Angelika Sharygina
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very excited to welcome you to the very first World Higher Education Ranking Summit. And today, we are joined by industry leaders, changemakers, and government officials, but we'll see innovators and people shaping a better world. And I'm honored because today, we are joined by extraordinary people, leaders in their field, and people shaping a better mind for students worldwide. Professor Raul Sanchez is an award-winning clinical assistant professor and the corporate Program Coordinator at the New York University School of Professional Studies. Moreover, he has designed and delivered corporate training for Deloitte and the United Nations and been a writing consultant for Barnes and Noble press and PBS. A roll was awarded the New York University School of Professional study Teaching Excellence Award, and he specializes in linguistics and business communication. He contributes to Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal boards, Yahoo News Fast Company, a half past Business Insider, and many more incredible outlets. So Raul is the leader in public Communication. And we're honored to have you here. Thank you so much for joining the West Conference row.

Prof. Raul Sanchez
Thank you, thank you Angelika, I appreciate the kind introduction. It’s a pleasure to be here

Angelika Sharygina
And what is more, we are joined by Prof. Daniel Bullock. And again, it's a great pleasure to see you here. And it's a great honor to interview you both. Let me tell our audience a little bit about you. So, Dan is a language and communication specialist and trainer at the United Nations Secretary, training diplomats, and global UN staff. He also serves on the faculty teaching business communication, linguistics, and public relations within the division of programs in business at New York University's School of Professional Studies. And Dan was the Director of Corporate Communication at a leading New York City public relations firm. And his corporate clients have included TD Bank and Pfizer. He contributed to Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo News, and other notable outlets. And it's fantastic because you co-authored the book together right, Dan and Raul. And the book is called how to communicate, communicate effectively with anyone. This is brilliant. First of all, congratulations on this book. And I know that this is an essential and handy guide to help many people across the globe how to communicate effectively. Will you tell us a little bit more about that?

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
Sure, absolutely. And then, we can start with the importance of a global mindset because I think this gives us an entry point to the book. And essentially, almost imagine ourselves, all of us zooming away from the Earth into this overview perspective. And it is said that the most potent cognitive shift can happen when an astronaut turns back in spaceflight to view the Earth. At this moment, all clouds of different parts and we see this fragile planet we all share. And this is called the overview effect. And the idea is to bring this global mindset to an international skill set on Earth. Thinking about connecting perception to specific behavioral skills is why one of the most influential photographs ever taken was the photograph Earthrise. This was captured by the astronauts on the Apollo eight mission as they were about to enter lunar orbit, and they turned back to look at the Earth. And it was said to have gone as close to viral as an image could at the time.

International media flooded it across the planet because it was the first time that we'd seen this fragile planet that we shared hanging in there and space, the loneliness, the beauty of our world. And the first time we'd seen it as an interconnected system. And that shift in consciousness was so powerful. They said that photographs started the environmental movement at the time. So, this is the crux of the book bringing that global mindset to an international skill set, seeing patterns of communication all over the globe. And navigating those patterns is the path of the worldwide communicator. And so, in the book, every chapter focuses on a specific skill; we start with public speaking as the first one, we go into networking, and then up to negotiation, and then strategic writing in the global marketplace. But again, thinking about connecting perception to behavioral skills, this is the crux of the book, but overall, the general approach to global communication. And so, the shift in consciousness is as significant as the actual practical things that we do in our work together and building more powerful relationships with one another as human beings.

Angelika Sharygina
This is powerful because today's topic is the importance of enhancing communication skills among students. And I'm very honored and privileged to be joined by the world's best experts in this field. And I am 100% sure that today's session will generate vast insights and interest, and we'll give practical tools to the audience that is watching us today on how to enhance their skills. Because today, we're joined by staff by members of faculty, deans, presidents of different universities, and vice students. And it's so important to introduce new practices to improve students' communication; what I've seen across the globe, in different universities, in the Middle East, in the UK, in the US, there is the same situation, students are equipped with the knowledge, but they are very rarely can present themselves in the best way. And this is an essential tool, as for everything. As Raul just mentioned, this is so important to have this tool in our daily life to build powerful relationships with one another. So, my next question is that the very first step in effective global communication is a global mindset and respect for people of other cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds. On a very basic level, what role does an international perspective play in becoming an effective global communicator? And this question is real because we are joined by an audience from all over the world. And we see people from different backgrounds. How do we make this Communication effective when so many different cultures, religions, and ethnicities exist? How do we become global communicators?

Prof. Raul Sanchez
Sure, I can kick this one off, and then I'm going to pass it to Professor Bullock as well, who may have some points in this area, so we, as we started with the overview effect, are very important. And as you mentioned in the globalized era, communication skills are more critical than ever, particularly presentation skills, successful presenters, not just think about the subject they're presenting, but also their audiences thinking about shifting from information to communication, we all have multicultural teams to motivate international clients to engage and global partners that we're collaborating with. And they all have diverse needs and diverse communication styles. So, but again, thinking about the global mindset, we're not just thinking about productivity or effective business communication; we're thinking of a larger sense of authentic human relationships; how do we deepen those? And then how can we bridge commonalities between us as human beings, not thinking about working more effectively with one another but relating more deeply with one another? And this interdependence is the mindset that leads to the adaptability that we need for global communication to occur.

