Executive Coaching - Media

“Culture takes diverse forms across time and space. This diversity is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up humankind. As a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for human kind as biodiversity is for nature.”

“In this sense, it is the common heritage of humanity and should be recognised and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations.” These words come from Article 1 of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and express very eloquently the need for diversity in all aspects of human activity.

With the tremendous development of the communication and information sectors, particular attention has been paid in recent years to the need for cultural diversity in the media as a way of preserving concepts of identity and social bonds within communities and cultures.

In our increasingly mobile and global world it has taken on greater, even urgent, importance. As people of different ethnicities and from different social, religious, political, economic, linguistic, and educational traditions come together in the workplace, schools, and in the neighbourhoods where we live, the potential for misunderstanding and conflict grows, creating barriers to productivity and progress. Cultural diversity is a fact of life and a phenomenon that will only become more complex in the future.

Today’s media environment increases choices, provides opportunities for cultural expression and dialogue and facilitates the flow of information at a global level. But parallel to this is a concentration of ownership, and a limitation of access and content sources. Without successful cultural diversity programmes in the media, societies as they change will become more fragmented and eventually unrecognisable as national identities.

Media organisations delivering to a national and global market must recognise the challenges and opportunities posed by increasing cultural diversity. Effective communication and understanding both inside with staff and freelancers and outside with the audience is obviously paramount.

The Current Situation in the UK

In the ‘90’s the issue being tackled was the level of media coverage and representation of migrants and minorities in Britain; by the end of the decade most commentators agreed that there had been a general overall improvement¹. In terms of the coverage of ethnic relations and immigration issues it was PBS (BBC) who led the way, the bulk of the press followed with ‘The Daily Mail’ being the most entrenched.

The issue has somewhat moved on in the first decade of the 21^st Century. As a result of the series of Race Relations Acts it is not so much the treatment and negative coverage of minority cultures, although at times it can still be an issue; it is more the inclusion of minority representation within the mainstream media – both in employment at senior level and coverage to engage these communities.

With minorities now amounting to over 10% of the UK population, demand is growing ever more vociferous for a root and branch change rather than giving mere lip service to cultural diversity. The PBS sector comes under particular attack as here minorities are forced to pay the licence fee without adequate mainstream delivery of programmes and presenters.

The frustration minorities are experiencing in what they perceive as inclusion that is largely illusory has led to a gradual drift away from British media.²

The UK broadcast media is in particular becoming more aware of the problem, being driven in part by legal obligation, in part by ethical and in part by commercial pressures.

Yet recently viewers noted ITV for its absence as a channel that rated as representing diversity and alternative viewpoints. Its regular audience recognised the channel as not living up to its remit as detailed in Purpose 4: Representing diversity and alternative viewpoints - part of the remit for broadcasting channels in the UK as regulated by OFCOM. Thus ITV is singularly failing in this area to live up to its, albeit meagre, Public Service Broadcasting requirements. Those are to “Make us aware of different cultures and alternative viewpoints, through programmes that reflect the lives of other people and other communities both within the UK and elsewhere.” ³

The arrogance of ‘superior’ cultures

Undoubtedly people at a senior level in these media organisations are trying to change the interior culture of their companies and corporations. The barriers remain at middle management and employee level.

For many white male employees the central measure of diversity is “ability” or “merit”. Numerous surveys document that most white males do not object to women, minorities, and other underrepresented people being hired or promoted if they are the best-qualified people. Unfortunately, when women and minorities in particular are appointed some white males are quick to cry “tokenism” or “reverse discrimination.” Often, in these instances, white males project a higher standard of “best qualified” for women and minorities than for themselves. That is women and minorities are expected to be better than best - a contradiction of qualifications.”⁴

A lack of cultural diversity – a salutary lesson

Engaging with cultural diversity is not just about getting different ethnicities working together, it is more generally about different beliefs systems meeting and creating synergy from this, rather than confusion, inefficiency and perhaps disaster.

An example of a well-known disaster came about through a company not being open to cultural diversity. The Columbia disaster was a direct result of the NASA culture and belief system being closed to other beliefs.

NASA had been trapped by its past successes - most achieved under a very focused remit of beating the Russians to the moon. NASA’s remarkable history had created a culture where failure was not an option. So people working in the company found it difficult to admit that something can’t or shouldn’t be done, or that resources were too stretched or safety margins too narrow. It was difficult for NASA people to accept that their company was not perfect - they had lost their ability to accept criticism. This led to “flawed decision making, self deception, introversion, and diminished curiosity about the world outside the perfect place.”

