Episode 9: Sarah Black - How does Communication Shift People?
I’m excited to share the latest episode of The Shift, where I had the pleasure of speaking with Sarah Black, a seasoned global communications consultant, trainer, and podcaster with a rich background spanning over thirty years. Sarah recently completed her CQ Facilitator training, and her insights into the intersection of cultural intelligence and communication are truly eye-opening.
In our conversation, Sarah and I explored how effective communication can drive meaningful shifts in how we understand and interact with each other. With her Northern Irish roots and experiences in Norway, the USA, and the UK, Sarah brings a unique perspective to the table. We discussed how communications professionals can leverage cultural intelligence (CQ) to navigate diverse global contexts and address both everyday and crisis communication challenges.
One standout moment from the episode was Sarah’s passionate belief that cultural intelligence is a game changer for anyone in communications. She shared a powerful analogy:
“There’s no point in having this really important, potentially life-altering thing that you want to say to the world, if people can’t read it, see it, hear it, understand it. That affects the languages, the formats, the channels, the platforms that you make it available in. And that’s a lot to hold in your head as communications professionals, so our teams and diversity of thought are important.”
I found this perspective both refreshing and motivating. It underscores the vital role of cultural intelligence in crafting messages that resonate across different cultures and contexts. Sarah’s insights remind us that communication is not just about transmitting information—it’s about ensuring that message is accessible and meaningful to everyone it’s intended for.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode. How do you see cultural intelligence impacting your own communication practices? Have you experienced any shifts in how you approach communication in diverse settings?
Feel free to share your reflections in the comments below. And if you’re interested in diving deeper into Sarah’s work, you can connect with her on LinkedIn, sign up for her newsletter, or listen to her podcast, A Quick Dip.
Looking forward to continuing this conversation with you!
Warm regards,
Trisha
Listen below on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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Trisha 00:00:00:01 - 00:00:14:10
I would like to acknowledge the Tharawal people, the Aboriginal people of Australia, whose country I live and work on. I would like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging and thank them for sharing their cultural knowledge and awareness with us.
Trisha 00:00:40:01 - 00:01:04:23
Hi there, everyone. I'm Trisha Carter, an organizational psychologist and explorer of Cultural Intelligence. I'm on a quest to discover what enables us to see things from different perspectives, especially different cultural perspectives, and why sometimes it's easier than others to experience those moments of awareness - The shifts in thinking. As those of you who have listened to some of the earlier episodes will be aware.
Trisha 00:01:04:24 - 00:01:44:24
Cultural Intelligence – CQ. The capability to be effective in situations of diversity is made up of four areas - Motivational - Knowledge - Metacognitive - Behavioural. Today we want to look through some of these aspects as we think about communication with our comms expert, Sarah Black. Sarah is a global communications consultant, a trainer and podcaster with over 30 years of communications experience. She is a former board director of a full-service multi-award-winning Global PR and Content Agency and a fellow and accredited practitioner of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
Trisha 00:01:45:14 - 00:02:10:09
She has also held in-house positions in non-profit organizations in Northern Ireland and the US. She's an expert at working and communicating across cultures. Having lived and worked in Norway, the US, and the UK. Sarah has trained with the Cultural Intelligence Centre as I have, and she will complete their cultural intelligence and train the trainer certifications in early 2024.
Trisha 00:02:11:03 - 00:02:13:06
Sarah, welcome. Great to have you here.
Sarah 00:02:14:04 - 00:02:16:14
Thank you. Trisha, it's it's fabulous to be with you.
Trisha 00:02:17:15 - 00:02:34:06
I'm looking forward to talking with you about all the things that we have ahead of us. But I want to start with our normal questions. So, Sarah, what is a culture other than the culture you grew up in that you have learned to love and appreciate?
Sarah 00:02:34:24 - 00:03:08:09
This is such a great question, Trisha, and I actually had a lot of fun thinking about it at the weekends in preparation for this, and I think my answer is Norway. But one of my reflections on this was those of you that maybe recognize the accent. I'm from Belfast, grew up in Northern Ireland, and so I will quite often say that Northern Ireland is very culturally different from both Ireland and the rest of the UK, but particularly England.
Sarah 00:03:08:09 - 00:03:24:16
I think we've got quite a bit of affinity with the Scottish, which is where now I live. And so in some ways cultures that I have learned to appreciate and love are actually Irish and English cultures because I am different. I am not quite the same as people who grew up in those cultures, very similar in the grand scheme of things.
