Voices of Neurodiversity w/ Greta Lax

0:00:00 - Briar

there we are. Hello everyone, welcome. I am Briar Harvey. This is the neurodiversity media network and this is the voices of neurodiversity. Today I'm here with the fabulous Greta lax, who I met in the catalyst. I'm sure we will probably talk about the catalyst. It seems like that's just our unofficial story. So if you're enjoying the catalyst and hang out with me and Greta, you can find that link at briarharvey.com/catalyst baby. And we are talking about culture, which Is already a loaded word. The topic becomes much more loaded and we have a lot of people who are interested in this show, on this network, because culture is something that we are building all of the time, it is something we are in active co creation with all of the time, and it's something most of us do and it's something that we are building, and it's something that we are building sadly, which means that there are many opportunities to learn, grow and improve, and that's what Greta does. So Greta, introduce yourself, tells about you and how you came to this work

0:01:39 - Greta

Hello everyone so I'm Greta. I'm Greta, I'm Greta, remember how? Who am I? So, as it says, my coach and consultant and facilitator. But one of my Favorite things to do, one of the things that I really love doing is working with individuals or small teams On what we call. This is helping folks develop an understanding of where you are in terms of we look at it as a developmental scale where your mindset is and where your capacity is for navigating cultural differences and that's what we call it Dimensions of culture, dimensions of diversity that are, you know, so much a part of today's conversations helping people to see their Current way of navigating differences, where some of the strengths are, where you can help you know A strategy for helping you meet your goals in that area and really finding goals that Are important to you, that align with your interests we talked about this a lot that align with your curiosity, because if you're coming at this just because you gotta do it, that's, that's not what you're looking for, and I think the some of the tools that are using this work really are good at Helping folks to identify and walking folks along that plot of figuring out where their curiosity lies and hooking into that and using that as to create a development plan. That's really important to you and I think that's a personal Probably both, because it's inseparable.

How did I come to this work? So I have always been interested in and always kind of felt like an outside observer in a lot of ways so when I was young my family didn't get to travel very much but I did get to spend time with family and I was interested in the differences Even so, even within our family relatively close, family, distinct differences and how people lived, how people saw the world, how people interacted with the world and to the point where I was so curious about it that I became a foreign exchange student through the rotary during my senior year of high school. So I spent a year in Brazil just shy of a year of learning about it and human behavior so got my undergraduate psych. Not quite sure what I did with it was going to do with it at the time, but along the way kind of a windy path found my way to industrial organizational psychology, which is the science Of really Understanding the world and coming at that from different lenses, both from the organizational level lens where you're talking about organizational development, change management, organizational culture, right organizational level variables, to also the very human side of it, where we're looking at everything from how do we better understand individual roles within the organization and how do we better Recruit and select and Train and retain and perform as a like all of those individual levels as well.

So all of this meshed very well together. Along the way, I've also had a great deal of experience working with through health equity social determinants of health type issues became a center of my work for most of the last decade, actually a little more important than the work that I've been doing. Those different threads kind of led me to where I am today trying to make a path, trying to help people find their own path through this work, and there are.

0:06:54 - Briar

There are a lot of threads in this work. We've Talked at length with the name of the person who is the name of that conversation, and it's been really interesting pulling apart the pieces of Culture in the workplace specifically right because there are so many layers at play there, especially if you have a lot of work to do and you're not going to be able to work with an entity in some way, and so figuring out how to navigate those systems Is A lot of work and Also, I think, something that, if we do it well, can bring a lot of joy and a sense of the work that we do here at the pro level To these kinds of organizational systems at large. So I have to ask here, because this is what we do here Greta, please.

0:08:29 - Greta

for me define the Generally a shared sense Of meaning making in a lot of ways. So Some people talk about objects, right. People talk about shared values, shared beliefs.

0:08:53 - Briar

So those are kind of the components that, that make up culture, and that's what.

0:09:04 - Greta

I think is important to me? Yes, and it matters, right even context matters very much for that conversation, right so, but, but in general, it is what is that share? Where is that shared meaning coming from, or lack of it? And and where how does that impact? Where you are, within whatever context it is you're talking about. So, whether you're talking about work, whether you're talking about work, yeah, that's so.

0:09:37 - Briar

What does it look like then To examine culture In the workplace and in the community, and how does that?

0:10:02 - Greta

impact in this analysis. So I think it's how we get people interested is is understanding the impact that it has, right. So so where? Where is that impact and how? How is it Serving or not serving the organization and the individuals within the organization? You know what prompts the analysis. Something is a foot.

