113: The transformational power of 'Cultural Intelligence' in driving behaviour change and actions: Ritika Wadhwa, Founder Prabhaav Global

The Elephant in the Room

Shownotes

The Elephant in the Room podcast was in hibernation in December and January. We are back this week with our first episode of the year with the indomitable Ritika Wadhwa. Ritika Wadhwa is a strategic advisory board member for British Transport Police, is a Fellow at the Society of Leadership Fellows, Windsor Castle, a Board Director and Trustee of the 5% club. But, above all of that she is an accomplished, kind and hugely generous person - opening up her networks to all who need it (including me). There is a beautiful story behind the name of her consultancy Prabhaav Global and also her brand colours (listen to the podcast to know more).

She is one of the many people I follow on LinkedIn and early last year I invited her to be a guest on my podcast. By the time we actually recorded the podcast episode it was October (I think) - the timing was perfect though. She had taken a proverbial leap of faith and launched her consultancy Prabhaav Global - on a mission to cultivate cultural intelligence amongst individuals and organisations. When we finally caught up we spoke about cultural intelligence, her journey to entrepreneurship, working with a global brand like ASOS, intent and impact, culture and identity, leadership and much much more……

“When I decided to call it Prabhaav Global, a lot of people were giving me their feedback to say, why make it difficult? And I said, difficult for who? Because Prabhaav speaks to me. Prabhav means impact in Hindi. And that’s what I want to do. That’s me, that’s my identity. That’s my language. And I’m done with fitting in. I’m done with trying to be someone I’m not yet again. So I said, that’s it. I’m going to call it Prabhaav Global. The colours of the company are going to be turmeric because I love yellow. It’s my favourite spice and turmeric is the spice that transforms everything that it touches, thats I want to achieve through Prabhaav Global, transformational leadership, transformational behaviours” Ritika Wadhwa

Like to know more, head to the podcast 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Episode transcript

Sudha: Good afternoon, Ritika. Wonderful to have you as a guest today on The Elephant in the Room podcast. Thank you for being here.

Ritika: You’re most welcome. Thank you for having me, Sudha. This has been something that I have been excited to be on for a while.

Sudha: Yeah, we’ve been planning this for some time. So to start with can you give us a quick introduction to who you are and what you do?

Ritika: Sure. So I am Ritika Wadhwa. I am the CEO and founder of Prabhaav Global. Prabhaav means impact in Hindi and that’s what I’m here for, impact, impactful work and using the transformative power of cultural intelligence for impactful leadership.

Besides that, I also sit on the strategic advisory board of British Transport Police. I’m a leadership fellow at Windsor Castle and also a trustee at the 5 percent Club. All of this to say that really grateful to be here on this conversation with you talking about everything that we’re going to talk about and I’m excited about that.

Sudha: Brilliant. So how and when did you decide to focus on cultural intelligence? Was it, a natural pathway to the work that you were doing because I’ve seen you’ve had varied experience or did you just wander into it, you know, and you were good at it.

Ritika: Oh, I don’t know about good. It’s definitely been a journey.

So I was born and brought up in India, let’s start from there. Born and brought up in India in a very sort of strict patriarchal society and community structure. I then moved to the UK to do my MBA and along the way, you know, until we’ve got to this point, I have worked and studied and lived in three continents.

So when COVID hit and I was sort of going from one job to the next until that point. When COVID hit, it almost felt like I know what I don’t want to do, but I don’t know what I want to do, if that makes sense. So I was very clear about the job that I was in at that point was not something that was serving me and I didn’t see it serving me for the rest of my career.

So I went on a coaching journey to really unpack who I was, what I wanted to do from life, because as an Indian woman, it’s almost as if you never ask that question, you get on with life. You get on with doing the duties as a mother, as a daughter, as a sister, as a wife, as you know, all of that.

And your career is there somewhere in the way for various reasons, but it’s not something that you think about too much or give it the importance that you should probably. So I gave it the importance that it deserves at that point in my life. And I went on that coaching journey, unraveled what was important to me, what my transferable skills were and what I wanted to do for the remaining part of my career, because all said and done, we are doing a job, whether that’s eight hours a day, 10 hours a day, a core part of our life is working.

So for me, the question was, how can I sit back for a second and really do what I want to do because I’m going to give this the time anyway. So in that coaching journey DEI came out, diversity, equity, inclusion came out as a passion, rightly so, because as an immigrant, as a woman of colour living in the UK, who’s been born and brought up in India, this is something that I was very passionate about.

And then I saw the job ad for Cultural Intelligence Center and I applied and got the job. The thing that called me towards cultural intelligence was the fact that here’s a framework that actually makes people accountable for behaviour change. And that’s what I was interested in. I’m interested in actions and behaviour change rather than training courses that people go into and are not accountable for that behaviour change.