Sarah 00:03:24:16 - 00:03:47:15
But there's also differences. But I was fortunate enough to live in Norway for two and a half years and I completely fell in love with Norway. And so and therefore with the culture. And I look back now, it was my first expat globally, mobile, globally mobile experience, and I wish I had known a lot more about cultural intelligence when I made that move.
Sarah 00:03:47:23 - 00:04:06:22
I think I would have had a deeper, even a deeper respect understanding of Norwegian culture than I do. But I think I love the sort of pragmatism about it in Norway. It's not always blessed with great weather and there's a kind of a Norwegian. While the weather's good we will go and ski, the warmth will be there.
Sarah 00:04:07:20 - 00:04:30:18
There's a bit of that sort of attitude and definitely in my experience, a place where, you know, you don't have bad days, just have bad gear and which a lot of people will say. But I think a healthy respect for Mother Nature, a very much a lifestyle that was about making the most out of the outdoors and the good space and things like that.
Sarah 00:04:30:18 - 00:04:55:03
And also sort of a great sense of conceptual pragmatism and community mindedness and struck by things like the way in which they constructed the deal when oil was first found price and the taxation to bring it in onshore to create the oil fund that there's free third level education.
Trisha 00:04:55:10 - 00:04:56:09
Yeah, there’s been a lot of talk about that here.
Sarah 00:04:56:24 - 00:05:20:16
Yeah. And so that in some ways a very different socio-political model than I would have grown up with. And I was fascinated by that and really intrigued by it. And, and quite often because we know each other quite well, people will talk about me being quite direct. I think we refer to it as going a bit Belfast and Norwegians are perhaps even more direct than I am and I appreciate that greatly.
Sarah 00:05:20:24 - 00:05:41:07
I remember when one of my Norwegian friend’s saying to me, but we are such a small language, Sarah, that we don't have very many words. We just say it. And, and certainly that was that was my experience. The was such a straightforwardness about and, not an unkindness in any way, but a straightforwardness. And I loved it.
Sarah 00:05:41:07 - 00:06:02:20
And I where we were living was quite a lot of expats, very multicultural, multinational, kind of city. And so sometimes it was hard to meet Norwegians. But I think if you could seek out the opportunities and I'm glad that I did, and certainly there was museums and art and lots and lots of things to explore. And so I think we have very happy memories.
Sarah 00:06:02:20 - 00:06:08:24
There was a culture that I embraced as much as I could.
Trisha 00:06:09:09 - 00:06:10:17
That’s wonderful. It's a place I hope to visit.
Sarah 00:06:11:23 - 00:06:22:00
It's extraordinary. And I still I would say yes says something in Norwegian sorry about the pronunciation, folks. I did learn I did take a year of Norwegian classes, and I speak a little tiny bit.
Trisha 00:06:22:23 - 00:06:32:10
Okay. So I'm wondering to if you can tell us about a time when you experienced the shift, so when you suddenly became aware of a new perspective.
Sarah 00:06:33:18 - 00:06:56:22
Yeah. And this was really interesting. I spent a lot of time thinking about this and I suppose two, two moments, two experiences, but they're connected to the same sort of shift. I vividly remember as a child, finding out for the first time that there were Protestants and Catholics, which anybody who knows their Northern Ireland, their Belfast history or has even seen
Sarah 00:06:56:22 - 00:07:23:16
the movie with Jamie Dornan will know that's a bit of a thing for where I grew up, that there's still this polarization. There still is segregation, certainly public housing, and education and all those sorts of things. And we've had a terrible legacy of sectarianism and violence. And so I grew up in a kind of slightly, I think, atypical household in that I will often say we were Protestant just because we weren't Catholic and Northern Ireland is very zero sum, like you're one or the other.
Sarah 00:07:23:19 - 00:07:46:02
There's no like we do joke that if you're anything else when asked, you're you're Protestant or a Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, whatever. Right. I'm and so I do remember and I think we were on holiday with and we'd met kids from Dublin and there was some conversation about them saying are we going to mass tomorrow, and I remember saying to my dad.
Sarah 00:07:46:07 - 00:08:08:12
What's mass and why don't we go to that? And I'm in fairness to my dad, we didn't go to church at all, which was very unusual for my generation in Northern Ireland, and I don't remember his answer. I'm sure it was very good. He's a history and politics teacher. I’m sure it was excellent. And but it was the first time that I became aware that there were differences and that they were something that mattered.