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
That’s something I might add; I mean that there's so much that goes into perception. So, working on the international stage, and with intercultural communications, we have to think of culture as almost like a mosaic. So, a mosaic which forms a unique set of patterns. And we're trying to tap into each of those patterns and connect in some way, shape, or form. It's not just about communicating. It's about connecting and creating this shared understanding between us, expanding perception beyond that having this sense of mindfulness, something that we both teach in classes and training at the same time, is rule touched on something significant. Sometimes this can get lost in translation. But the audience is crucial to everything we do as communicators, you, me, or anyone else. It does not matter what role we perform in, but the idea is we have to understand our audience first; that's where everything starts; the audience dictates how you're going to frame information. Framing allows us to bridge these gaps right and connect with somebody in terms of shared perception. So, audience, we need to also focus on something else simultaneously.

And this is something that we focus on in terms of the trends is the purpose; right now, whenever we think about purpose, there are two types of goals out there. Either somebody's looking for information, or somebody is trying to persuade or convince somebody of their point of view. So, it goes back into this; there's almost like a feedback loop that we're trying to create. So, the audience of purpose is crucial; both will inform the message, whatever message you're trying to pass along to an intercultural community. But the fourth element in that would be value. And often, we start thinking, okay, well, what do I need out of the situation? How do I position something to get the response I want? And Professor Sanchez has talked a lot about, or he's hinted at a few things that we have in the book, mirroring aspects; we talked a little bit about framing content for more persuasive appeal. Persuasion is a growing field of science. And people are trying to understand how we connect more than communicate, but secure. Still, the idea has value so significant that it's more about the other person, and we have to shift in mindset, where we're where we are in service to the other person. So, I would say, to connect with a larger global community, there's no playbook right for communicators in the 21st century. But the idea is if we can all shift our mindsets and start focusing on the other person. I think we will begin to be on a trajectory towards naturally evolving into a community that can connect with people worldwide.

Angelika Sharygina
Professor Bullock and Professor Sanchez, these are some excellent points because it's essential not just to give the information but also to understand the value you're giving and connect with the audience. And this is one of the problems that many people have; they have those blocks; one day once they are talking to the audience or their classmates doesn't matter. It's it is the blog where someone is in their bubble. And it's very interesting how you approach it. So first, you become a listener, you are out there, you are out of your bubble, and you are interacting with the audience. And that's how you become more successful. My next question would be actually about the principles. What are the communication skills principles across different industries that students are required to learn those essential skill sets principles that are so important for a successful communicator?

Prof. Raul Sanchez
This is exactly what Prof. Bullock said regarding the purpose and audience value message. And there's, we're going to connect these soon, with very, very practical hands-on tips. But one thing that I would like to add to that is something that you just mentioned, about focusing on the audience and being an active listener. And every presentation is an opportunity to change the world. And we think about change as the starting point. But when we're thinking about changing a speaking chance, whether we're presenting a small group of co-workers or in a conference room where there's a more significant plenary situation, the goal of any presentation is to ignite change between the presenter and the audience. But we are not the source of change. This is an important principle; we are the facilitator of change. So we're the catalyst. We're the spark; if the audience is the marathon runner, we are the guy on the side, giving them the water as they run the race. And this is a shift in mindset. But it's essential because once the audience is the centerpiece, this is when we get to cultivate that adaptability that we need for switching communication styles for cultivating a space of empathy and respect. Once the audience becomes the hero of the presentation, not ourselves, everything we do shifts, and this is how we can arrive at effective intercultural communication. We're not even nervous anymore because we deliver an idea and service to others. It's not in service to ourselves. We're giving that idea and service to others. You want to spark something in the audience. So, that mindset shift is very important as a principle before we engage in the act of global communication.

Angelika Sharygina
I love this. This is just brilliant because it's like when you serve a purpose that is higher than yourself, your personal limitations are broken because you're connected to the goal. That’s how you're confident in your presentation. You did not think about you in the first place; you think about the purpose that you're serving. And what do you think about this, Professor Bullock?

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
Everything comes back to the aspects of audience and purpose. And something else that Professor Sanchez touched on is how we're presenting the information beyond just the diction. So, the word choice, the way that we're framing things, in terms of what I was saying earlier, comes down to being able to speak the language. So, speak the language in terms of the global communicator. So, what this means is something that we touch on a lot in terms of the art classes and training and just different meetings together, something called Global English. Now, Global English refers to English usage that a professional speaker could be a writer, for example, at the same time, in terms of what they use to optimize for a global audience, it's now we have to think about it this way across the world. A global English serves as the international business communication standard, correct? And if we were to define further what Global English is. It's clear and concise uses that do not assume fluency of others. But it might just be a more easier way to think about this is what is not Global English, it tends to become more clear whenever we start to think about these different aspects that we just commonly tend to integrate in terms of our presentation style, or our way of drafting an email, our way of conducting a meeting.

Prof. Raul Sanchez
So, in terms of linguistic strategies, there are sometimes it's easy to understand what Global English is by thinking about what it's not. And as first of all, I said, this is something that has come of recent importance to multinational entities organizations, thinking about the English that we all speak, there are wide varieties in the world is British English, as we know, Australian, there's American English, but this is the International Language of Business. And so, how do we make it more clear but not simplified? Here are some tips for what is non-Global English non globally should be idioms. So that, one example of expressions is those groups of words that have a different meaning from the individual words. So, off the top of my head, or cut and dry, let's come up for air, these do not translate culturally and internationally the same way—also cultural references. So, Americans tend to love regards to baseball.

