Speaking and Communicating Podcast

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how different cultures interact. Really that mindset allows us to be tolerant to a lot of different cultures is that ability to understand and be curious as to how different cultural norms come about and how can you potentially adapt your style, especially if you're a leader in that country or have teams where you may have a diverse set of people on it. You want to know and understand that culture because that will help you motivate and lead.

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those people. Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast. I'm your host, Roberta Ndlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating.

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Now let's get communicating with our guest today joining us from Toronto. Eva Amable-Kolosko is a global leader, author, transformation strategist who specializes in global cultural intelligence. She has a very powerful childhood story on why it was the influence behind her doing this kind of work today.

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And before I go any further, please welcome her to the show. Hi, Eva. Hi, everybody. Thank you for having me here, Porto. I appreciate it. I'm so glad that you have a welcome to the show. So you grew up and lived in eight countries. What was that like? Well, when I was growing up, it was challenging for sure. You're young, you're impressionable, you want stability. However, my dad had a job that

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Really, he had to keep moving for him to grow his career. So we moved to so many different places. And even if we would stay in the place, we'd move to multiple places. So I'd have to keep changing schools. So I've been to probably like 10 schools in my career when I was growing up. And it was just because he had to keep growing his career. I get it, right? Like he had to keep moving and you have to go where the opportunities are. So he's a family man. He brought us along.

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Whenever you move to a new school, is it hard to make friends or are kids in that school or in that community taught that, hey, whenever there's a new kid in town, you reach out and you befriend them. Cause that's what our mothers used to teach us. Wow. Well, your mother sounds amazing. And I would say that some places were welcoming, some were not. And it always depended on the school I went to.

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I found it easier to integrate into some schools and harder to integrate into others. I'm an introvert by nature, right? A lot of people think I'm an extrovert, but I'm actually an introvert. And I found it really hard to break in, especially since I didn't know the culture. They had already formed their pods of people. It was hard to make friends with the popular kids or it was hard to make friends with anyone. You had to essentially just learn how to adapt.

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And yes, I made some lifelong friends from it, but really it was tough growing up because you're young, right? You're still figuring out how the world works, how life is about. And it was tough. That was definitely tough. But I would say that it taught me something significant that I take forward into my global career and allowed me to adapt into new cultures when I continue to move myself and grow my career globally. And it taught me how to adapt in any situation.

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So you can put me in any country, any company, anywhere. And I learned how to adapt. I learned how to make new friends. I learned how to figure out a new way of life, understand the customs, stay curious about the people and how they work and how they interact with each other and find a way to make it home. I've learned that and that was a definite upside to moving and growing up in different countries. But when you're still in it as a child, you obviously don't see it that way.

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So one question is, because I asked you if those kids reach out to you, did you reach out to them? Were you the one to take the initiative and those some of the skills you have carried through into your career? I would say there are some kids that took the initiative, but mostly it would be me that would have to put myself out there and be fearful, but do it anyway. I do that in my career too. Like I have

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fear every day of something not working or fear of not doing something correctly. However, I've learned to move past that fear, appreciate that fear, thank that fear for protecting me and then move forward. So that's definitely what I learned from that. Please say that again, the process of dealing with the fear and doing it anyway. This is such a significant thing. I love you for double clicking on that because really

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That fear is what protects us, right? It's probably kept us in certain situations where we were safe. So that fear is saying, hey, this is a not safe environment, protect yourself, shrink into yourself and do exactly what you can do not to stand out. You have to learn how to listen to that fear. You have to recognize that fear, pushing it down only works for so long.

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You have to learn how to recognize it. You have to say thank you, be grateful for that fear because it has helped you in certain instances. It has helped you stay out of situations that were probably not the most optimal for you. However, you have to say thank you to that fear. You have to be grateful for that fear and you have to say, I'm going to do this anyway. And you have to learn to push past it. You have to say thank you and I'm going to do this anyway.