And so cultural intelligence almost called me and it was meant to be and I started working for them as director of operations more than a couple of years ago, got promoted to chief operating officer while I was with them and cultural intelligence has been since then a core of what I do and how I intend to change the world.

Sudha: Wow, that sounds absolutely incredible. You’ve said that we don’t normally spend anytime thinking about where we want to go and where we are on the journey and where we’d like to go and what the next 10 years, what would I like to be doing for that period of time.

You launched your company Prabhav Global. I saw, your posts on LinkedIn and I heard from our conversations. You are very passionate about the name, about what you’re setting out to do. So you’re new to the entrepreneurial journey, but how has the journey been? And I recently also saw on LinkedIn that you won xxxxxx xxxxxxx as a client. So massive congratulations. And tell us a bit about this journey.

Ritika: Yeah, thank you. Fascinating, right? If someone would have told me, even in March this year, that you would be setting up your own organisation, I wouldn’t have believed them.

No way. Because I’ve been on a salary for 30 years. And as much as the rest of my family is filled with entrepreneurs I never thought that I would be one of them because the job security, especially if you have a young family, it’s really important. And I thought, you know what you do your job, you get your salary, you give your best to the job you have.

And then, you know, the times that you fall sick, et cetera, et cetera, you just think the entrepreneur way sounds really risky. But this time round, it almost felt like something in the higher powers was pushing me towards that, the way things unraveled it almost felt like this is what’s meant to be at this point in time. So literally I just decided to set up the company, give it my all for as long as I can afford to and see where it goes. The underlying factor that pushed me towards being an entrepreneur was, hey, bet on yourself. It’s fine. Just believe in yourself and bet on yourself fully and wholly and see where it goes.

So I set up Prabhav and you’re right, even when I decided to call it Prabhaav Global, a lot of people were giving me their feedback to say, why make it difficult? And I said, difficult for who? Because Prabhaav speaks to me. Prabhaav means impact in Hindi. And that’s what I want to do. That’s me, that’s my identity. That’s my language. And I’m done with fitting in. I’m done with trying to be someone I’m not yet again. So I said, that’s it. I’m going to call it Prabhaav Global. The colours of the company are going to be turmeric because I love yellow. It’s my favourite spice and turmeric is the spice that transforms everything that it touches, thats I want to achieve through Prabhaav Global, transformational leadership, transformational behaviours.

And so it’s been a very fascinating journey. It’s only three and a half months. So far, and I have learned more than I’ve learned any time in my life before. Thanks to amazing people like yourself, who I have come across along the way, who have been just God sent, right. Right from some of the introductions you’ve made, Sudha to just being around for conversations. I’ve been really lucky to have people like yourself in this journey so far that doesn’t make it feel lonely, that when I’m feeling down, I know I can pick up the phone and talk to people to go, okay, oh my God, right. What do I do with this next? And people that have been on the journey a lot longer than I have, they are willing to share.

And that’s beautiful. Those people that I’ve met along in the last 3, 4 months, that have taught me some, shared with absolute generosity, with not a competitive spirit, but just a generous spirit of wanting to see each other do well because we’re on the same journey, we’re on the same path, really wanting to get the same outcomes.

And so that generosity of spirit has been absolutely beautiful. I still, worry about a lot of things in life, but I somehow do not worry that much about business. Because again, I have been put on this path by higher powers. So I, believe that the higher powers will look after me. And at the end of the day, it’s work, you know, it’s work, it’ll all work out.

Sudha: And I think you’ve been amazingly generous. I have seen the kind of generosity that you yourself extend to others. And the wonderful network of people around you and how generous you are to open up that network to anyone, including to me.

So I’m sure, there are people who know that and good things definitely have an impact and make an impact on people. And there is definitely a snowballing effect on that.

What would your advice be Ritika to organisations who are getting on this journey? Why is cultural intelligence important for them, what are the three or four things that they can start with?

Ritika: So I just think that it’s a no brainer. And I say it’s a no brainer because look at the way the world is rapidly changing around us, look at even right now what’s going on with the division around the world that is causing havoc everywhere.

It’s heartbreaking, really, that humanity is going after each other in such a sorry and a sad way. So I feel from that context, it’s almost a no brainer that we have to find ways to find more that is common between us than there isn’t and cultural intelligence is one way that does that. There’s also the fact that the world is globalised because of digitalisation, because of social media.

We’ve all come closer together in a way. Those boundaries have become less and less pronounced. I also want to say, you know, what does AI mean for us as humans? And as we grow what does that mean for our roles in the future? 5 Years, 10 years from now, what is this all going to unveil?

