Episode 49
Quinton Pretorius - Shifts Through Experiential Learning
This week, Trisha Carter, an organisational psychologist and cultural intelligence explorer, chats with Quinton Pretorius, a leading facilitator in cultural intelligence and leadership development from South Africa. They discuss the importance of immersive learning experiences for leaders, the impact of cultural intelligence on leadership, and the ways in which cultural experiences can shift perspectives. Quinton shares insights from his personal experiences, including the concept of 'Ubuntu,' the significance of African time, and the powerful moments of reflection derived from cultural immersions.
You can connect with Quinto on LinkedIn or via his website www.culturalintelligenceafrica.com
Make sure you join Trisha in this journey of growth and discovery throughout the year via Substack or LinkedIn.
Transcript
[00:00:39] Trisha: Hi there, everyone. I'm Trisha Carter, an organizational 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 our thinking.
[:[00:01:25] Trisha: Don't worry, we're going to get into it. Since meeting Quentin at the CQ Fellows Gathering in San Diego last year, I've been really keen to explore how he's creating these transformative learning experiences that really shift perspectives and deepen cultural intelligence with leadership skills. But before we dive into that, let me briefly remind you all, dear listeners, of the frame for our conversation, the four areas of cultural intelligence, the motivational area known as CQ drive, the cognitive area known as CQ knowledge, the meta cognitive area, the CQ strategy, and the behavioral CQ action. And as always, this podcast focuses particularly on the metacognitive aspects, CQ strategy, how we think about our thinking in cultural contexts. So Quentin, welcome to the shift.
[:[00:02:26] Trisha: And I'm looking forward to unpacking more. I mean, I know we spoke in San Diego, but there's a lot of things that you've been working on since then. So I really want to get down to some of the details of what you're, what you're working in. But first let's start with our opening question. What is a culture other than the culture you grew up in that you have learned to love and appreciate?
[:[00:03:17] Quinton: And then I think it was in 2009, 2008, I visited Scotland for the first time, and I was introduced to the warmth of welcome in Scotland. And I love that my, my Celtic is not good at all. But this idea of 100, 000 welcomes and sitting at a fireplace in the Isle of Skye and just feeling this incredible welcome.
[:[00:04:01] Quinton: So it's three words shu means that when you, when you engage with something new, you, you need to learn that, that concept really, really well. Don't break the rules, respect it. Once you understand the concept, you go to a hari. Which is you can start breaking the rules and you can start implementing it your own way.
[:[00:04:39] Trisha: Yeah. That's wonderful. I mean, the, the warmth of welcome made me think of, of mutual friend, Lucy, who listeners may recall from an earlier episode that we spoke to about CQ facilitation. But she is one who would exhibit that immensely. And I look forward to one day being in Scotland and experiencing that at her place.
[:[00:05:20] Trisha: And now Quentin, can you tell me about a time when you experienced the shift, when you suddenly became aware of a new perspective?
[:[00:05:47] Quinton: And so I stayed in an Indian home for the first time and I sat down for dinner and when I sat down for dinner, I noticed that there were, I was the only one that had a knife and fork and nobody else had a knife and fork. And I was like, what on earth is going on here? And then people started eating with their hands and that was just mind boggling for me in the first place.
[:[00:06:30] Quinton: There are different ways of eating. And so, that was a really amazing learning for me. The other one is, and I don't know if you've come across the concept of African time. I don't know if you've heard that and sometimes as Westerners, we, we really frustrated with this idea of African time, but it's a real thing.
[:[00:07:13] Quinton: And so when you're engaging with people, you focus on the people that you're with and in some spaces in South Africa, if you look at your watch when you're talking to an elderly person, that would be deemed disrespectful because you, you, you are showing respect to the person over time, which was something that I needed to shift around how I showed up in the world.
[:[00:07:54] Quinton: If you haven't brought it up, you have to come back to it at another time. And often in our meetings, we'll go over because we, we really want to understand why we're there and how we respect people in those kinds of spaces. So that, that balance between time and people is something that I've grown to love over the time, but it was really difficult.
[:[00:08:39] Quinton: Sometimes it's just circumstances that are in their way, particularly people that come from poorer communities, like getting to time and meetings and stuff are way out of their control. There's a whole bunch of other factors that are in place. So I would be careful for people just to use the word African time without understanding the context related to it.
[:[00:09:22] Trisha: What was the quote you had? about time I think was it Mandela or Tutu?
[:[00:09:33] Trisha: That, that, that would sum up the Pacifica way as well, that it's much more just about being in the time rather than, you know, racing to be there by a certain time. And it is, it, it's a completely different sort of value perspective. And it is also something that people use in a derogatory way to speak about people from, from those areas.
