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In this episode, my coworker Saul Rodriguez will be discussing how to build and maintain trust in a workplace where two or more languages are spoken.
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Welcome back to Brain Chatter, where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.
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I'm your host, Derek Brown.
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Welcome to Brain Chatter, Saul.
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Thank you for sharing your time.
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Thank you for having me, Derek.
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I'm a big fan of your podcast.
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Well, thank you.
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Saul, let's start at the beginning.
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What is the connection between being able to communicate with someone and being able to build and maintain trust with that person?
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That's a great place to start.
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Communication or lack of communication and miscommunication is where a lot of problems arise, both at home and at work.
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Let me begin by making the distinction between what most people think communication is and what communication actually is.
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Most people, myself included at times, believe communication is simply announcing what's in our minds to another person or group of people.
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If I say something, I have communicated.
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But that's the wrong assumption.
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Communication, or effective communication for that matter, is the successful transfer of meaning from one person to another.
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As we say in our firm, it is not what I throw, it's what the other person catches.
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And in order to communicate effectively, we must have a shared understanding of the words that are being exchanged.
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This right here is where that trust piece comes in.
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When we have taken the time to build and maintain trust with the people we're trying to communicate with, they know that we have their best interest in mind and that we do not have to dance around each other in order to understand what we're trying to say.
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That right there is the deep connection between building and maintaining trust with someone and the ability to communicate effectively with that person.
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You are fully bilingual in English and Spanish.
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Let's talk about some of the workplaces in which you've worked and the diverse viewpoints you've seen as a result of the diversity of these workplaces.
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You have served in the U.S.
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Army for seven years, including with a humanitarian aid mission in Latin America, as well as military operations in the Middle East, including Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Inherent Resolve.
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You've worked in a restaurant, you've worked in retail at AutoZone, you've worked as a real estate agent, and you've owned and run your own landscaping business that you built from the ground up.
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Previous to working inside of this industry with us, you interned at a management consulting firm in Arizona years ago, and you've worked in various manufacturing environments with Ken Chapman and Associates Incorporated in various workplace settings across the United States.
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From all of those workplaces and from others that you have observed, will you share some insights about the junction point of communication, language, and trust?
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You've summarized it well, my friend.
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I've been very fortunate to be given the opportunity to start working at a young age and learn many different industries.
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As you know, I came to the United States at the age of 14 not knowing the language.
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That was the first and biggest challenge to integrate into culture, the school system, and the different work settings that I have been through.
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What I found interesting is that from setting to setting, the technical language changes drastically every single time.
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But the thing that never changed was what people needed before they communicated.
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KCNA's founder and our employer, Dr.
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Chapman, likes to say that people are people no matter where you find them.
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What I kept seeing in every one of those work environments was that people will tell you what they think you want to hear long before they actually tell you what's actually true.
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And that gap between what someone says versus what's actually going on is a trust problem, not a language problem.
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So let me do a full introduction of you and take just a moment to do that.
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You were born in Athens, Alabama.
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You were raised in San Miguel del Allende in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico.
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Did I get that close?
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Yes, you did.
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Thank you.
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We've already talked about your vast work experience from various viewpoints in different industries.
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You are a devout follower of Jesus Christ, a husband, a proud U.S.
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Army veteran, a graduate of Grand Canyon University, where you earned a B.S.
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in finance and economics, and you are now a professional consultant passionate about developing the leaders every organization needs.
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Is there anything you'd like to add?
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No, Derek, I think you got it all.
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I asked you to do a podcast, Saul, because I respect you so much.
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However, I did not suggest a topic.
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You chose this one, and it is certainly a very worthy topic.
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So let me ask you this question.
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What makes this topic a point of passion for you?
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I chose this topic specifically because it is near and dear to my heart.
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This is something I experienced firsthand in school and in many different work industries.
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But more recently, working at Ken Chapman Associates, I found out that there is a big trust gap in companies that arises from the language barrier.
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There are so many team members out there in companies waiting to be contributors.
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Organizations need to realize that gap and work intentionally to close it.
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Not only will it benefit the team members, but it will exponentially benefit the organization as well.
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Do you have any good examples of this that come to mind?
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Yes, many examples come to mind.
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The army is where it came clearest.
