Cultural intelligence has become the hidden competitive advantage in today's global business landscape. When your teams can navigate the subtle nuances of cross-cultural communication, everything from customer satisfaction to operational efficiency improves dramatically.
Sanjyot Dunung brings her fascinating journey from banker to cultural anthropology expert to this episode, sharing how her unique background—born in India but raised in Chicago—provided the perfect foundation for helping organizations bridge cultural divides.
What sets this conversation apart is the emphasis on measurable business impact. Cultural training isn't presented as a nice-to-have diversity initiative but as a strategic imperative with clear ROI.
Whether you're managing global teams, serving international customers, or simply working in our increasingly diverse workforce, this episode provides practical frameworks for bridging cultural divides. Visit https://www.atmaglobal.com/ to connect with Sanjyot and explore how cultural intelligence can transform your organization's effectiveness.
Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jay Johnson (00:01):
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge,
where we are shaping the futureof training and development.
Today I have a special guest, afellow social scientist, which
I am very excited to get intodeep conversations with.
Welcome to the show,Sanjyot
Sanjyot Dunung (00:16):
Thank you, jay.
It's a pleasure to be here andthank you for having me, and I
look forward to chatting withyou and your listeners today.
Jay Johnson (00:25):
And I did it right after I said I wasn't going to
do it.
Sanjyot, let me make sure Ipronounce that right.
Sanjyot Dunung (00:29):
I always say that I have a tricky name.
I answer to anything thatstarts with an S, as long as
it's legitimate.
Different cultures, differentconnotations, we'll get into
that.
Jay Johnson (00:39):
Kind of funny.
So my legal name is Jeremy,which I don't even know that the
audience would know this.
I was called Jake my entirelife and when I got to college I
told my mentor that my name wasJake and he heard J and I've
been called J ever since.
So I understand anything with aJ and I'm probably going to
respond to it.
Sanjyot Dunung (00:58):
So that makes it easier for both of us.
Jay Johnson (01:01):
No, thank you for that Grace.
So, Sanjyot, here's my questionfor you how did you wind up in
this talent development space?
Sanjyot Dunung (01:21):
And we've heard all kinds of interesting stories
here.
I was a banker by trainingafter getting my MBA and at that
time there was a lot of thingsgoing on.
People were taking a look atdoing business in Asia and going
overseas, and my master's wasfrom Thunderbird out in Arizona
and it's really more of aninternational management.
So I was already verywell-versed or at least I
(01:42):
thought I was, on how to dobusiness with different cultures
, and we'll talk a little bitabout what that means, because I
think sometimes people have amisnomer.
But back to my story a littlebit.
And I decided to set up my ownbusiness.
I was actually taking over.
I bought somebody else'sbusiness, I bought their client
it was a large Fortune 50company company, in essence and
(02:05):
they were doing expat training.
They were basically doing alltheir expats, who were moving
overseas, were going throughcultural trainings.
Jay Johnson (02:13):
I was super well-versed on that concept,
both having studied it and alsoembodying it, having been a
product of two differentcultures.
I was born in India, althoughraised in Chicago, and certainly
very much a product of twodifferent cultures.
I was born in India, althoughraised in Chicago and certainly
very much a product of the US,so I understood how to bridge
those cultures.
We started as an expat trainingcompany, but that slowly
(02:37):
morphed as people startedlooking to us for developing
content about differentcountries, cultures and business
practice, and that's where weare today.
We've become a company thatdevelops learning solutions and
content helping folks understandhow to do business, how to
interact and communicate withfolks from different cultures
more effectively, whether it'sin the workforce, whether it's
(03:00):
working with stakeholders,customers, team members and
sometimes other folks in thegovernment sector.
And we also do a lot ofsupplemental training material
or learning material for highereducation, particularly business
and the social sciences.
So a little circuitous of apath, like many, but delighted
(03:20):
that we've landed here, and Ithink the time is now for what
we do.
I love this, delighted thatwe've landed here and I think
the time is now for what we do.
I love this and you arespeaking to my heart and for
some of the audience that maynot have heard before.
I literally got my start intraining because, working in a
university, we had internationalstudents coming in who, on
(03:40):
paper, were just absolutelyexceptional and they were
struggling and I was asked bythe faculty to say, hey, you did
this whole behavior thing, canyou go look at this?
And I did a couple ofinterviews, sat in a classroom,
watched and realized there was amassive cultural divide between
the expectations of theclassrooms for a lot of people
(04:01):
who are coming in from Iran,turkey, from other places where
they were expected to, you know,just kind of sit, take notes,
don't ask questions, don't youknow?
Don't bring attention toyourself.
And the American faculty, whowere like these students are
disengaged.
So I created a training programto onboard the new students and
a training board program toonboard the faculty for a better
(04:24):
cultural understanding,launched my business called
Worldline Communications andthen completely changed gears
for what we're doing now.
But that's how I got my startand I'm really, really excited
to dig into this because it is.
You know, the world isglobalizing.
We're getting smaller.
There's a lot moreinternational business, you know
, save some of the things thatcould be occurring right now in
(04:45):
the political or social, uh,specter, wherever you want to
look.
So I want to.
I want to ask more of apersonal question, if you don't
mind.
How does it feel, as you startto help people bridge some of
that cultural divide, when you,when you're providing those
opportunities for people to seeeach other, to value each other,
(05:07):
to maybe better understand eachother?
What does that feel like foryou, sanjot?
Sanjyot Dunung (05:12):
So I have to say I do some of the trainings
still, which is my love.
Nothing that I enjoy more thanbeing in front of a classroom
and working with students,whatever age they are, and I
love that aha moment when you'veconnected dots for them and
they sort of say, wow, I seethings in a little differently,
(05:34):
or I get it.
And a word about how we come tothis framework and how we talk
about this.
So we talk about socialsciences and sometimes that's
kind of a nebulous concept.
What we really do is we takecultural anthropology and we
integrate it with businesspractices.
(05:55):
So we use the practices forthose listeners who are super
curious Hofstede is one of theleading thinkers and identified
a number of dimensions and wetake those and happy to get into
more detail on those Hall whotalked about intercultural
communications and then weintegrate it with tangible ways
that it's impacting somebody.
So, for example, if it's in thebusiness arena, we take a look
(06:16):
to see what exactly are youdoing?
Where are your pain points?
Maybe you have customer servicegaps.
You identified a pain pointwith your students that the
university was having.
We take a look at stakeholders.
Maybe teams are trying tobecome more efficient and
communications and barriers tocommunications that people don't
always identify with orunderstand are impacting how
(06:40):
efficient a process is, costsavings and a number of
different factors how efficientthe process is, cost savings and
a number of different factors.
So when we tie it to exactlywhat people are doing in their
day-to-day job, it becomes morerelevant right away and that's
when people have the aha moment.
They realize that, yes, thereis a different way that people
see things.
A lot about culture.
(07:00):
Really, what is culture?
It's just simply a set ofattitudes, values and behaviors
of a group of people, and itcould be a culture defined by
geography, which is what weoften talk about, but it could
be an organizational culture.
Right, every company has itsown culture.
Could be an industry Lawyershave their own culture, doctors
have their own culture, talentdevelopment folks have their own
(07:22):
culture, hr has its own cultureand we try to integrate that
functionality with the nationalcultures and talk a little bit
about that.
So when people start to thinkabout all the different things
that have impacted how they seethe world, that's when they have
the aha moment, because thereis this assumption human beings,
(07:43):
we do it around the world, it'snot just Americans.
We assume that people do thethings they do for the same
reasons that we do right.
We think people are hardwiredin the same way and so we expect
them to behave, think and actfor the same reasons.
And so when we do X, we expecta similar version of X back, and
(08:03):
when we get Y, we're a littleperplexed.
We don't really quite know whydid they say this?
You highlighted that with thestudents that you were talking
to, kids who come from ahierarchical culture.
We call that a high power,distance culture, using Hofstede
, where hierarchy is veryimportant respect for elders,
respect for seniority.
(08:23):
They would never challenge aprofessor in the classroom or in
a meeting, for example, rightor a training.
In contrast, americans, we loveour egalitarian values.
It's enshrined in ourconstitution individual
liberties, freedom.
We're all equal.
We call each other by our firstnames.
We rarely use titles and we'rehappy to challenge anybody
(08:48):
anywhere, anytime.
It's just part of who we are.
So that's where I'm sure thatyou experienced at your
university a little bit of thatcultural divide and bridging it.
Jay Johnson (08:59):
Well, and yeah, absolutely, and I love that
framework and how you laid thatout, because it's really
interesting.
Once we have a particular lensand we see somebody in a set of
behaviors and we have our owncultural lens that we were doing
, the faculty there had theirown lens and expectations that
come from that lens of you haveto be engaged, you have to ask
(09:21):
questions, you have toparticipate in order to learn,
etc.
And they could really only seefrom that lens they didn't
understand.
So when the behaviors didn'tline up with that, they assumed
the students were lazy, theyassumed the students were
disengaged, they didn't care,they weren't taking it seriously
, that they just paid their wayto get to the university so they
could do other things.
(09:42):
And that was so far from thetruth.
