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The Agile Within
Providing agile insights into human values and behaviors through genuine connections.
The Agile Within
Interculturality and Bridging Gaps with Yamila Solari
Discover the transformative power of interculturality with our guest Yamila Solari, co-founder of the software company, Scio, based in Mexico, as she takes us on her incredible journey from Peru to Mexico and the United States. Her experiences paint a vivid picture of how understanding and respecting cultural differences can bridge gaps and enhance collaboration within teams. We promise you'll come away with insights on how language is just one piece of the cultural puzzle, and how historical influences shape the way we work together. Yamila's personal stories illuminate the often-overlooked nuances that can make or break communication and teamwork, even when language barriers aren’t present.
Explore the intersection of cultural dynamics and workplace efficiency as we dive into implementing Scrum across American and German work cultures. We navigate the challenges posed by contrasting communication styles and cultural norms, emphasizing the value of intercultural training and open dialogue to craft inclusive environments. Real-life encounters with multicultural teams illustrate the importance of cultural awareness, as we unpack how understanding diverse perspectives can drive creativity and innovation while averting conflict. By tuning in, you'll gain a deeper appreciation for cultural adaptability and learn how to harness diversity as a key driver of personal and professional growth.
Connect with Yamila on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yamila-solari/
When in Morelia, Mexico visit Jardín de las Rosas:
https://g.co/kgs/9JzrY3v
"The Culture Map" by Erin Meyer:
https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/
Individual Cultural Profile:
https://hbr.org/2014/08/whats-your-cultural-profile
Hofstede´s Country Comparison Tool:
https://www.theculturefactor.com/country-comparison-tool
Follow us on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-within
Welcome to the Agile Within. I am your host, mark Metz. My mission for this podcast is to provide Agile insights into human values and behaviors through genuine connections. My guests and I will share real-life stories from our Agile journeys, triumphs, blunders and everything in between, as well as the lessons that we have learned. So get pumped, get rocking. The Agile Within starts now. Before we get started, I want to share some exciting news with you. The Agile Online Summit is just around the corner. This year's summit, running from October 22nd through the 24th, features thought leaders like Juergen Apello, known for revolutionizing the approach to Agile frameworks. You can expect live sessions, including Juergen's session on solving wicked, complex problems in organizations. Get your free ticket and join the discussion at agileonlinesummitcom. And now on to the show. Well, hello everybody. I hope you're having an absolutely fantastic day today. My name is Mark Metz, the host of the Agile Within. My guest for today is Jamila Solari. Jamila, welcome to the Agile Within.
Speaker 2:Hello, mark, great to be here with you.
Speaker 1:So glad to have you. As is tradition here at the Agile Within, we always start the podcast off with finding out a little bit about our guest. And Jamila, you are from Morelia, Mexico, and if I were to come to Morelia for a day, I had never been there before. Even though I have been there, what's one thing that you would say you absolutely couldn't miss doing?
Speaker 2:Morelia is such a beautiful place, a colonial downtown. However, I thought about this, I was going to say the cathedral, but I choose the Jardin de las Rosas, which is like the rose garden, where you cannot actually find a lot of roses, but the place where it is situated. The place where it is situated, it has the music conservatory. In front it has an old church it's actually Santa Rosa de Lima, the church and then next to it you can see the Palacio Clavijero and the trees and there are some cafes so you can sit down. So it's actually a very nice environment and plus, if you go I guess it's October you will be able to maybe see a little bit of big movie stars, because that's the scenario where the movie theater where the Morelia film festival takes place. I've never seen anybody, but I just love that place of the city.
Speaker 1:Sounds charming. Jamila is a co-founder of CIO, which is a software company in Mexico, and she's had several roles. Currently she's working as a general manager, but also as a team coach, and our title for our episode today is Interculturality and Bridging Gaps. I'm very interested to talk about this. Explain to me and to our listeners what is interculturality?
Speaker 2:Mark, interculturality is the relationships that exist among diverse groups, especially of different national origins, in a specific society, and it has a lot to do with acknowledging, respecting the differences. That's what we call interculturality.
Speaker 1:I'm curious to know what fueled your interest in interculturality, because you and I have had some discussions. This is something that you're very passionate about. What fueled that curiosity?
