0:14 foreign business lessons from the military uh we've been on Hiatus for the last few weeks because of some uh health problems um you know that's that's that's life but uh happy to be back and looking forward to getting back into our topic of dealing each Tuesday at 11 A.M Pacific uh 2 p.m uh Eastern on our topic of
0:50 looking at um military Doctrine military history great military leaders and how we can take those lessons and apply them to our businesses in our professional lives in order to make them more successful so um anxious to get started we're we're going to continue with our discussion of Marine Corps Doctrine but we are going to deal with a different topic uh starting today and that is we're going to be talking about cultural competency now
1:26 I am not going to be taught talking about this from a political uh perspective don't don't talk politics here our purpose is is Commerce as as I uh like to note um but um we are going to get into um some I think uh topics that are topical they're they're you know they're they're really kind of at the Forefront um of uh what a lot of businesses are um in some cases doing very well with and in other cases uh struggling with so
2:04 um as always because this is a a military related um training um gotta have a PowerPoint and so we're gonna jump right in and let's see here we go there we go see and it's got that uh you know as I always like to note that that cool you know military looking background right um not by accident okay so oops let's see there we go so um I just want to take a moment to remind you about the three pillars of attainment this is the concept on which
2:40 all of the way to wow shows are based um we're dealing primarily in the Pursuits pillar um and primarily in finances um but we'll also deal with relationships and and in in today's uh um in today's topic um relationships are going to be a significant part as is self in in particular um our identity okay and and here in relationships we're really talking primarily about friends in which we
3:16 would include uh work work colleagues clients Etc um okay so that's um that's the foundation for everything we do okay so Cultural Literacy and competency excuse me when we talk about Cultural Literacy what we're talking about is understanding cultural backgrounds and how they impact how people behave how they work how they
3:53 think how they approach issues problems uh Solutions Etc okay and I think we'd all agree that it is virtually impossible to escape our cultural background okay it was essentially plugged into us from our very first breath almost okay and and so the the key and I'm I'm not going to get into you know which
4:28 culture is good or which culture is bad that that's not our topic here okay our topic is to understand what is cultural background and how do we understand it okay so um just just before um I I um started the training I was having uh I was meeting with a friend of mine that I hadn't seen for a while and we were talking about um a situation in which I'm involved and I was explaining to him how um this particular person
5:04 um was was in a big dispute with someone else and when I was told about the dispute um in in this case it was a family matter um I I I said to the person well I mean knowing the other person as I do it doesn't surprise me that what's going on is upsetting the other person after all this person has a very deeply held value on on this topic and and so
5:40 um it really I suspect hit a very deep chord with them okay to which the person I was speaking to said buff I don't care basically right so my friend that I was meeting with this morning he made an observation I I hadn't really thought about this um but it's something that he's very clued into he said see the ability to understand and and see issues and matters through somebody else's eyes that's what we call EQ emotional um uh EQ emotional like emotional
6:16 intelligence it's like IQ but it would which is just intelligence EQ is emotional intelligence right that's what we want to develop and in fact there are studies that show that a high EQ is a better determiner of success than a high EQ okay so this this idea of understanding cultural background and how it impacts how people think and behave is is very crucial to our success and I would say
6:53 and this includes me we're probably not nearly as good at it as we think we are right um we've always got to be working to gain greater understanding okay so let's start by talking a little bit about what is cultural background well it according to Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine and that's that's the the basis for this training uh cultural background really has kind of three aspects to it one is self-definition the
7:29 second is expression and the third is relationships okay so as we look at these self-definition is the way a person views himself okay so I'm going to use myself as an example right self-definition I'm I'm Jewish okay that's a big part of my cultural background and no matter how hard I would try to escape it it's just a part of me okay earlier today I was listening to some um classic comedy recordings on uh
8:05 Sirius um and you know there's so many Jewish comedians and and one of them um I can't remember who it was but anyway he was talking about the difference between how you know Jews and non-jews um you know deal with their homes and he's like he's like non-jews you go in the house and they can fix this and they can fix that and they're not really that concerned about their house because if it falls down they can build it right back up again he says Jews can't do any of that right and on a certain level it's really true for Jews it's all about showing off the house right now of course this comedy comes from back in the 70s