In this case the lessons are obvious - cultural resistance to objective opinion is to be avoided. Make sure minority opinions are heard and respected.⁵

Getting the best out of people

There is wide agreement around the world that teamwork is a good thing, but investigate a little closer and you’ll find fundamental disparities in what that word means to different cultures. Indian employees will find that if they question the actions of the CEO, they’re quickly out of a job. In Sweden the same action would have very little effect.

Different cultures tend to take in information in different ways – Hispanics and Latin Americans tend to be kinaesthetic, whereas Asians tend to be more visual than verbal (Asian/Eastern languages are picture based) and tend not to perform well when the primary mode of instruction is verbal. So in the company selection process a full range of tests and challenges will allow the business a much better sense of the capabilities of the potential employee.

Access to markets

Understanding the demands of the global marketplace with all these, sometimes conflicting, beliefs around what “works” can be a minefield. Taking away language can help – hence the huge success of ‘Benny Hill’ and ‘Mr. Bean’, but my argument is that the more diverse culturally the company is on the inside, the better it can operate effectively on a larger scale and accommodate global demand.

This is more obvious with multi-national corporations delivering products in their local territories, but equally it is appropriate for one-country based media companies working in the subtler areas of entertainment and perception - advertising and programming to a multi-cultural audience both nationally and increasingly on an international level.

A homegrown company practicing cultural diversity would have a distinct advantage over its competitors. Creative input is widened with cross-fertilisation of ideas but it is also deepened with direct knowledge of how the information will be received.

Managing Diversity

So what are the implications for a medium to large sized company promoting cultural diversity, and how is it managed?

Far more than any other positions, it is managers who have the most influence in effecting the outcome of moves to embrace diversity. The challenges can seem to be daunting. For example issues as fundamental as team working: enthusiastically accepted by Swedes yet if possible avoided by Canadians. Managers should be aware of varying behaviour of their reports from different cultures - from lack of response or initiative to over reaction to feedback, excess defensiveness and negativity to excess deference towards themselves.

Likewise people who report to managers from different cultures should look out for micro managing with managers continually putting people on the spot and giving unexpected feedback.

Within poorly managed teams there could be interference in others responsibility, polarisation into those favouring quick movement against those waiting for the right decision. Some could see others as unsupportive. Teams could even break down into sub-teams and ostracism. Who then makes the decision? Or has one already been made?

Solution

How do we get out of this? How do we enhance the diversity within the culture of an organisation so that it operates fairly, it respects and values all its customers, it is ethical and it is commercial?

The Western humanistic tradition with its emphasis on the dignity and uniqueness of each individual provides the only acceptable resolution to cultural conflict. By working with individuals within a company, right across the board, to help them change perceptions and beliefs, only then does the company change its attitude.

There is data to show that employees who have experiences living with or working with people of other races, ethnic groups and ages exhibit greater preferences for diversity in the workplace. But few employees - even those under 25 years of age have this kind of experience.⁴

There is an obvious lesson to be learnt for HR recruitment policies – look for those with a range of life-skills including deep experience of other cultures. But there are other ways – most notably in coaching – that will be able to tackle current sets of beliefs.

Coaching for Cultural Diversity

The idea that beliefs, perhaps even entrenched beliefs, can be ‘coached out’ of someone might seem strange. After all it does look as if we’re talking about changing someone’s identity. On closer inspection though what is being asked of the client being coached is to take a step back and to view his or her beliefs as a non-judgemental observer. These skills can be acquired or learnt and providing the client has an interest in changing or evolving, they can be extended to all areas of his or her life.

In this environment beliefs can start to be appreciated, and are more easily seen as mutable, both for the ‘self’ and the ‘other’. Indeed the more one can appreciate the beliefs in others the less rigid and dogmatically held they become. Conversely the more judgemental one is about the beliefs of others, the more they make their beliefs solid and intransigent.

Teamwork in an atmosphere of appreciation is effortless and flows; the synergy is exceptional. It is in what Myles Downey would call Team Self Two⁶. Here the team as a whole is at its most objective, insightful, intuitive and creative.

To really experience the benefits of cultural diversity within the group or team, the team needs to be in the flow, and the more in the flow it is the greater the benefits are to the company. The reason why so much fruitless effort has gone into changing attitudes concerning cultural diversity is that ingrained beliefs are not recognised, perhaps by the observer and certainly by the individual to whom these beliefs might very well be transparent.

It requires an approach initially dealing with the individual team members to discover transparently held beliefs before they can perform adequately in a non-judgemental role within the team.