So, let's say this came out of the left field; let's bring our game to this; let's level the playing field. So, unless the cultural reference is international or universally recognizable, then we should only steer towards those references that global audiences would readily grasp and hold on to initialisms anachronism. So, initialisms are where you pronounce every separate letter and an abbreviation like FBI, acronyms, or when a name or word is formed from the letters like NATO. So, we want to make sure that if we're using those abbreviations, we make sure to indicate what they are and not just speak in a stream of abbreviations, which tends to happen in government organizations or multinational corporations. And the last would be phrasal verbs. So, these are word verbs that are made up of two or three words such as drop, drop the contract, or get ahead, or zero in on. And these can also be quite challenging. So instead, it's recommended to use a single verb. So instead, in our training at NYU, and at the UN, instead of saying, drop the contract, we'd recommend saying, write the contract or draft the contract. And then sarcasm, we never want to tell the opposite of what we mean because that's what irony is. So, if you say, beautiful day, isn't it? And it's the opposite? Or if you say, well, that's just what we need. And in fact, it's precisely what we don't need. This can be difficult. So instead of sarcasm, it's recommended with Global English to use the language of empathy and use pronouns such as we and us to create collective goals and inclusivity.

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
And if I could add a point here, let's just put it in further context. Whenever we think of, for example, the International Space Station, it's up there. It's orbiting the sky. It's essentially a lab. We have, we have 15 nations, we have five agencies, and it's a shared vision. So there has to be a lot of collaboration that takes place. There has to be effective Communication aboard this International Space Station for things to get done effectively. Just think of the many issues we're trying to solve on this planet, climate change, sequencing of the human genome; for example, it could even be with COVID-19, there has to be some collaborative quality and able to communicate that. But even going beyond that, connecting with audiences so they see the gravity of situations that we're trying to overcome can be just as important in Global English helps us connect in a more and more literal sense, just so that there's no misunderstanding, just so there's no misinterpretation, things like that.

Angelika Sharygina
This is essential because many, many entrepreneurs, and academics, have referred to sarcasm, to phrasal verbs in their presentations to the global audience have witnessed this; your advice is vital because this can ruin the relationships with the audience. And the tone. It's not about being tone deaf; it's just about understanding that your audience comes from different backgrounds, and respect is vital. And my next question would be about storytelling. Everyone is a storyteller. What do you think is the role of storytelling in intercultural communication? And public speaking? Of how important is storytelling in addressing certain issues effectively?

Prof. Raul Sanchez
That's a great question. Stories is one of the most important vehicles for Communication, especially trans culturally. And we come from the field of psycholinguistics. And so I'm a little bit of a nerd in this area; I'm very fascinated by how Language and Thought intersect. And that is essentially what psycho linguistics is. But when we are receiving facts, there are two areas of the brain that light up there's Broca's area and Wernicke’s area, I This other area of our brain lights up, and these two areas are just responsible for language processing.

When we receive the same information in the form of stories, there's the motor cortex that lights up, the visual cortex that sells the cerebellum, and the auditory; all these other sensory areas light up. And so, this goes back to research by Dr. Yuri Hassan at Princeton University. And this is relatively recent. They're studying the neurological basis of human communication and storytelling. And they found something incredibly remarkable: when we deliver a powerful story, we share nearly identical brainwave activity with the audience. And what they did was they hooked up audience members to MRI machines and storytellers. And they found that our brains essentially get in sync through the act of storytelling. And this reveals something that we've known intuitively for a long time as you just mentioned, that stories are the most powerful transcultural vehicle for Communication.

And whether we're in the virtual boardroom or a conference room, these are sort of metaphorical campfires that we can use this universal process to make your ideas more relatable and achieve greater collaboration. And here are some tips that we have in the book that I think we can share. Now Professor Bullock has some as well. So I'll share just to make this more practical. How do we achieve this mind-to-mind connection? As I'm sure people are wondering, we often get this question. We know this research exists, but how do we do it practically? One is that you can bond with your audience over a professional, social, or personal cause. So, we all listen to stories with our hearts more than our minds because we're looking for messages that align with our values. So, for example if you can pick a value, a core value in your presentation, such as integrity, or empathy, or honesty, and then build a story around it, this is how you can expand your stories from personal to human experience, it could be a value in your presentation that you are bringing up, or it could be organizational value. But this is one way to connect those stories with values that resonate.

The other is highlighting a shared challenge, overcoming a common goal. So, and this one is one that I tend to use a lot. How can a story illustrate a choice you want the audience to make? So, you think of a robust decision-making moment in your life? And then how can the audience then make that similar decision in their lives? This is another critical area. And the third is data. Suppose you can make a presentation bigger in meaning than the data and tell a story around the data. This is a powerful way of storytelling in presentation, and Professor Bullock sent, he sends me a lot of exciting articles because he's a very avid reader one title that resonated with me was that he sent me the title of the article “Data without the human soul is meaningless”. And this is very true that what Tell us, without human beings’ data is just numbers. There's no trend. There's no prediction; there's no forecasting. So, this is another way to use storytelling is using building a narrative around the data. And there are also some patterns. I know, Professor blog has a lot to say about that in terms of some narrative ways that may work.