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So courage is not the absence of fear or not feeling it. Courage is facing the fear, thanking the fear and doing it anyway. I love that definition. Now let's talk about how did you get started in your career? I am from a tiny little Caribbean country of 160,000 people. So I started my career in travel and tourism because of course it as a Caribbean country, that's the main industry. So a lot of people

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fall into travel and tourism or something like it or something close to it. I started my career in research and statistics. I'm economist by training. So I love numbers. I love researching. I'm curious as to why things are happening. So research was always a natural calling for me. I started off my career there and then I started moving. I started essentially what my dad started in when I was growing up. I continued and

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When I had to do my masters, I moved away to Spain because I wanted, number one, I wanted to immerse myself in a completely different culture from what I was used to being in Europe. And I wanted to understand Spanish. I wanted to learn Spanish and what better way to do it than to put yourself in the middle of a Spanish country. So I did that. And then from there, I actually applied for an internship at a global organization called the World Travel and Tourism Organization.

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This organization represents the top travel and tourism companies worldwide. is probably one of the top two travel and tourism associations in the world behind the UNWTO, which is the World Tourism Organization. And I applied to it, again, feeling that fear and doing it anyway. A lot of people would have been intimidated because they would have thought it be unattainable. I mean, from a tiny little Caribbean country working.

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with the top CEOs globally, who could ever think of that being on a vision path for them, right? But I applied and I'm thankful to somebody there who said, hey, she has something, right? Let's give her a chance. From there, I was able to make some really good connections, get experiences that I could only dream of. I've launched initiatives headed by, well, at the time he was the prince, but.

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Now he's a king. And so I've done a lot of really big initiatives in my lifetime. I've gone to many, many different places and I had expanded my global knowledge just from working in the travel industry. Right. Which means again, those adaptation, understanding different cultures skills also came in handy. Yes, absolutely. And then also staying curious. I think that helps.

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throughout it all, you have to understand why certain things are happening. To this day, I keep thinking when people do something or when people say something, I'm like, why? Why are they doing it? Like, what's the why behind it? Because often if you understand the why, then you can understand how you can adapt to help communicate and relate with them because at the end of the day, that's what it's about. It's the second time you mentioned curiosity. Why is it so important? It is important because I believe it's part of

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having a global mindset. So you can be local, but you can have a global mindset. By that I mean, want to know how different cultures interact. I mean, in the world that we live in, we can go on YouTube, we can listen to podcasts, we can read books, we can watch TV shows and never leave your couch if you didn't want to, but have such a global understanding. And really that mindset

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And what expands that mindset and allow us to be tolerant to a lot of different cultures is that curiosity, is that ability to understand and be curious as to why certain things are happening, how different cultural norms come about, and how can you potentially adapt your style, especially if you're a leader in that country or have teams where you may have a diverse set of people on it. You want to know and understand that culture because that will help you motivate and lead those people.

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Would you say that also being curious sort of changes the dynamic of your communication style and how you interact with others? If you curious versus just coming with this idea that, I know what I'm doing, or I know what's going on. At the end of the day, people want to know that you're interested in them. So I ask questions and I participate in active listening. That's important.

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I listen to people and then I find the one thing that connects us. So when you and I were talking, we talked about me going to South Africa and I asked you, where were you from? So it's about understanding a little bit of, because there's always something that connects us to another human being. We're all humans at the end of the day. It's either you've been to certain places, you might have kids, you might have a husband. You know, there's so many things that can connect us. For me, I talk with my teams about how I love.

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Trashy Reality TV, and that's okay. Yes, I know my husband's always like, what is this about? You wouldn't understand. But it's the way that I decompress, right? So we all have ways of connecting. We just have to find that one thing. And that starts with being curious, asking questions, and finding how you can relate to people.