0:10:32 - Briar

Right and and, and that's Almost universally true of culture design I have found in these conversations I'm having with so many fabulous educators and consultants, the reality is is that you don't get called in until it's broken.

0:10:49 - Greta

Or something's broken and they don't have the right to do it, and a lot of times it Initially shows up. As you know, people are the problem. You know these people are the problem, or we're having a problem with this person or these people. Over here, this group, where you know often that the analysis can really is really important to being able to understand the much larger dynamics at play and how they then contribute to Not I'm certainly, that's not always the case, but Very often and it's a really important part especially is whether you're external or internal consultant because, again, even as you're, even if you're an internal, a lot of people are not. You know they're not the same thing and it's important to even then take that step back and do that analysis, because you know your idea of what that culture is may not be shared with everybody else and it's important to understand those similarities and the distinctions between and the bigger picture of how other people see it, especially the people who are in power Right now, and that's what we're doing in the past.

0:12:26 - Briar

So Everyone involved in that culture is playing a part in its co creation, which is Much easier to do if you're aware of that right. It's a conscious co creation, means we have a chance at building a better future for ourselves and for the future of the community, and that's Right.

0:12:54 - Greta

Then we're not paying attention to Both the opportunities that presents Right, both how that impacts the decisions we make, the policies we put into place, the practices. We're not conscious of the impact on all the issues that we're facing. We're not aware of the impacts where problems may be coming from, the source, of how that may be the source of some of the issues or a contributing factor to those issues. Yeah, it's, it's part of our job, is a huge part of our job is making the invisible Visible for folks.

0:13:46 - Briar

And that's part of our job. So let's talk broadly about how we do this Broad.

0:13:58 - Greta

Oh so at the systems level, right, it's, it's, again it's. You don't have a set. I'm going to come in your organization and this is what I'm going to do, and if somebody's selling you a box kit, that this is what I always do.

0:14:18 - Briar

Ron.

0:14:19 - Greta

Look, ron, keep looking. However, from my perspective, it is important to come in with questions at the various levels, right so at the organizational and at the individual level and systems policies, all that stuff. Teams are depending on the type of organization you have, but that's typically an issue as well, not an issue, it's typically a variable we need to consider. So it's coming in and asking all the questions.

I, edgar Shine, was one of the OGs when it comes to organizational development and he talked back in the day about a process consultation, which was a really important read for me, and has since written also about humble inquiry. Actually, we he passed away this year, but his writings have been really influential for me, just kind of as a what's the word, not so much for the detail but more for the approach to the work Coming in and asking questions. Coming in and asking questions at all levels, coming in and giving folks a chance to have a voice to the best of your ability so that you're hearing and understanding things from from multiple perspectives, and then using that information to inform your approach.

0:16:09 - Briar

Yeah, but pedagogy isn't like a system in a box right, it's a, it's a, it's a method and certainly there's structure to it. But it very much allows for diagnosis.

0:16:29 - Greta

Absolutely, and that's too. So giving that voice early on will kind of help lead you in terms of what. What are the tools that you need to use for that diagnostic? You know an organization that you've gone into and talked to. Well, clearly, here, trust and justice are an issue in this organization. From that's the first thing that comes up in my first conversations you can feel the tension. You could cut it with a knife. All right, here's something that we need to take a look at because this is something people aren't paying attention to. So so that's where I'm going to go initially with that as a diagnostic tool, right? So so it kind of what comes out of those early conversations. And yes, organizational culture is a piece of that, and it just kind of depends on which slice you need to look at and where you need to start, because obviously you can't overwhelm everybody with all of the studies, all of the you know. You need to prioritize Because, yeah, and at the individual level and that's that's looking at the organizational level and then, kind of depending on the priority, if you have the opportunity to work at this on an individual level, which is is much of the work that I really enjoy doing is trying to figure out where individuals are on their path so that they can better understand you know where they are, where they stand, where their mindset is and then trying to help them better understand their role in this work, because we all have roles in this work.

If we're, if we're going to be honest about it, we all have a part to play and trying to understand.

You know, quite often you start with leadership because that's you know where the levers of power exist, or it may be one particular branch of the organization that you're being asked to focus on and look at that there.