Downey asserts that there are two ‘states’ or ‘selves’ in which we operate the first is the ‘ teller’ or Self One state and the second is the ‘doer’ or Self Two state. When you have a conversation with yourself it’s the teller doing the talking – it’s the judging one. It’s the voice of authority – our parents, teachers and bosses. Self One seeks to control Self Two and does not trust it. It is characterised by tension, fear doubt and trying too hard. Whereas Self Two is the whole human being with all its potential and capacities – including the ‘hard-wired’ capacity to learn. It is characterised by relaxed concentration, enjoyment and trust.

Group Resonance

There is research to suggest that in a state of relaxed concentration our brains are functioning at a frequency of 8 Hz.⁷ This is an electromagnetic frequency, and it is at this rate where incidences of telepathy occur. That is people in ‘resonance’ or harmony, thinking the same thoughts.

Communications is at it optimum in these conditions and it is little wonder that group synergy too functions at its peak level here.

As a coach the aim is to get the individual and hence the group or team into a Self Two state and help them remain there. In this way the most objective, insightful, intuitive and creative work is achieved.

Helping the individual to be in Self Two in every day life and particularly in critical moments such as key meetings, highly stressful working conditions is arguably part of the coach’s or line-manager’s role.

Running specialised brainstorming exercises called Thought Storming⁸ exercises, with groups of people with wide ranging beliefs creates an interesting evolution in group synergy. Here not only the quality of decision-making is far superior to the sum of what a ‘normal’ unaligned group could offer, but also the speed at which these decisions were made was significantly improved.

To get to that group state each individual had to maintain his or her own state of non-judgement. That is, no matter what was said, or who said it, it was considered valuable to get to the ‘core-concept’. In this enhanced environment the best ideas and decisions always floated to the top and were instinctively recognised at once by the group as a whole.

Peace Process

In the early 90’s I ran a series of belief management courses in the Middle East with Palestinians, Arabs and Israelis. You can easily imagine the intensity of beliefs and judgements within the group. They were asked to explore the relationship between their beliefs and their experience. In the process there was a growing insight into their ownership and responsibility for these beliefs and so awareness that they could change their own experience of life.

Transparent beliefs were discovered and discarded and the same process, that of withdrawing judgement and replacing it with appreciation, was used to harness the multi-cultural diversity within the group. In this instance the efforts produced extraordinary synergy, which turned out to be highly effective in the group’s natural focus on peace making.

If this approach works with the most entrenched beliefs and differences in culture then it will work most effectively in organisations requiring improvement in their diversity programmes.

Bibliography

1. ‘Racism and Cultural Diversity in the Mass Media – an overview of research and examples of good practice in the EU Member States, 1995-2000.’ Paul Statham Inst. of Communications Studies, University of Leeds.

2. OFCOM PBS Review Phase 2 Response – Cultural Diversity Advisory Group to the Media (18/11/04)

3. OFCOM Annual Report 2007

4. ‘Cultural Diversity in the Workplace: Issues and Strategies’ George Henderson & Sue Schellanbarger (1993)

5. ‘Managerial Insights from a NASA Tragedy.’ Terence Brake (2003)

6. ‘Effective Coaching’ – Lessons from the Coach’s Coach. Myles Downey. (2003)

7. ‘Ancient Mysteries, Modern Visions’. Prof. Philip Callahan (1984)

8. ‘Living Deliberately’ Harry Palmer (1994)

I’ve been somewhat remiss as I haven’t been blogging over the summer period. The main reason is I’ve been writing a thesis on coaching for cultural diversity with particular regard to the media. Soon I’ll post a condensed version here - really condensed! Hopefully this may get you writing some responses.

Until then….

Following a session with someone I had this thought: “Is our fundamental role to be problem solvers? Life without problems has its own problems to solve. We thrive with challenges to overcome and when there aren’t any we create them.

So if life really didn’t have any problems or challenges we would just cease to be.

Is that true or false?

I have just had the most wonderful experience. I attended a one day cookery course at Raymond Blanc’s Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons.  This is a restaurant and hotel at the very pinnacle of culinary and caring excellence deep in the heart of the English countryside.

In many ways the experience gave me food for thought. The course tutor, Nurdin Topham, was totally passionate about food. When he talked food his eyes, always with a sparkle, widened slightly. His body bent forward a touch and arms helping to emphasise a point as he sought to explain. The energy was infectious.

“Cooking,” he said, “was like making films or musicals. It needs similar creative endeavours.”