And you know, on the inverseside of that, when I was
interviewing with the students,it was really interesting
because they were like well, wejust don't understand what what
they're doing is.
They're trying to.
You know, are they trying totrick us?
Are they trying to get us to dosomething?
Are they trying to?
And it was just, it was reallyfrom that particular lens.
(10:03):
So I do have a question and Ithink this is going to be
relevant to coaches, trainers,hr people.
The world is so beautiful,diverse and complex.
It would be, and you alreadyidentified.
There's culture at every turn.
There's geographic culture,religious culture.
(10:24):
I was a hockey player.
We have our own hockey culture,I will tell you.
It literally crosses alldifferent intersections.
So how can I, as a trainer or acoach, or an HR practitioner,
how could I be prepared for allof this beautiful complexity,
(10:44):
complexity?
What are some of the thoughtprocesses there?
You know, as somebody who'sreally kind of tackled this at a
global level, how do I managethat level of information?
Sanjyot Dunung (10:51):
So part of it is building it into your framework
.
So oftentimes and we have asession that we call cultural
tools.
That's part of our program.
Doesn't matter what country andwhat that is, it's sort of a
session, if you will, that takespeople through this analysis,
this sort of understanding whatthe methodology is.
I talked a little bit aboutHofstede and Hall.
(11:13):
So we integrate that frameworkso people have a real, tangible
methodology, rather than makingsome assumptions.
Oftentimes people will say to meare you going to just traffic
in stereotypes?
Is that what this is?
And the answer is no.
Stereotypes can certainlyinform how we understand a
culture, national culture or anyother kind, but they're
(11:34):
incomplete, right?
So really what we're doing iswe're using this methodology so
that we can compare and contrast, and no one culture is better
than another culture.
It's just different.
And this is a little bit wherewe're different on the
cross-cultural anthropology thanmulticulturalism.
I always try to make sure tohighlight this with trainers so
(11:56):
that they understand where's thedifference.
I liken it a bit to this.
Multiculturalism is reallyabout getting everybody to agree
to the same playbook of how wethink, behave and interact
Distinctly different veryvaluable, especially when you're
trying to create a cohesiveculture inside of an
organization, for example.
(12:17):
That can be important toidentify what the corporate
culture will be and how peopleshould operate within it.
But that's different thancultural anthropology, which is
rooted in the word anthropology,which is observational.
It's not right or wrong, it'snot judgmental, it's
observational.
So it's meeting people wherethey're at, rather than trying
to get everybody to change theirbehaviors.
(12:41):
I often say it's like comfortfood.
You and I and everybodylistening, we all have our
comfort food.
It's something that we'velearned from the moment we're
born.
It's influenced by our familieswhere we grew up.
It makes us feel warm, it makesus feel safe.
But every comfort food isdifferent.
But no comfort food is betteror worse, it's just different.
(13:02):
So that's the lens that Iencourage your trainers and
everybody who's listening tostart to try and get your
attendees or your learners toreally embrace and understand,
because then it sort of clearsaway any sort of pop culture
cobwebs, if you will, getseverybody on the same framework
(13:24):
and then they can start tounderstand.
Oftentimes we then integratethis framework, we talk about
the different methodologies andthen we ask people use this to
understand yourself first.
Right, how do you see?
So I'll give you a couple ofexamples real quickly.
I mentioned hierarchy right.
So in the Hofstede model it'scalled power distance, low power
(13:45):
distance.
What that means are culturesthat accept a big power distance
.
A big power distance betweenpeople it might be because of
age, it might be seniority, itmight be by title in a company,
any number of factors andconversely, low power distance
cultures are cultures whereeverybody's expected to be the
same.
(14:05):
So understanding, are you ahigh power distance or a low
power distance culture?
In truth, most people are kindof halfway in between.
It's just comparatively.
No culture is all high powerdistance or low.
But you mentioned Turkey andIran, for example.
Very high power distancecultures.
They come to a low powerdistance culture.
That's one place of theframework.
Jay Johnson (14:27):
So that's super fascinating.
I actually want to dig intothis, but I got to tell you.
Having known that you're fromChicago and talking about
comfort food, I think you've nowinspired me to have a pizza
tonight, because that is totallymy comfort food.
Sanjyot Dunung (14:42):
Deep dish has to be deep dish.
Jay Johnson (14:43):
Absolutely.
So.
All right, I love this conceptof the high powered and I do
want to go back.
See, I knew this was just goingto be such a fascinating
conversation.
I love it.
I do want to go back tostereotypes at one moment, but
with the high powered and was itlow powered or low centered?
High power distance, low powerdistance, high power distance,
(15:06):
low power distance, high powerdistance, low power distance so
immediately my brain started tokick into places that I've
worked.
I've worked with a couple of bigcompanies in the past where the
idea of a skip level meetingcould have been a hell worthy
trespass.
Like you do not go anywhereabove your manager.
If you've seen talking tosomebody above your manager,
(15:30):
your manager was going to comeand be like Sanjyot, what were
you doing?
You were having a conversation,and I mean it would have been
immediate.
And I've seen that organization, over the course of literally
been working with them foralmost 20 years in different
capacities, that at some pointin time they wanted this open
culture and they were going tohave it.
So you know some of the seniorleaders or executives were out
in the open, they could betalked to.
There was a lot of resistance, alot of pushback.
(15:50):
Then it became a little bitnormal to have a couple of skip
levels or maybe some town hallsor some open forums where you
could have conversations, andI've seen this pendulum kind of
swing back and forth and it'salmost like it was an extreme
over here.
Then it swung this way to theextreme, swings back, and you
(16:12):
had mentioned the middle.
Is that your experience or isthat something that's unique?
How do you see that when anorganization sort of recognized
that high power, low powerdistance and says, okay, well,
maybe we need to rethink this.
What are some of your thoughtson that?
Yeah, so I always bring up highpower, low power distance and
says, okay, well, maybe we needto rethink this.
What are some of your thoughtson that?
Sanjyot Dunung (16:28):
Yeah.
So I always bring up high power, low power, because it often
happens with organizations thathave offices around the world,
headquarters is always at thetop of the food chain, if you
will right.
So they see themselves as beingthe place where the power
emanates from, if you will.
But they always want localcountry offices and different
(16:49):
functional offices to starttaking on more ownership and
really sort of drive their data,their results, their ownership
of their ROI, and one of thechallenges is it depends on
where that office is.
So, for example, if we'relooking from the vantage point
of the US, we might takea lookat some northern European
(17:12):
countries, like Sweden, forexample, where people do expect
to skip right.
They don't think there'sanything wrong with going
straight to the person with whomyou have a question.
It doesn't matter if thatperson is two levels above your
manager.
It's about the efficiency ofthe interaction.
So, from a Swede's point ofview, for example, they don't
understand why we're so worriedabout that hierarchy.
(17:35):
In contrast, you might go toJapan and your Japanese office
and people will never feelcomfortable skipping, because
there is a process, it is deeplyingrained in the society and it
will take time.
Culture does not changeovernight.
It's not revolutionary.
You don't wake up tomorrowmorning and it's a different
(17:56):
culture.
It's evolutionary.
It takes time.
It can take decades, as you'vesaid.
So.
Oftentimes where companies havethat friction is if they've had
employees or offices around theworld that have experienced
multiple CEOs through multiplemanagement, right.
So there's sort of trust factor.
How do we know that this newcultural habit that you're
(18:18):
asking us to embrace will bethere when the next person comes
, and will we have risked ourjobs?
That's what people really worryabout, right?
So it's infusing trustalongside cultural change.
What we often say is the bestway to do it is to tie it to a
business objective.
Are you trying to createefficiencies?
(18:40):
Are you trying to reduce thenumber of errors or having to
redo things or miscommunications?
Some companies actually havesurveys in-country of employee
satisfaction.
If you're in the EU, that'soften a part of your HR
requirements.
So that's a way to see are youable to actually make some of
(19:00):
these changes in a way thatpeople are embracing them and
finding that they connect totheir jobs?
There's another characteristicthat I also think is super
important and happy to talkabout that too.
Jay Johnson (19:14):
Go ahead.
Yeah, let's hear it.
Sanjyot Dunung (19:16):
Yeah, so it's called high-context, low-context
communications.
I'm cherry-picking a little bitfor those who are listening
with us, who know the HofstedeHall models and some of the
other world value surveys andthings like that.
But these cherry picking arewith reason.
It's because we have identifiedover years and years of working
with corporations as the bigissues Eye context.
(19:39):
Low context simply meanscommunications.
How do people frame theircommunications?
So often at the US we're we're alow-context communicator.
We use our words to say exactlywhat we mean.
Think about the things that weuse.
Right, don't beat around thebush.
Say what you mean.
We use our phrases.
Our whole cultural referencepoint is about clear and direct.
(20:01):
We value that.
That's a positive for us.
Another culture may be more highcontext and the most extreme
high context, for example, youmight see in Japan and Korea,
where the message is embedded inthe body language, in the
context of the situation, notnecessarily the words.
So anybody who's ever donebusiness with those cultures
(20:25):
might know that, for example,you'll see a little tilt of the
head, a little guttural moment,a little bit of I don't know.