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First, as you mentioned earlier, I had a humanitarian mission in Guatemala.
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The official language of Guatemala is Spanish.
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I speak Spanish, so that was very helpful.
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But I quickly learned that I couldn't communicate with them effectively because the culture was different and the dialect was different, and even though I could talk to them, we didn't have that connection.
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We didn't have that trust.
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Later, when I went to Syria and Jordan, where I did not know the language, it became clear.
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I worked alongside soldiers and local nationals in environments where a wrong assumption could cost someone their life.
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And I learned fast that someone nodding at you doesn't mean they understand.
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It doesn't even mean they agree.
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What it often means is that they don't feel safe enough to say they're confused.
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In retrospect, that is what I had been doing throughout my first years of high school and my first jobs here in the US.
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I would smile and nod, instead of asking for further explanations or clarification on something I didn't understand.
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The language was the tip of the iceberg, but under the water lay the lack of trust I had in the people who were in charge of me.
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This realization came a little late for me, but I now understand that in a work setting, the quietest people are not the ones who have nothing to say.
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They're the ones who haven't been given a reason to say it yet.
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So when I think about communication, language, and trust together, here's the pattern that I keep coming back to.
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Language gets the words in the room.
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Trust is what makes them real.
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Extremely insightful, Soul, thank you.
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So here's another question.
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Does a leader in a company have to learn the other language fluently in order to actually build the trust that is needed?
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I think that's a noble goal, but fluency is not necessary to build trust.
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As I mentioned, language is just the tip of the problem.
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And that problem can be solved rather easily nowadays, especially with all of the AI tools we have available.
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So if a company leader is not bilingual, but has these tools, and that person does have other people reporting to them at work who are not fluent in the same language, what is your recommendation on what needs to happen first?
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I believe the first thing that needs to happen is simpler and harder than translation.
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The leader needs to be seen trying.
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Not fluent, not perfect, seen trying.
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A word of greeting in someone's language, learning how to say a name correctly, slowing down during a conversation and checking for actual understanding instead of just a nod.
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What that communicates to the team member is something no translated document ever will.
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You matter enough for me to be uncomfortable for a minute.
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This is simpler because it doesn't cost anything and it doesn't require a vendor, but it is harder because it asks a leader to be visively uncomfortable in front of the people who report to them.
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Saul, you have seen leaders successfully build trust in multilingual work environments, and you have seen the failure of that to occur.
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Can you contrast what you've seen that has worked particularly well in comparison to what normally leads to failure?
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Of course.
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I've seen many examples of both of those things.
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The clearest pattern I have observed in leaders who get this right is that they treat communication as a two-way street.
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They don't just push information down, but instead they create conditions to where communication can come back up.
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This isn't simple.
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This takes to deliver effort, especially in industries with hierarchical structures.
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What these leaders do is that they build trust by correcting privately and recognizing publicly, slowing down in conversations, asking follow-up questions instead of accepting the first nod, and by identifying people on the front lines that others already go to with questions and investing in them.
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For example, if you have someone on the shop floor who people already go to with questions and go for help instead of coming to you, that tells you something.
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They trust that person and they don't necessarily trust you or they might think that you're too busy for them.
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So what you have to do is go through that person who they already trust and learn from them.
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Learn what they're doing to build that connection with them and not just learn from them, but also give them the resources to be able to help the rest of the team.
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On the other side of the coin, on the failure side, the pattern is almost always the same.
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It starts with good intentions.
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A company brings in translated materials, maybe a bilingual trainer for onboarding, and they consider the problem handled.
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What they have actually done is addressed the surface and left the culture untouched.
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The team member quickly learns that the translation was a formality, that real decisions, real conversations, and real recognition happen in a language they're unfamiliar with and in a room they don't have access to.
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And when that becomes clear, you don't just lose engagement.
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You lose the information that leaders most need.
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The early warning on a safety issue, the better way to run the line that nobody asked about.
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Silence has a cost, and most companies never trace it back to trust.
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A big part of creating a common vision and motivating everyone in a company to do their part on the road to success, or at least giving them the opportunity to be motivated themselves, it involves community building and team building.
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In other words, connecting people who are willing to make the choice that they want to be a part of something and that they want to be the sort of person who, as Dr.
