Welcome to “Finding Your Frequency,” where we uncover the essence of entrepreneurial and creative success through three core questions. Tune in as we explore the diverse frequencies of entrepreneurship, sharing stories of resilience, creativity, and the relentless pursuit of passion and purpose. Today our host, Morgan Allen, spoke with Kelsy Melton.
Kelsy Melton
CEO/Founder at Roam Consulting
Website Address: Roamconsultant.com
Short company description:
Roam Consulting helps organizations support global employees through practical cultural competency training and ongoing guidance that strengthens teams and retention.
What inspires you to keep growing and learning as a leader?
I’ve always ben a leader in one way or another. I am inspired to remain a leader by being a good role model.
What impact do you hope to leave on your organization or industry?
The knowledge that small impact is still impact.
Transcript:
Morgan:
Welcome back to another episode of Finding Your Frequency. I’m Morgan Allen, joined today by Kelsey Melton with Roam Consulting. Kelsey, thank you for joining this museum. Yes. So tell me about what you’re doing with Roam Consulting and how you’re helping businesses and people enhance their cultural identity and vision in diversity.
Kelsy:
Absolutely. So in my field of work, for the majority of my career, I’ve been working with companies who need international employees, and the terms of like traineeships and internships. And within that scope, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of room for cultural competency to fill in the gaps of understanding because of where my work has been.
Kelsy:
We get to also hear about the problems and the issues that come up with having multicultural teams. And so when I did my MBA in France, I got to study a little bit more of that about that specifically, and it really helped enhance the rest of my career. So I’ve been able to develop these courses based on my career and my actual education to provide just some a little context for companies to get to know about themselves individually better, and then how that reflects on the greater world and other people as individuals.
Morgan:
That’s great. So what kind of businesses do you help?
Kelsy:
The majority of my work currently is working with J-1 visa sponsors, as well as recruitment agents within the J-1 visa field. I have also worked with summer camps as well.
Morgan:
Okay, very cool. And so whenever you work with them, how what is the process look like from start to finish?
Kelsy:
We just met to know they’re coming and doing your workshops. Yeah, exactly. So it kind of—it’s a really diverse field because I have a lot of diverse experience. So, for example, one of my clients, we do business development together. And one way that we get to incorporate this kind of cultural comprehension is when we do reach out to create new, for example, connections, like cold connections or lukewarm connections.
In a different country, we take a look at the things that we’re writing, like our emails or our copy or our advertisements, and we try to look at it from a cultural lens. A lot of our industry, the general J-1 industry, kind of takes the stance of like people should adapt to us, but this company is a little different, and they want to try to find ways to adapt the communications to people looking through us so that we are communicating with them on their ground and themselves.
So that’s one way to incorporate this kind of cultural competency conversation is to know how we are communicating with others, and does it make sense for them and having a comprehension on that. Secondarily, I work with compliance for visa processing, visa application processing, and I have developed—we have developed—workshops based on country-specific as well.
Morgan:
That’s really incredible because it’s not often that you find that people are aware enough to make these changes in their company. What are some of the tips that you would give to a company that doesn’t even know where to begin? Like, what are some of those first steps that a company should take to be more culturally accepting, diverse, and open?
Kelsy:
Absolutely. I think there’s definitely some statistical ratio, what the ideal diversity percentage is, and I think it’s about 30% if I remember correctly. So opening up the team to having diversity—not only cultures but genders and age ranges as well—can help create a better synergy and energy within those teams as well.
But I think what is really interesting is for somebody, for a company who is interested in knowing more about this, to take a look at past complications or miscommunications and think about it not as a you versus meeting, but maybe there was just a misunderstanding, and then to take a course. Yeah. To learn about—to learn a little bit about what culture looks like in each person.
So the courses, in the sense, they’re not taught to label anybody in any way, but it’s taught in a way to say this exists, it’s been studied by science, and there are parameters around it. And you as an individual going through this course will automatically see yourself reflected within that. So it’s not my job to tell you what your cultural dimensions are or where you lie on those skills, but you will be able to immediately recognize yourself.
And then also, you would immediately recognize maybe a conflict that you had or a misunderstanding or something about that within somebody else, and understand that that was a cultural difference, not like a conflict—it’s a difference.
Morgan:
Yeah. So I’m assuming that communication is probably the biggest barrier. Is that one of the greatest challenges that you see, or are there other challenges that I’m not aware of?
Kelsy:
Yeah. Communication is a really good example, especially because communication is all about context, and there are different—there’s a dimension within the culture about high context and low context. So it’s if you were raised in the place where this information is coming at you all the time and you absorb that information—things like body language, conversations going on, the news, your family—like there’s always information passing through you, versus a different culture where the information is kind of kept siloed in different places.
And you might not have all the information all the time, so you would be in a low context situation. And so in those types of communication barriers, for some people there’s not enough communication, and for some people there’s too much communication as well. And then if you’ve ever sat with somebody who wants to tell you every single little detail every single time, I think that is kind of a cultural context as well.
Or some people who are like, I don’t have enough information—tell me more, like where are we going? And that view reflects what you need individually out of that context and conversation versus what somebody thinks that they should give. It’s often kind of—that’s a cultural lens on things.
Morgan:
That’s really good to know. That’s something that I would not have known or thought about. Yeah. So I appreciate that insight. So what are you looking forward to as you continue to grow?
Kelsy:
Yeah, absolutely. So right now I’m kind of doing like a revamp of everything, and I’ve retaken a look at everything to see what I really want to do with a new lens of, you know, just—yeah, I got a little bit more energy for it recently. Good. And so I’m looking forward to connecting with more businesses.
But also, I want to do something a little kind of similar to this as a cultural conversation where I can introduce a cultural dimension like context and then have a discussion with that person individually. But like, where do you fit there, you know? And then to be able to enlighten people, even on the smallest of things, about how this exists and how it comes up.
And then to be able to have that part of my business as well as supporting the concepts of the business as well.
Morgan:
Well, that’s fantastic. I see such a great opportunity for growth here in not just Florida, but in the United States as a whole. We really need this. We need the awareness. We need the growth. We need just the vision on how to move forward as we continue to expand to different cultures. So I love what you are doing, and thank you so much.
If people want to learn more about you, how can they do so?
Kelsy:
Yeah. Well, there’s my website, Rome consultant.com, or you can email me, Kelsey—Kelsey at Rome consultant.com as well.
Morgan:
Awesome. Thank you.
Kelsy:
Thank you. Yeah.
Morgan:
And viewers, thank you for tuning in to another episode. If you want more information, head on over to DailyNewsNetwork.com, and we have it right there. We’ll see you in the next episode of Finding Your Frequency.
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