8:41 um I'm sure some people would consider it you know uh anti-semitic or whatever of course it was a Jewish guy who who was but but you know as I'm listening as I'm and I'm thinking about like my grandmother and to a certain extent even my parents is like yeah you know there were rooms in our house when I was growing up where we kids were basically not allowed it's like you don't go in the living room and lets us to clean right because the living room is a little room to like show off right there's no escaping that uh that that that background and if you were to come into my house you know I I have to really sort of you know
9:16 um just restrain myself from wanting to show wanting to show you my house it's small but it's like I you know oh and look here's what I did here and here's this and there's that it's like you know it's it's it's it's just it's a cultural thing right so self-definition then is is how we see ourselves how we Define ourselves okay that's one part of our cultural background the next part is expression how we communicate okay um you know again I'll I'll tell a joke so
9:52 there there's a uh there's a a rabbi and a minister are are are talking one day they're having a coffee you know kind of a you know inter uh religious uh you know uh meeting or whatever and and and so the the minister is talking to Rabbi and he says he says he says Rabbi is I I'd like to ask you a few questions Robbie says of course go ahead go ahead so the the ministry she says he says why when when I go into your synagogue
10:27 are people praying so loud and and two why when I go to your funerals people are I'm sorry um and why when I go into your uh uh synagogues there's so much stuff going on and there's the kids are running around and all this stuff and finally why
11:02 when I go to a Jewish funeral people are so demonstrably fraught so the Rabbi says he says listen uh these are all very good questions he said let me give you some answers he says first of all with uh praying so loud um is this listen um you know we're praying to the father you're praying to the son the father a little bit harder of hearing we got to pray real loud for him to hear
11:40 a synagogue is like our home so we we have the people here running around to the children and whatever and Minister says okay okay I understand what about the third one he says the Rabbi says well to tell you the truth I like your way better right the ways of expressing are different among different cultural groups okay I'm not you know I I don't you don't have to worry I'm I'm not gonna change my day job I'm not gonna become a comedian um but people have different ways of expressing themselves and a lot of that comes from their culture right I grew up
12:16 in a very loud house and and the first time I had an apartment with two friends and something went wrong and I'm screaming right and they're looking at me like where did you come from you know and and so they just did both of them they just stand there until after literally about five minutes of me screaming I noticed they're not saying or doing anything which was really weird for me because that's not how it worked in my family and I stopped and one of them looked at me and and said okay uh you cannot do that ever
12:51 again I'm thinking myself this is really weird okay because they didn't scream back that was just not my cultural norm and it was really the first time I realized there was another way of settling conflict besides each person screaming at the other person okay they came from a different cultural background people didn't scream at each other they sat down they said here's the problem I have with what you're doing or
13:26 what you're saying or whatever and okay now we got to figure out a solution right it was it was truly eye-opening for me I was I think 16 or 17 when that happened okay so expression is another part of cultural background and then finally relationships okay how people form relationships how people prioritize relationships um with whom people create relationships all of this is affected by their cultural background okay so here in the
14:04 United States for example um and that this comes from a book called um against fairness I believe it was written by Steve Asma uh he's a um uh professor of I think it's psychology but I could be wrong about that so he tell he's he's talking about how here in the United States when somebody favors their family members over non-family members that's called nepotism and we view that
14:39 negatively okay we're not supposed to I mean in a family business maybe but in in a um like in a publicly run company I mean a publicly owned company or in you know government employment in a in a university something like that we are it is considered wrong to favor our family members over other people everybody's supposed to compete essentially you know fairly as which is
15:14 why the book is named against fairness now in China he points out it's exactly the opposite it would be considered a grave faux pas to overlook your family members in favor of somebody outside of the family that is just not how it's done okay so what we call nepotism and and bad here in this country in China it's it's exactly the opposite I I don't know what they
15:49 would call it I don't know Chinese um but they would call it in essence honoring their family and to not do so would be considered bad okay so the the key thing about understanding these parts of cultural background is then how do we apply them to gaining Cultural Literacy and competency okay so let's move on with that all right so the first thing we need to do is to become literate ourselves
16:24 okay and we do that first of all by understanding our own beliefs values behaviors and norms okay uncritically just understand what they are okay so I'll give you an example okay I was raised to think that wealthy people had all become wealthy because they were essentially dishonest okay and in 1986 when I started my first