So, with so much ifs, in the world around us right now, I think cultural intelligence is an absolutely needed skill that individuals and organisations need to develop, must develop, have to develop, in order to even sustain themselves, in order to survive, in order to have a competitive edge. You just have to learn how to work with people.

And so I just want to step back a little bit, cultural intelligence then is the ability to work with people that are different from us. It’s an ability that we can all develop, a skill that we can all develop, and a skill that, as I’ve said, is extremely much needed in the current context of the world that we operate in.

So my advice to organisations that are starting on the journey is, first of all, congratulations to consider starting on the journey, that’s the first step, and then the cultural intelligence framework itself unveils what are the three or four things. So the CQ drive, for example, the reason why we need to work with people that are different from us.

CQ knowledge, how do we gather information about people that are different from us? CQ strategy, how do we plan to work with people that are different from us? And CQ action, how do we actually work? How do we use that knowledge? How do we use that planning and the purpose to work with people that are different from us?

And so really, in a nutshell, the advice is to absolutely get on that journey and stay the path because it’s like anything else, you’re not going to be able to develop a sense of intelligence or anything else over one workshop. It’s a commitment to stay on that journey.

It’s that persistence to stay on the journey. And this is why the first, the most important thing that organisations and individuals have to unveil is why should they go on that journey. Because if your why and your purpose is clear for any journey in life, but specifically as you go towards something that might be uncomfortable, then it’s really important in order to stay persistent and confident on that journey, you have to be clear about your why.

Sudha: Yeah, that’s so true, Ritika. You spoke about digitalisation, you spoke about, the world coming closer together. And also, we live in a divided world, organisations are working with diverse teams across geographies. And people want to be treated fairly, they don’t want people in or Europe, or, UK dictating to employee groups in Asia or Africa about, and not actually treating them equal to themselves. So I think, yeah, definitely as a way forward, it’s something that people need to do. You’ve written an article about intent and impact. Tell us something about it. So impact is critical, definitely from your perspective.

Ritika: So before I go to intent and impact, you mentioned something really interesting there, that employee groups and people around the world work differently and it’s important to understand that.

So there’s that aspect of global diversity, right? How does the nationality affect who we are and our cultural values and how we like to be spoken to or treated or respected, et cetera, but then within the context of cultural intelligence, there’s also domestic diversity, which can very much show up in generational differences.

What you just mentioned around, the generational culture of…. I was speaking to someone recently who’s a millennial and she said to me, we are trying to work with a system that wasn’t built for us to succeed.

Sudha: Yeah, true.

Ritika: How do I work with this system without being called lazy or impatient, et cetera, because I just can’t be bothered to stay and try and work through a system that wasn’t built for us in the first place.

And those systems and policies and procedures that have been around decades. Some organisations are doing it better than others, where you sit back and you go, well, this isn’t serving us anymore, how do we change it? And so that’s all part of the cultural intelligence work.

So I just wanted to mention that before……

Sudha: That’s very critical thanks for sharing. Yeah.

Ritika: Intent and impact. So where this has all come from is when I moved to the UK 20 something years ago, my accent was mocked terribly. I had a very, very Indian accent. I still do, but then it was even more pronounced. And my first workplace. I was surrounded by people that would say my name wrong, say the words that I couldn’t say in the British way. And what that did over a period of time is that it really brought my confidence down. Although, in India, I had been taught the Queen’s English, history, geography, maths, whatever it was, all the topics were taught in English.

We had an elective Hindi, but it was English and the language that I thought in, was questioned. My ability to speak that language correctly was questioned in the first few years that I was here in the UK. Now, if I go back to those same people and said, did you intend for me to feel like that?

They will probably absolutely say no. That was not, we were just having fun and you know, it was just part of xxxxxxxxx together, et cetera, et cetera. But the impact of that on me was awful. And so I’ve reached a place in my life as an immigrant, ethnic minority, woman of colour, etc, to go, I genuinely don’t care what your intent is, because it’s invisible to me.

a) I can’t see it, until it turns into an action that has an impact on me. So when people get people’s names wrong or say things because it’s banter or, you know, sorry, I didn’t know, that’s fine. But what is the impact of that on the marginalised communities? And that’s what I’m interested in. I’m interested in the impact first.

I’m interested in making people accountable for that impact. Really, there is no excuse anymore to ask the type of questions people ask because there’s enough resources out there. There’s enough knowledge out there for people to really get their head. That doesn’t mean people can’t be curious.

Not everybody knows about everything. So, of course, there is a place for curiosity. But again, what is the impact? How is it that you’re positioning your curiosity? So, this is why I’m interested, of course, there’s a place for the fact that I intended to cause you harm and I’ve caused you harm, versus I didn’t intend to you harm and I have and I apologise for...