That's code for no.
So what happens is that, as anAmerican, you're expecting
clarity of communication.
You ask a team member will thisproject be done by a certain
date?
(20:45):
Will we meet our timeframes?
And you may miss thecommunications that are subtle,
that are embedded in bodylanguage, which you might not
see in an email, for example onno, we're not really comfortable
with the deadline, but I don'tknow how to tell you that's
really what's happening right,versus some cultures which will
say yes all the time, when yessimply means I heard your
(21:08):
question, it doesn't mean yes asin the affirmative.
So how people communicate isalso very different.
And making sure you look atmore than the words, making sure
you look at the context and themeaning and, as you're training
for those who are trainers,making sure you're looking at
(21:29):
the attendees in your group tomake sure you're not missing
something, because thoseattendees may come with their
own cultural reference point.
So not assuming the person whoraises their hand or the person
who says yes is completely inagreement, or with clarity.
Jay Johnson (21:47):
Yeah, and I remember reading a case study
about a group of Americans who,essentially, were negotiating
with a group, a business out ofJapan, and there was head nods
and things like that, and theAmericans had walked away
celebrating, thinking that theywere getting everything that
they wanted, when all of asudden, the next day there was a
rejection letter for what theywere looking to do and they were
(22:09):
like, well, we thought we wereon the same page and they were
like, no, we understood what youwere saying, we just didn't
agree with any of it, and it was, you know, it was just like
kind of hard linemiscommunication aspect.
So I love that you bring thatup Now, one of the things that
you had said earlier, and I wantto lean back into it just a
moment.
You had talked aboutstereotypes and I think that
(22:31):
whenever you get into differentaspects of culture, there is a
number of stereotypes out there,and the difficulty with
stereotypes is they have a rangeof being 0% true to nearly 100%
true.
And the reality is, what isthis stereotype?
It's essentially I have noticeda pattern of behavior.
(22:51):
Now that pattern could reallyrepresent 2% of the behavior.
It could represent 100% of thebehavior.
It's always going to shift,it's always going to reflect,
it's always going to be changing.
Some of it's contextual, someof it's environmental.
It's always going to bechanging.
Some of it's contextual, someof it's environmental, some of
it's situational.
(23:12):
So, you know, in my space ofbehavioral intelligence, what I
look at is okay, how can werecognize the patterns of
behavior without crossing thatline to say, okay, just because
we saw it six times doesn't meanthat we're going to see it the
seventh Doesn't mean that it's?
You know, we have to be able toanalyze in context.
How do you navigate that?
Because there are so manydifferent.
There's positive stereotypes,there's negative stereotypes,
there's stereotypes that peopleare like I really don't know
(23:33):
where this one came from.
There's others that people goyep, that's exactly how we do
things.
So, in the world of stereotypes, how do we navigate such a
complicated challenge?
Sanjyot Dunung (23:45):
Well, what we typically do is we recognize
that they exist in people'sminds right, we've all grown up
with them, we feel them allaround us in the workplace, in
our normal lives, but what wetry to do is put them into a
separate box and then work withthe methodology, because I think
people find the methodology alittle bit more comfortable.
Just as you said, there can bedata points.
(24:07):
Somebody may do something fivetimes.
Will they definitively do it?
The sixth Unclear, right?
So if you start to use amethodology, you can then start
to separate between individualpersonality, for example, and
what might be culturallyinfluenced, whether it's an
organizational culture orwhether it's a national culture,
(24:27):
and, again, because we oftentie it into analytics and data.
So let me give you an example.
We do a lot of work withcustomer service and customer
experience.
One of the things that a lot ofour companies find is that
their global customers will rankthem differently on their
(24:48):
customer satisfaction scoresversus US customers.
So they try to understand why.
Because obviously you want toincrease your customer support,
customer satisfaction One of thekey scores that most people use
and a lot of people who arewith large companies are
familiar with that NPS, which isthe net promoter score and
(25:09):
basically, nps is simply acustomer who's happy with you is
more likely to be loyal andwill stay with you even if you
increase your price.
So think, for example,starbucks.
Starbucks has a very high NPS.
Doesn't matter where you go inthe world, you are familiar with
the Starbucks surroundings.
You're going to get the sameproduct, the same service within
(25:37):
reason, and so there's a highbrand value.
So a lot of companies want highNPSs with their customers
because that allows them tocharge more.
Where's the gap?
The gap is in customer-facingteam members, who may not
necessarily understand how tomeet the customer.
So if you are, we do a lot inthe travel space.
So if you are a gate agent or aflight attendant or any of
those other customer-facingroles, you may not be
(26:01):
experienced and understand howthe culture may impact your
interaction.
You might rely, for example, ona stereotype or what somebody
else has told you.
What we do is we kind of clearaway that.
We talk about what the actualrole of a person is, what their
interaction is, and then we tiethe cultural habits to that.
(26:22):
So there's a real framework andwhat that enables them to do is
improve their service.
So it might be how people askfor help.
It might be how people expectservice, whether you're in a
hotel, for example, or in anairline, but these are ways that
attendees learners can actuallystart to operationalize the
(26:43):
learning.
So it makes it more relevantand they're more likely to put
these stereotypes to the sidebecause now they have a new
framework right.
What we try to do is use thecultural methodology that we
have to replace any of themisconceptions that they may
already have.
Jay Johnson (27:00):
I love that.
So let's play with this conceptjust a little bit, because I
think this is important, becausehere's where I can see this
really impacting.
We've said there's cultureeverywhere, and I would be
willing to bet that if I askedthe audience hey, give me some
stereotypes that would come from, say, a sales culture, the
(27:21):
sales team.
Right, they're going to think anumber of different things.
They're going to think direct,maybe aggressive, pushy, all of
those stereotypes.
And I've known salespeople thatfit the stereotypes and I've
known salespeople that couldsell you something and you
didn't even know.
You just got sold just on theway they do it.
So we recognize that, yeah,they can be true, but they can
(27:42):
also be not very true.
I'm walking in as a trainerinto this sales training and
I've got all this group ofsalespeople, I've got these
stereotypes in my head.
What's a better way for me tooperate?
For?
How would I navigate thatsituation?
As a trainer, as a coach oreven as an HR person meeting
with a group of sales?
How do I do that?
Sanjyot Dunung (28:05):
So the way we do it and I can sort of speak from
our methodology and I think itcan be applied by everybody
who's listening is we firstfocus on who are you selling to
and what are you selling,because that defines what the
sales process would be.
Right that's where we were justtalking a little bit about the
CX experience is first identifywho your customer is.
(28:25):
What are their expectations?
Oftentimes, again, we're soattached to our product or our
methodology that we're sellingfrom our end versus thinking
about what the person wishes toreceive.
And the more you can thinkabout who you're selling to,
what you're selling and what'sthe right sales strategy or I
(28:46):
wouldn't say right, let's sayoptimal sales strategy you start
with backwards, then how do youwork into that, and so each
salesperson can then start tounderstand okay, this is how
people in this market, forexample, they're more indirect,
right Low context, and they I'msorry high context.
They want to sort of be moresubtle about the sale.
(29:08):
They don't want to have a hardsale.
How do I craft my sales andmarketing message?
How do I reach them in a waythat meets what their
expectations are, so that I cangive them the information that
they need to be able to evaluatethe opportunity and then close
the sale.
That's what you're reallytrying to do.
So, in a way, a lot of timessalespeople already go through
(29:31):
this right, they're alreadythinking about who's my customer
, what do I need to do to sellthem, what are their interests,
their habits?
They go through all of thisanalysis, layer into that now
another cultural reference point, one thing that people don't
always realize.
Let's say you're in NorthAmerica.
People will make assumptionsbased on where they think
(29:53):
somebody's ethnicity is or wheretheir country of origin is.
The second, you start to liveoutside of your home country,
you start to have more culturalinfluences.
Think about it right, even asan American.
If, even as an American, if yougo as an American and you live
in France, you're going to be alittle bit American and a little
bit French, right, you're goingto start to weave in those
(30:14):
attitudes and values, nodifferent if people are coming.
So if you're selling tosomebody who may have recently
come from a different country orwho has origins from you, want
to make sure that you've gotthat subtlety of using that
cultural framework.
But I think for trainers ofsalespeople, help them
understand how to be moreeffective in their job, not
(30:35):
necessarily making assumptionsabout what the sales folks
should be doing.
Jay Johnson (30:41):
Oh, I love that and it's, and all the Baltics too.
And I will say that when I cameback from sort of if I were to
(31:09):
just kind of group that year,that had a huge impact on how I
saw the world, my behaviors,everything from recycling to how
often I'm using my car to howoften I'm thinking about sort of
this like larger levelcommunity You're right, it does
and knowing your audience andyou know what is their, I guess
(31:30):
global exposure is probably areally powerful marker for them
to be able to think about.
But I want to kind of underlinesomething, what I'm hearing and
help me if I've got this, whereI'm seeing this.
And when we're thinking aboutculture, we really need to stop
thinking about per se our lens.