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Chapman says, wants to live up to the highest opinion of himself or herself.
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This is clearly harder when there is a language barrier.
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What have you seen that helps bridge this potential barrier to common vision and community building inside of a workplace?
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Truth is, living up to the highest opinion of yourself is an internal decision.
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It's a decision that we all have to make for ourselves.
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But people make that decision faster when someone else has already decided to see the best in them first.
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My job as a leader is to go first, to value the people that report to me and to help them make sense out of things regardless of the language they speak.
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Real connection is what helps bridge the barrier to common vision and community building.
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And here, I would like to share a quote that I just read in a book called Leaders Eat Last.
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The quote is: Leadership is not a license to do less.
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It is a responsibility to do more.
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And that is so true, Derek.
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As a leader, as I said, I have to go first.
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It's not a license for me to just sit in my office and do less.
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It is a responsibility for me to put effort and help those around me make sense out of things, feel valued, and reach the highest potential of themselves.
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What are your thoughts about companies offering non-compulsory opt-in classes in both languages?
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So, for instance, in an English and Spanish workplace, maybe English classes for Spanish speakers and Spanish classes for English speakers that are completely open to anyone who wishes to take them, but not required, and doing that as a part of trust building across the differing language speakers.
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Or are translator devices and apps enough to accomplish best outcomes on trust along with what you've described so far.
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I love the idea of those classes, and here's why.
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Voluntary participation tells you something.
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When an English speaker shows up to a Spanish class, or vice versa, you see the person's commitment to the team and to being a true professional.
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Someone who is committed to continuous improvement.
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What I would be careful with is what the company expects to accomplish with these classes though.
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If it's fluency, that takes years.
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But if it's connection, that can happen in the first session.
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Especially if the classes bring English and Spanish speakers into the same room in an environment different from what they're used to.
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Translator devices and apps are tools and should be treated as such.
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I would never tell a company to not use them, but I would advise them to not solely rely on them.
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These tools cannot read the room.
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They cannot read body language, and they cannot tell you that the team member nodding along is actually still confused.
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The bottom line is use the tools, but don't let them replace the effort.
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The opt-in classes, done correctly, are not just language problems.
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They're a trust program with vocabulary on the side.
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As you learned your second language, Saul, primarily in your later teen years, what do you remember most about the process of learning your way to fluency?
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Well, what I remember most is how hard it was.
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And even after I had learned the language, I remember the difficulty of speaking clearly that I still struggle with, as you can tell.
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And now I'm still learning how to communicate.
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Well said, and aren't we all?
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Saul, what else should I have asked you that I have not asked you yet?
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Derek, I would like to add another question and one that I think is a question worth asking.
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What other costs are there when we don't close this gap?
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I would like to share some statistics with you, Derek.
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According to the National Safety Council, in 2024, Hispanic workers had the highest workplace fatality rate of any group at 4.3 per 100,000 workers.
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That is the eighth consecutive year they have held that distinction.
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Those are people who went to work and did not come back home.
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I would argue that a significant part of that gap is a trust and communication problem, not just a safety training problem or a language problem.
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When a team member does not feel safe enough to say they're confused, they tried to figure out on their own, they remain quiet, they don't report accidents or potential hazards, and this ends up costing them permanent injuries or even their lives.
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That conversation, Derek, the one about the true cost of the trust gap across the multilingual workforce, I think deserves its own episode.
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Thank you, and well said, I agree.
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Saul, thank you very much for sharing your insights and expertise with us on this podcast episode.
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Is it okay if I share your LinkedIn in the show notes so that anybody who would like to connect with you can do that directly?
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Absolutely, Derek.
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Thank you.
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I will post resources referenced today in the show notes, which you can find at Brainchatterpodcast.com or at leaderscode.com.
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Brainchatter is a production of Ken Chapman and Associates Incorporated.
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We assist clients across North America and beyond with leadership development, corporate culture transformation initiatives, behavior-based professional development for health and safety issues, individual and team assessments, human resources services, conflict and performance management, succession planning, team building, and others.
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Making a difference in organizations and individuals' lives for over 40 years.
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Learn more at leaderscode.com.
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Thank you for your valuable time.