So so, there are tools on both ends of it, but, again, so much of it is just dependent upon the conversations that you have when you walk into that organization. So so, in that organization where trust was a really significant issue, I'm not going to, I'm not going to jump on the individual level first. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go in the direction that's going to help me hold up that mirror best for them. Show them the things that they're not seeing about what's happening within the, the, the culture, the systems, the processes and people's reactions to them, and how that is feeding into you know, whatever it is that's observable to them, what they're seeing, the prob, typically the problems that they're seeing. You know, yes, it's great to come in and we can do this work proactively, but that's not the norm. It's a lovely pipe dream. It is a lovely pipe dream.

0:19:36 - Briar

And we will talk at the end here how an individual does this work and does some further exploration. But I want to know so we're coming into an institution that is broken in some way and it is largely because there is something broken in the culture itself and we require the culture at large to make some kind of change. How do we do that?

0:20:23 - Greta

So that's a. It's a really great point to discuss now, because I think much of that is missing right now in, or has been missing in a lot of these conversations, particularly because DEI is a diversity, equity, inclusion is a huge focus of the work that I do, and there's not been enough attention paid to the fact that much of this work is change management work, is organizational development and change management work. So it is really being aware. How do you change a culture? So obviously, the first step is awareness, but then there's all of these other components of it that you have to have a clear handle on and have to have a clear plan for moving forward. So once you've been able to hold up that mirror for folks, actually you want to start this work before you hold up the mirror and hold up those results, but really truly understanding where people are coming from. So what is the mission, vision, values of the organization? What are the goals of the organization, what are they achieving, what are they not achieving? And then, how does this fit in right? Whatever the diagnostic tools you're using, you know. Then you have a context for that and for talking to people about how this may be impacting what they're trying to accomplish, getting in the way of them accomplishing their mission, their vision, their goals, and you have to have a clear understanding of the entire system really, because how you even roll out that conversation about those results is really critical.

This is to me.

This is where so much of what Shine talked about was important, even if it wasn't a like, it wasn't a cookbook, as work wasn't.

I didn't say go in and do this, this and this.

It was more of a be sure you have a larger understanding and that you go in listening more than talking, which is another thing to be conscientious of when you bring somebody into the organization, if they're spending a lot of their time upfront telling you things as opposed to listening, that's a huge red flag because I don't know you yet, I don't know your organization yet and I really need time to get up to speed on some of those things.

And again, with that information, understanding the people, understanding the processes that kind of exist, the structures that exist within the organization, communication, the way things are communicated through an organization and it's coming up with a strategy to work through those existing structures, to work through those existing pipelines for information, understanding the power structure, the power structures within the organization and kind of using that to map out how you're going to take this information and use it to move forward. So then you're taking all those bits of information about the mission vision goals, you're taking the information about what you know about the structure, the people, the processes and kind of melding those together into a very customized plan for moving that forward within that organization.

0:24:17 - Briar

When we do accessibility work, one of the things that we're really seeing is that this is very operational in nature. What I need and don't have are concrete things like an org chart, like an actual wiki. Company wiki like this is what happens. This is what we do here. I need onboarding that actually tells me what my job is, how I do it, who I report to, and it feels like these things should be foundational but are so frequently overlooked.

0:25:09 - Greta

So, as somebody who comes through an IOC, that's absolutely preaching to the choir because that is the basis of our work. And then when you look at what companies are actually using this information, using what we've learned through research and through evidence-based practice in the field of industrial organization, that's the important. That is a huge piece of it is nailing down those bits and pieces. So, from being extremely conscientious about understanding the roles, each of the individual roles and using that information, so having very clear job descriptions, having very clear understanding, those are tools from which the rest of the processes should be built. And that's not what happens. People go on a website and they pull a job description and they slap it into a piece of paper and too often that's what's happening.

So that's a mess for anybody who's trying to recruit, trying to hire, trying to train. That's a mess for the person who's coming into the position and all of those other tools that you talked about. So that individual level for those individual roles that's true across much of the organization. It gets a little. Obviously that's more tricky as you move up in the organization because those roles don't have the same.

0:26:43 - Briar

But simple documentation would solve so many systemic organizational problems.

0:26:56 - Greta

And quite often that's done and not maintained, even when it is Right.

0:27:00 - Briar

Even if it's done, we don't review. It's done once and we've done it.

0:27:04 - Greta

Right, and whose job is that? Whose job does that become? Because that job was probably cut at some point. To maintain that information because that's so important for moving forward. Like, yes, maybe you just brought in a consultant for the first time to do this work, but that's highly unlikely.