17:00 company okay I was I was in the real estate business I needed to have clients who were wealthy because those are the people who have real estate I was in the commercial real estate business right so here I was working to get clients wealthy clients while at the same time holding this belief that they're all essentially a bunch of crooks and I would do a presentation and then be like nah not not going to work with you and I never I never acquired I never sent a prison presentation okay now for
17:36 you you know Mr and Mrs crook yeah or Mr and Mrs dishonest I never said that but somehow I think they felt that I held this belief and it it took me a while I was like wait a minute wait a minute this belief does not actually comport with my experience okay so first of all well first of all I had I had to realize I had that belief
18:11 and then I had to say is this belief valid and what I realized was I knew a number of very wealthy people by then um because I worked in in Jewish philanthropy and they were all very decent people I mean I'm not saying they were perfect they were like most other people they worked hard they did their best to be honest people they you know gave a lot of money to charity um they they you know helped the community Etc
18:47 so I had to I had I had to First understand my belief are my beliefs in this case this belief about wealthy people okay and then I I had to um understand how is this affecting my behavior how is this what kind of norms did this establish for me and then and then the next step was is this valid and if it's not valid how do I change the belief okay so that's the first part about becoming literate is understanding ourselves and it's it's it's very
19:24 difficult to do okay I don't think any of us ever get to perfect self-awareness or self-understanding I I wouldn't make that the goal by the way I I think we we want to have a solid understanding of ourselves so how do we get it well the first thing to do is to reach out to friends close friends okay in this case family members may not be so good because they're so close to us they may not be able to be objective enough in helping us
20:01 understand our own beliefs values behaviors and Norms but friends are separated from us enough that they should be able to help us understand them okay I mean I prefer doing these things either over a meeting or or on a telephone call but I have done some of it via email and text message depending on who the person was okay and and I like at one point um this is a number of years ago now I I I sent an email or or a a text message to I think
20:36 it was four or five of my friends and I said I'm working on understanding myself better you know you know me well what would you say are my it was either three or five best traits and my three to four or five worst traits okay and by the way you you get a window into other people too by how they'll respond to that okay some of my friends you know responded candidly um and and some were not really comfortable especially you know pointing
21:11 out what they thought were my bad qualities okay so it gives you an idea of of of how close they really feel right okay so that's the first step in becoming literate the second is to work on our skills for understanding others beliefs values behaviors and norms okay and the way we do that is by listening to other people asking them questions and listening to the answers showing a sincere interest
21:46 in who the other person is over and above the sort of you know frivolous stuff that we talk about sports or what's in the news or whatever but really getting to know the person okay now this is not something we're gonna do in in the vast majority of cases with someone we've only just met okay and we have to be careful not to ascribe beliefs or values or behaviors or Norms to somebody based on
22:21 their appearance okay so you know I'll use the Jewish example hopefully that's it right so you know um I forget who I was talking to I think it was last week um and and and I was joking around about you know being Jewish and and being you know cheap because that's like a stereotype of of of Jews is is you know that we're careful with a dollar all that right and you hear it all the time especially in the sort of classic Jewish Comics right so um
22:56 you know a hundred years ago or or well let's see 100 years ago yeah 120 years ago when there was a big wave of Jewish immigration to this country most of the Jews who came here were very poor so they were very careful with a dollar that's because they didn't have too many dollars right so you know the You could argue that um that that the uh uh you know that the The Stereotype was was apt you know these days you know you probably want to be careful with that and in fact the person I was talking to
23:32 um you know he was telling me that he had said to his wife one of the reasons he likes talking to me is is you know I he likes my insight into business and his wife got very upset she said you can't say that about Kevin he's Jewish and he's he's and so he was out and he's like do you consider that to be you know prejudiced I'm like no I mean we know each other well um I mean I I appreciate the fact that you think I have insight into business it's fine I said I don't think you you said that because I'm Jewish I think you said you you said it because it you know it was me and and we talk about business frequently right so you know we do want
24:10 to be careful about assuming beliefs values Etc of other people based on you know things like race or ethnicity or religion or whatever okay um we want to get to know the person as an individual right I always fall back on Victor Frankel's uh famous uh um saying there are only you know two races of people the decent and the indecent right um and and I think that if we if we keep that in mind when we're dealing with other people so then um we can avoid