Speaker 2:is a training that was really important to me because I had been working with this topic in my company and training our teams about this topic. But what I found in this last training was information that I thought was a lot more applicable to what we do, and so that's more recently. But actually, if we go back, I am originally from Peru, so I was born in Lima and when I was seven, very young, I moved to Mexico with my parents and I just thought that, I mean, I knew Mexico was a different country, but everybody spoke Spanish, so for me it was the same, but it wasn't Mexican culture and Peruvian culture. There are several nuances to the culture that I started acknowledging when I was younger.
Speaker 2:And then it happens that when I was a young adult, I move again, but this time to the States to study and work, and that, I guess, was the move that illuminated or, I don't know, enlightened. That enlightened me about the importance of cultures in organizations. Especially when I was studying my graduate degree, I had a lot of international classmates and we had to do teamwork. We had to do a lot of projects in teams. You start realizing how we are different and how those differences don't have to stop us from doing good teamwork when we talk about interculturality, it doesn't necessarily have a barrier of language.
Speaker 1:It can, but you mentioned you were from Peru and then you moved to Mexico. They both speak Spanish, if I'm correct.
Speaker 2:That is right, we both speak Spanish and there are some different words. They have different meanings, but they are just like certain items, so it's not a big deal.
Speaker 1:However, our cultures are not the same. There are nuances Not as pronounced as you would think across continents, but here in the States we have different cultures. I live in the southeastern part of the United States and the culture here is much different than the northeastern part of the country. The midwestern part is different. The western part has its own culture. So the main point I was wanting to get across is that don't think that language is the only component that defines interculturality. Would you say that's correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, Language is not. I mean, language is intertwined with culture and that's clear. But it's not the only difference. National culture has a lot to do with the history of your country, Because it has to do a lot with the history. Then you can see how different influences in the country can form a new culture. In our case, Mexico and Peru were conquered by the Spanish people. However, after colonization, Mexican history and after independence, specifically Mexican history is very different than that from Peru's history after independence. So, for example, in the capital city of Lima, you had a big European influence. However, because we did not have a civil war, the provinces are far away and they are not as integrated as they are in Mexico. So, all these things right, but I don't want to get into that because I don't know much about that.
Speaker 1:Well, I do want to ask you what was your defining moment when you decided that interculturality was important for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess it was when I was working in teams in my graduate studies. There were some conflicts and it was not always possible to say, oh, that's because that person has this personality. You could see some patterns and, being no expert, you just generalize and say, oh then, people from this country, they are all like this and that is why. But then you learn that that is not true.
Speaker 1:So along those lines, I've heard people in the past. They've talked about different areas of the world and when it comes to trying to engage with working with certain people, I've heard people say, oh, you don't want to work with the people in this region or this area of the world. They have a I'm giving air quotes. I'm famous for doing that. I'm giving air quotes a bad culture. Their culture is bad. They're difficult to work with. What would you say to people that make those statements? Shamila?
Speaker 2:I would say they may be angry, because the first thing you learn when you are exposed to interculturality and the topics around it is that there are not good or bad cultures. Every culture has strengths. I do accept, and I think a lot of people can agree with me, that certain characteristics of cultures are more compatible with certain methodologies or work methodologies. So if you are used to working in a methodology, you really believe in that methodology, then cultures that are difficult to adapt to this methodology will be bad for you. But I think we have to reframe of using bad and good, because really all cultures have strengths.
Speaker 1:One of the ideas you often find in the agile world is to assume positive intent from people, and I think the same can be said for cultures. Assume that the intent of the culture is positive, don't assume that it's bad.
Speaker 2:That is true and that is exactly the intent that you need to have when you are exploring your national culture in a team or in a team session. Your national culture in a team or in a team session. You need to have this belief that all of the cultures have strengths and you look at them with positive intent.
Speaker 1:So I heard you say that some cultures better relate to other cultures. So how can we understand which cultures maybe work better with others?