And it sounds to me as thoughyour methodology, your framework
(31:53):
, your approach is to getwhoever the audience is whether
that's customer, client,salespeople, trainers, whomever
customer service people to stopand actually consider the power
distance as well as the contextyou know high context, low
context and probably, I'm sure,a number of other markers but
(32:14):
really you're getting them toessentially deep dive into an
audience focused approach whichis, I think, very consistent
with training, as you said.
Am I accurate on that?
Is that the mindset shift thatwe need to go through?
Sanjyot Dunung (32:29):
It is.
It's a 360 mindset, right.
Oftentimes we want to make surethat, as trainers, we don't get
up and start telling people howto act.
We want to encourage them tothink about how to take a
methodology and integrate itinto what they're doing from the
work world so that they're moreeffective.
The more they canoperationalize it, the more that
(32:50):
it's relevant to them that, thebetter they're going to be able
to use it.
So it's really a 360 approach.
And one other thing that Iwould say is a visual, because
sometimes it helps.
People always still sort ofstick in there.
They're not quite sure theyunderstand the concept of
culture.
We liken it when you're talkingto people in different
environments around the world,national cultures.
(33:13):
Think of culture as sort of aniceberg, right?
10% of the iceberg is above thewater.
You can see it.
So we tend to focus on those10%.
It might be visible behaviors,it might be visible differences
in how people look.
Jay Johnson (33:27):
Yeah, like that right.
Yeah, okay, physical yeah.
Sanjyot Dunung (33:30):
But 90% is below the surface.
It's how people think and whythey think.
And you talked a little bitabout spending time in
Scandinavia and you saw there'sa whole different wiring of how
people think about theirenvironment and the climate.
Personal responsibility One ofmy favorite concepts in Sweden,
(33:50):
I have to say, because I have asweet tooth is the concept of
candy Saturdays, right, the ideathat you have so much
discipline that you only eatsomething, and as children.
But that kind of disciplinepermeates their whole life,
right, and they don't think ofit.
It's just second nature forthem.
But to those who are not usedto that kind of discipline it
(34:12):
may seem very different.
So that's where you really needto understand that below the
surface mindset, how it impactscommunications, attitudes in the
workplace, processes,efficiencies, you know deadlines
, customer experience,everything.
It's just about every part ofthe company.
Jay Johnson (34:30):
Yeah, well, and Sanjot, it's so interesting you
said that because there wasthings like okay, so one of the
things I did when I was inScandinavia was went winter
swimming.
Now I've lived in Michigan fullof lakes.
Yeah, and this is 2019.
So this is I'm not saying prethe neuroscience and all of the
you know biological science thatsays, hey, this has some health
(34:51):
benefits.
This is like I'm not even awareof that at this point in time.
I just thought it was asadistic thing that they like to
do and I was like, wow, theseare tough people.
But I immediately it was one ofthose things where I did it the
first time.
I really enjoyed it.
I felt great, my body feltgreat, and immediately I came
back and I'm like I want to dothis the rest of my friends and
(35:13):
colleagues I mean, it was a very, very few and far between that
I could convince to do an iceplunge with me or to jump into a
lake with me or anything else.
And now I'm starting to seeeverywhere, everywhere there's
ice plunges, nordic spas andsaunas and things like that.
So I want to parlay this into aquestion At what point in time
(35:43):
do we start seeing the influenceof whether it's us as the
trainer influencing our audienceor the audience's cultural
aspects influencing us?
Where does that sort of pushpull?
How does that occur?
And, realistically, like whattimeframe do we start to see
these cultures sort of mergingtogether or really kind of
getting a better understandingof each other.
Sanjyot Dunung (36:04):
Well, I mean, if you think just holistically, I
think we're morphing moreintegrated every single day,
right?
Media helps that.
People can travel easily, likeyou did, and experience
different cultures.
So whenever that starts tohappen, we start to understand
different points of view,different attitudes, different
(36:24):
behaviors and we internalizethem.
Once upon a time we thoughtabout food, but now food is
ubiquitous too.
Right, we have fusion andeverything.
So that's at the macro level.
I think that when you start tobring it down to the personal
level, when it's in theclassroom, for example, or when
it's within a team, I think thatthat's the give and take, right
(36:44):
.
Or when it's within a team, Ithink that that's the give and
take right.
I think good instructors, goodeducators or trainers and we go
by different names in theclassroom, which is why I always
flip back and forth but youreally want to make sure that
your training and your learningcontent meets the needs of those
who are attending.
So you will often find yourself.
Educators will do that right.
(37:05):
They will shapeshift theircontent, make sure that they
package it in a way that can beunderstood and absorbed and
celebrated by those who aretrying to learn this material,
to be able to operationalize itand, to an extent, as you start
doing that as an educator or asa trainer, you're also learning
(37:27):
a little bit about your audience, right?
You're learning a little bitabout what their needs are.
In an essence, you're meetingthem halfway, if you will, but I
always call it a bridge, right?
I think, as trainers, ascultural you know those of us
who are on the cultural sidewe're just building bridges.
We're building bridges betweenknowledge and action, and it
(37:47):
doesn't matter what the subjectis.
In our case, we like to saywe're building bridges between
countries and groups of people,different cultures, but any
subject matter.
You're really just building abridge of knowledge, and how you
build that bridge and how yousustain it is really dependent
on both the learner and thetrainer in that setting.
Jay Johnson (38:09):
That really lands for me, and I really like the
idea of the bridge betweenknowledge and action, because
there are points in times thatthat bridge can be non-existent
or very, very, very, very long,where we know what we need to do
, or we know and understand whatwe should do, but whether or
not we actually choose to behaveor do something with it, that's
(38:29):
a completely different story.
So this has been an absolutelyfascinating conversation.
I know that there's a lot moreto go into If you were to say
okay, you know, take one thingand say trainers say okay, you
know, take one thing and saytrainers, coaches, hr people, if
(38:49):
you do one thing, that's goingto improve your talent
development, your talent force,your learning development,
whatever that might be.
What is the number one thingthat you think somebody could
get started on today taking alittle bit of knowledge and
moving it into action.
What is that one thing, sanjo?
Sanjyot Dunung (39:04):
So I think the most important thing for any
trainer is to actuallyunderstand how the learners are
going to operationalize it andbuild the training towards that.
So we build that towards theKPIs key performance indicators.
How will you measure thatyou've learned this information?
Not just a multiple choice quizat the end of an e-learning,
(39:25):
for example, but really at theend of six months, at the end of
12 months.
What do you hope to do?
So oftentimes and many trainersdo this right you do a needs
assessment.
That needs assessment shouldn'tbe just what do the learners
think they want to learn.
It should really be focused onwhat's your pain point in your
(39:45):
job or in your team or in yourorganization, and how will you
measure that it's been fixed.
That's what you're training toright.
That's what you need to weavethe training to, and then you
can structure the entiretraining in ways that actually
say this will help us improvehow we're going to communicate
(40:05):
more effectively.
In our case, the learninglesson might be about how do
people miscommunicate highcontext, low context
communications, understandingthat methodology but the
tangible action is it will helpyou improve communications so
that there's efficiency, there'sless emails, there's less back
and forth between a team orthere's less frustration.
(40:26):
Those are all measurable.
So my advice to trainers isalways focus on the business
practices that you wish to helpa team change and then measure
towards that.
Jay Johnson (40:39):
Powerful, and you've heard that here before
team and you've heard it in acompletely different context.
Heard that here before team andyou've heard it in a completely
different context.
But yes, that measurement,because otherwise your training
is a luxury, it's a hobby, it'sa pastime, it's not a business
objective and your funding willget cut.
I'm watching it happenliterally all over to trainers,
(41:02):
to coaches, to individualinternal learning development
departments.
They're not understanding why60 people just got let go.
It's because they're notdemonstrating.
Hey, the things that we've donefor the last three years have
had these KPIs, these businessobjectives, and this is the
return on investment.
So, Sanjyot, thank you so muchfor bringing that up.
(41:22):
I do agree with you.
That is 100%.
The most important thing thatwe can do as an individual or
even a learning development teamis to show how did this
actually yield results?
Sanjyot Dunung (41:36):
So I love that.
Jay Johnson (41:38):
I love that.
Sanjyot, if our audience wantedto get in touch with you, if
they wanted to learn more aboutAPMA Global, how would they do
so?
Sanjyot Dunung (41:46):
Just come to our website, apmaglobalcom.
You can contact us.
There's a contact us form andit'll get to me or get to one of
our team members and we'd loveto hear from you.
You know, whether you have aquestion or whether you want to
talk about some trainings ormethodologies or things like
that, feel free to please reachout.
Jay Johnson (42:09):
Amazing.
This has been a wonderfulconversation.
I knew it would be, and I justwant to say thank you for
bringing all of your experienceand insight into this world of
culture, into this space.
So, as I mentioned, it wassomething that kind of got me
into, you know, got me intotraining.
It's something that I'm verypassionate about with travel and
learning about these differentthings, and I have definitely
learned a lot from you today.
So I want to say thank you,Sanjyot.