24:47 um stepping into at least some of the worst um uh most egregious says you know stereotypes Etc okay so that's what we want to do next is understand others beliefs values behaviors and Norms as individuals okay now they may tell you well you know I think this and you know because I grew up in I don't know India or I grew up in you know France or whatever um you know a lot of you know Indians or a lot of French people
25:22 um you know think this way okay I mean if if they us if you know if they if they ascribe a particular belief they have you know to their their you know cultural background fine that's that's you know that's that's for them um but but we shouldn't um assume them um oh um we shouldn't assume that okay so then the next step is be aware of potential areas for clashes okay now you know here in this here in the United States right if if you put
25:57 um you know a Democrat and Republican in the same room um you know and especially if they don't know each other um you know you can probably bet that there's there there's well there is the potential for clashes and and in some cases there could be very you know big clashes I mean it obviously it would depend on the the the you know character and and and and behavior of of the people right but in that case you know their beliefs and values right are likely to be different if not very
26:33 different okay depending where on the spectrum of of beliefs they are right so then it would fall to their behaviors and their forms as to whether you know the clashes are going to remain you know collegial or whether they're going to be you know more explosive okay now there's a reason why we want to give thought to potential areas of clashes okay and that is because we may be in a position where we have to
27:10 deal with solving those clashes either because they're happening between us and someone else or they're happening between say two colleagues maybe both of them are are direct reports or maybe one is a direct report and and and uh you know a person who reports to the other person and we've got to be able to help them work through those clashes right that's that that's part of our job okay especially as business owners okay
27:46 and you can see um in in business today and I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap up on this we're not going to get through all of this today we'll we'll continue with it next week but you can see today the results of how some of these clashes work out um look at what happened with uh Bud Light right there was a clash there between how they're marketing people wanted to promote the brand and how a large segment of their customers looked at the brand right and and and the consequences of that clash and Bud
28:22 Lights um inability to deal with it effectively right have had lasting consequences for Bud Light and in fact now Modelo has become the number one selling beer in the United States right it's it's really quite amazing um and and then and then just to follow this a little bit more to get to to stay on this idea of Cultural Literacy so modelo's core consumers are Latinos
28:59 okay and if you if you have seen their advertising especially going back a couple of years you see it very much focuses on their core consumers so but over the last couple maybe few years as they started broadening their reach they've been extremely careful to make sure that as they did so they did not offend their core customers and they've done it obviously extremely well because
29:35 they they went from having the vast majority of their customers being Latino to having a very large percentage of them now um being non-latino and and and as such have greatly expanded their business and um at the same time retained their their core customers right so that's an example of how being culturally literate and competent has on the one hand really served Modelo and on the other hand has
30:10 really hurt Bud Light okay on Buzz light's case they they did not evidently think about the potential clashes of their marketing efforts okay and with Modelo they are very intentional about looking at for potential clashes and making sure as well as they can they avoid them and and the the proof is in the pudding as they say they have um avoided them so so gosh our half hour is up um didn't get to cover nearly as much as
30:46 I thought we would but that's okay like I said we'll we'll pick it up next week um and so before I do sign off couple things one is please join me tomorrow at 12 30 p.m Pacific time uh 3 30 p.m eastern time my my guest is Barry uh zworstein and Barry is a a combat a combat medic a former combat medic I should say a psychologist and an author and he's going to be talking about how to make Transitions okay and we'll talk
31:21 about his book as well I think you will find him very interesting Barry I I you'll if you get my emails you'll see um that uh Barry hails from Down Under Australia so um we've we've been uh um um you know uh we've had a guest from other countries before so Barry is going to continue in that tradition so I invite you to to join us live or or catch us on our various uh social media streams and uh then next week uh we will be back on Monday with trust and Estates
31:58 weekly at 10 A.M Pacific and Tuesday at 11 A.M Pacific will be the next uh edition of business lessons from the military and then again on Wednesday of next week with the next episode of people making money so I thank you very much for joining me signing off as I always do wishing you a wonderful rest of the day and Marie darling you are my bell all the best folks