You've probably had people working on this, whether internally or externally, in the past, and having that history of change is really important too, because when we're asking people to change, it's really important to understand historically. What have we already asked these people to do Right? How many times do people just not take any of this seriously? Because they've been down this road so many times before. So you're most experienced, most seasoned people are also likely going to be the most skeptical because they've been down this road so many times before. So it's important to understand that history of change as well. And you're you know you're having that documentation available. Having that history, that institutional knowledge, and being able to keep it updated and pass that along to people is also really critical for doing this well in the future, Because you have to understand how that plays into people's, the organizations and the individuals within the organization, their attitude coming up to you know whatever this next change you're asking them to implement.

0:28:40 - Briar

I am struck by, if we think of an organization, a business, as a culture, the fact that most historically successful cultures value the role of the storykeeper. Right, there is actually somebody institutionally, culturally, telling our stories, reminding us of where we've been and where we've come from, and that position does not exist in business institutions in a way that I've ever seen clearly defined.

0:29:24 - Greta

It's because everything is so focused on short-term gains, everything is so focused on the next quarter's results, everything is so right. So often we lose that long-term perspective People don't attend to. You know everything from you know general turnover to intentional succession planning, like how much are we losing when we lose people, for whatever reasons we're losing them? How much institutional history are we losing? And, like you said, if there's not somebody who's in that role is to help keep that? You know, and there are some, you know organizations that have really good structures for maintaining information.

0:30:12 - Briar

But but story is culture, it's not just. It's not just the dry documentation and information. No, and I can't help but think how and I've said this before and I will continue to say this the mistake that capitalism made was prioritizing the stockholder above the shareholder. And if we had prioritized shareholders as the people who make this thing operate and work, if their value was actually structurally designed into the corporate structure, it would be a whole different world.

0:31:04 - Greta

We've got a whole different level of engagement. When that's right. We've got a whole different level of engagement and there's, you know, gobs of research talking about how important that is to your success as an organization. And, yeah, if all of your intention is going to these external folks that hold the paper, as opposed to the folks who actually make your company work, no matter what size your company, you've taken away an enormous piece of motivation for folks, an enormous reason for folks to connect to and feel part of that organization and that organizational culture that becomes part of your organizational culture. That's what you're telling your folks through that organizational culture is that they don't matter as much as those external folks.

0:31:55 - Briar

Yeah, and I think that we get to build deliberately when we are starting over, but that's not often where you come in, is it Greta?

0:32:08 - Greta

No, no, no, no we. Because that requires folks to be proactive and there certainly are companies who are proactive, but they're not the norm. So right, so we get called in because there's a problem and then when there's not a quick fix, you know, people also get easily distracted when you're coming in and saying that you need to shift culture, when you're coming in and saying we need to identify where the systemic problems are and change the systems, you know the practices, the policy. This is long term work and it's definitely not a quick fix.

But also part of the job of the consultant is to identify where the immediate needs are right, because it's human nature, we need to see some quick wins somewhere. So it's important for us to be able to, as we're telling this story, as we're listening and absorbing the story from them, to figure out where some of those opportunities are to bring in some, maybe some quick wins. And maybe to me that's cosmetic, but if that's something that's important to the organization and is going to help me get ongoing buy-in to do the work that we really need to do to move towards some of those longer term goals, then that's what we have to do. I can, you know, I can have all the feelings that I want to have about what this work needs to be. That's what matters is how I can align what I know, the knowledge that I have, with the existing needs of the organization and how we can weave those together to achieve the goals that are important to that organization and help them get there.

0:34:19 - Briar

So they're quick, cheap wins. But give us a good example of what that might look like.

0:34:31 - Greta

Um, try to think of one off the top of my head Um, a quick, cheap win. So it might be a process right? So maybe you've just got a process that's wonky and you can clearly see where the problem is coming in, because you don't have clear role definition here, you know. So it might just be addressing a role definition issue Like yes, here's where you're running into this, because this department thinks this is where things are supposed to be go. This department thinks this, Um, here is a way that we can change, whether it's the process, change the role, change the whatever, whatever's the easiest way to do it in that moment, to address it. That's also not going to get in the way of longer term gains.

Right Finding that, that piece, Because suddenly then you've got a little bit more credibility. Also, your building credibility is an outside voice and you're like okay, so, okay, you help me fix this. So maybe I'm going to listen to some of the other things you've got to say that are a little bit harder to listen to. I'm going to take a little bit longer to work through.

0:35:33 - Briar

Let's go in the complete opposite direction. How do I help identify if I'm in the organization that there are problems, so that the company chooses to hire someone like you?