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In this episode, my coworker Saul Rodriguez will be discussing how to build and maintain trust in a workplace where two or more languages are spoken.
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Welcome back to Brain Chatter, where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.
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I'm your host, Derek Brown.
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Welcome to Brain Chatter, Saul.
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Thank you for sharing your time.
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Thank you for having me, Derek.
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I'm a big fan of your podcast.
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Well, thank you.
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Saul, let's start at the beginning.
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What is the connection between being able to communicate with someone and being able to build and maintain trust with that person?
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That's a great place to start.
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Communication or lack of communication and miscommunication is where a lot of problems arise, both at home and at work.
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Let me begin by making the distinction between what most people think communication is and what communication actually is.
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Most people, myself included at times, believe communication is simply announcing what's in our minds to another person or group of people.
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If I say something, I have communicated.
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But that's the wrong assumption.
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Communication, or effective communication for that matter, is the successful transfer of meaning from one person to another.
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As we say in our firm, it is not what I throw, it's what the other person catches.
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And in order to communicate effectively, we must have a shared understanding of the words that are being exchanged.
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This right here is where that trust piece comes in.
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When we have taken the time to build and maintain trust with the people we're trying to communicate with, they know that we have their best interest in mind and that we do not have to dance around each other in order to understand what we're trying to say.
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That right there is the deep connection between building and maintaining trust with someone and the ability to communicate effectively with that person.
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You are fully bilingual in English and Spanish.
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Let's talk about some of the workplaces in which you've worked and the diverse viewpoints you've seen as a result of the diversity of these workplaces.
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You have served in the U.S.
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Army for seven years, including with a humanitarian aid mission in Latin America, as well as military operations in the Middle East, including Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Inherent Resolve.
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You've worked in a restaurant, you've worked in retail at AutoZone, you've worked as a real estate agent, and you've owned and run your own landscaping business that you built from the ground up.
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Previous to working inside of this industry with us, you interned at a management consulting firm in Arizona years ago, and you've worked in various manufacturing environments with Ken Chapman and Associates Incorporated in various workplace settings across the United States.
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From all of those workplaces and from others that you have observed, will you share some insights about the junction point of communication, language, and trust?
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You've summarized it well, my friend.
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I've been very fortunate to be given the opportunity to start working at a young age and learn many different industries.
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As you know, I came to the United States at the age of 14 not knowing the language.
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That was the first and biggest challenge to integrate into culture, the school system, and the different work settings that I have been through.
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What I found interesting is that from setting to setting, the technical language changes drastically every single time.
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But the thing that never changed was what people needed before they communicated.
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KCNA's founder and our employer, Dr.
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Chapman, likes to say that people are people no matter where you find them.
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What I kept seeing in every one of those work environments was that people will tell you what they think you want to hear long before they actually tell you what's actually true.
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And that gap between what someone says versus what's actually going on is a trust problem, not a language problem.
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So let me do a full introduction of you and take just a moment to do that.
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You were born in Athens, Alabama.
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You were raised in San Miguel del Allende in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico.
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Did I get that close?
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Yes, you did.
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Thank you.
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We've already talked about your vast work experience from various viewpoints in different industries.
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You are a devout follower of Jesus Christ, a husband, a proud U.S.
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Army veteran, a graduate of Grand Canyon University, where you earned a B.S.
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in finance and economics, and you are now a professional consultant passionate about developing the leaders every organization needs.
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Is there anything you'd like to add?
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No, Derek, I think you got it all.
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I asked you to do a podcast, Saul, because I respect you so much.
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However, I did not suggest a topic.
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You chose this one, and it is certainly a very worthy topic.
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So let me ask you this question.
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What makes this topic a point of passion for you?
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I chose this topic specifically because it is near and dear to my heart.
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This is something I experienced firsthand in school and in many different work industries.
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But more recently, working at Ken Chapman Associates, I found out that there is a big trust gap in companies that arises from the language barrier.
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There are so many team members out there in companies waiting to be contributors.
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Organizations need to realize that gap and work intentionally to close it.
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Not only will it benefit the team members, but it will exponentially benefit the organization as well.
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Do you have any good examples of this that come to mind?
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Yes, many examples come to mind.
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The army is where it came clearest.
