my story here.

Trisha: 00:33:41

So thank you, everyone. And please, if you haven't yet clicked the button to subscribe or follow on your podcast step, please do that. And if you have an opportunity and would like to, we'd love you to write it as well. And please join us next week for the next episode of The Shift.