0:35:53 - Greta

Oh gosh, I was just having this conversation Kind of in the process of having this conversation with a group that brought me in because they heard me in a podcast and they're like there's stuff, we've got issues, here's a transition that's happening. Here are some of the questions that we have. This isn't going particularly well. We're feeling some struggles here, but the C-suite isn't listening, they're not seeing it, they don't see the. It's like okay, so then let's have a further conversation. Let's talk about what are the talk to me, about the three or four things that you see right now as issues, and then let's talk about which one of those issues has an immediate impact on the bottom line, can have an immediate impact on the bottom line, so that you can frame this conversation in a way that those folks in the decision making positions are more likely to hear you the first time, so they don't hear you as just whining about interpersonal issues.

Right, all the ways that this can get interpreted. Really trying to frame, help them frame what can be very painful, often very you know painful circumstances that they're dealing with and not being heard. So then you get into that. You know it's hard not to slip from. You know it's hard not to slip into that child voice sometimes, too, especially when this is something that you've been dealing with for a long time. So how can we help people reframe that conversation in a way that's more likely to be heard by the folks that are focused on? You know, certain outcomes, so that's the frame we need to use. What are the outcomes that they care about, they're worried about right now, so that we can at least start the conversation about how this is impacting the organization in ways that matter.

0:37:58 - Briar

That's correct. It's always about the outcomes, and for most of the decision makers at large in the C-suite, that outcome is dollar signs. So how can you shape the problems in a way that makes it clear that we are losing money by not solving this problem?

0:38:24 - Greta

And that's where these conversations come in, right. That's the importance of having these conversations at the different levels is even more important because the more you hear of the story because the complaint, the initial complaint, what that person sees may not be the real problem, right, that might just be a symptom. Quite often it's just a symptom of the larger issue. So that investigation is as much as you're able to. You know, whatever you can use to get in the door is just a starting point for that larger investigation. So you can have those additional conversations to figure out where it's truly where the source is. Not these downstream issues, which is quite often what we're called in to deal with, is the downstream issues as opposed to. You know, we need to continue working back and working back to figure out where that's truly coming from.

0:39:26 - Briar

So once we've established kind of what is causing the problem, we can then take that to leadership to and ask what do we ask for here, Greta? What are we trying to achieve?

0:39:52 - Greta

Well, again, that's entirely based upon what they've indicated. Right are the mission of the organization, the vision, the values and their goals. That entire conversation has to be framed around that and you also have to have an understanding of how committed they are to these various goals, because goals on paper and what people are actually doing can be very different. So you have to understand where the behavior like, where are they actually focusing? Because they might tell you these are the goals, but this is actually where all the budget is, or this is actually where all the person power is being placed. This is all like. So you have to also attend to those nuances, not just with their verbally telling you. You have to pay attention to, to where the investment is going and then kind of figure out why you know if there's a misalignment, why is there a misalignment, where is that coming from, and work from there.

0:40:57 - Briar

Yeah, and this is not easy or easy to sell, unfortunately.

0:41:08 - Greta

It isn't.

And once you know how to speak the language right because every organization, that's part of the culture, language is part of the culture once you know how to speak their language and understand their values, you can have a entirely different conversation. And if you are able to have that conversation in a way that focuses on what's meaningful and valuable and important to them you're having, how could they not pay attention? Yes, sometimes they're still going to choose to keep their eyes closed or let it go, because it's like that's too much of investment, there's too much whatever, which brings another conversation about well, can we pull some threads here? Are there a couple of places where you might be willing to start that might be more reasonable based on your current context, economic environment, you know, whatever factors are getting in the way of them, wanting to deal with the big picture problems? All right, so where, where could we start, and is that meaning a meaningful enough place that that, then I'm I'm still willing and able to feel like my role here can be valuable in helping move the organization forward.

0:42:25 - Briar

And in organizational terms, I think that's what it comes down to, right that I am still valued as a part of the culture. As long as that exists, I'm willing to do the work, but as soon as that goes away, god, yeah, yeah, I mean if, if you're tied to the organization is entirely based on your paycheck. I don't have any investment to make a change or to do the work.

0:42:55 - Greta

No, and and we know full well that that, we know that that completely impacts people's willingness to. You know, that's a whole other conversation about, about having a talk about whether people are willing to put in more than the 40 hour week and that kind of thing. I I don't want to push anybody in that direction. No, and I do want is people to feel, people to be in a place where they feel a part of the organization, where they're not feeling othered, where they're feeling a part of something larger. And it so happens, then, that when that happens, people are more likely to right be more invested in what they bring there to. You know, maybe, maybe some folks are still going to do the bare minimum, but when I'm doing the bare minimum, that can look very different depending on how I feel about what I'm doing.