Sarah 00:08:09:18 - 00:08:45:03
And I do now I know that I came to that realization very late. I think I was probably eight or nine. And there's now research that kids as young as three or four will be aware of difference and have a a bias, if you like, a negative mindset. Yeah. And then later, as a as a young adult in my early twenties doing a year out, a years contract in a community relations project in Belfast and as part of that doing project called Journey into Understanding, which was really an encounter group for Protestants and Catholics, come together and talk about differences and what they believed, what they didn't believe and the differences.
Sarah 00:08:45:03 - 00:09:16:10
And part of that was was doing a tour of different churches on No More Road in Belfast, and so I think we did Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Catholic Church and being struck by the difference, the physicality of those places and what they looked like and what they felt like and what the experience was like. And, and listening to people who believed quite different things from me and being able to hold those perspectives and not go, well, that's better or worse or that's just different.
Sarah 00:09:17:19 - 00:09:47:24
And so that was probably a shift for me just deepening my understanding of what those differences were and how much they impacted not just personal faith, but what the physical expression of that faith looked like in a building, right? And the atmosphere in a building. And so those are things that I think I continue to reflect on and to to think about the things that make us different and why they become such a big deal.
Trisha 00:09:48:23 - 00:10:09:16
Yeah, I'm thinking about your parents and how they must have raised you with such. The word that comes to mind is grace because they didn't give you any of those biases which would have been so unique in that environment. I mean, you grow up without an awareness of that difference, which
Sarah 00:10:10:08 - 00:10:33:09
Yeah, and I didn't appreciate that till I was older because you don't know what you don't know. it's just like I will often say I have a very, very good friends back home who's also called Sarah, and she's from a different background and upbringing than I had and we were having a deep, I think she must have been going to a a Protestant funeral.
Sarah 00:10:33:09 - 00:10:48:08
We were having a big conversation about it once actually, so what happens and how do you do that? And I was just, it's a long time since I've been to one. Hang on. I’ve got tp hone a friend friend and I can’t remember what we were talking about, I do remember turned to me and said, I don't really think about you as being anything, you know.
Sarah 00:10:49:00 - 00:11:08:23
And I thought, that's one of the nicest things anybody's ever said to me, because where, you know, I come from a place where you're either one or the other. You're very clearly. You know, what school you go to, it's what games you play. Despite what some people might have been told they were growing up. You can't tell from looking at us, though, that is a thing, right?
Sarah 00:11:09:02 - 00:11:27:13
That you can tell because your eyes are closer together, whatever nonsense. But I do remember her saying that. And I thought that's that's great. I’m okay with that. It wasn't that she was saying, I don't think of you as being spiritual building, but being or not having faith. I just don't think of you as having a label.
Trisha 00:11:27:16 - 00:11:27:24
Yes. Yeah. She wasn't putting you into a box.
Sarah 00:11:27:24 - 00:11:34:18
Yeah. And because there is like a mythical sorting hat where I come from.
Trisha 00:11:36:02 - 00:11:37:03
And now I'm wishing I could.
Sarah 00:11:37:03 - 00:11:50:21
Changing a a lot generationally. I have to say that, you know, we are making progress. But she and I are of a generation where we remember, you know, different things or were subjected to different things, are aware of different things and or slightly.
Trisha 00:11:51:02 - 00:12:03:17
And now I'm wishing we had Dr. Mark from last week here because we could talk to him about, you know, if the faces don't change. Do you still you know, how do you still build that recognition of us and them?
Sarah 00:12:03:17 - 00:12:30:04
A lot of them, a lot of interesting work on signs and symbols and context and a little thing like school uniforms. Football shirts. I mean, I don't know if it still trades anybody listening to this in Belfast. Help me out in Northern Ireland. But certainly when I was working there, a lot of organizations would have had a policy that you didn't wear soccer shirts to work because teams have affiliation.
Sarah 00:12:30:13 - 00:12:55:07
So yeah, things like that would have been cues. So and that's what the research shows about young, about preschool children picking up the facial cues. So it's not faces, but it's a football shirt or it's an address and it's where you go to school or it's what kind of clerical colour you wear, whether you're a priest or a, you know, a Methodist minister or whatever.
Sarah 00:12:55:07 - 00:13:01:14
Apparently some of those things that they will then go, Oh, that's not that's not for me, that's not good kind of association.
Trisha 00:13:02:13 - 00:13:17:23
And I guess too if you are going to mass, as I grew up, you would have a constant group of people around you. So you would identify those people. And those people will be the same every Sunday. I mean, in a small town anyway.