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
Yeah. So, there are really like six that stand out in terms of these narrative patterns. If you think about it, people across the world are uptaking, what's called a cognitive load. So to further understand the information, where does the main idea fall short, at the beginning and end? This comes down to what's called high context and low context cultures, which we can discuss here in a moment. But these patterns, for example, one universal pattern that tends to be across many cultures is the monument. So, the monument, for instance, was further researched by a person. His name is Joseph Campbell, with a book a hero with 1000 faces. And then the idea with this Mono myth is that somebody goes and sets out on a journey, they, they, they find some additional information, and then they come back with this newfound wisdom to share with everyone; we see it in movies, we see it in different contexts conversations, just think of, for example, The Lion King, for example, it could be Star Wars, many people are familiar with these movies. And that's the type of storytelling pattern that's taking place now. Now, the model is that myth is perfect for grabbing the audience walking through a journey of some sort; just think of how we might present something in a boardroom, or within a meeting. It could be effective in terms of show the benefit of taking risks. I know, within a lot of the training that both of us contribute, a lot of people tend to want to point out, okay, well, what was the challenge? How did I overcome it? We almost have this problem-solution dynamic happening. At the same time, it's about demonstrating what you learned along the way. And then Professor Sanchez, I'm not sure if you had another. If not, I'm sure I can speak on another one.

Prof. Raul Sanchez
Well, I think the Mono myth is great, you’re essentially the hero going out into the unknown and coming back with some newfound knowledge or wisdom. And this can be quite powerful. You can structure a memo this way. You can structure a presentation on any topic this way. Another one would be that we have a few in the book; I'm trying to think of which one I should I because I don't want to, we don't have time to do all of them. A false start is another one as well. So false start, essentially, what you're doing is you reveal in a seemingly predictable way. And then you shift and disrupt audience expectations and show a new message. And this is something that even famous example, JK Rowling did in her Harvard commencement speech; everybody thought she would speak about her success as a writer. And she started with today; I'm going to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And everybody just you could see the audience react visibly thinking, this is graduation day, what is she doing? This is supposed to be the happiest day of my life; we don't want to think about failure. But then what it does is when you do that shifts, you reveal a new message. And what she revealed was that you will face obstacles in your life, but you can overcome those with certain tips that she was giving certain ideas of resiliency and so on. So, it becomes quite an inspirational speech after that. And that's another one. And there's first of all, do you want to do one more?

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
So one that is a personal favorite of mine is called immediate release. Okay, so this means you drop the audience directly in the middle of the action. So, for example, and I guess I'm just full of films today. But the idea is, many of us might be familiar with a James Bond 007 movies. What happens at the beginning of the movie? You are; you are launched right into the action. What's happening? Do all these questions come to mind? Why is this person running away with things like that? The same thing can happen in our presentations, or perhaps a memo writing; it's how we draw somebody in and grab their attention to hook, for example, is what's going to be very powerful? Again, you want people to be asking questions, you want to pique their curiosity, for example, the idea about this, and this goes back to what Professor Sanchez was saying in terms of neuro coupling. So we're trying to build out this aspect of curiosity because that's really what the reward is. It comes down to really helping people achieve this overall sense of what's happening next, again, it's something whether you are, for example. You will know that I am also a publicist at the same time, but the idea of getting the attention of somebody from the media, or getting the attention of a new business client. So, this immediate release can go a long way. And this is very useful. And one key point that I'd like to point out with this is it's very useful, especially if you have a few people presenting something at the same time you're trying to thread through, write the same kind of story in a sense, right. So, for example, it would be so dropping somebody into the action, and then maybe you move on to these other components, which then translates into another pattern and itself, the pedal structure. Anyways, there are many things that we can talk about in terms of storytelling, but the idea is immediate release, a really great one to keep the audience's attention and focus attention on pivotal moments.

Angelika Sharygina
This is so important. I mean, Professor Bullock, Professor Sanchez, these are some keys to effective communications, the secrets are just given out here the conference. And what I'm thinking when you were talking Professor scientists about the neuroscience, the coupling between it's so fascinating, basically, the way we talk about our story is actually something that affects other people, and how we present our, it's not only about us at that moment, it's about our audience. So, science has actually proved this. This is, this is spectacular, because what do we do with this information? We need to understand that we, as human beings, thrive through storytelling because, as I think you've all known Harare, he mentioned this in homosapiens. That through language, right through storytelling, our whole civilization managed to thrive. And that's what I'm thinking about is the effects of storytelling for students should be a masterclass, should be something that is put in the curriculum that we do not see this across the world. Some institutions see public speaking as part of the curriculum, but what do you think? Do you think this is something that every student has to learn? Or do you think this should be something that they should do out of their own desire?

Prof. Raul Sanchez
That's a great question. And, again, you're right on the pulse, your fingers on the pulse of what's happening at the moment because many companies are seeking training in narrative strategies. And I just did a training for Anheuser Busch last summer and requested training and narrative strategies for writing memos. And so the movement, overall training was called persuasive writing for the globalized marketplace. But they didn't want you to know, narrative strategies infused in that. And it's so important, and I think a lot of businesses are starting to see this in terms of effective practices. And we're weaving storytelling, whether it is in marketing or, as Professor Bullock mentioned, public relations. And there's one example that I'm to give a business example, there's another pattern that we didn't mention earlier, but this is one that can relate to this moment here is global sparklines. And so, this is one of the most powerful discourse patterns for the most resonant speeches in the world.