[:[00:09:59] Quinton: yes, yeah, so it's not that time is unimportant, but rather that the flexibility serves us as humans rather than the other way around, which I thought was a really powerful concept.
[:[00:10:19] Quinton: So, sorry, Trish, you remind me in South Africa we have this like a thing called jump us, which is this jump time. Like it's, I'll, I'll see you just now. We, we freak out a lot of people in South Africa. When, when you say, when will I see you again? We say, Oh, just now. Cause there's no time associated with it.
[:[00:10:50] Trisha: I loved that. Yeah. I can imagine you've used these concepts and discuss them, you know, with groups often who've had these different perspectives because you've spent, you know, over 20 years in learning and development in, in South Africa. With different organizations and you've also worked internationally, what drew you to using cultural intelligence as a tool that you wanted to equip your, you know, because you've been working with leaders for a long time and in cultural intelligence and more recent years.
[:[00:11:23] Quinton: I think it was in 2012 and really giving our age away. When we start saying 2012 and stuff, it's like a lifetime ago.
[:[00:11:33] Quinton: okay. So we were accredited almost at the same time, probably a year after you, that we were accredited here in South Africa. So we were working with a multinational around creating inclusive culture.
[:[00:12:09] Quinton: So, so for me, it was giving validity, that's the right word, right, to my practitioner work that I, that I had. And it gave me a new language. And it, and it, it validated me for, for, for a moment, like, because I wasn't imagining this and that there were a group of people in the world that really gave some thought to this.
[:[00:13:00] Quinton: So, so that's what drew me to it. And, and that's, what's kept me on is the tension between those two.
[:[00:13:17] Quinton: That's a great point. Great question, because I think leaders are often think, think that this stuff was soft, and, and, and it's some, it's like a nice, nice to have, but actually it doesn't really have some kind of real imperative around where they're going. And so when we start talking about CQ, It starts helping them ground themselves, and I think it's about self reflection and seeing themselves in the stuff, and it's also about giving people concrete ways of moving forward.
[:[00:14:10] Quinton: Like you, you, I'm really motivated to do this, but their CQ strategy generally is really low, right? And so I'm saying, when you go into these rooms, you don't plan because you think you're so motivated to go into these kinds of spaces. So I'm not judging your motivation. I'm really thinking about, can you imagine if you could measure or match your motivation with some planning and strategy and feedback.
[:[00:14:55] Quinton: And one that comes up often for me is direct versus indirect. And so understanding that an employee or a team member is not giving you feedback is not that they don't have any thoughts. It's just that they respect you as a leader and, and they're not going to be direct with you. And for leaders to unlock that.
[:[00:15:30] Quinton: So
[:[00:15:34] Trisha: Yeah. And, and a great observation. And we often don't talk about that intersection, but somebody raised it again recently. I think it might've been Sarah in the, in the last episode we were speaking about AOI, about that intersection between drive and strategy, which, you know, is sort of about harnessing our enthusiasm.
[:[00:16:12] Trisha: So, so the, the intersections between the capabilities are really important. We're getting really nerdy here. But I'm sure that I'm sure that some people will appreciate it, but other people are probably thinking, what the heck are they talking about? But I I'm interested in, and this is probably what other people.
[:[00:16:45] Quinton: So I was talking to a friend recently that we've been running these immersive experiences for a while. And he said to me, Quinton, can you remember what your grade five teacher, I don't know in Australia, do you have grades or standards in school? What
[:[00:16:59] Quinton: Great. So Trish, can you remember what you spoke about in grade five or let's say grade seven or grade 12 in first semester?
[:[00:17:11] Trisha: Goodness, I think it was, it was way too long ago.
[:[00:17:22] Trisha: no, we didn't go to the zoo, but there's one, there's one that I remember quite significantly. We went to Aoraki Mount Cook, and we went out for a walk at night, got a little bit lost, and then we were walking back to where we were staying, and suddenly the sky was alive. And it was the aurora australis and we lay down in the grass and we looked up at that.
[:[00:18:04] Quinton: So you've done something really powerful. You've taken me back to that moment. And, and it's almost a visceral experience for me as you've relived that. And that's what these cultural immersion experiences will be, is that a participant will come on this global immersion. And 20 years later, they will be able to recall how they felt and what they learned.
[:[00:18:45] Quinton: Thinking about the children that have to play in that playground. So there's something about a body experience that happens when we do these emmersions that doesn't leave you. So it's your head, your heart, it's all your senses that are involved in these learning experiences. I think that there's something emotional that happens for us when we're on these global emotional experiences.