Sarah 00:13:18:12 - 00:13:31:14
Yeah, yeah. And where I'm from is nearly all small towns,. So yeah, where people live, where they, where you go to school is a big thing. But we do now have increasingly integrated education, which is wonderful.
Trisha 00:13:32:05 - 00:13:35:19
So it's wonderful that you had that shift, but without any.
00:13:36:00 - 00:13:46:01
Trisha
Negativity, any prejudice, any bias. Your parents just made you aware that there were differences. Without.
Trisha 00:13:47:21 - 00:13:49:04
Without bias or favour.
Sarah 00:13:49:13 - 00:14:13:06
And I think I think we probably all still hold bias. We have a bias against what we don't know.. And what we're not familiar with. So I was taken to church. My grandparents did take me to church. And so I still have a sense of bias and that and I'm still unfamiliar with certain things. You know, I didn't go to a Gaelic game until my mid-twenties – didn’t know what I was missing.
Sarah 00:14:13:14 - 00:14:30:18
Just so there's lots of there's lots of bits and pieces that I don't know if it's bias, much as I don't have a negative association by it, but it's it's something I don't still don't know enough about or understand enough about or it's different in my upbringing.
Trisha 00:14:30:18 - 00:14:51:14
Oh well that was really interesting, but I also want to dive into your expertise so which, you know, you have gained through growing up and through being educated in that environment, through working in Northern Ireland and in a communication situation. So I want to come to your comms experience and look through that lens of.
Trisha 00:14:52:05 - 00:15:21:00
Cultural intelligence and creating a shift. And because I've worked with you, full disclosure, I've worked with Sarah in a number of working situations, and so I know there's a number of pieces of key advice you'll always be telling organizations, you know, and I recall you used to saying, Remember who you're speaking to? Trish I remember who you're talking to as we were writing something or knowing what we were going to be presenting in different situations and keep it simple is always one of your things as well.
Trisha 00:15:21:00 - 00:15:33:06
And then through a really big piece of work that I did with you, the inclusivity of communication. So those are three key things that I know that you're always preaching is the wrong word, but you're always.
Sarah 00:15:33:09 - 00:15:39:24
Sometimes I do get that it's okay, sometimes I do.
Trisha 00:15:39:24 - 00:15:42:23
Maybe there's others, and maybe those are just the ones that I've picked up.
Trisha 00:15:43:11 - 00:15:58:06
But I guess I want to just reflect on those for a moment and think about them in terms of, you know, cultural intelligence and how your expertise in each of those areas works to help people with whatever it is that they're communicating.
Sarah 00:15:58:18 - 00:16:21:20
Yeah, And I think it's fascinating. I think one of I mean, and I've talked to you about this, I think if I could, there's a lot of things I would change in the world if I suddenly had a magic wand or some kind of superpowers. But one of them is, I think, anybody I would love for anybody working in communications full time as a communications professional consultant and voice forever to understand cultural intelligence, because I think it's a game changer.
Sarah 00:16:22:11 - 00:16:45:22
I think we talk a lot about emotional intelligence in communication, and I think we as a profession haven't quite got the CQ. And I think it's I think it's so valuable. I think one of the things that I've been reflecting on having done more CQ training recently is what you often talk about is the perspective taking and that really ties into the who you're talking to.
Sarah 00:16:46:18 - 00:17:12:20
And that's having that drive to understand the audience and then to think about your thinking and to have that table to take the knowledge, to build the right kind of strategy, to build, to change your action. Depending on what you then know about your audience and their perspective, and to be able to hold that lightly so that you don't bring a value judgment.
Sarah 00:17:13:07 - 00:17:39:08
And so one of the things, if you want to be effective in your communication, you've got to think about the audience and the people. And that can be cultural in the sense of national culture. But also a great piece of work done last year by Jenny Fields, who I've had the pleasure of working with, and Benjamin Ellis at Social Optic, and she presented it together and they were talking about by deskless and desk based workers.
Sarah 00:17:39:21 - 00:17:59:16
And I was like in the corner going, It's cultural, it's cultural. And because that was the impact for me. And I suddenly went, Oh, it's, you know, all this stuff about desk, those workers not being engaged is actually to do with they use communication quite differently. Their communication preferences needs how they work are so different. That's very much a cultural difference.
Sarah 00:18:00:03 - 00:18:26:13
And so I think a huge sweeping statement coming here. But I think communications professionals, we often look at audiences and might do sort of the demographic thing or go, this is for moms or what happened, you know, or who's the internal audience or it's, you know, it's these people or whatever. But I think really having CQ as a framework to drive into what's their perspective, what are they sitting with?