Sanjyot Dunung (42:29):
Well, thank you, and thank you for having me,
and I look forward to hearingabout your adventures and where
you're going to be headed tonext and your next group of
countries, and I don't know ifI'll do the polar crunch, but
I'm pretty ambitious to do anumber of other things, so I
look forward to that.
Jay Johnson (42:44):
Very nice, give it a try.
Let me know how it goes.
I will do so, all right.
Well, you take care, and thankyou again for being here and
thank you, audience, for tuninginto this episode of the Talent
Forge, where we are shaping thefuture of training and
development.
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge,
where we are shaping the futureof training and development.
Today I have a special guest, afellow social scientist, which
I am very excited to get intodeep conversations with.
Welcome to the show,Sanjyot
Sanjyot Dunung (00:16):
Thank you, jay.
It's a pleasure to be here andthank you for having me, and I
look forward to chatting withyou and your listeners today.
Jay Johnson (00:25):
And I did it right after I said I wasn't going to
do it.
Sanjyot, let me make sure Ipronounce that right.
Sanjyot Dunung (00:29):
I always say that I have a tricky name.
I answer to anything thatstarts with an S, as long as
it's legitimate.
Different cultures, differentconnotations, we'll get into
that.
Jay Johnson (00:39):
Kind of funny.
So my legal name is Jeremy,which I don't even know that the
audience would know this.
I was called Jake my entirelife and when I got to college I
told my mentor that my name wasJake and he heard J and I've
been called J ever since.
So I understand anything with aJ and I'm probably going to
respond to it.
Sanjyot Dunung (00:58):
So that makes it easier for both of us.
Jay Johnson (01:01):
No, thank you for that Grace.
So, Sanjyot, here's my questionfor you how did you wind up in
this talent development space?
Sanjyot Dunung (01:21):
And we've heard all kinds of interesting stories
here.
I was a banker by trainingafter getting my MBA and at that
time there was a lot of thingsgoing on.
People were taking a look atdoing business in Asia and going
overseas, and my master's wasfrom Thunderbird out in Arizona
and it's really more of aninternational management.
So I was already verywell-versed or at least I
(01:42):
thought I was, on how to dobusiness with different cultures
, and we'll talk a little bitabout what that means, because I
think sometimes people have amisnomer.
But back to my story a littlebit.
And I decided to set up my ownbusiness.
I was actually taking over.
I bought somebody else'sbusiness, I bought their client
it was a large Fortune 50company company, in essence and
(02:05):
they were doing expat training.
They were basically doing alltheir expats, who were moving
overseas, were going throughcultural trainings.
Jay Johnson (02:13):
I was super well-versed on that concept,
both having studied it and alsoembodying it, having been a
product of two differentcultures.
I was born in India, althoughraised in Chicago, and certainly
very much a product of twodifferent cultures.
I was born in India, althoughraised in Chicago and certainly
very much a product of the US,so I understood how to bridge
those cultures.
We started as an expat trainingcompany, but that slowly
(02:37):
morphed as people startedlooking to us for developing
content about differentcountries, cultures and business
practice, and that's where weare today.
We've become a company thatdevelops learning solutions and
content helping folks understandhow to do business, how to
interact and communicate withfolks from different cultures
more effectively, whether it'sin the workforce, whether it's
(03:00):
working with stakeholders,customers, team members and
sometimes other folks in thegovernment sector.
And we also do a lot ofsupplemental training material
or learning material for highereducation, particularly business
and the social sciences.
So a little circuitous of apath, like many, but delighted
(03:20):
that we've landed here, and Ithink the time is now for what
we do.
I love this, delighted thatwe've landed here and I think
the time is now for what we do.
I love this and you arespeaking to my heart and for
some of the audience that maynot have heard before.
I literally got my start intraining because, working in a
university, we had internationalstudents coming in who, on
(03:40):
paper, were just absolutelyexceptional and they were
struggling and I was asked bythe faculty to say, hey, you did
this whole behavior thing, canyou go look at this?
And I did a couple ofinterviews, sat in a classroom,
watched and realized there was amassive cultural divide between
the expectations of theclassrooms for a lot of people
(04:01):
who are coming in from Iran,turkey, from other places where
they were expected to, you know,just kind of sit, take notes,
don't ask questions, don't youknow?
Don't bring attention toyourself.
And the American faculty, whowere like these students are
disengaged.
So I created a training programto onboard the new students and
a training board program toonboard the faculty for a better
(04:24):
cultural understanding,launched my business called
Worldline Communications andthen completely changed gears
for what we're doing now.
But that's how I got my startand I'm really, really excited
to dig into this because it is.
You know, the world isglobalizing.
We're getting smaller.
There's a lot moreinternational business, you know
, save some of the things thatcould be occurring right now in
(04:45):
the political or social, uh,specter, wherever you want to
look.
So I want to.
I want to ask more of apersonal question, if you don't
mind.
How does it feel, as you startto help people bridge some of
that cultural divide, when you,when you're providing those
opportunities for people to seeeach other, to value each other,
(05:07):
to maybe better understand eachother?
What does that feel like foryou, sanjot?
Sanjyot Dunung (05:12):
So I have to say I do some of the trainings
still, which is my love.
Nothing that I enjoy more thanbeing in front of a classroom
and working with students,whatever age they are, and I
love that aha moment when you'veconnected dots for them and
they sort of say, wow, I seethings in a little differently,
(05:34):
or I get it.
And a word about how we come tothis framework and how we talk
about this.
So we talk about socialsciences and sometimes that's
kind of a nebulous concept.
What we really do is we takecultural anthropology and we
integrate it with businesspractices.
(05:55):
So we use the practices forthose listeners who are super
curious Hofstede is one of theleading thinkers and identified
a number of dimensions and wetake those and happy to get into
more detail on those Hall whotalked about intercultural
communications and then weintegrate it with tangible ways
that it's impacting somebody.
So, for example, if it's in thebusiness arena, we take a look
(06:16):
to see what exactly are youdoing?
Where are your pain points?
Maybe you have customer servicegaps.
You identified a pain pointwith your students that the
university was having.
We take a look at stakeholders.
Maybe teams are trying tobecome more efficient and
communications and barriers tocommunications that people don't
always identify with orunderstand are impacting how
(06:40):
efficient a process is, costsavings and a number of
different factors how efficientthe process is, cost savings and
a number of different factors.
So when we tie it to exactlywhat people are doing in their
day-to-day job, it becomes morerelevant right away and that's
when people have the aha moment.
They realize that, yes, thereis a different way that people
see things.
A lot about culture.
(07:00):
Really, what is culture?
It's just simply a set ofattitudes, values and behaviors
of a group of people, and itcould be a culture defined by
geography, which is what weoften talk about, but it could
be an organizational culture.
Right, every company has itsown culture.
Could be an industry Lawyershave their own culture, doctors
have their own culture, talentdevelopment folks have their own
(07:22):
culture, hr has its own cultureand we try to integrate that
functionality with the nationalcultures and talk a little bit
about that.
So when people start to thinkabout all the different things
that have impacted how they seethe world, that's when they have
the aha moment, because thereis this assumption human beings,
(07:43):
we do it around the world, it'snot just Americans.
We assume that people do thethings they do for the same
reasons that we do right.
We think people are hardwiredin the same way and so we expect
them to behave, think and actfor the same reasons.
And so when we do X, we expecta similar version of X back, and
(08:03):
when we get Y, we're a littleperplexed.
We don't really quite know whydid they say this?
You highlighted that with thestudents that you were talking
to, kids who come from ahierarchical culture.
We call that a high power,distance culture, using Hofstede
, where hierarchy is veryimportant respect for elders,
respect for seniority.
(08:23):
They would never challenge aprofessor in the classroom or in
a meeting, for example, rightor a training.
In contrast, americans, we loveour egalitarian values.
It's enshrined in ourconstitution individual
liberties, freedom.
We're all equal.
We call each other by our firstnames.
We rarely use titles and we'rehappy to challenge anybody
(08:48):
anywhere, anytime.
It's just part of who we are.
So that's where I'm sure thatyou experienced at your
university a little bit of thatcultural divide and bridging it.
Jay Johnson (08:59):
Well, and yeah, absolutely, and I love that
framework and how you laid thatout, because it's really
interesting.
Once we have a particular lensand we see somebody in a set of
behaviors and we have our owncultural lens that we were doing
, the faculty there had theirown lens and expectations that
come from that lens of you haveto be engaged, you have to ask
(09:21):
questions, you have toparticipate in order to learn,
etc.
And they could really only seefrom that lens they didn't
understand.
So when the behaviors didn'tline up with that, they assumed
the students were lazy, theyassumed the students were
disengaged, they didn't care,they weren't taking it seriously
, that they just paid their wayto get to the university so they
could do other things.
(09:42):
And that was so far from thetruth.
And you know, on the inverseside of that, when I was
interviewing with the students,it was really interesting
because they were like well, wejust don't understand what what
they're doing is.
They're trying to.
You know, are they trying totrick us?
Are they trying to get us to dosomething?
Are they trying to?
And it was just, it was reallyfrom that particular lens.
(10:03):
So I do have a question and Ithink this is going to be
relevant to coaches, trainers,hr people.
The world is so beautiful,diverse and complex.