And essentially, I'm thinking of Martin Luther King's; I Had a Dream speech or Steve Jobs's speech when the iPhone was introduced to the world; this speech, essentially, this pattern is you're contrasting an ideal world with the ordinary world. So, you're going back and forth. And these are called sparklines. So, for example, Martin Luther King talked about the red hills of Georgia. And then he said, I have a dream that one day will sit at the table of brotherhood that he has talked about the sweltering heat of oppression, but I have a plan. And the entire speech goes back and forth between this ordinary world in this ideal world until, in the end, you get to the vision. And Steve Jobs. At the same time, he talked about the previous phones that limited us, but then there was this new iPhone, and he went back. And this stems from research by Nancy Duarte, she's, I think, a CEO of afford to design. And then, in our book, we expand it to the global context. And so, thinking about making this pattern globally, where you're expanding the context globally and internationally in terms of cultural references and messaging, but storytelling is quite powerful, and companies are picking up on this. And I think as you mentioned, students need to know this earlier so that they have that future work skills that they will need, and sometimes people tend to focus on the skills that are a little bit more tangible like presentation skills, negotiation skills, and those span fields and industries. But before that, you still need those sort of sub tools in there. And storytelling is one of the most powerful. And Professor Bullock.

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
Sure, I think that you've touched on a lot of it right there, like global sparklines are so important today, because, again, just creating this appeal, and I think people have to hear something reinforced a few times, at least, this comes from the photo public relations as well. But the idea, again, connecting with the audience, not just communicating, keeping that kind of subset of theme in mind is essential for whenever you're teaching students, they have to be able to perform in that capacity because you are going to be presented with meetings, you're going to be presented with business development, in some way, shape or form, you're going to have to communicate effectively thinking about perceptions, but also at the same time, keeping in mind, maybe high context and low context cultures. And perhaps this, I'm not sure if this will go into the next question, possibly, but it might, it might further relate to how we translate in terms of negotiation.

Angelika Sharygina
Actually, this is exactly what I wanted to touch. This is important because negotiation skills are, well, not everyone is a diplomat. And unfortunately, many people are reluctant to learn these cultural things. And I just wanted to ask you why this is so important, just maybe in a few sentences for everyone, regardless if you're a professional academic, Dean, resident of university, or successful entrepreneur, why this is so essential to learn to have that understanding of negotiation skills, and maybe we can just look into diplomacy a little bit here. Why diplomatic, tact, and manners are also part of Communication here because, as I'm sure that you've mentioned in your book, and as many of our audience know, it's not only what we say, it's how we say, it's our manners; it's our gestures, it's verbal, nonverbal, everything together, what do you think, Professor?

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
Yeah, of course, everything comes down to understanding people's needs and wants. And sometimes it's very hard to get to the root of that. Because some people will show those and maybe only share certain aspects, negotiations are really a game of emotions. Whenever you think about it, it is a psychological process. At the same time, there must be some capacity for this give-and-take approach. And we have to teach our students how to do that. It's not just living in a world where I take everything, and you get nothing. It's more about creating this win-win collaborative aspect at the same time and going back to that keyword value, so what value do you have to offer maybe the other person? And, and how might you incentivize, in a sense, but you're building mutual capacity to reach something great, at the same time, this interdependence. So, working together to achieve something great is very important. And I know Professor Sanchez has something related to this win-lose negotiation construct as it relates to win-win.

Prof. Raul Sanchez
Sure. And I think this is a great question, as you mentioned, so we don't always readily see this weekend negotiators tend to be in the field of law or going up to again, governmental organizations. But we do want to shift as a festival like said to win-win mindset, not a win-lose. And those are the two paths we tend to initially arrive at when entering this: skill and practice. And we're going into the win-win path; we're thinking about value-creating, not value claim. And we're turning our competitors into partners. And this is important not just for mutual understanding that leads to more productivity, but mutual understanding that leads to, as you mentioned, diplomacy and world peace. And this win-win mindset, again, we can connect it to some practical tips. Instead of negotiating items in a sequence, which we tend to do, we think of itemizing things in a series when we're doing a win-lose negotiation; if we're doing win-win, we might start to negotiate in parallel. In other words, putting all issues on the table and then deciding together collectively which ones you want to trade first with our new partner. And so is being a win-win negotiator, I mean that we're soft negotiators. We used to prize the aggressive hard negotiator, or was manipulative, but the quiet negotiating is too accommodating. What we want to think about is the creative negotiator. The creative negotiator is collaborative. That's the new focus, correct thinking about collaboration in the globalized world because now our world is so interconnected, we want to turn competitors into partners, and we want to think about creating high-value solutions that benefit both parties.