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No, I decompress with Wendy Williams. Oh, do you really? Oh, yeah. And I used to watch a lot. I know now it's all in YouTube, but I just love how his style, he goes celebrity style. I thought that was hilarious. I used to just enjoy. That was my guilty pleasure. way. We all do. We all have one, whether we want to admit it or not, we do. Right. First of all, let's

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discuss what is global cultural intelligence. You know, I've been talking to so many people and they asked me what is cultural intelligence. And simply put, it is understanding your culture. It's understanding the culture that you're operating within or you might be living in, and then being aware of the difference. Right. So me being from St. Lucia, and even though I'm Canadian, I have a Canadian passport, I've been in Canada for

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13 years, I still consider myself to be St. Lucian, right? I might say I'm St. Lucian Canadian, but I understand, and what's different is I understand that the differences of being from St. Lucian, being from the Caribbean, I understand what that upbringing gave me and those differences in the way that we think, the way that we communicate and how it is different from people that have grown up here, people that...

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have lived here for a long time, there's always a difference. I'll give you an example. So in St. Lucia, a hallmark of intelligence is using 100 words to say something you could have said in 10 words, right? And the more complicated the word, the better. In North America, you will lose people, right, within 15 seconds. So understanding how to change my communications now,

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to use really simple words, especially when you're communicating on a global level where people, English may not be their first language. And also you could be leading locally and have a diverse team where English is not their first language either. So understanding how to use simple, relatable terms, that's super important. And that's what North America taught me. When you talk about big words, you remind me of my history teacher from high school. And that's why I'll hit it history.

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He used to just love these bombastic words. Okay. And he used to brag about it. I don't know if he was trying to showcase how well educated he is, but the more bombastic for him, the better. And I used to just sit and think, what's this got to do with Mary Antoinette and the fact that she had a thousand pairs of shoes? So here's the thing. When it comes to trying to showcase how much you know or how well educated you are,

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If your audience is not receptive to that, what is the point? Exactly. What is the point? If you can't communicate and get your idea across, then really how effective are you being? Right? And again, understanding the difference between the cultures in St. Lucia, your history professor would have been, everybody would have been like, wow, right? Like that person has something to say. Yes, that person has something to say. I got to listen to them. I got to try as much as I can.

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to understand their message. Here in North America and in many other cultures, and again, it's different where you are in the world, people would be scratching their heads saying, what exactly is he trying to say? Why can't he just say it plainly? And I was listening to Erin Meyer, she has this amazing book which I've just started listening to called The Culture Map. And she was saying, really, it has to do with how many cultures

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came together to form that society. So for example, I know with America, it's made up of an immigrant society where there are so many different languages, so many different cultures. A lot of people are blending in. So simple and direct worked better for them. I was like, oh, so she was giving me a lot of research knowledge, the things that I knew through my lived experience, I'm understanding her backed knowledge that she's done a lot of research to write that book. So that was very, very interesting understanding nuances of

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Why do we communicate the way that we do and why we have to adapt when we go from country to country if you are career globally? That's true. The one thing also, when I lived in Chicago about North America is, and they even use this phrase, they were like, the point, puppy, the point, please. If you just keep dealing and not getting to the point, they lose patience. You've lost them. They're barely listening by the time you get to the point.

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And in South Africa, for instance, here's what happens. If you go to the head of the department or whatever, South Africa is also very multicultural. If the head of the department is a black guy, so here's the thing about us black people, you're going to need about a 15 to 20 minute pleasantries, get to know each other and build rapport type of conversation before you get to the point. If

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you're dealing with a white head of department in South Africa. You get to the point after you exchange names and where you come from. Meaning which organization. Very different. So you can't think, oh, I'm in South Africa. We're going to take 20 minutes to get to each other. That's not going to work with the white head of department. But with a black guy, if you do the white, let's get to the point within two minutes, they're going to think you're angry or.

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something is wrong. This is the same country with so many different cultures. you know what's going on with your audience. absolutely. And I think what's important about what you just said, there's so many that was really interesting. Thank you for that example, because what's important is even though we have cultural expectations and we may paint a lot of cultures with a broad brush, it doesn't mean that we don't take away the individual.

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ways that we have to change, right? So for example, we can be in North America and the way that I would engage one person versus another person, same background would be different because they're individual people, they're different in the way that they communicate, their upbringing, where their parents came from. There's so many different things. And so it doesn't negate that fact at all, but I think being aware of the culture helps you get further faster because you're not trying to

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get over the big cultural nuances that come with that culture, but you're also understanding it at base level and now adding in the individual pieces on top of it. Right. When you are coaching your leadership clients, have you found that even them learning to adapt to whoever is in front of them, does it affect the bottom line? Does it affect whether they sign the contract or not?