0:43:57 - Briar

Well, and I think a part of this, too, comes back to the idea that investment isn't about time, it's about commitment, and so we need to, I think, structurally get away from counting commitment as the hours on the clock, and more. What are we creating and producing for the culture at large? How am I contributing?

0:44:29 - Greta

Right, but I mean that impacts everything, from how your team works together. You know whether teams are sharing information one for one another, whether you know like individuals in different roles are sharing information with one another, the extent to which they're willing to do that, whether people feel safe and secure bringing up problems that they see and have identified that exist, bringing up new ideas. It impacts productivity, it impacts innovation, it impacts teamwork and, like all of these right, all of those really critical things that impact your success as a business, and that really requires you to attend to and care about the individuals within your organization. Because if you choose not to, if you're like, well, it's a paycheck, they're here or they're not, I'll fill them with another. That's all well and good. Maybe that works for you, but chances are you are not getting out of your employees, right, the level of you know that increased level of bringing all of themselves, bringing all of their gifts to that work, and I think there's a place where that can actually be the goal.

0:45:49 - Briar

That it's not about the number of hours I've committed to this job. It's that I have committed to bring my whole self and to measurably make sure that I'm doing it myself and to measurably move things forward. So let's talk about the individual. How do we cultivate these skills on an individual level?

0:46:24 - Greta

So a lot of the framing this in terms of the work that I do with folks, whether that's on a one-to-one basis or kind of on a group basis, it is, you know, first of all, again, the diagnosis, figuring out where people are on on the variable, and you know whatever it is that you're choosing to focus on. Like I said, quite often the work that I do is around in cultural development, but that may be a little different depending on the team, depending on the group, depending on the individual. But when we talk about creating an environment and a lot of ways, we're really talking about psychological safety here. Right, we're creating an environment of psychological safety that allows folks to be in a position to both feel safe contributing, feel safe, learning right, because learning requires making mistakes along the way. You have to feel comfortable doing that, feeling safe contributing new things, new ideas, and also feeling safe, kind of what do I wanna say here? Challenging existing norms, challenging the way things are done, challenging, right, that's kind of depending on which lens of psychological safety you're looking at, that can be like the highest level, right? So how do we create an environment so that each of us are helping to build that within our organization, our team, right, it looks different if I'm working with a leader, but still, each individual contributor has the capacity to build some of those skills. So what do those skills look like? Right? Some of that is, first of all, understanding the lens that you're coming in to this with. What is your lens for looking at the work that you're doing, for looking at other individuals within the team that you're doing? How does that impact how you see other people, how you interact with other people, how you value other people and how you communicate with other people?

So understanding that and being willing to do some of that work really requires a lot of. It really does. It requires that curiosity, that willingness to learn, that openness to learn. It requires some humility because otherwise we, on average, most people tend to assume other people see the world the same way we do, and we don't. We all have we do not, right, we do not see the world. We each have very different lived experiences that impact the way that we see and interact with the world around us and we have to be willing to see that and try to learn how to understand the variety of lenses so that we can better and more effectively and more confidently navigate those differences that exist between us so that we can help ensure that everyone, no matter where they're coming from, feels that they have a place at the table and that they're welcome at that table, you know. And then there's some of the basic communication skills, those kinds of things Like what does this look like?

So, basic conflict management? Right, because not all conflict is bad, you know, even though where a lot of us are taught many of us are taught that conflict is bad, conflict can be productive depending on how it's managed. So it's kind of, you know, getting in and whether it's an individual or a team, trying to figure out again where the specific issues lie. And then what do we need to work on in order to help that person, again, framing this within their goals, what are their individual, personal, professional goals? And this is where I am, this is where I wanna be in working out that, you know, personalized blueprint to help them move forward as an individual or as a team within that. So it's not all that different. I mean it is, but it's not.

0:50:51 - Briar

It is, but it's not so for the individual. Do you have some specific recommendations, places that they can start to build these frameworks into their life?

0:51:06 - Greta

So one of the you know we can talk about the intercultural development inventory, but there are some things that people can do without, without access to that tool. One of the really most important things that we can do as individuals is truly get a better understanding of ourself and our own lens on the world, and we don't need a tool to tell us how to do that. We can spend some time looking at, you know, journaling, doing this through conversation with others, finding a way to to get a better understanding of what it was that framed our lens on the world, right? So so where did we grow up? What was the you know, geographic, you know? Was it rural? Was it urban? Who were the people around me when I was growing up? What are the institutions, the social institutions that impacted me as I was growing up? What's the schools that I went to? Were there? Social organizations, religious organizations, what are all of the factors that contributed to developing my lens on the world to what it is today?