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
I just think it's very important as well to like maybe just contextualize this, or these terms of high context and low context cultures because whenever you're becoming a global communicator, it's essential to recognize the differences between this now, now this is based on research by Gert Hofstede, so Edward T Hall and then later on Gert Hofstede. Still, Edward Hall is considered the father of intercultural communications. So, for example, this term low context cultures comprise the whole aspect of being very explicit, being individualistic, and how you're presenting yourself, or being, at the same time, very direct, right. And we know that about 30% of the world operates in this way. So, for example, we could say the US, parts of Canada because language does affect things. And we know French has spoken there as well. North Central and Northwestern, sorry, Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, all tend to function in this manner. But when we look at the opposite side, the opposite side being high context cultures, this tends to resonate more where, where these cultures are more implicit with the information where it's maybe a little more indirect, right, it's more collectivist in terms of decision making. Now, 70% of the world comprises a large majority of Latin America; for example, the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and large swaths of Asia tend to operate in this way and knowing how to shift between our messaging so to speak. So going back to this for communication elements, audience, purpose, message, and value, I think are so important. And sometimes it gets lost in translation, literally. But the idea is always bringing it back to this, this communicative aspect of how we will shape and sculpt our messaging. So, it resonates with the appropriate audience. I think it's essential, especially in terms of negotiations, whenever we're talking about other aspects of vocalists and the way that we use our voice to stress specific percentages, for example, I just think it's an important point that sometimes gets lost in translation, but it's essential to define.

Prof. Raul Sanchez
And to boil it down, even in a few sentences, I think this is so important; Professor Bullock mentioned that because Professor Black says this a lot in our training, that negotiation is you're essentially dealing with the expression of needs and wants. And so, any field, you're just thinking about these two patterns that festival like mentioned, one way tends to be direct. And then, one design tends to be indirect. Imagine how challenging that is; in a negotiation, we express needs and wants, and some say it indirectly. And some are telling it directly; it can be pretty challenging. And so, the idea is with that Win-Win approach now, negotiators start to become more adaptable, more aware, thinking about reading more between the lines, thinking about being patient with gentle follow-up requests for decisions. Indirect negotiators tend to be then they learn to be more precise, to say even if we can't give a specific answer, now we'll provide a specific timeframe. So again, that Win-Win approach goes back to the adaptability we mentioned at the beginning. That's what cultivates the adaptability that we need. If we're in a win-lose mindset, we tend to think in power mode as a negotiator. We're not even thinking about adapting our Communication. So, we're just trying to get to the power agreement. But if we're thinking win-win, then this is when we start to consciously or unconsciously cultivate that adaptability, shift our communication style, and heighten our awareness.

Angelika Sharygina
This is incredibly insightful because we can see the shift in leadership, leadership 20 years ago was more aggressive and dominant, and now it's more collaborative. It's more team building; it's more on creating solutions that will benefit everyone for a win-win situation. So, this is precisely where we think about executives and leaders, we think about people that are effective communicators, and leadership and effective communication goes very closely with one another. And what I wanted to ask you is, do you believe that certain countries? I mean, we had obviously covered this just a few minutes ago. Could certain countries have high law context? And depending on this, strategies in communications are very different. What are specific examples if you could share with our audience like maybe, maybe just like opposite examples, that clear communicative strategy would work in this region, and would completely failing the other.

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
Or so maybe I can just kick things off a little bit. So, for example, if we think of specific regions in the world, right, so we know, for example, that Northwestern North Central Europe tends to be more low context. So very direct, explicit at the same time, very monochromatic. Right. So being on time and efficient is very important. Traditionally speaking, we have to keep in mind, though, that whenever we're talking about cultures, these are cultural conventions over time. So, things are continually evolving, again, to avoid stereotyping because people can easily see that as that.

So, it comes down to perception. Now, for example, let's say we have somebody, let's say, from Germany, right, and then we have another individual, let's say that's maybe from Spain, because the Mediterranean region tends to function in a more high context, more like maybe implicit manner, depending on the situation, it could be situational. And we know that, for example, in this Mediterranean region, as well as many other high contexts, cultures tend to operate in a polychromatic format where there's some flexibility in time now. Now, now, now, if we have individuals, let's say they're having a negotiation since that's what we were talking about earlier, we have to be mindful in how we're presenting the information, if we have to shift the time, for example, it's the way that we frame it. And going back to what I was saying earlier, in terms of how we frame information, it's about positioning it in such a way; maybe with proximity, proximity could be with location, it could be with ideology, the way that we might want to connect with the other person. Right. So again, the way that we might, let me think like in terms of build-out, whatever message that we're trying to communicate, if somebody from Spain is trying to connect with somebody from Germany, it's going to probably be more diverse and filled with stories. Just because of the way that we look at cognitive psychology, the uptake of information, right, the build-out of information, whereas we know somebody from Northwestern North Central Europe, is probably going to want a lot of the main idea at the very beginning. So we have to be able to adapt, just like Professor Sanchez was saying, if we're trying to communicate with somebody who's from a different context, between high and low context cultures, we have to adapt to make sure that we are maybe putting the main idea at the beginning, or we are sharing it maybe at the end, maybe when we share the details first, and then we put the details at the end, depending on whether the other individual or group of individuals is the low context or high context cultures.

Angelika Sharygina
This is essential because many students, while they're like let's see a certain element of our audience of students, and they're watching us right now, and talking about them. These are some very important skills because once they understand how to operate in different markets, this can enhance their leadership skills, that is their path to a better career, better opportunities, and better ways. What would you believe are the high-order negotiation skills that students should learn in the globalized era? We've just covered this, but what are the key elements that maybe may be key three or five elements that are essential for every student to learn?

