From Cultural Safety to Sensitivity: how radical appreciation creates cultural connections
Cultural Safety in the workplace had either a high or very high impact on the wellbeing of 73% of approximately 100 workshop participants who recently attended an acknowledgement of 3 Cultural Diversity Days.
When asked if their contribution at work would improve if Cultural Safety increased, 63% confirmed it would and 82% cited Leaders and Colleagues as making the biggest contribution to their experiences of Cultural Safety at work.
In combination with DCA’s recent Inclusion @ Work research confirming the number of people working for non-inclusive managers and in non-inclusive teams in Australian workplaces has increased since the Referendum, there is a compelling case for increasing Interpersonal Cultural Safety.
The goal of this blog is to explore how our increasingly complex Cultural landscape and polarised workforce, can safely, and respectfully embrace what makes them unique, and increase human connection and competitive advantage.
Cultural Connection creates Competitive Advantage and a New World of Possibility.
Please note: we’ve also written blogs on how to create Cultural Safety in the workplace focussed on organisational systems and policies, the impact of Cultural Identity on Wellbeing, and Belonging and the importance of Language. The common core of wellbeing for all minority groups is a helpful guide to creating psychologically safe and psychosocially safe workplaces.
What is the Cultural Safety Continuum?
As one of 4 contemporary elements of workplace safety, and a subset of psychosocial safety, it has received significant interest in recent times.
In making an assessment of how Culturally Safe our workplaces are, perspective is everything. Everyone, regardless of culture, needs to experience safety, respect and inclusion at work.(1)
What is safe and what is not, is judged by others ie. the people who experience it. Whilst it is our responsibility to understand the impact of our own beliefs and behaviours on others, it is they who determine our impact on them and whether the environment is Culturally Safe.
Rather than Cultural Safety being about others, it needs to start with us!
Australian Human Rights Commission
Cultural Safety in the workplace was clearly important to our participants. 97% indicated it rated as being between important and extremely important, 59% said it had a high or very high impact on their contribution at work, whilst, 60% indicated their experiences had either significantly reduced or not changed in the last 12 months.
It's unquestionably a challenging topic in the current environment, and our hope is by unpacking the Interpersonal Cultural Safety Continuum, we can enhance our understanding of what contributes to Cultural Safety for minority groups, and also increase our capability.
Based on insights from the health care sector, the Government of Canada offers a helpful guide:
Awareness = recognition of difference: which is a foundational level of understanding, where we recognise ‘others’ are different to us.
Sensitivity = respect for difference: which includes the development of the ability to behave respectfully towards ‘others’ who are different to us.
Competence = response to difference: and emphasises the importance of self-reflection in exploring our own beliefs, which enables us to respond to others with sensitivity.(2)
Whilst Awareness and Sensitivity are focused on learning about others, Competence is focused on learning about self.
Source: The Government of Canada
Operationalising the Cultural Safety Continuum
To make these somewhat theoretical concepts a little more tangible, let’s imagine our own world view, customs and values are represented by a blue circle, whilst those of others are represented by a red square.
Source: Travers-Wolf for I LEAD Consulting
I have Cultural Awareness when I recognise I have ‘blue circular’ views, and others have ‘red square’.
I demonstrate Cultural Sensitivity when I respect the differences of ‘red square’ views and adapt my behaviour accordingly.
Both Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity are focussed on learning about the ‘red square views of others’.
In contrast, Cultural Competence occurs as a result of my own self-reflection on my ‘blue circular’ beliefs and behaviours, and how they impact ‘others’. Cultural Competence is an ongoing endeavour where my interactions with people who hold red square views, improves with exposure and practice.
It is not uncommon for individuals to be more optimistic about their own level of Cultural Competence, than others are. 86% of our workshop participants rated their own cultural competence as above average or higher, whilst 66% rated their organisation’s as average or below.
As humans, we are better able to assess our intended impact, than we are our actual impact.
Cultural Humility is a pre-requisite for engaging authentically with others based on the mutual trust which occurs as a result of understanding your own personal biases and systemic privilege.
In turn, it enables an appreciation of how to reduce power imbalances to neutralise disadvantage. It also creates the ability to utilise a trauma informed approach in our workplace interactions.
Responding in a trauma informed way requires a mature degree of self-reflection and training, however, Cultural Appreciation is a more accessible approach for everyone in the workplace.
Cultural Appreciation is about seeing difference as a strength, rather than a deficit.
The strengths and ‘culture-add’ body of research confirms there is much to be gained by appreciating and integrating difference into our thinking and solutioning.(3, 4)
What is Cultural Appreciation in the Workplace?
Cultural Appreciation draws on what Susan David calls ‘AND thinking’ or ‘Bothness’.