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First, as you mentioned earlier, I had a humanitarian mission in Guatemala.
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The official language of Guatemala is Spanish.
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I speak Spanish, so that was very helpful.
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But I quickly learned that I couldn't communicate with them effectively because the culture was different and the dialect was different, and even though I could talk to them, we didn't have that connection.
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We didn't have that trust.
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Later, when I went to Syria and Jordan, where I did not know the language, it became clear.
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I worked alongside soldiers and local nationals in environments where a wrong assumption could cost someone their life.
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And I learned fast that someone nodding at you doesn't mean they understand.
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It doesn't even mean they agree.
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What it often means is that they don't feel safe enough to say they're confused.
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In retrospect, that is what I had been doing throughout my first years of high school and my first jobs here in the US.
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I would smile and nod, instead of asking for further explanations or clarification on something I didn't understand.
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The language was the tip of the iceberg, but under the water lay the lack of trust I had in the people who were in charge of me.
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This realization came a little late for me, but I now understand that in a work setting, the quietest people are not the ones who have nothing to say.
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They're the ones who haven't been given a reason to say it yet.
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So when I think about communication, language, and trust together, here's the pattern that I keep coming back to.
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Language gets the words in the room.
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Trust is what makes them real.
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Extremely insightful, Soul, thank you.
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So here's another question.
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Does a leader in a company have to learn the other language fluently in order to actually build the trust that is needed?
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I think that's a noble goal, but fluency is not necessary to build trust.
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As I mentioned, language is just the tip of the problem.
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And that problem can be solved rather easily nowadays, especially with all of the AI tools we have available.
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So if a company leader is not bilingual, but has these tools, and that person does have other people reporting to them at work who are not fluent in the same language, what is your recommendation on what needs to happen first?
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I believe the first thing that needs to happen is simpler and harder than translation.
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The leader needs to be seen trying.
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Not fluent, not perfect, seen trying.
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A word of greeting in someone's language, learning how to say a name correctly, slowing down during a conversation and checking for actual understanding instead of just a nod.
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What that communicates to the team member is something no translated document ever will.
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You matter enough for me to be uncomfortable for a minute.
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This is simpler because it doesn't cost anything and it doesn't require a vendor, but it is harder because it asks a leader to be visively uncomfortable in front of the people who report to them.
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Saul, you have seen leaders successfully build trust in multilingual work environments, and you have seen the failure of that to occur.
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Can you contrast what you've seen that has worked particularly well in comparison to what normally leads to failure?
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Of course.
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I've seen many examples of both of those things.
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The clearest pattern I have observed in leaders who get this right is that they treat communication as a two-way street.
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They don't just push information down, but instead they create conditions to where communication can come back up.
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This isn't simple.
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This takes to deliver effort, especially in industries with hierarchical structures.
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What these leaders do is that they build trust by correcting privately and recognizing publicly, slowing down in conversations, asking follow-up questions instead of accepting the first nod, and by identifying people on the front lines that others already go to with questions and investing in them.
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For example, if you have someone on the shop floor who people already go to with questions and go for help instead of coming to you, that tells you something.
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They trust that person and they don't necessarily trust you or they might think that you're too busy for them.
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So what you have to do is go through that person who they already trust and learn from them.
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Learn what they're doing to build that connection with them and not just learn from them, but also give them the resources to be able to help the rest of the team.
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On the other side of the coin, on the failure side, the pattern is almost always the same.
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It starts with good intentions.
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A company brings in translated materials, maybe a bilingual trainer for onboarding, and they consider the problem handled.
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What they have actually done is addressed the surface and left the culture untouched.
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The team member quickly learns that the translation was a formality, that real decisions, real conversations, and real recognition happen in a language they're unfamiliar with and in a room they don't have access to.
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And when that becomes clear, you don't just lose engagement.
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You lose the information that leaders most need.
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The early warning on a safety issue, the better way to run the line that nobody asked about.
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Silence has a cost, and most companies never trace it back to trust.
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A big part of creating a common vision and motivating everyone in a company to do their part on the road to success, or at least giving them the opportunity to be motivated themselves, it involves community building and team building.
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In other words, connecting people who are willing to make the choice that they want to be a part of something and that they want to be the sort of person who, as Dr.