Prof. Raul Sanchez
That's a great question. And I think, first of all, I covered a big chunk of it, and I'll add to it, that being aware again, of these two larger communication style patterns, and so, for example, whether it is negotiation or something else, but in negotiation, I think it turns to crystallize more, being aware of how other cultures expressed disagreement. Some cultures will say no, other cultures will say maybe, and the Navy actually, in fact, means no. So being aware of those nuances. And again going back to high context cultures and low context cultures, these are terms that Edward T Hall coined. And essentially, high context means it tends to be more driven in terms of relationship orientation. So, there are a lot of contexts. And an email, for example, we'll start with questions about family, questions about personal exchanges, and then at the end will be the request. Whereas in a low context, a culture with low context means that there's just less context focused on the task, not the relationship; the email will be short, just focused on the task efficiency. And at the end, it'll be right at the beginning, not at the end. And so I think for students being aware of these cultural patterns, whichever part of the spectrum you tend to fall on can be a game changer because I've seen students say, for example, writing in English might be challenging because if the grammar and then it's mastering the rhetorical pattern thinking about putting the idea first rather than at the end. Or if you're in Eastern culture, then you have to think about restructuring.

And we've trained a lot of us professionals, and you can't just say, here's the contract, thanks. You have to have some context prior, if you're writing a proposal, or some sort of memorandum, then you want to build that context first and have the main idea at the end. And so, being aware, not just of the linguistic elements, in terms of the words, but being aware of the organization of ideas, and we see this all the way up to the level of the UN, there were studies for UN at the UN Security Council meetings. And one aspect that I remember was US and Syrian representatives. And study was in terms of linguistics, the transcripts, what sort of cultural differences existed or diverse communication styles in terms of persuasion. And the US representatives tend to use a factual style, which goes right along with what we were saying, appeals to logic, which contrasted with the sort of effective, intuitive style of the Syrian representatives, which relied more on emotional appeals. And so just being aware of these different cultural dimensions can be life changing. And also, again, communicating effectively with people, but also seeing how you can become aware of your own style, and then adding different styles to your repertoire. But also learning, okay, if I'm just thinking about the audience, then I might use an indirect approach here, or a direct approach here, neither is worse or better than the other. But you're just adding these to your toolbox.

Angelika Sharygina
And thank you very much because this is essential for everyone. These are the key tools to effective communication. And being able to see the context to operate in different contexts with the flexibility to respect the context of others is very important. My next question is about mirroring. And it's a very different and very interesting tactic that you've described in your book. Could you please tell us a little bit more about what Mirroring is and why the use of mirroring is important in building trustworthy relationships?

Prof. Raul Sanchez
So yes, and so mirroring, essentially what you're doing with mirroring as you are changing your style communication style, to be closer to the styles of others to be closer to the style of the person you're communicating with. And once we do this, we can not just better communicate with one another, but we can better understand one another. And there are studies going back to Gert Hofstede, who Professor Bullock mentioned, he's a social psychologist, and in this field, there were past studies that were utilized from his work from researchers at Stanford at Cornell, and even Yahoo did a component to this. And basically, what they found is that countries prefer to email other countries who share economic and cultural similarities. And what's striking about this is that on the one hand, we need to, we need to better our intercultural communication. So, this doesn't happen. But on the other hand, it shows something a little bit deeper, that by changing our style, to adapt to the style of others, we can better communicate with others.

And so, this is called mirroring. And it's something that in our training has come up a lot, we've had people ask us, but how can I mirror? If I do this practice? Do I lose myself? Do I lose my sense of self, who I am? What are my communication preferences? And sometimes if you think of your romantic relationship, the least fulfilling thing would seem to be that you have to control or modify your own behavior. And that's going to be a satisfactory relationship; we tend to think other people have to adapt to us. That's the relationship I want with my partner. But in fact, once we adapt to the communication styles of others, this is one we're showing, as you mentioned, that that essential value that every person is as important as you are. You are showing that we recognize the uniqueness of someone else. That we want to have a reciprocal relationship, that it isn't just based on our preferences, but we want to incorporate the goals and preferences of others. And this is a key to not just intercultural effectiveness but interpersonal effectiveness as well. So, mirroring it while it does seem that you're, you're again, changing your style, you're in fact adding more styles, you're adding more tools, and then you're ultimately even a better communicator.

Angelika Sharygina
It seems like Mirroring is like adding more layers. Basically, it doesn't change your essence. It just gives you more colors. So, this is exactly what our audience that are young; their students need to learn. Because it's not about I can see that many young people are very reluctant to change their communication style, and this is a big problem. But it doesn't mean that they kill their individuality. They don't kill their personality. They are, if anything, enhancing it, making it more flexible, making it even more colorful, let's say, Professor Bullock, and I know that you have something to add on mirroring.