Sarah 00:18:27:09 - 00:18:59:03
I do I adapt the communication to resonate with them, to actually build that connection, to engage with them, to be relevant. I think that I just find the CQ framework so useful for that, and it's made me reflect on some of what I do want audiences as we talk to them and how we communicate. And I think in a world where we are all basically overwhelmed with communication, you know, we're all exhausted, our brains are all a little bit like.
Sarah 00:18:59:03 - 00:19:26:08
Stop. I resonated very strongly with Mark saying last week, if we all just slow down, we'd get more done. And that applies to speed of communication. I think being able to take that step back and hold the perspective and see other people's points of view on issues and then tempering and adjusting and adapting your communications accordingly is it's the only way to really be truly effective in today's world.
Sarah 00:19:27:03 - 00:19:54:10
And I think particularly now as communication technology gets more sophisticated, we can tailor, we can adapt. But it's it's things like, you know, if you have to desk- less workers, why are you sending them emails yet if that's you know to as an app is it a text, is it verbal from their manager? What are the shifts that you need to make in how
Sarah 00:19:54:10 - 00:20:29:07
You think about what communication is? and I think we all fall into that trap sometimes echoing what it's email service newsletters or it's of. And and I think you've heard me say this before that we're I think we're all if we're being really honest guilty and I have briefed people to do this to my shame, focusing on what it is we want to say and that we need to tell people this or the three points we need to get across this interview are and not enough thinking about what is the perspective of the people I want to engage with?
Sarah 00:20:29:23 - 00:21:07:15
What's the perspective of the listener? What are they sitting with how is this landing with them? And I think quite often we think about culture in the global sense, and I think just any line of difference, you know, if if I'm talking to the engineering department and I'm a creative and I'm used to talking to creatives, do I need to adapt my style to engage with the engineering department. I’m married to an engineer, full disclosure, it's a lot of personal communication goes on. So I'm not saying there's a difference, but in thinking about all of those things and then thinking and another big shift that I had recently was thinking a lot about how we
Sarah 00:21:07:15 - 00:21:35:02
talk about disability. And I because that was the shift we also went through together. And that was I thought I knew things and I didn't I was wrong. And I'm very grateful to Sarah Thorne Hurst for helping me be better but having to relearn language because I was thinking about it from my perspective and I wasn't thinking about how, it was landing with with disabled people.
Sarah 00:21:35:19 - 00:22:11:09
And so really having the drive and the curiosity to dig deep into that, I think is so important and so valuable. And that's, I think, why I get quite passionate about CQ communication, because I think there's a natural and natural affinity there in the same way that we would talk about, you know, adopting your management style, leadership style, high power, low power, any of the values metrics, you know, you need to think about official communication styles, emails again, how you do it, the manner in which you do it, a different ways.
Sarah 00:22:11:09 - 00:22:33:01
And that speaks that into inclusivity because you you feel that communication is tailored to you. And understands your pain or confusion or don't care-ness or whatever your your mindset, like theory or position might be or it's written and targeted for you in a way that makes it relevant.
Trisha 00:22:34:13 - 00:22:52:23
And I'm you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking about it's really you know, I aim to make communications inclusive because I'm not going to shift people if we're continuously leaving them out. And most communication wants to shift it wants, it wants to get people to do something different. Or.
Trisha 00:22:53:13 - 00:22:57:13
I mean, sometimes I guess it's just communication to inform maybe.
Sarah 00:22:57:21 - 00:23:23:10
Um yes. And I think what I would say is even if it's not to shift, sometimes it's not to shift, but you always want a respond or a reaction. So even if I'm just saying to you, Trisha, tea break will not be at 11:00, not at ten, but you might never take your tea break, but you might know, but you might be very hard working and but I think that often you just you know, I'm just saying we have a new product coming out.
Sarah 00:23:23:10 - 00:23:45:00
I don't need you to do anything about it. It doesn't affect your division. You're a bit of the business, your geography. It's just for information. I still want you to internalize it, learn it, think about it, but be aware. It's one of my least favourite words. I'm like, What does that mean to be aware? And in communications terms, how do you measure that?
Sarah 00:23:45:13 - 00:24:08:15
And you can actually but I think we always need to go beyond awareness, always feels like a bit of a cop out for me. But I think that thinking about inclusivity is is just good communication. And I think I'm paraphrasing somebody smarter than me when I say that. But if you want to be effective, you have to be inclusive.