Of course up to a point this is true. You need as much creative quality to make a fabulous meal as you do to make a good movie.

If you define an essence of creativity being the ability to communicate from one to another, then I think that cooking, along with making music is altogether at a deeper level of creativity than filmmaking.

For with these two arts, words and meaning do not present a potential barrier to understanding. It’s at this level when passion and love are untrammelled you get the full benefit of what is being created.

It then occurred to me that coaching is about bringing out the passion, finding the right path or to keep the culinary metaphor – the right recipe - guided again by passion. This allows you to keep from being distracted and your eyes on the goal.

If you’re passionate about your goals then just by talking to people they become moved too – it’s infectious. Set the world alight with your passion and it becomes easy to achieve your dreams.

In an earlier post I was making a point about the cultural diversity within an organisation and the more it can embrace this, the easier it can operate on a truly international scale.

This is more obvious with multi-national corporations delivering products in their local territories, but what about one-country based media companies working in the subtler areas of entertainment and perception - advertising and programming - on an international level? A home grown company practicing cultural diversity would have a distinct advantage over its competitors.

Creative input is widened with cross-fertilisation of ideas but it is also deepened with direct knowledge of how the information will be received. The flexibility of a smaller organisation is clearly an advantage and overheads are less.

Managing Diversity

So what are the implications for a medium sized company promoting cultural diversity, and how is it managed?

Far more than any other position, it is managers who have the most influence in effecting the outcome of moves to embrace diversity. The challenges can seem to be daunting. For example issues as fundamental as team-working: enthusiastically accepted by Swedes yet if possible avoided by Canadians. Managers should be aware of varying behaviour of their reports from different cultures - from lack of response or initiative to over reaction to feedback, excess defensiveness and negativity to excess deference towards themselves.

Likewise people who report to managers from different cultures should look out for micro-managing, managers continually putting people on the spot and giving unexpected feedback.

Within poorly managed teams there could be interference in others responsibility, polarisation into those favouring quick movement against those waiting for the right decision. Some could see others as unsupportive. Teams could even break down into sub-teams and ostracism. Who then makes the decision? Or has one already been made?

How do we get out of this?

Some years ago I facilitated a series of belief management courses in the Middle East with Palestinians, Arabs and Israelis and a couple of Germans. You can easily imagine the intensity of beliefs and judgements within the group. They were asked to explore the relationship between their beliefs and experience and how it felt to suspend judgement on ‘easy’ beliefs and then ‘harder’ beliefs. In the process there was a growing insight into their ownership and responsibility for these beliefs and so awareness that they could change their own experience of life.

This same process, that of withdrawing judgement and replacing it with appreciation, can be used to establish multi-cultural diversity within the team and company to work effectively and cohesively to produce extraordinary synergies.

 

 

Why is it that executives from most industries see presentation skills as of paramount importance and something that needs to be acquired, whilst execs in the media tend to view these attributes as part of their DNA? A talent that needs no honing. 

After all, if you’re in the business of story telling, it should come naturally. Shouldn’t it? 

Reality check please.  

From young mavens, who rely on pure enthusiasm to get them through to those with so much experience that they can depend on all those tried and trusted anecdotes woven in with gossip, to carry the event. It just isn’t fair to your audience. Granted the subject matter gives you a flying start, but just think how much more entertaining it would be if you devoted as much time and skill to developing a half hour talk as you do with a thirty second pitch.   

Take a leaf out of any good scriptwriting manual - a good presentation needs research, structure and plot. OK - a beginning, a middle and an end. It also needs rehearsal to enhance confidence - if you need it - to improve timing and to delete stuff that doesn’t work. Most importantly it stops you committing the cardinal sin of over-running. The goodwill you have gained erodes exponentially once your time is up. 

So whether you are an independent producer looking to finance your first low budget feature or a broadcasting executive in front of shareholders or a Parliamentary Select Committee, try gaining those skills to give you the edge. 

  

 

My take on this paralysing condition is that there’s a fundamental belief creating the experience. The belief’s probably so close that you cannot see it - it’s transparent to you. “That’s how it is!” The trick is to discovering that belief or beliefs. Quite often the process alone will have an effect on the experience by reducing its impact or even getting rid of it entirely. 

I’ve been trawling through a mass of blogs to recommend the ones with the best tips for overcoming stage fright or performance anxiety. It’s not by any means comprehensive, but I hope it helps.

Towards a Better Life  -  a good one on getting into the right mind-set and kicking-ass.

DanceHelp.com - a great one for dancers.