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Chapman says, wants to live up to the highest opinion of himself or herself.
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This is clearly harder when there is a language barrier.
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What have you seen that helps bridge this potential barrier to common vision and community building inside of a workplace?
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Truth is, living up to the highest opinion of yourself is an internal decision.
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It's a decision that we all have to make for ourselves.
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But people make that decision faster when someone else has already decided to see the best in them first.
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My job as a leader is to go first, to value the people that report to me and to help them make sense out of things regardless of the language they speak.
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Real connection is what helps bridge the barrier to common vision and community building.
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And here, I would like to share a quote that I just read in a book called Leaders Eat Last.
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The quote is: Leadership is not a license to do less.
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It is a responsibility to do more.
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And that is so true, Derek.
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As a leader, as I said, I have to go first.
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It's not a license for me to just sit in my office and do less.
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It is a responsibility for me to put effort and help those around me make sense out of things, feel valued, and reach the highest potential of themselves.
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What are your thoughts about companies offering non-compulsory opt-in classes in both languages?
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So, for instance, in an English and Spanish workplace, maybe English classes for Spanish speakers and Spanish classes for English speakers that are completely open to anyone who wishes to take them, but not required, and doing that as a part of trust building across the differing language speakers.
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Or are translator devices and apps enough to accomplish best outcomes on trust along with what you've described so far.
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I love the idea of those classes, and here's why.
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Voluntary participation tells you something.
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When an English speaker shows up to a Spanish class, or vice versa, you see the person's commitment to the team and to being a true professional.
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Someone who is committed to continuous improvement.
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What I would be careful with is what the company expects to accomplish with these classes though.
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If it's fluency, that takes years.
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But if it's connection, that can happen in the first session.
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Especially if the classes bring English and Spanish speakers into the same room in an environment different from what they're used to.
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Translator devices and apps are tools and should be treated as such.
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I would never tell a company to not use them, but I would advise them to not solely rely on them.
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These tools cannot read the room.
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They cannot read body language, and they cannot tell you that the team member nodding along is actually still confused.
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The bottom line is use the tools, but don't let them replace the effort.
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The opt-in classes, done correctly, are not just language problems.
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They're a trust program with vocabulary on the side.
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As you learned your second language, Saul, primarily in your later teen years, what do you remember most about the process of learning your way to fluency?
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Well, what I remember most is how hard it was.
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And even after I had learned the language, I remember the difficulty of speaking clearly that I still struggle with, as you can tell.
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And now I'm still learning how to communicate.
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Well said, and aren't we all?
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Saul, what else should I have asked you that I have not asked you yet?
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Derek, I would like to add another question and one that I think is a question worth asking.
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What other costs are there when we don't close this gap?
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I would like to share some statistics with you, Derek.
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According to the National Safety Council, in 2024, Hispanic workers had the highest workplace fatality rate of any group at 4.3 per 100,000 workers.
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That is the eighth consecutive year they have held that distinction.
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Those are people who went to work and did not come back home.
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I would argue that a significant part of that gap is a trust and communication problem, not just a safety training problem or a language problem.
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When a team member does not feel safe enough to say they're confused, they tried to figure out on their own, they remain quiet, they don't report accidents or potential hazards, and this ends up costing them permanent injuries or even their lives.
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That conversation, Derek, the one about the true cost of the trust gap across the multilingual workforce, I think deserves its own episode.
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Thank you, and well said, I agree.
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Saul, thank you very much for sharing your insights and expertise with us on this podcast episode.
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Is it okay if I share your LinkedIn in the show notes so that anybody who would like to connect with you can do that directly?
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Absolutely, Derek.
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Thank you.
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I will post resources referenced today in the show notes, which you can find at Brainchatterpodcast.com or at leaderscode.com.
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Brainchatter is a production of Ken Chapman and Associates Incorporated.
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We assist clients across North America and beyond with leadership development, corporate culture transformation initiatives, behavior-based professional development for health and safety issues, individual and team assessments, human resources services, conflict and performance management, succession planning, team building, and others.
00:17:34.319 --> 00:17:40.000
Making a difference in organizations and individuals' lives for over 40 years.
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Thank you for your valuable time.