It would be, and you alreadyidentified.
There's culture at every turn.
There's geographic culture,religious culture.
(10:24):
I was a hockey player.
We have our own hockey culture,I will tell you.
It literally crosses alldifferent intersections.
So how can I, as a trainer or acoach, or an HR practitioner,
how could I be prepared for allof this beautiful complexity,
(10:44):
complexity?
What are some of the thoughtprocesses there?
You know, as somebody who'sreally kind of tackled this at a
global level, how do I managethat level of information?
Sanjyot Dunung (10:51):
So part of it is building it into your framework
.
So oftentimes and we have asession that we call cultural
tools.
That's part of our program.
Doesn't matter what country andwhat that is, it's sort of a
session, if you will, that takespeople through this analysis,
this sort of understanding whatthe methodology is.
I talked a little bit aboutHofstede and Hall.
(11:13):
So we integrate that frameworkso people have a real, tangible
methodology, rather than makingsome assumptions.
Oftentimes people will say to meare you going to just traffic
in stereotypes?
Is that what this is?
And the answer is no.
Stereotypes can certainlyinform how we understand a
culture, national culture or anyother kind, but they're
(11:34):
incomplete, right?
So really what we're doing iswe're using this methodology so
that we can compare and contrast, and no one culture is better
than another culture.
It's just different.
And this is a little bit wherewe're different on the
cross-cultural anthropology thanmulticulturalism.
I always try to make sure tohighlight this with trainers so
(11:56):
that they understand where's thedifference.
I liken it a bit to this.
Multiculturalism is reallyabout getting everybody to agree
to the same playbook of how wethink, behave and interact
Distinctly different veryvaluable, especially when you're
trying to create a cohesiveculture inside of an
organization, for example.
(12:17):
That can be important toidentify what the corporate
culture will be and how peopleshould operate within it.
But that's different thancultural anthropology, which is
rooted in the word anthropology,which is observational.
It's not right or wrong, it'snot judgmental, it's
observational.
So it's meeting people wherethey're at, rather than trying
to get everybody to change theirbehaviors.
(12:41):
I often say it's like comfortfood.
You and I and everybodylistening, we all have our
comfort food.
It's something that we'velearned from the moment we're
born.
It's influenced by our familieswhere we grew up.
It makes us feel warm, it makesus feel safe.
But every comfort food isdifferent.
But no comfort food is betteror worse, it's just different.
(13:02):
So that's the lens that Iencourage your trainers and
everybody who's listening tostart to try and get your
attendees or your learners toreally embrace and understand,
because then it sort of clearsaway any sort of pop culture
cobwebs, if you will, getseverybody on the same framework
(13:24):
and then they can start tounderstand.
Oftentimes we then integratethis framework, we talk about
the different methodologies andthen we ask people use this to
understand yourself first.
Right, how do you see?
So I'll give you a couple ofexamples real quickly.
I mentioned hierarchy right.
So in the Hofstede model it'scalled power distance, low power
(13:45):
distance.
What that means are culturesthat accept a big power distance
.
A big power distance betweenpeople it might be because of
age, it might be seniority, itmight be by title in a company,
any number of factors andconversely, low power distance
cultures are cultures whereeverybody's expected to be the
same.
(14:05):
So understanding, are you ahigh power distance or a low
power distance culture?
In truth, most people are kindof halfway in between.
It's just comparatively.
No culture is all high powerdistance or low.
But you mentioned Turkey andIran, for example.
Very high power distancecultures.
They come to a low powerdistance culture.
That's one place of theframework.
Jay Johnson (14:27):
So that's super fascinating.
I actually want to dig intothis, but I got to tell you.
Having known that you're fromChicago and talking about
comfort food, I think you've nowinspired me to have a pizza
tonight, because that is totallymy comfort food.
Sanjyot Dunung (14:42):
Deep dish has to be deep dish.
Jay Johnson (14:43):
Absolutely.
So.
All right, I love this conceptof the high powered and I do
want to go back.
See, I knew this was just goingto be such a fascinating
conversation.
I love it.
I do want to go back tostereotypes at one moment, but
with the high powered and was itlow powered or low centered?
High power distance, low powerdistance, high power distance,
(15:06):
low power distance, high powerdistance, low power distance so
immediately my brain started tokick into places that I've
worked.
I've worked with a couple of bigcompanies in the past where the
idea of a skip level meetingcould have been a hell worthy
trespass.
Like you do not go anywhereabove your manager.
If you've seen talking tosomebody above your manager,
(15:30):
your manager was going to comeand be like Sanjyot, what were
you doing?
You were having a conversation,and I mean it would have been
immediate.
And I've seen that organization, over the course of literally
been working with them foralmost 20 years in different
capacities, that at some pointin time they wanted this open
culture and they were going tohave it.
So you know some of the seniorleaders or executives were out
in the open, they could betalked to.
There was a lot of resistance, alot of pushback.
(15:50):
Then it became a little bitnormal to have a couple of skip
levels or maybe some town hallsor some open forums where you
could have conversations, andI've seen this pendulum kind of
swing back and forth and it'salmost like it was an extreme
over here.
Then it swung this way to theextreme, swings back, and you
(16:12):
had mentioned the middle.
Is that your experience or isthat something that's unique?
How do you see that when anorganization sort of recognized
that high power, low powerdistance and says, okay, well,
maybe we need to rethink this.
What are some of your thoughtson that?
Yeah, so I always bring up highpower, low power distance and
says, okay, well, maybe we needto rethink this.
What are some of your thoughtson that?
Sanjyot Dunung (16:28):
Yeah.
So I always bring up high power, low power, because it often
happens with organizations thathave offices around the world,
headquarters is always at thetop of the food chain, if you
will right.
So they see themselves as beingthe place where the power
emanates from, if you will.
But they always want localcountry offices and different
(16:49):
functional offices to starttaking on more ownership and
really sort of drive their data,their results, their ownership
of their ROI, and one of thechallenges is it depends on
where that office is.
So, for example, if we'relooking from the vantage point
of the US, we might takea lookat some northern European
(17:12):
countries, like Sweden, forexample, where people do expect
to skip right.
They don't think there'sanything wrong with going
straight to the person with whomyou have a question.
It doesn't matter if thatperson is two levels above your
manager.
It's about the efficiency ofthe interaction.
So, from a Swede's point ofview, for example, they don't
understand why we're so worriedabout that hierarchy.
(17:35):
In contrast, you might go toJapan and your Japanese office
and people will never feelcomfortable skipping, because
there is a process, it is deeplyingrained in the society and it
will take time.
Culture does not changeovernight.
It's not revolutionary.
You don't wake up tomorrowmorning and it's a different
(17:56):
culture.
It's evolutionary.
It takes time.
It can take decades, as you'vesaid.
So.
Oftentimes where companies havethat friction is if they've had
employees or offices around theworld that have experienced
multiple CEOs through multiplemanagement, right.
So there's sort of trust factor.
How do we know that this newcultural habit that you're
(18:18):
asking us to embrace will bethere when the next person comes
, and will we have risked ourjobs?
That's what people really worryabout, right?
So it's infusing trustalongside cultural change.
What we often say is the bestway to do it is to tie it to a
business objective.
Are you trying to createefficiencies?
(18:40):
Are you trying to reduce thenumber of errors or having to
redo things or miscommunications?
Some companies actually havesurveys in-country of employee
satisfaction.
If you're in the EU, that'soften a part of your HR
requirements.
So that's a way to see are youable to actually make some of
(19:00):
these changes in a way thatpeople are embracing them and
finding that they connect totheir jobs?
There's another characteristicthat I also think is super
important and happy to talkabout that too.
Jay Johnson (19:14):
Go ahead.
Yeah, let's hear it.
Sanjyot Dunung (19:16):
Yeah, so it's called high-context, low-context
communications.
I'm cherry-picking a little bitfor those who are listening
with us, who know the HofstedeHall models and some of the
other world value surveys andthings like that.
But these cherry picking arewith reason.
It's because we have identifiedover years and years of working
with corporations as the bigissues Eye context.
(19:39):
Low context simply meanscommunications.
How do people frame theircommunications?
So often at the US we're we're alow-context communicator.
We use our words to say exactlywhat we mean.
Think about the things that weuse.
Right, don't beat around thebush.
Say what you mean.
We use our phrases.
Our whole cultural referencepoint is about clear and direct.
(20:01):
We value that.
That's a positive for us.
Another culture may be more highcontext and the most extreme
high context, for example, youmight see in Japan and Korea,
where the message is embedded inthe body language, in the
context of the situation, notnecessarily the words.
So anybody who's ever donebusiness with those cultures
(20:25):
might know that, for example,you'll see a little tilt of the
head, a little guttural moment,a little bit of I don't know.
That's code for no.
So what happens is that, as anAmerican, you're expecting
clarity of communication.
You ask a team member will thisproject be done by a certain
date?
(20:45):
Will we meet our timeframes?
And you may miss thecommunications that are subtle,
that are embedded in bodylanguage, which you might not
see in an email, for example onno, we're not really comfortable
with the deadline, but I don'tknow how to tell you that's
really what's happening right,versus some cultures which will
say yes all the time, when yessimply means I heard your
(21:08):
question, it doesn't mean yes asin the affirmative.