Overcoming Performance Anxiety by Sarah Thomas. A Four Step Process. Sensible and lots of tips.

Musicians and Performance Anxiety by Kevin Sinclair. Someone who seems to know what he’s talking about, and features in many blog sites . Types and tips.

Solitude.in.music From drugs, alcohol and bananas to control xs adrenaline.

Business speakers should get a mention too as some stuff here is appropriate for creatives.

Fighting Stage Fright by Lybi Ma in Psychology Today for those needing a psychologist’s angle.

Writer’s block or blogger’s block, happens to most of us at one time or another. It’s what we do about it that either makes it a mountain or a molehill. I’ve recently come across some physical exercises that just may do the trick. The only caveat would be to choose carefully where you would carry out these exercises.

It’s from a system called Brain Gym devised by Dr. Paul Dennison to help him overcome his own dyslexia. One exercise is specific for overcoming block.

Hold up the thumb of your right hand to shoulder height and directly out in front of you. Draw an infinity symbol horizontally - a figure of eight on its side - as large as you can, following your thumb all the way with your eyes, but without turning your head. Do this about five times with each hand.

According to some people, drawing large infinity signs slowly on A3 landscape paper - or moving your finger around your desk - can free up writer’s block as it helps empty your mind of clutter so you can get your thoughts across more clearly. Carla Hannaford, a neuro-physiologist, has written ‘Smart Moves’ a book exploring the body’s role in thinking and learning. The above exercise and others can be found on it.

And then there are a whole range of tips you can find from the coal face as it were - bloggers themselves. These are some of the best: 

Battling Bloggers Block- 25 well thought out tips - this guy blogs!

Breaking a Writing Block - A good tip too about never deleting stuff when you’re depressed (about block). 

7 Rules for Maximizing Your Creative Output - Flow ‘n Go

101 Ways to Brew up a Great Idea - These are great one-liners. All on a mug…

Hope that helps - consider those mountains molehills.

Cultural diversity is not a new phenomenon, yet in our increasingly mobile and global world it has taken on greater, even more urgent, importance. As people of different ethnicity and from different social, religious, political, economic, linguistic, and educational traditions come together in the workplace, schools, and in the neighbourhoods where we live, the potential for misunderstanding and conflict grows, creating barriers to productivity and progress. Cultural diversity is a fact of life and a phenomenon that will only become more complex in the future.    Media organisations delivering to a global market must recognise the challenges and opportunities posed by increasing cultural diversity. Effective communication and understanding both inside with staff and freelancers and outside with the audience is obviously paramount.         

Getting the best out of people   

There is wide agreement around the world that teamwork is a good thing, but investigate a little closer and you’ll find fundamental disparities in what that word means to different cultures. Indian employees will find that if they question the actions of the CEO, they’re quickly out of a job. In Sweden the same action would have very little effect.   In ‘From Rhetoric to Practice’ by Cummins, Devillar and Faltis: Different cultures tend to take in information in different ways – Hispanics and Latin Americans tend to be kinaesthetic, whereas Asians tend to be more visual than verbal (Asian/Eastern languages are picture based) and tend not to perform well when the primary mode of instruction is verbal. So in the company selection process along with CVs and showreels, a full range of tests and challenges will allow the business a much better sense of the capabilities of the potential employee.        

Diversity and Profits 

Understanding the demands of the global marketplace with all these, sometimes conflicting, beliefs around what “works” can be a minefield. Taking away language can help – hence the huge success of ‘Benny Hill’ and ‘Mr. Bean’, but that’s pretty drastic. My argument is that the more diverse culturally the company is on the inside, the better it can operate effectively on a larger scale and accommodate global demand.  

That depends on your commitment to the process. If you are it does. Even in the most ordinary of activities people can perform better, it all depends on the will whether optimum performance can be achieved.
 
But what about people who have the will, surely coaching is a luxury? The argument being that those who have the ‘get-up-and-go’ can sort it.
 
They can certainly achieve much more, but as with sportsmen at the top of their game without the right kind of coaching they will experience mental barriers that separate participants from winners.
 
Coaching actually helps the player – in whatever ‘game’ he or she is in - get rid of those elements that get in the way of achievement.  I’m sure we all recognise them – a busy mind, doubt, fear of winning or losing or making a fool of yourself, boredom, trying to impress, being a perfectionist, an out-of kilter work/life balance and so on. Once all these are out of the way then you’re in the flow or zone.
 
Here you are totally in tune with your skills, the environment and with others, things happen effortlessly. Creativity is enhanced, as does the bottom line. Life becomes fun.