Sarah 00:24:08:22 - 00:24:33:08
There's and it's as simple as there's no point in having this really important, potentially life altering thing that you want to say to the world. If people can't read it, see it, hear it, understand it. And so that affects the languages, the formats, the channels, the platforms that you make it available in. And that's a lot to hold in your head as the communications professionals, teams and diversity of thought are important.
Sarah 00:24:34:03 - 00:24:49:14
But again, it takes you back to that cultural intelligence that constantly want to learn about other audiences and how they best communicate and how they how you can engage best with them. It's it's sort of a constant challenge, but a really great well at the same time.
Trisha 00:24:49:20 - 00:25:11:06
So if we are wanting to communicate in a way to to make some sort of shift, to help people to see things differently, think differently and behave differently ultimately. But what what are you thinking about from a comms perspective that would be different than just, you know, we want to we want you to know that we have a new product.
Trisha 00:25:11:07 - 00:25:14:21
What has to be different?
Sarah 00:25:14:21 - 00:25:45:23
So many things. You know, it's such a great question. And I think you can't expect people to behave differently if you don't tell them what the desired behaviour is. So it's like, you know, and some of that will come down to whether you're in a direct or indirect context, perhaps yourself. So you might take the short, direct route or you might take the long way around and I think more hints and nudges and subtle suggestions or it might be a bit more, We really want you all to come to work at 9:00, not half past.
Sarah 00:25:45:23 - 00:26:14:00
And again, all of the cultural values CQ model kind of helps you to understand fit into that high context as an instruction. We put it in the rules because that's how you will be able to internalize that and and comply to that. And I think there's interesting case study on Netflix in Japan made feedback part of the rules it was the only way that they could get their Japanese colleagues to do it the way that they did it in the States.
Sarah 00:26:14:00 - 00:26:46:04
So I think it's about understanding what will help, what the barriers are, what will help people to engage with the change. I think it's also repetition. We're all so overwhelmed that nobody is hearing a message once and remembering it, much less translating it into action. I quite often do an exercise at workshops where I ask people just to turn everything off and if they're comfortable to turn their video off or sound off, and if they're comfortable to close their eyes just for 30 seconds and just try and like have a little rest.
Sarah 00:26:47:04 - 00:27:06:23
But then I also ask them to think about their day and think about how many pieces of communication they have observed participated in. And that's everything from Did your partners buy significant other one coffee this morning? Did you offer them coffee? If you've got kids, what kind of cereal? What was that discussion about being late and who's got what
Sarah 00:27:06:23 - 00:27:35:06
Gym kit. And Oh, that's all communication. Was there a radio on and were you looking at your phone? Was it WhatsApp, email, social media? You think of what like our our parents are just like and so if you trying to effect change in and be doing it across lines of difference then you do need to be in to adapt the communication and the strategy depending on the cultural context so that it resonates and it's relevant.
Sarah 00:27:35:10 - 00:28:00:06
But I think you also need to be prepared to repeat and nudge so that it shows up and lots of different places. There's an attempt to get to some kind of consistency. I quite often say clarity, but I've been reflecting a bit on that recently about whether my definition of clarity is very Western biased, and I suspect that it is. Not just suspect,
Sarah 00:28:00:06 - 00:28:23:04
I know it is and I've been reflecting a bit on that about what clarity means. And and yes, I want to say it as plainly as simply as I can so that as many people as possible understand, but just I mean, that's kind of a shift that I'm sort of working through, if you like. It's just thinking about where that I'll say Western for the purposes of brevity, kind of influence comes in about how we communicate and what that looks like.
Sarah 00:28:23:08 - 00:28:44:03
And so those are things to reflect on. But I do think unless you give people structure and the how to and the clarity of what we want and why, it can be quite difficult to change behaviour and I think it was. Jenni Field who said last year, tell them, tell them, tell them. And then when you think you've told them enough, tell them again.
Trisha 00:28:44:11 - 00:28:44:23
Right? Yes.
Sarah 00:28:45:00 - 00:29:12:23
And again, it's that sometimes we think one piece of communication and people will just know. And then when again, that's the overwhelm thing. And then if you're overwhelmed when you think about your day like that and all the things that you've absorbed, think about doing it. If you're not operating in your first language, so your brain is translating, or if you have a visual or auditory impairment that makes it difficult for you to understand it.