[:[00:19:43] Quinton: You're having a real time debrief and reflection, and that becomes really powerful. So the whole experience becomes a learning opportunity from a conversation in the car to standing with a community member. Now there's a, so those are some of the kind of things that, that, that sort of informed these learning experiences.
[:[00:20:53] Quinton: Like when I see his life and I see everything that he's done, it begins to challenge me around my behavior and how I speak up against injustice that I'm seeing. So it fills me with a fresh. inspiration, but also some clear ways of, of putting CQ into the real world. I hope I haven't gone off the topic.
[:[00:21:45] Trisha: And so how do we help people to become aware of themselves in a moment? How do we help people to become aware of what might be going through their head, what they might be judging others about, how they might be responding without realizing that that's what they're doing. And so as you described that immersive experience, you described somebody being very aware of themselves in the moment.
[:[00:22:10] Quinton: you can't help.
[:[00:22:11] Trisha: no,
[:[00:22:12] Quinton: So I think what happens, you can't help, but become really reflective when you walk in an informal community and you see, you see a child in front of you. Or you see something really incredible in front of you, you can't help but see the mirror in yourself in that I was on, we were doing a drive through downtown Joburg at five o'clock in the morning to see the economy come to life.
[:[00:22:58] Quinton: Oh, I'm so grateful that that's not for me. But something happened to me when I saw that child on the road at five o'clock in the morning, I was That could be my child. In fact, that is my child. And I started asking myself, like, how am I part of the system that allows that child not to have? access to an education that's close to her and puts her in harm's way?
[:[00:23:42] Quinton: That's one, one thing that I've seen.
[:[00:24:06] Trisha: I mean.
[:[00:24:07] Trisha: Essentially, it is what happened with you in the story in the Indian family. You had that experience, the whole concept of there's a right way to eat and a wrong way to eat just crumbled, and you realized there were many ways to eat adapted. So how do you, you know, I know that People have spoken, about your facilitation skills and, and talked about your humor and storytelling and you've demonstrated storytelling here to us already today.
[:[00:24:50] Quinton: So, so it takes a, you need to, so I'm being really deliberate about choosing particular spaces that will elicit the kinds of conversation I want leaders to have. So I think that's really, really important to give a lot of thought to what we want people to experience. And then, and then how do we, how does the space elicit that learning for us?
[:[00:25:38] Quinton: He stood at the Roads Memorial and he spoke about the ripples of hope and it became a really famous speech. And so I'm going to take participants and stand in that very spot. and ask them to think about what is the ripples of hope that will impact you. And so choosing the right space becomes really, really important to elicit that kind of learning from that kind of space.
[:[00:26:21] Quinton: I think it's 2 million U. S. dollars they've spent on this youth center in this middle of this informal settlement. It's off the grid, it's high, high tech. Young people have access to computers. They feed a thousand young people every day. This is people from this community. It's like you're not, you're not expecting to see a world class youth facility in the middle of an informal setting.
[:[00:26:59] Trisha: So you're thinking about, about what they will be expecting and then creating the unexpected.
[:[00:27:15] Trisha: Oh, wonderful. Yeah. As you spoke about the ripples of hope, I had goosebumps. And so it is this visceral, you know, experience that, that you, you can't create by, I mean, you could create by telling a really good story. And that in some situations that may be all we can do, but how much more powerful to be able to go there.
[:[00:27:54] Quinton: So how do I challenge people to get out of their own kind of, so it is much easier to challenge somebody, not directly. So if they see, if you, if you tell in a story or you're in a place where they see something else that is injust or unfair, and they make a comment on that, and then all of a sudden, and I've seen it in participants when, when they, when, when we're talking about something else that's not related to them, and then all of a sudden they can see, oh gosh, I do that too. That becomes the moment where something unlocks. For for people. So,
[:[00:28:33] Trisha: And sometimes You know, it might feel like in traditional learning situations that we only have access to the direct challenge. You know, we might tell a story, we might use humor, but it might feel like the only thing that's left then is a direct challenge. And yet in these immersive experiences that you're creating, there's a lot more opportunity to work around people's probably around almost the blocks that they might hold, the resistance they might have.
[:[00:29:31] Quinton: And, and, and so a part of me, when you first look at the slave trade, I would say I could never do that, but standing in that dilapidated chapel, I began to realize that those people were authentic in their faith. They didn't think they were doing anything wrong. And it's only in retrospect that we look back.
[:[00:30:10] Quinton: In a way that that was deeply profound
[:[00:30:39] Trisha: We might look for more often, which is an intellectual understanding.
[:[00:31:04] Quinton: As somebody is going to walk away and change. So, so I think one, when I notice that people go quiet. in these kind of things. So people generally we start these emotions, they have lots of opinions, they have lots of thoughts and they're talking. And then as the learning gets deeper and deeper, I noticed people start going more quiet.