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Yeah, it absolutely does because that's why a lot of salespeople, effective ones have a gift and they are essentially dominions because they can actually go into one situation versus another and be completely different people. Right? So understanding how, for example, the way I'm talking to you, I wouldn't necessarily go talk to the CEO of Apple that way. You know, there are differences based on how well you know the person.

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that's important. If you're working in organization, it could be that person's title. It could be, you know, very much around that person themselves and what you've heard about this person and the way that they communicate. really, there are so many nuances that you have to take into account. Communication is probably the hardest soft skill to master, but it is the most effective, right? In helping you

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move your career forward because if you look at all of the great CEOs across the world, they're brilliant communicators, right? And that's the one trait you will find as you look at all the most effective entrepreneurs or the most brilliant CEOs. The common thread is they're good communicators. To the point where one of the things we emphasize on the show is

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that it's not always the smartest person who gets to the CEO in the organization. It's the one that communicates well. It doesn't mean the CEO knows everything or if it's an IT company, he's the best programmer that they have. In fact, Google did a study, they called it the oxygen study where they found that a lot of the executive leaders went necessarily

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Software engineers. I believe that. It turns out that a lot of the common skills that they shared were some of the soft skills that we talk about. So it doesn't necessarily mean that technically what the company specializes in, they were the best at it. And that's why they get to be in those top leadership positions. Absolutely. I went from travel and tourism to payroll to working in Expedia.

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Like I have done multiple things in my career that I'm not saying I'm the most brilliant communicator for sure, but what I can do is I can adapt, right? And I think that adaptation, one of the soft skills that you need is to be able to adapt, not only understand and leverage people, that's super important. You need to be able to communicate and you need to be able to adapt. And speaking of your experience in that, so that means

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When we say soft skills are transferable skills, is that what we refer to? That's what I built my career on. Honestly, I've built my career. started in travel and tourism. By any rights, I should not have had the career that I had. But I really understood that the transferable skills can be applied to any industry. And again, feeling that fear.

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and understanding how you need to push past it, that's important because if you're saying, oh, I don't have that experience, I don't know how to program, guess what? At leadership level, a lot of those people don't know how to program to your point, right? I didn't know how to run payroll. I worked in ADP, one of the top payroll organizations in the world. I didn't know anything about payroll, but I learned, right? I learned what I needed to learn to help me engage people. I couldn't run a payroll to this day, by the way.

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But I learned what I need to learn to engage people, to lead the team. And at a certain level, it's less about how well you run the payroll. It's more about, can you lead your teams? Can you motivate them? Can you be productive and help drive them forward? Can you communicate effectively? And can you adapt yourself and show people that you are part of that organization and part of that team? And would you say that

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honing in on those transferable skills also helps you with global cultural intelligence? Absolutely. Because again, at the core of all of this is being able to be adopted and being curious. I think the two go hand in hand because if you're curious, you will then understand and ask those questions of why, why, why, why, why certain things happen the way they happen and

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When I moved to the Philippines, for example, I had already managed Filipino teams from North America. So I thought I understood and knew what it would be like. When I went over there, I saw a whole different side of it. And that's what happens really. You think you're prepared, but you're never really ever prepared. And it gives you a better understanding for sure, a leg up, but it doesn't really prepare you because now you start to see firsthand

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What is that culture truly about? And so when you go in there, you're curious as to why certain things are happening. And you understand, for example, give you a real example, Filipinos, they love to have fun at work, right? Which is a very different thing from North America. We do not have fun at work, typically. So when you're launching a big campaign or you're communicating something major,

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you need to have somewhat of a party afterwards. So that's really different because here you can have town halls and everybody can go home and not even a beverage is served. But over in the Philippines, you need to have a beverage. You need to have sometimes games. You need to have giveaways. You need to have a lot of the different things that we'd never think of. And so that is a real example of number one, understanding the culture, understanding what works in that culture.