Sarah 00:29:12:24 - 00:29:34:11
You know, you just can't do it at the same speed as everybody else. You're, you know, there's barriers to you accessing the communication that there shouldn't be, frankly. And think about how exhausting that is. And quite often organizations, leaders go, well, I told you, and you're like, that was one email six months ago amongst the eleventeen hundred emails that I've seen since then.
Sarah 00:29:34:19 - 00:29:59:15
Yeah, the end, you know, we just because it's super important to us, we don't have the perspective of, you know, it's not necessary. It's not accessible to me. You haven't made it relevant to me, you haven't made it easy for me. And I am sitting here in a constant state of OooO. And I can remember that gif I saw last night on Instagram, but I've no idea what you said to me in the meeting yesterday.
Sarah 00:29:59:15 - 00:30:24:04
You know, we've all been there. So I think that's that. Again, it's perspective taking. It's thinking by the audience and having it seep understanding and empathy for them and really also being able to kind of dial down into the specifics of what your audience looks like and who they are and what's going on with them. And I'm trying to understand how they might receive the message.
Sarah 00:30:24:04 - 00:30:53:01
And so balancing that crafting of what you want them to know and how you want them to behave with that kind of receptive state for that, how will that land? You know, it's the classic case of I think I'm being super polite, but in a different culture. I'm being incredibly rude. And we often just we might see that in a national or regional culture situation, but we don't always and I kind of organizational cultures situation and often organizational cultures are like, What do you mean you don't want that?
Sarah 00:30:53:04 - 00:30:57:14
Like, you need that in a language other than English. Your head office culture will dominate the communications.
Trisha 00:30:57:14 - 00:31:17:16
But I'm thinking too, because so often this is something that you do. And indeed I worked through a situation with you some years ago at the beginning of the pandemic when we had to change. We had to cancel a conference that was a much-loved conference and that people were dearly looking forward to. And this was very early in the pandemic.
Trisha 00:31:17:16 - 00:31:18:21
So we were sort of ahead.
Sarah 00:31:19:19 - 00:31:20:06
We were.
Trisha 00:31:20:19 - 00:31:48:00
When we cancelled it, but by the time it would have been held, it would have had to have been cancelled anyway. But we cancelled. So I'm wondering if when you're communicating in a crisis and, you know, the communication is going to come across differently, does this, what changes? And, you know, Yeah. How does how does the crisis aspect impact on all of these things you're saying about inclusivity and taking into account all of these aspects?
Sarah 00:31:48:18 - 00:32:16:03
I think it just makes them more important. And so I the definition that I tend to carry of crisis is it's a threat to life or livelihood and everything else is an issue and there's a crisis. Yes. But it's a point is still valid. I mean, there were people who were very distressed by that for lots of like lots of emotional psychosocial reasons because it was a chance to be with people.
Sarah 00:32:16:03 - 00:32:46:11
They wouldn't they would never maybe see otherwise. But I think this is where cultural intelligence becomes even to me, even more important, because you are often dealing with people who are deeply traumatized. And so being able to take their perspective and understand how difficult it is for them to process information. And I think also and I'm hopeful there's more work on this.
Sarah 00:32:46:11 - 00:33:16:01
I've read some really interesting things about this recently that in a really difficult crisis situation, I'm thinking of, you know, awful things like mas school shootings. There are still people doing communicating. There is law enforcement, there's all kinds of people in the midst of that, all of whom are running on adrenaline, high levels of stress, dealing with various levels of trauma, dealing with various levels of grief and loss and all kinds of things.
Sarah 00:33:16:18 - 00:33:49:22
And to be able to take other people's perspective in communicating there is so incredibly important because it's actually beyond the communication. There's a kind of a wider social responsibility to not make things more difficult than they have to be. And sometimes if you're a communications professional in that situation, you are dealing with quite difficult things. You are having to report on very difficult things or explain difficult things or answer the phone to very distressed members of the public families, situations like that.
Sarah 00:33:50:05 - 00:34:12:17
And so being self-aware of how you show up in that situation is incredibly important. And sometimes, I mean, the thing about a crisis is they don't often have time to prepare and say, You're working out how you show up in that situation. And there's a lot to be said for crisis preparedness and thinking through the awful things that could happen.
Sarah 00:34:12:17 - 00:34:33:10
I'd say if you’re interested in learning more about crisis. My go to is Amanda Coleman and I recommend her writing and she had a lovely example of what happens when you don't understand the audience. Not a lovely example. It's a horrible example. It make mevery cross on the weekend. But she was writing about a school shooting in Texas and she was quoting from a report on it.