So how people communicate isalso very different.
And making sure you look atmore than the words, making sure
you look at the context and themeaning and, as you're training
for those who are trainers,making sure you're looking at
(21:29):
the attendees in your group tomake sure you're not missing
something, because thoseattendees may come with their
own cultural reference point.
So not assuming the person whoraises their hand or the person
who says yes is completely inagreement, or with clarity.
Jay Johnson (21:47):
Yeah, and I remember reading a case study
about a group of Americans who,essentially, were negotiating
with a group, a business out ofJapan, and there was head nods
and things like that, and theAmericans had walked away
celebrating, thinking that theywere getting everything that
they wanted, when all of asudden, the next day there was a
rejection letter for what theywere looking to do and they were
(22:09):
like, well, we thought we wereon the same page and they were
like, no, we understood what youwere saying, we just didn't
agree with any of it, and it was, you know, it was just like
kind of hard linemiscommunication aspect.
So I love that you bring thatup Now, one of the things that
you had said earlier, and I wantto lean back into it just a
moment.
You had talked aboutstereotypes and I think that
(22:31):
whenever you get into differentaspects of culture, there is a
number of stereotypes out there,and the difficulty with
stereotypes is they have a rangeof being 0% true to nearly 100%
true.
And the reality is, what isthis stereotype?
It's essentially I have noticeda pattern of behavior.
(22:51):
Now that pattern could reallyrepresent 2% of the behavior.
It could represent 100% of thebehavior.
It's always going to shift,it's always going to reflect,
it's always going to be changing.
Some of it's contextual, someof it's environmental.
It's always going to bechanging.
Some of it's contextual, someof it's environmental, some of
it's situational.
(23:12):
So, you know, in my space ofbehavioral intelligence, what I
look at is okay, how can werecognize the patterns of
behavior without crossing thatline to say, okay, just because
we saw it six times doesn't meanthat we're going to see it the
seventh Doesn't mean that it's?
You know, we have to be able toanalyze in context.
How do you navigate that?
Because there are so manydifferent.
There's positive stereotypes,there's negative stereotypes,
there's stereotypes that peopleare like I really don't know
(23:33):
where this one came from.
There's others that people goyep, that's exactly how we do
things.
So, in the world of stereotypes, how do we navigate such a
complicated challenge?
Sanjyot Dunung (23:45):
Well, what we typically do is we recognize
that they exist in people'sminds right, we've all grown up
with them, we feel them allaround us in the workplace, in
our normal lives, but what wetry to do is put them into a
separate box and then work withthe methodology, because I think
people find the methodology alittle bit more comfortable.
Just as you said, there can bedata points.
(24:07):
Somebody may do something fivetimes.
Will they definitively do it?
The sixth Unclear, right?
So if you start to use amethodology, you can then start
to separate between individualpersonality, for example, and
what might be culturallyinfluenced, whether it's an
organizational culture orwhether it's a national culture,
(24:27):
and, again, because we oftentie it into analytics and data.
So let me give you an example.
We do a lot of work withcustomer service and customer
experience.
One of the things that a lot ofour companies find is that
their global customers will rankthem differently on their
(24:48):
customer satisfaction scoresversus US customers.
So they try to understand why.
Because obviously you want toincrease your customer support,
customer satisfaction One of thekey scores that most people use
and a lot of people who arewith large companies are
familiar with that NPS, which isthe net promoter score and
(25:09):
basically, nps is simply acustomer who's happy with you is
more likely to be loyal andwill stay with you even if you
increase your price.
So think, for example,starbucks.
Starbucks has a very high NPS.
Doesn't matter where you go inthe world, you are familiar with
the Starbucks surroundings.
You're going to get the sameproduct, the same service within
(25:37):
reason, and so there's a highbrand value.
So a lot of companies want highNPSs with their customers
because that allows them tocharge more.
Where's the gap?
The gap is in customer-facingteam members, who may not
necessarily understand how tomeet the customer.
So if you are, we do a lot inthe travel space.
So if you are a gate agent or aflight attendant or any of
those other customer-facingroles, you may not be
(26:01):
experienced and understand howthe culture may impact your
interaction.
You might rely, for example, ona stereotype or what somebody
else has told you.
What we do is we kind of clearaway that.
We talk about what the actualrole of a person is, what their
interaction is, and then we tiethe cultural habits to that.
(26:22):
So there's a real framework andwhat that enables them to do is
improve their service.
So it might be how people askfor help.
It might be how people expectservice, whether you're in a
hotel, for example, or in anairline, but these are ways that
attendees learners can actuallystart to operationalize the
(26:43):
learning.
So it makes it more relevantand they're more likely to put
these stereotypes to the sidebecause now they have a new
framework right.
What we try to do is use thecultural methodology that we
have to replace any of themisconceptions that they may
already have.
Jay Johnson (27:00):
I love that.
So let's play with this conceptjust a little bit, because I
think this is important, becausehere's where I can see this
really impacting.
We've said there's cultureeverywhere, and I would be
willing to bet that if I askedthe audience hey, give me some
stereotypes that would come from, say, a sales culture, the
(27:21):
sales team.
Right, they're going to think anumber of different things.
They're going to think direct,maybe aggressive, pushy, all of
those stereotypes.
And I've known salespeople thatfit the stereotypes and I've
known salespeople that couldsell you something and you
didn't even know.
You just got sold just on theway they do it.
So we recognize that, yeah,they can be true, but they can
(27:42):
also be not very true.
I'm walking in as a trainerinto this sales training and
I've got all this group ofsalespeople, I've got these
stereotypes in my head.
What's a better way for me tooperate?
For?
How would I navigate thatsituation?
As a trainer, as a coach oreven as an HR person meeting
with a group of sales?
How do I do that?
Sanjyot Dunung (28:05):
So the way we do it and I can sort of speak from
our methodology and I think itcan be applied by everybody
who's listening is we firstfocus on who are you selling to
and what are you selling,because that defines what the
sales process would be.
Right that's where we were justtalking a little bit about the
CX experience is first identifywho your customer is.
(28:25):
What are their expectations?
Oftentimes, again, we're soattached to our product or our
methodology that we're sellingfrom our end versus thinking
about what the person wishes toreceive.
And the more you can thinkabout who you're selling to,
what you're selling and what'sthe right sales strategy or I
(28:46):
wouldn't say right, let's sayoptimal sales strategy you start
with backwards, then how do youwork into that, and so each
salesperson can then start tounderstand okay, this is how
people in this market, forexample, they're more indirect,
right Low context, and they I'msorry high context.
They want to sort of be moresubtle about the sale.
(29:08):
They don't want to have a hardsale.
How do I craft my sales andmarketing message?
How do I reach them in a waythat meets what their
expectations are, so that I cangive them the information that
they need to be able to evaluatethe opportunity and then close
the sale.
That's what you're reallytrying to do.
So, in a way, a lot of timessalespeople already go through
(29:31):
this right, they're alreadythinking about who's my customer
, what do I need to do to sellthem, what are their interests,
their habits?
They go through all of thisanalysis, layer into that now
another cultural reference point, one thing that people don't
always realize.
Let's say you're in NorthAmerica.
People will make assumptionsbased on where they think
(29:53):
somebody's ethnicity is or wheretheir country of origin is.
The second, you start to liveoutside of your home country,
you start to have more culturalinfluences.
Think about it right, even asan American.
If, even as an American, if yougo as an American and you live
in France, you're going to be alittle bit American and a little
bit French, right, you're goingto start to weave in those
(30:14):
attitudes and values, nodifferent if people are coming.
So if you're selling tosomebody who may have recently
come from a different country orwho has origins from you, want
to make sure that you've gotthat subtlety of using that
cultural framework.
But I think for trainers ofsalespeople, help them
understand how to be moreeffective in their job, not
(30:35):
necessarily making assumptionsabout what the sales folks
should be doing.
Jay Johnson (30:41):
Oh, I love that and it's, and all the Baltics too.
And I will say that when I cameback from sort of if I were to
(31:09):
just kind of group that year,that had a huge impact on how I
saw the world, my behaviors,everything from recycling to how
often I'm using my car to howoften I'm thinking about sort of
this like larger levelcommunity You're right, it does
and knowing your audience andyou know what is their, I guess
(31:30):
global exposure is probably areally powerful marker for them
to be able to think about.
But I want to kind of underlinesomething, what I'm hearing and
help me if I've got this, whereI'm seeing this.
And when we're thinking aboutculture, we really need to stop
thinking about per se our lens.
And it sounds to me as thoughyour methodology, your framework
(31:53):
, your approach is to getwhoever the audience is whether
that's customer, client,salespeople, trainers, whomever
customer service people to stopand actually consider the power
distance as well as the contextyou know high context, low
context and probably, I'm sure,a number of other markers but
(32:14):
really you're getting them toessentially deep dive into an
audience focused approach whichis, I think, very consistent
with training, as you said.
Am I accurate on that?
Is that the mindset shift thatwe need to go through?