Along the way, once we begin to better understand how our lens was developed, that also helps us to see how others lenses differ from ours, right, and can be very significantly different, even if we look the same, you know.

So getting past that assumption too.

So so having that basic understanding of ourselves opens us up to that next stage of starting to understand how other people see and experience the world differently, and how right, because they had different, different environment that they grew up, different systems that helped to create their lens, and then developing a general understanding about what culture is right.

So we talk about a culture general versus culture specific frameworks. Most people have seen the iceberg, right. Most people have seen the culture iceberg that talks about the things that are very visible and then the things that lie underneath them any more things that aren't visible, so we don't necessarily consider them immediately. The things that are visible like you know how people dress, how people speak, and then all of those things that we don't know that lie underneath. So, developing kind of an understanding of culture that way, and then you might move to learning some more culture specific stuff once you better understand the cultures that are impacting the people and the environment that you spend the most of your time. So if you're coming across a lot of folks from a specific culture, you know doing some work, doing some legwork to better understand the culture that they come from, and then we wanna navigate right Cause we don't want to assume everybody from a culture thinks the same way, but it can at least inform.

0:54:04 - Briar

We are not a lot of it.

0:54:06 - Greta

Yes, yes, but that can at least better inform our questions, our conversations, the thoughts that we have about how we're choosing to interact with people in the workplace.

0:54:23 - Briar

And I think that we get to sit with this discomfort right that there's Hold on a scale.

0:54:34 - Greta

That also needs to be added in there. Yes, Right.

0:54:37 - Briar

I think a big part of as I move forward with my own exploration, it's the points of friction. Where does this feel hard, and why is that so, and what can I learn to make it feel less hard?

0:54:58 - Greta

I love that so much. I'm so glad you brought that up Because quite often, right that discomfort, that's our learning zone. Right, that's our zone of proximal development. That's where we, like, we don't wanna go too far, because if it's shutting us down, we've gone too far, we've gone outside of that zone.

But if it's making us a little bit uncomfortable, like, okay, you know, learning to understand that as information, to understand that feeling as information and I've had to do this as well right, I learned to recognize when I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach, whether it's an interaction, whether it's something I'm reading, whether it's when I get that feeling, noticing it, right, being non-judgmental about it. Okay, all right, I'm sensing something here. What is this? Giving ourselves some time and space to investigate where that's coming from. If you're like me, I'm a little bit of a slow processor, so I often, when that happens, need to walk away and come back to it, like, okay, let me step away, because I had, so now my, if it was a big one, now my nervous system's involved, so I need to go have a cup of tea and come back to this.

You can't always do that in an impersonal interaction, but when you can, understanding what your triggers are and how you need to manage them, and then coming back to it and really investigating where that feeling is coming from is a really important skill to have, whereas too many of us, the minute we get uncomfortable, shut down, the minute we feel that discomfort, shut down where it's such, it's a perfect learning opportunity. Right there is to take the time to figure out where that is coming from and why. Because quite often that is an external voice, an external alarm bell. That's something that we were taught along the way and that gives us a moment to consider that voice, to consider where that's coming from and think about whether that's truly serving us.

0:57:09 - Briar

We don't like sitting with the discomfort. Greta, nope oh of course not. That's hard and that's a skill that requires practice, Absolutely.

So, I would like for you to give us some of your best tips for doing just that thing For sitting with the discomfort, for sitting with the discomfort because of all of the things that come to cultural and intercultural development. This is it right? If I can't sit with my discomfort, I am never going to grow, I'm never going to be able to make any demonstrable changes that will allow me to not do this thing again.

0:58:01 - Greta

And I think this is one of the reasons why it's so important when we're working with folks on this to when we're working on growth in this area, to be working in areas that people already have an interest in and a curiosity in, because that will help keep people going. So, ideally, when you have the choice and you're working with folks, it's picking that area that they already have that interest in and using that as a little bit of a carrot. It is also teaching people. A lot of this is emotion regulation, right. So a lot of it is learning how to feel a feeling and observe it at the same time, right, and maybe not at the same time. It might take you a little bit of time to develop that skill. So, developing a practice, helping people, developing a practice of actually at the beginning, quite often it's not gonna happen in the moment, it might happen later, so quite often it's oh you know what happened earlier today? I felt really maybe you're not gonna say dysregulated.