Speaker 2:Yes, so the most famous one is Geert Hofstede's Six Intercultural Dimensions, and I've seen a lot of people use those to get an idea of a country profile culturally. However, I think it was like 10 years ago Erin Mayer wrote a book that is called the Cultural Map and I find that the main dimensions, which she calls scales, that she uses are more suited to work in organizations. So Hofstede's dimensions are more like general. I mean there are a couple or three of them that overlap with Mayer's scales, but in general, I would say Mayer's scales give you a clear idea of where the country as a group of people is in each of those scales, which does not mean that if you find a person from that nationality, that person is going to have all those scales in the same place, because every person has a range between the scale, between the point where the person is scale within the point where the person is, where you are usually located, or maybe your scale is completely different than that from your country, which also happens. So I'm just saying it's a word of caution not to use these scales or not to use any cultural tool to profile a person. You cannot tool to profile a person, you cannot, but we can use them to explore and reflect, and ask people to reflect about their culture, and especially in teamwork. This is very powerful. So, just to mention them briefly, the eight dimensions cover communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing and scheduling, and I'm going to give you an example of two cultures that would seem to, and let's go ahead and apply that example to how culture can be more compatible with a work methodology.
Speaker 2:Why don't we think about Scrum? We work with Scrum at my company and actually, because I saw this difference when I visited Germany a few months ago, I researched about this. So, if you think of America, something that would help American people work with Scrum will be that their communication is low context. That means that you're very direct. Direct, you are application first, which means that you first give the conclusion or the summary, and then you go to the principles. You have an egalitarian society, which is great for Scrum, and then you are less confrontational, which means you can. You're actually in the middle, america's in the middle, so you can actually handle conflict, but you don't have to be very confrontational.
Speaker 2:However, if you go to Germany, it has some dimensions that will help Scrum, which also is like being low context in communication, but then it has some others that make it difficult to work in a scrum. They give negative feedback directly, and that is not always good for scrum because we try not to blame people. Consensual could help Scrum, but it's more confrontational as well, so you can spend hours and hours discussing about a topic, and that won't help Scrum. There are some dimensions that Meyer does not use but Hofstede does, and one very important one that describes Germanist culture in general is they are very risk adverse, so they will do everything, they will plan everything meticulously so that they would not face any risk, and that is the cultural characteristics that most hinder the adoption of a scrum in Germany.
Speaker 2:There. That's an example of how an American culture will be more compatible with a scrum than Germanist culture, which, by the way, germany could be a lot more compatible for waterfall methodology, right, but not for this one, and that is to say, germany is not a bad culture, it's just not very compatible with Scrum.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking of a scenario, let's just say, a software company and we have a team and they have an opening on that team and they're interviewing people. And guess what? One of the people that they're interviewing on the team is someone who recently moved from Germany into their country. Help us navigate. How do you use those scales to understand? Because, quite frankly, some people aren't comfortable with direct feedback and they may shy away to say, oh well, this person is from Germany and I knew someone from Germany before and they were extremely direct and it made me very uncomfortable. I don't know that I could work with this person that we're going to and I've never met them, but I just know because of my past experience of working with somebody. I don't want to get into that again. Help us navigate. How do you use these scales?
Speaker 2:appropriately our people in an organization that these topics of cultural differences have been studied and we know how to apply them and we know what to use them for, the better we're going to be able to solve this issue, for example. So what I would do is the hiring manager hopefully has had an interculturality training, so hopefully he's aware of these cultural differences, but also hopefully he has been able to have team coaching where people talk openly about these differences, and they are people that are the ones who say, hey, I may be German, but I don't find myself in the scale as being very confrontational, I'm more like here. Why? Because I've had experiences working with other people, and then some other people may say, ok, in this scale, yes, I am from China, but guess what? I?
Speaker 2:I've been working in Sweden for so many years, so for me, egalitarian teams are the best. So when you talk about those things, you are more able to say here is where we are at. These are the working agreements we're going to create based on these issues, right. So you may need a working agreement about confrontation and conflict. In other teams you may not need one right, but in this one you will pay attention to this. So I just find that the more you talk about these things, the more you educate your organization, the easier it is not to fall in the trap of generalizing.
Speaker 1:I think it's a great opportunity to increase the diversity in the team. You can be exposed to groupthink where everybody just kind of thinks the same and nobody gets challenged. So if I'm looking at that situation, I'm thinking, well, if I've got a very quiet team, everybody's very polite, no one will ask the hard questions this might be a great addition to the team because we might actually have somebody who will address the elephant in the room when nobody else speaks up and who knows that might inspire others to speak up as well.