[:[00:31:51] Quinton: And so it's those. The slight change in language that that becomes really important. And then if If I go back to an organization and then hear how people have done. So one, one of my participants, one said, after the session, I've made more mistakes in my leadership than I've ever done before, because I wasn't afraid to make those mistakes anymore.
[:[00:32:28] Quinton: And I think there's something really powerful. about a leader saying, I'm going to make mistakes and I want you to call me out on, on these kinds of mistakes. So that, that was something really powerful for me when I, when I think about that.
[:[00:33:08] Quinton: So there's a couple of principles that, that trying to integrate into, into these learning journeys. So the first one is get out of the way as a facilitator, this is not about me. And I'm not the expert in the room and to recognize that the participants are on their own journey and my role is to be part of their journey.
[:[00:33:42] Quinton: The participant is central, not the program. So I need to make sure that I'm not driving a program and the program then dictates how we go, but put the participant in the center and the program serves the participants which is a new paradigm, I think, in these kinds of spaces.
[:[00:34:23] Quinton: And so be careful, be aware of the kinds of questions you want to ask. And then if I'm thinking about CQ, it's how to create discomfort within safety.
[:[00:34:51] Quinton: So it's really, really, really important to have a safe environment that you can make people feel discomfited. So the first day of these learning journeys is about building safety and connection and social capital. Day two generally is the difficult history and difficult conversation we're going to have, where we're going to rub up against history, we're going to rub up against ourselves.
[:[00:35:26] Trisha: That's brilliant. Thank you, Quentin.
[:[00:35:28] Trisha: there's a great deal of thought. There's a great deal of planning.
[:[00:35:49] Trisha: So as we move towards closing. I'm interested in, I always want to ask people what advice they would give and I'm thinking what advice would you give to a leader in these difficult times today as we sit here in February 2025 and the world is changing in front of us and leaders need to think about how they're showing up with people who are different to them.
[:[00:36:20] Quinton: It's not easy. And there's a cost to be paid. And so, are you willing to pay the cost to be courageous? That's the first thing I think we need to think about. And I don't know if I'm as courageous as I think I am. So when I'm standing outside Nelson Mandela's house, and I see the sacrifice he made I, I'm often challenged to think, I don't know if I would have the courage.
[:[00:37:08] Quinton: Then a man put his hand up and he didn't ask, he didn't even wait to be recognized, he just started speaking. So at lunchtime, I found the woman and I asked her like, so what, what could I have done? In the room, I know it's very small compared to the big problems that we have in the world, but I think the principle is here and she says, you know what?
[:[00:37:49] Quinton: And she said, I know what I'm going to do in the moment when that, that happens again. And so I think that was something really powerful for her to do that. And then I think at the moment, A lot of us talk from our opinions on a subject, and I often say to people, I'm far more interested in your experience.
[:[00:38:30] Quinton: Maybe those are, are some of the things, but I think it's really difficult at the time. And maybe the last thing I'll say is, Be true to your own values. Like what is driving you and, and get in touch with those kinds of things.
[:[00:38:43] Trisha: Thank you, Quinton. And finally, as you look at your life, the people you've worked with and your family and your community, and then you think about the future, what are you hoping for?
[:[00:39:46] Quinton: but who I am intrinsically as a human being. We often talk about having respect when we go into these kinds of spaces. We need to respect each other. And I think it's not about earning respect or cultural and standard respect, but this idea that I'm a human being. And because I'm a human being, I can be respected in this kind of space.
[:[00:40:33] Quinton: And I think we've lost that, that we, we don't, we've, we demonize people that we disagree with. And then we lose the learning that we could learn from them. And so can we disagree well. Would be maybe a world that we could live in where we could hold opposing views, but I don't dehumanize you. I can actually thank you for the courage.
[:[00:41:01] Quinton: I don't know if that's possible, but maybe it is.
[:[00:41:25] Quinton: Yes. I think it is. Yeah. Yeah.
[:[00:41:35] Quinton: Thank you.
[:[00:41:39] Quinton: They can, I'm happy for people to email me if they, if they wish
[:[00:41:46] Quinton: you got it. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. That's cool.
[:[00:42:00] Quinton: Yes. Well, let's see what we can do.
[:[00:42:21] Trisha: I think it was great!
[:[00:42:26] Trisha: So thank you everyone for listening. to this. It has been a really encouraging episode.
[:[00:42:53] Trisha: And you can subscribe or follow on your podcast app so you can be notified when new episodes are released. I look forward to you joining me in a fortnight for the next episode of The Shift.