Sarah 00:34:33:10 - 00:34:59:10
And I think the context was that the local community was predominantly Spanish speaking, and yet all the official communications by the incident where in English and then a good friend I was talking to them about this today, made the point that depending on the community that if written, you know, recorded voice communication would have been more accurate than verbal because you can always assume that people might depending on level of literacy.
Sarah 00:35:00:12 - 00:35:26:02
So some people might have had good reading English, but would have struggled to understand, you know, spoken and so on and oh, just all kinds of things that you think that they haven't taken the audience perspective or the community perspective on that as well as perhaps they they could have. And that ability to adapt the communication and strategy that would have been perfect in 16 other places within 100 miles.
Sarah 00:35:26:10 - 00:36:03:18
Yes, but but in this community and in this work and in this situation. And so understanding those things I think, is so fundamentally important and also understanding, again, thinking about cultural values, thinking about that framework, thinking, but in distance, thinking about powerful stuff in a crisis. And, you know, if you're working with in the police, that's very organized and very structured and has a way of thinking versus dealing with the community or individuals, you know, just being able to adapt across those things that you can understand where they might be coming from in their communication style.
Sarah 00:36:04:02 - 00:36:23:06
And then quite often, if you're the communications person in the middle of that, you're trying to unpack all those things, hold them all at once and spin them and deal with a journalist at the same time. So yeah, I, I think that's why again, why I feel strongly that working through CQ can be really helpful for communications professionals because those situations are tough for everybody.
Trisha 00:36:24:07 - 00:36:49:18
Yeah, there’s so much to think about. And yet so often when we think of the communications within an organization, we just think somebody sitting down and writing something for so often for somebody else to deliver or to come out from somebody else's email, but that person. And yet I can see and you know, through working with you over the years, I have deep respect for the expertise that is required and the skill that you have and your colleagues in the industry.
Trisha 00:36:50:16 - 00:37:06:20
And yeah, like you, I think their skills could be enhanced with cultural intelligence, but definitely see the power of well-crafted, well thought out communication from professionals who care I think is a bit that you've shown us in speaking.
Sarah 00:37:07:21 - 00:37:29:04
So yeah, I think having that deep empathy for your audiences, sometimes that's really hard and sometimes you're dealing with audiences whose experiences are so far removed from you that, you know, unpacking some of that bias as well is a is a good thing. And I'm slightly scared. But, you know, there is an issue in the industry in the UK about diversity.
Sarah 00:37:29:04 - 00:37:35:23
And so how does that show that in the communications that we create? So lots of really interesting things to think about and unpack.
Trisha 00:37:37:07 - 00:37:51:04
So thank you so much for your time. I'm sure many people want to keep following you and to learn from you, so I will put in the show notes. I will. As we've been talking, I thought, Oh, I'll have to put that in the show notes. So there's a few that I'll be chasing up and listening to again.
Trisha 00:37:51:15 - 00:38:15:10
But I will put Sarah's LinkedIn so you can follow her on LinkedIn. She has a newsletter which is published on, on LinkedIn as well, so you can sign up to her newsletter and she has a podcast called The Quick Dip. That's me with my Aussie accent, my Kiwi accent, the Quick Dip. So you can sign up to that podcast on your preferred podcast provider.
Trisha 00:38:16:02 - 00:38:31:08
Season two is coming very soon. You can refresh season one, which was great at sort of building your understanding of comms through a whole lot of different lenses. Is there anything else you'd like people to do? Sarah Would you like me to reference anything else in the show notes?
Sarah 00:38:32:07 - 00:38:51:21
No, I think that's lots. Thank you. I'll try. And remember all the people that I've mentioned when you call me about them afterwards and provide some other resources. That's. Yes. And if you are working in communications and maybe rediscovered CQ or something, you're applying to your work. I'd love to talk to you. I'd love to learn about how you're doing it.
Trisha 00:38:53:24 - 00:39:12:00
And this is something that Sarah is working on as well so that she can spread the word more among communications professionals. So I'm sure if you connect with her on LinkedIn, you'll be hearing more about this in the future. Thank you so much, Sarah. Really appreciate it. And for those of you who are listening, we'd love it if you could.
Trisha 00:39:12:18 - 00:39:28:08
If you were listening on one of the podcast apps, if you could like us or rate us, please give us a good rating, and share it with your friends so that other people can hear about this podcast as well. Thank you so much Sarah, Thanks everyone for listening.
Sarah 00:39:29:01 - 00:39:37:16
Thank you, Trisha