Sanjyot Dunung (32:29):
It is.
It's a 360 mindset, right.
Oftentimes we want to make surethat, as trainers, we don't get
up and start telling people howto act.
We want to encourage them tothink about how to take a
methodology and integrate itinto what they're doing from the
work world so that they're moreeffective.
The more they canoperationalize it, the more that
(32:50):
it's relevant to them that, thebetter they're going to be able
to use it.
So it's really a 360 approach.
And one other thing that Iwould say is a visual, because
sometimes it helps.
People always still sort ofstick in there.
They're not quite sure theyunderstand the concept of
culture.
We liken it when you're talkingto people in different
environments around the world,national cultures.
(33:13):
Think of culture as sort of aniceberg, right?
10% of the iceberg is above thewater.
You can see it.
So we tend to focus on those10%.
It might be visible behaviors,it might be visible differences
in how people look.
Jay Johnson (33:27):
Yeah, like that right.
Yeah, okay, physical yeah.
Sanjyot Dunung (33:30):
But 90% is below the surface.
It's how people think and whythey think.
And you talked a little bitabout spending time in
Scandinavia and you saw there'sa whole different wiring of how
people think about theirenvironment and the climate.
Personal responsibility One ofmy favorite concepts in Sweden,
(33:50):
I have to say, because I have asweet tooth is the concept of
candy Saturdays, right, the ideathat you have so much
discipline that you only eatsomething, and as children.
But that kind of disciplinepermeates their whole life,
right, and they don't think ofit.
It's just second nature forthem.
But to those who are not usedto that kind of discipline it
(34:12):
may seem very different.
So that's where you really needto understand that below the
surface mindset, how it impactscommunications, attitudes in the
workplace, processes,efficiencies, you know deadlines
, customer experience,everything.
It's just about every part ofthe company.
Jay Johnson (34:30):
Yeah, well, and Sanjot, it's so interesting you
said that because there wasthings like okay, so one of the
things I did when I was inScandinavia was went winter
swimming.
Now I've lived in Michigan fullof lakes.
Yeah, and this is 2019.
So this is I'm not saying prethe neuroscience and all of the
you know biological science thatsays, hey, this has some health
(34:51):
benefits.
This is like I'm not even awareof that at this point in time.
I just thought it was asadistic thing that they like to
do and I was like, wow, theseare tough people.
But I immediately it was one ofthose things where I did it the
first time.
I really enjoyed it.
I felt great, my body feltgreat, and immediately I came
back and I'm like I want to dothis the rest of my friends and
(35:13):
colleagues I mean, it was a very, very few and far between that
I could convince to do an iceplunge with me or to jump into a
lake with me or anything else.
And now I'm starting to seeeverywhere, everywhere there's
ice plunges, nordic spas andsaunas and things like that.
So I want to parlay this into aquestion At what point in time
(35:43):
do we start seeing the influenceof whether it's us as the
trainer influencing our audienceor the audience's cultural
aspects influencing us?
Where does that sort of pushpull?
How does that occur?
And, realistically, like whattimeframe do we start to see
these cultures sort of mergingtogether or really kind of
getting a better understandingof each other.
Sanjyot Dunung (36:04):
Well, I mean, if you think just holistically, I
think we're morphing moreintegrated every single day,
right?
Media helps that.
People can travel easily, likeyou did, and experience
different cultures.
So whenever that starts tohappen, we start to understand
different points of view,different attitudes, different
(36:24):
behaviors and we internalizethem.
Once upon a time we thoughtabout food, but now food is
ubiquitous too.
Right, we have fusion andeverything.
So that's at the macro level.
I think that when you start tobring it down to the personal
level, when it's in theclassroom, for example, or when
it's within a team, I think thatthat's the give and take, right
(36:44):
.
Or when it's within a team, Ithink that that's the give and
take right.
I think good instructors, goodeducators or trainers and we go
by different names in theclassroom, which is why I always
flip back and forth but youreally want to make sure that
your training and your learningcontent meets the needs of those
who are attending.
So you will often find yourself.
Educators will do that right.
(37:05):
They will shapeshift theircontent, make sure that they
package it in a way that can beunderstood and absorbed and
celebrated by those who aretrying to learn this material,
to be able to operationalize itand, to an extent, as you start
doing that as an educator or asa trainer, you're also learning
(37:27):
a little bit about your audience, right?
You're learning a little bitabout what their needs are.
In an essence, you're meetingthem halfway, if you will, but I
always call it a bridge, right?
I think, as trainers, ascultural you know those of us
who are on the cultural sidewe're just building bridges.
We're building bridges betweenknowledge and action, and it
(37:47):
doesn't matter what the subjectis.
In our case, we like to saywe're building bridges between
countries and groups of people,different cultures, but any
subject matter.
You're really just building abridge of knowledge, and how you
build that bridge and how yousustain it is really dependent
on both the learner and thetrainer in that setting.
Jay Johnson (38:09):
That really lands for me, and I really like the
idea of the bridge betweenknowledge and action, because
there are points in times thatthat bridge can be non-existent
or very, very, very, very long,where we know what we need to do
, or we know and understand whatwe should do, but whether or
not we actually choose to behaveor do something with it, that's
(38:29):
a completely different story.
So this has been an absolutelyfascinating conversation.
I know that there's a lot moreto go into If you were to say
okay, you know, take one thingand say trainers say okay, you
know, take one thing and saytrainers, coaches, hr people, if
(38:49):
you do one thing, that's goingto improve your talent
development, your talent force,your learning development,
whatever that might be.
What is the number one thingthat you think somebody could
get started on today taking alittle bit of knowledge and
moving it into action.
What is that one thing, sanjo?
Sanjyot Dunung (39:04):
So I think the most important thing for any
trainer is to actuallyunderstand how the learners are
going to operationalize it andbuild the training towards that.
So we build that towards theKPIs key performance indicators.
How will you measure thatyou've learned this information?
Not just a multiple choice quizat the end of an e-learning,
(39:25):
for example, but really at theend of six months, at the end of
12 months.
What do you hope to do?
So oftentimes and many trainersdo this right you do a needs
assessment.
That needs assessment shouldn'tbe just what do the learners
think they want to learn.
It should really be focused onwhat's your pain point in your
(39:45):
job or in your team or in yourorganization, and how will you
measure that it's been fixed.
That's what you're training toright.
That's what you need to weavethe training to, and then you
can structure the entiretraining in ways that actually
say this will help us improvehow we're going to communicate
(40:05):
more effectively.
In our case, the learninglesson might be about how do
people miscommunicate highcontext, low context
communications, understandingthat methodology but the
tangible action is it will helpyou improve communications so
that there's efficiency, there'sless emails, there's less back
and forth between a team orthere's less frustration.
(40:26):
Those are all measurable.
So my advice to trainers isalways focus on the business
practices that you wish to helpa team change and then measure
towards that.
Jay Johnson (40:39):
Powerful, and you've heard that here before
team and you've heard it in acompletely different context.
Heard that here before team andyou've heard it in a completely
different context.
But yes, that measurement,because otherwise your training
is a luxury, it's a hobby, it'sa pastime, it's not a business
objective and your funding willget cut.
I'm watching it happenliterally all over to trainers,
(41:02):
to coaches, to individualinternal learning development
departments.
They're not understanding why60 people just got let go.
It's because they're notdemonstrating.
Hey, the things that we've donefor the last three years have
had these KPIs, these businessobjectives, and this is the
return on investment.
So, Sanjyot, thank you so muchfor bringing that up.
(41:22):
I do agree with you.
That is 100%.
The most important thing thatwe can do as an individual or
even a learning development teamis to show how did this
actually yield results?
Sanjyot Dunung (41:36):
So I love that.
Jay Johnson (41:38):
I love that.
Sanjyot, if our audience wantedto get in touch with you, if
they wanted to learn more aboutAPMA Global, how would they do
so?
Sanjyot Dunung (41:46):
Just come to our website, apmaglobalcom.
You can contact us.
There's a contact us form andit'll get to me or get to one of
our team members and we'd loveto hear from you.
You know, whether you have aquestion or whether you want to
talk about some trainings ormethodologies or things like
that, feel free to please reachout.
Jay Johnson (42:09):
Amazing.
This has been a wonderfulconversation.
I knew it would be, and I justwant to say thank you for
bringing all of your experienceand insight into this world of
culture, into this space.
So, as I mentioned, it wassomething that kind of got me
into, you know, got me intotraining.
It's something that I'm verypassionate about with travel and
learning about these differentthings, and I have definitely
learned a lot from you today.
So I want to say thank you,Sanjyot.
Sanjyot Dunung (42:29):
Well, thank you, and thank you for having me,
and I look forward to hearingabout your adventures and where
you're going to be headed tonext and your next group of
countries, and I don't know ifI'll do the polar crunch, but
I'm pretty ambitious to do anumber of other things, so I
look forward to that.
Jay Johnson (42:44):
Very nice, give it a try.
Let me know how it goes.
I will do so, all right.
Well, you take care, and thankyou again for being here and
thank you, audience, for tuninginto this episode of the Talent
Forge, where we are shaping thefuture of training and
development.
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