The ability to take on multiple perspectives and possibilities at the same time, allows both blue circle and red square world views to co-exist.(4)
Source: Susan David
When we suspend the typically binary (right / wrong) thinking most of us subscribe to much of the time, we enhance human understanding and connection, whilst gaining “access to the full spectrum of life”.(3)
The persistent, sometimes painful duality of life — is a cornerstone of emotional agility.
Susan David
The value of these ‘poles of possibility’ are demonstrated in the Cultural Workstyles diagnostic below.
When we consciously appreciate and integrate (ie. embrace) behaviours more typical of other cultures, we are able to expand our operating range, and gain access to additional skills and insights.(5)
Source: Travers-Wolf, adapted from Meyer
It’s easy to see how our effectiveness mght increase when negotiating the next deal or solving a complex problem, for example, when we use a combination of cultural styles.
It’s what’s known as a ‘culture add’ approach, and doesn’t just apply to traits across countries and cultures. It can also be powerful when we adopt the mindsets or approaches people with different personalities and personal experiences have.
“The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Practicing Cultural Appreciation
You may be familiar with Kim Scott’s, model of Radical Candor. In a nod to Scott’s work, Radical Appreciation is both a mindset and skillset which enables us to bridge boundaries and embrace difference.(3)
Cultural Appreciation: Travers-Wolf for I LEAD Consulting
When you connect with people who believe and behave as you do, you are likely existing in a comfortable echo chamber of similar voices and viewpoints. Radical Appreciation, however, occurs when you consciously open your mind to different ideas, and decide to learn and grow.(4)
There are 3 foundations of Radical Appreciation:
Compassionate Connections: which occur when we go below the surface and understand “why we are who we are”.
Radical Listening: requires curious, ‘deep’ listening for facts and feelings, and supports human connections of greater substance.
Growth Mindset: learning occurs when we consciously embrace discomfort and explore what we don’t know.
2 pairs of complementary skills create the ability for safe and sensitive cultural connections.
1. Respect and connection are the foundations of all human relationships.(4)
o They set the stage for people with blue circle world views to learn about red square ones.
2. After opportunity for reflection, individuals may consciously or unconsciously, appreciate elements of another person’s views or customs.
o At which point they may choose to integrate it into their own world view.(3)
o If they choose to do so, they expand the depth and breadth of their human connections, and access a wider range of knowledge or information ie. possibility.
Human connections promote wellbeing and belonging, whilst the ‘poles of possibility’ enable innovation and competitive advantage.
Radical Appreciation does not require the development of a new set of skills. It just requires the will to embrace your natural ‘diversity discomfort’ and use these everyday skills with others of differing identities and life experiences.(6)
Cultural Appreciation is a mindset shift, not a skillset lift.
Unleashing Cultural Appreciation in the Workplace
Adapted from tips by the Australian Human Rights Commission, we recommend selecting the commitment that’s appropriate to you and your team at the current time.
1. Start with Yourself: Cultural Safety starts with a journey of Cultural Humility and a desire to augment your own beliefs and behaviours, with strengths others bring. 9% of participants said they experienced very low or below average Cultural Safety.
2. Benchmark your own Cultural Competence: via the Cultural Safety evaluation tool.
3. Explore the ‘Poles of Possibility’: and encourage others to open themselves up to a new world of possibility – be it for day to day tasks or more significant activities.
“Too often we think that the world is a series of either/or decisions. Be bold. Choose both.”
Susan David
4. Practice Cultural Appreciation: it is incumbent on dominant groups to encourage minority groups to show up as their authentic self. This reduces the need for minority groups to ‘flex to fit’ or ‘shrink themselves’ to make dominant groups feel more comfortable. Naturally this enhances the contributions and wellbeing of minority groups in the workplace.
5. Advocate for “Others”: leaders, allies and team members can be influential upstanders who consciously appreciate and integrate the views and voices of minority groups. Often minority groups are diminished or dismissed in the micro-moments of every-day discussions and macro-moments of workplace decisions. (7. DCA, Jumbunna Institute, Smith, Yoshino, Goffman)
6. Create the Culture: when a majority of leaders, allies and team members make it Culturally Safe for a diverse group of people, not only does individual wellbeing thrive, so does organisation culture and performance.(4)
In today’s complex world, adopting the ‘poles of possibility’ is an interpersonal super-power which enhances human connections, and enables everyone’s strengths to create competitive advantage.
How will you create Interpersonal Connection and Cultural Safety in your Workplace?
Learn more about our I LEAD Safe and Inclusive Conversations™ program.
At I LEAD Consulting we’re on a mission to simplify Diversity and Inclusion for Leaders and Teams.
PRACTICE INCLUSION | EMBRACE DIVERSITY | ACTIVATE ALLIES
Sources: 1. SafeWork NSW; 2. The Government of Canada; 3. Susan David; 4. Travers-Wolf for I LEAD Consulting; 5. Erin Meyer; 6. The Othering and Belonging Institute, Berkeley; 7. DCA & Jumbunna Institute, Smith, Yoshino, Goffman