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
Sure, like I so just, I also just wanted to break it down a little bit in terms of email. So emailing is dialogic. And what we mean by that is, is we are carrying out dialogues, except in a digital format. So, here's an introduction, a body, and a conclusion; just like whenever students are reading papers, we probably share a lot of that information. But the idea is that we are building a collaborative chain for an exchange. The idea is that, and you've touched on it exactly like, so we have to adjust our communication style between what we talked about in terms of these four primary reader communication styles being expressive, analytical, amiable or being a driver, and all of those have specific characteristics that kind of fold into it. If you really assess and you look at what's in the email, whether somebody's using exclamation points pretty often. Or maybe they are being very detailed in terms of the use of jargon. A lot of these are clues, and teaching our students to look out for these clues can make them better communicators across cultures, more global markets, and things like that because there's not necessarily a fully dedicated class; there might be a workshop. But there's so much richness in terms of understanding diction and the way that we form phrasings and different cultures, as well as the way that we might move clauses around. And as you can see, Linguistics is coming out.

But the idea is, we want to remain aware of that? And we want to pass it on to our students. So, they can go out and do great things as well whenever they're communicating via email because, let's face it, many of us have inboxes that just fill it up. But nonstop, just from the weekend returning on Monday, something like that. The idea is that we have to be at the capacity to be able to mirror back and forth to shift between these four different styles that we outline based on something that we've researched in the theory of the social style by David Merrill and Roger Reed. Now, this was primarily for in-person communication, for managerial communication. And maybe Professor Sanchez, if I miss something, feel free to add in. But the idea is that we're now applying it to digital communication, which is so important and really hasn't been applied in that manner. And that's what we want to do. We want to tease it out. We want to share these different aspects based on qualities of assertiveness versus responsiveness as we build this rapport, again, going back to the whole concept of we're trying to connect, not just communicate, but to connect.

Angelika Sharygina
This is a very important point. And I believe this is a certain summary; we do not just try to communicate; we try to connect; this is brilliant. And my last question, I know the conversation today has been extremely insightful. And I cannot believe that the time is it’s like it's been 10 minutes. But the most important thing here is. Actually, you've touched so many things, and especially in your book, there is a span of cultural strategies and techniques.
What is one essential takeaway you want to leave with, with our audience regarding global communications that are effective?

Prof. Daniel Bullock.
And it might get back to something I said earlier, like framing I; I'm a big fan of framing and teaching students how to frame information better. It is very, very important today; it holds a certain weight or significance in terms of whether you connect with somebody or you don't. Whether it is along the lines of novelty, it could be proximity is something else that we talk about. At the same time, emotions, you've heard us talk a little bit about that as it relates to negotiations; we hear a lot of controversial aspects out there; stories are made through controversy. So being able to pick out these details and identify how we are framing information. Now we can use many of these together, right, but the idea is, just to leave, like kind of a final takeaway is being aware of how you're using framing great because the idea is you're trying to create these feedback loops, you are trying to perhaps build community within a message or a series of messages. And there are a number of learning moments within that. But I would have to say that one of the key takeaways is just being able to frame consciously. And at the same time frame, with a sense of mindfulness going into the situation, everything we talked about today in terms of low context and high context, lots of things to think about. But Communication is so rich in terms of being a psychological process that we have to be aware of these different caveats or different subcategories. Anytime that we're forming an email, anytime that we're, we're presenting anytime that we are trying to stand up and advocate for something. So that would be my takeaway.

Angelika Sharygina
This is a very powerful takeaway. And definitely after this interview, I will download and get your book because this is all just an incredible treasure of communication tools that will help me in effective communication. Thank you so much for shedding light on this.

Prof. Raul Sanchez
Now I'll mention one that I'm I feel at this moment sitting in this chair that I'm thinking about; I've been thinking about pretty recently is the idea of risk, which we do mention in the book. And but this is something that students professionals, have we has come up a lot and in terms of communication because communication is a risk. But what is bravery. What does it mean to be brave? It's something I've personally been thinking about because we, we think of bravery as what we put out there in the world, what we are expressing what we are saying, but bravery is actually also not just output, but it's also input. Are we taking risks in terms of what we take in? What information we take in, what other people we meet, what other experiences that we have, beyond just thinking about output. And so, closing back to the beginning, we talked about service, this is really what it comes down to when even though we are going out there, we're doing all these strategies, we still are at that crux of service, this is the most powerful way we can create meaning in our lives and other's lives. Professor Bullock, and this is something that he inspired that we wrote about in the book, thinking of ourselves as torch bearers, in the Olympics, we have that tradition where the torch is being passed among world societies. And this is what we're doing metaphorically; we're passing the torch of ideas and service to others. And this really is when the communication becomes humbling. And we think of it more, as an act of responsibility to our audiences; it has nothing to do with something that is self-serving. And I think those mindset shifts are really how you start to empower audiences, empower others, and of course, have a pivotal shift in perspective that brings us closer as an interconnected society and hopefully leads to the idea that the International Space Station leads to innovation and progress.

Angelika Sharygina
This is a brilliant summary of today's interview. And I really hope that this will lead to global peace as well because, in turbulent times like today, effective communication is the key to building a peaceful world. And I'm very grateful to Dan, Professor John Bullock, and Professor real Sanchez for your amazing contribution to today's discussion.

Prof. Raul Sanchez
Thank you very much Angelika, it was a pleasure to be here. We really enjoyed speaking with you. You make a beautiful summary of what I said. I think I want to replace my answer with the arrows about the colors and sort of this kaleidoscopic view because I think that that's also key to intercultural communication is adding more layers, as you said, adding more colors to your palette. And that expands yourself. So yes, very much enjoyed it. Thank you.