Speaker 2:Definitely, and this is why we need to talk about this, because we want diverse teams, we want teams to be creative and for that we need diversity. But if we are scared because we've, in the past, have worked with someone and that experience was not good because that person was from this country, and then we will be just closing ourselves to new experiences, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:You mentioned, one of the scales was disagreeing or disagreement, yes. What are some signs that you would see that culture would play a part in disagreements? From a conflict perspective and let me just be direct is unhealthy conflict, because not all conflict is bad, just a team needs a certain amount of conflict, or else, like we just mentioned, you're not raising those important issues up. But what are some signs that you see where culture plays a part?
Speaker 2:I think that when a team is trying to work through conflict which is always hard and they get stuck and then maybe you have the help of your scrum master or a team coach and they continue to feel stuck right, you can look at their faces and their feelings there that are not being managed well. I think you always have to go back to people's backgrounds and histories. I really like my team coaching sessions. I give a lot of importance to feelings. Some people don't like it because we are at the workplace, but I find that they are a lot more powerful if we can name our feelings, not only name our thoughts, and if we can name our needs right. So the moment you start talking about needs and feelings, I would say that culture is involved, because culture has to do with your set of beliefs right Nowadays, when I find a difficult conflict and I'm helping a team, I always go back to asking myself what role is culture playing in this, and especially if we're talking about different national cultures? So I would give you an example.
Speaker 2:Some years ago we had a team that was working pretty well. It was like one Spanish guy and three Mexican guys and they were all developers. But then during team sessions, I realized that there was this alienation. So the three Mexican guys felt a little alienated by the Spanish guy and maybe the Spanish guy didn't realize it. But we started exploring it and what came up was that the Spanish guy was very he was. I don't know what he was, but the Mexican guys were perceiving the Spanish person's interactions when facing conflict as very confrontational, like rude and violent. So that's a lot to say. But then we went back together and we saw the scale of disagreeing that Major talks about and we saw that Spain is in the extreme opposite of Mexico. Spain is very confrontational, everybody is like that. It's not taken as violent or rude. But Mexico is in the opposite extreme, where you actually avoid confrontation. We talk about this and we work about this and it actually helps. So that's an example of where educating yourself can help you with conflict.
Speaker 1:That's great. So that takes it away from the personal level. Right, right, personal attack on you.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, because, even though my Mexican co-workers were convinced that it was a personal issue, they opened their minds to say, okay, hold on, this has been studied. It may not be personal we need to have space for doubt and then you start talking about that. And, of course, you have to get to agreements because, even though the other person is from Spain and these guys are from Mexico, they have to meet in the middle, or maybe not in the middle, maybe a little more to the confrontation, but just because they think it's going to help the team work better.
Speaker 1:That's a great story. I've got a story to tell also.
Speaker 2:Yes, tell me, tell me Mark.
Speaker 1:So earlier in my career, when I was a software developer, I worked on a team where, even though I was here locally in the States, most of the other developers were from India. Though I was here locally in the States, most of the other developers were from India and we were working on a project together. The group that I was with they were all Indian males and they were very passionate, very vocal like loud vocal, like. I'm taking over this conversation. If you can, I would just kind of slink back, because that wasn't my background, coming from the southeastern part of the United States very much more. You know, let's have good manners, let's be respectful.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And one of the developers that was a little more advanced in his career took me aside and said you know, mark, I noticed you don't talk a lot during the meetings. Why is that? And I just shared that I didn't feel comfortable because the other developers were so outspoken, so passionate, so sure of themselves. I didn't have anything to add. He convinced me. He said just understand the culture of where I came from, so where we come from the area of India.
Speaker 1:That's how we were brought up. Our fathers taught us to be very demanding, to push. That's how we grew up and that's how we knew. So understand that and maybe don't just slink back. Speak up for yourself. So I started doing that and you know what Little successes start leading to bigger successes. And that really taught me a lesson to speak up for myself without being rude, without dominating a conversation that I don't think I would have learned otherwise. So I see that as a very formative part of my career, where I was young and growing up, to stand up for myself and speak for myself and not just sit in the background.
Speaker 2:Yes, great story. I like it and I can definitely imagine you in that table with a lot of Indian males.