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and adapting to that whole different way of doing things, a whole different way of working. And then that's how you can communicate between the different cultures, because once you understand what works, then you can take the message, be curious as to what it means and how it will apply to those people, and then adapt the message so that it can be effective and impactful.

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Adapt the message. That's where the communication is now tailored to your audience rather than you thinking, oh, I think I communicated well. know, sometimes we fall into that trap of, but I said it very clearly. Yeah. And often when you're doing a major program, a major transformation, a project, even just communicating a strategy, you have to say it 10 different ways, 10 different types.

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And you also need to realize what your audience, the lens the audience is thinking about it from and receiving that message from. So for example, there was maybe thinking, what's in it for me, right? I've seen a lot of companies do this right now with AI transformations, for example, there's a lot of fear behind any time you start talking about technology and you're talking to people seeing a number of layoffs that are out there.

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a lot of people are listening to the message with fear. So when you understand that, your primary job as any communicator is to take that fear away. So you have to start thinking about how are you going to make their life easier? What exactly does it mean for them? And what changes will they have to do in the way that they figured out how to work that will now change their whole way of working? So

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Once you understand those things and understand people are looking at it from a, is this going to impact me? Am I going to lose my job? Am I going to have to change the way that I figured out how to work? Your primary message and your primary communication tools, methods, language has to be addressing that fear. Now, is there something that I haven't asked you yet you were hoping to share today during this conversation?

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You've asked me so many great things. is great conversation. Thank you. I would love to talk a little bit about how people can grow their career. And cultural intelligence is just one part of it. However, what I have seen and what I've learned having moved from into North America, being a manager and working my way up to executive in less than 10 years.

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I've learned that it's a four part formula. It's about cultural intelligence, absolutely. Understanding that my culture is different from the North American culture and understanding how to close that gap. That's one. You have to build credibility. So you have to go and understand. And sometimes in some organizations and in some cultures, credibility comes with your title. However, it will only last from so long. So you have to understand how to, even though you don't understand payroll or you don't,

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understand how to do programming, you have to learn how to build credibility and you have to learn how to do it fast. So that's really important. The other thing is influence. And this is really important because if you want to your career, you have to be visible. It doesn't mean that you have to be out there saying, look at me, look at me, but you have to learn how to communicate your impact. And a lot of people

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don't necessarily understand that or may shy away from doing that because of the fact that they believe it's bragging. It's not. It's about actually saying, hey, this is the value that I brought to the organization. This is the value that I brought to the project. And this is what more I could do for you. And that's really important. And then also finding out how to leverage the key stakeholders in the organization is critical.

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So that means finding a sponsor, right? A mentor is not a sponsor. There is a key difference. And I have to always explain this to people. A mentor is someone who will absolutely make time to talk to you and give you advice. A sponsor will be the person that is in rooms that you're not, that will put your name forward for really big opportunities. There is a key difference. And a mentor may not be a sponsor. And a sponsor may not be a mentor.

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So you have to understand what the difference is between the two and figure out how to get both because you need both to be able to drive your career forward. Mentor and a sponsor, we have never had a guest describe those two and the differences. So thank you so much for sharing that with us, Eva and with everything else, of course. And before you go, please tell us where our viewers and listeners can find you online.

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Of course. So you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I would love to speak with everyone. love, again, I'm curious about people, right? So I love making the time to talk to people, whether it be through LinkedIn or you can reach out to me through my website. You can go to growth without borders, so global, and reach out to me there. And if you want to just understand a bit more about how I think and many of the things that I talk about,

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You can sign up for my newsletter. can find the link on LinkedIn or you could purchase my book. It's available on Amazon. It's called Growth Without Borders, a global leaders toolkit. And it's available in print and Kindle. Without Borders dot global is the website Eva Amov Kolosko on LinkedIn and the book is Growth Without Borders. Thank you so much for opening our eyes to how important.

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global cultural intelligence is. Thank you for having me and thank you to the listeners for spending a little bit of your day with me. Absolute pleasure. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify and stay tuned for more episodes to come.