I got really mad or I felt really shitty or I had a feeling and it just didn't feel good. So reflect, using that act and practice of reflection to look back and see what was really happening within that situation. So developing that practice. You know again. However, you do that if journaling is comfortable for you. I know everybody likes to say journaling but not everybody likes journaling, so I'm not gonna say that's the so for some people that's journaling. For some people it's having a conversation with somebody who's close to you and ideally somebody who's also gonna be honest with you, who's willing to talk through that or even just listen, because sometimes just the act of being able to talk about it right. So maybe you don't even want that person to talk and you say, hey, I just want you to listen while I talk this out for myself, whatever it is. To get that out, so that you have a chance to process that outside of your brain and then using that again to come back to figuring out what it was that set that off.

What is it? Where did that discomfort come from? Is that something that you feel like? Is it because of a belief that you have? Is it because of a bias that you have. Is it right? Where is that coming from? And being willing and able, practicing being very honest with yourself about investigating the source of that feeling Like, even if I don't say I'm reading an article and I got really upset about it, even if I don't agree with what the author is saying, I can practice being dispassionate about reading it so that I can like, okay, I got really mad about this part.

It's this part here that really set me off. They said this and that made me really angry, or they said this and it made me really uncomfortable being able to kind of tear the practice of tearing those pieces out and examining it and then figuring out. Okay, now I'm gonna sit back and try and figure out why this made me uncomfortable. Is it something that goes against my beliefs, against my values, or does it just go against a voice in my head that came from somebody else somewhere down the line, which is easier to do once you've examined where many of those voices are coming from, which is why we talked about the self-reflection piece first. So that's a big part of it. Right Is developing this critical self-reflection practice, and that's exactly what it is. Doesn't matter how long I do this work. I still have to practice.

1:01:50 - Briar

We call it a practice because we gotta keep doing it over and over and over again. There's no point in time where I could ever say that anyone is a cultural master. It doesn't happen.

1:02:06 - Greta

No, no, and culture isn't stagnant. You know, there's always other dimensions, there's always other aspects and there's always change. So that's always something to work with. But understanding and working on your own emotion regulation is a part of it too, and that's very individual because because we all have different makeups when it comes to that and understanding our own systems and our own ways of managing and dealing, which can be a whole other barrier.

That's a really interesting conversation to have here in our diversity media network too, because that can be an additional barrier for some folks. Is that emotion regulation piece of it, right? So, understanding that and if this is still something that's really important to you, getting the support that you need, the resources you need to work through that, no matter where you're coming from, because sometimes you just can't work this out yourself. Sometimes there's a sticking point and you need a coach, a therapist, a friend, you know, somebody to talk through some of these things with and figure out where that's coming from so that you can better decide. Right, because that's what it comes down to is learning how to be intentional about what you do with this.

1:03:29 - Briar

And I don't think we could leave it any better place than that. Culture is about intention, and if you don't bring intentionality to it, then you're just gonna be, as my friend Grace likes to say, fling, flanging it around and doing whatever you wanna do with it. All right, specifically, where can people find you and what does the work look like if they wish to go deeper with you? Yeah, so I'm mostly on LinkedIn.

1:04:05 - Greta

I do have a presence on IG and Facebook, but mostly on LinkedIn. My website, girdlexllccom, and just about everywhere I've got a little link so that you can either message me, if that's what you're most comfortable doing, or set up a call free 30-minute call because it's pretty hard to do this over an email. Yes, they can my email's out there, but let's set up a conversation, because a lot of times people really aren't sure where to start. They don't sure what they need, and whether that's individual coaching, whether that's something that you want and need to do as a group, whether it's a consult that you need to dig a little bit further into things. I love having those conversations with folks and helping them better identify at least a starting point and entry point and what might be the best place for them to come into this work.

1:05:06 - Briar

All right, my friend, we will have all of the links in the show notes. Thank you all so much for being here today. Greta, thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. This has been absolutely delightful and I hope that people are more deliberate about creating culture in the future. Thanks so much.

1:05:32 - Greta

Briar.

1:05:32 - Briar

All right, y'all we will see you again next time. Have an amazing day. If you have not yet subscribed to the Neurodiversity Media Network, you can do that at Neurodiversity Media Network. You'll get access to all of our back catalogs, where all of these wonderful conversations live, and all of our master classes, which have additional resources and a bunch of things that you can learn and grow with, and we would love to see you there. Have an amazing day.

Transcribed by https://podium.page