Speaker 1:Do you have any other examples you can share with our listeners about your sexuality?
Speaker 2:You know, I have an example that I keep warmly close to my heart because it happened when we were just starting the company 20 years ago, and you know, we've had people from several parts of the world here in Mexico working with us, and this was a brilliant French engineer and he was working the time to give them feedback and help them grow. However, once I guess we saw someone coming out of a meeting crying, and the meeting was with this yeah, so the Mexican person was crying Like literally, like, literally, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Mexican person was crying and the French Like literally, like literally, yes, yes, yes, she was crying and anyway. So we didn't have all this structure to work with teams and we didn't have this knowledge. But we found out that what was happening was that this French engineer was being very, very direct with his feedback and all of the feedback was negative. And so I'm sure that for you that was raised in America this is like appalling, because in America and I studied there and I know that you give a lot of good, positive feedback and you encourage children, but if you go and see French culture, that's not the way it works.
Speaker 2:Kids receive negative feedback all the time, all while they are growing up. Very little positive feedback, it's just negative feedback, and that's the way they understand. So when they get to college or the workplace, that's what they expect. But for us in Mexico, that's not the norm. We expect feedback, but if it is negative, we would like you to start with the positive and then finish with the positive note, a little more like what happens in the States, and so, anyway, so we didn't have any.
Speaker 1:It's funny you say that because we even change our language, because many times we don't say negative, right, we'll say like what are the challenges you're experiencing?
Speaker 2:Right, exactly.
Speaker 1:What areas do you want to improve in right?
Speaker 2:Opportunity areas, of course Opportunity. So imagine if someone just tells you everything directly and only the negative, Well anyway. So I said this, I remember this fondly because as a young organization we tried to manage it the way we could and I think we did a good job. But, you know, cultures were never talked about, and never in this context of, hey, people have studied this and you know, let's talk about it Anyway. But I just have a lot of affection for these people that were involved in these teams.
Speaker 1:How did the story end with this Frenchman?
Speaker 2:Well it ends. This Frenchman got to have a high position in our company. He learned to modulate his intensity and we as managers have conversations with him, and also the people, the Mexican team. They always knew his were good, positive intent. I mean his was a positive intent. That doesn't mean that it hasn't hurt you, but we all knew that. So the last years he was in the company we all love him. We all love him. We just knew he was very direct but everybody loved him. So there was modulation on both sides, there was adaptation on both sides. It didn't happen on a team session, we didn't know about those things, but it happened little by little.
Speaker 1:Yes, we didn't know about those things, but it happened little by little.
Speaker 2:Yes, so both sides learned something and changed their outlook, I would say, is what I'm hearing. Yeah, we just didn't have the theory behind it, as in oh, that is evaluating the scale measure talks about and French are very direct to give feedback about, and French are very direct to give feedback.
Speaker 1:So, as we start wrapping up here, why is interculturality?
Speaker 2:important, and why should we care about it? Well, mark, I think interculturality is important because it has to do with our belief system, and our belief system affects everything, especially the work we do. If we are not open to explore our belief system, especially in regards of our national culture, then we're closing a door of learning more about ourselves and of applying that knowledge to the work we do together Beautifully said.
Speaker 1:All right, jamila. If our listeners out there want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 2:Oh everybody, they can just send me a message on LinkedIn. I usually reply easy, I mean fast. And it's been a delightful mark to talk to you and thank you for your questions. They made me reflect. I hope I explained myself well.
Speaker 1:Oh, this was absolutely. This is great. I hope our listeners enjoy this as much as I have. I'll be sure and put a link to your profile in the show notes so people get to you easy and reach out to Jamila if you have any questions about interculturality or anything else. In general, she's a great team coach. I've worked with Jamila before and I can say that she's absolutely fantastic. So, jamila, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Mark. Thank you and keep up the good work with this podcast that I'm sure is helping a lot of team coaches.
Speaker 1:Appreciate that Awesome. All right, everybody. That brings an end to another episode of the Agile Within. We'll see everybody next time. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Agile Within. If you haven't already, please join our LinkedIn page to stay in touch. Just search for the Agile Within and please spread the word with your friends and colleagues Until next time. This has been your host, mark Metz.