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For those who have never met Dr. Jorge Cherbosque, it doesn't take long before he's your best friend.

His magnetism is instantly infectious. With every one of Jorge's training classes—no matter the size—he enters the room in his usual manner, clutching tightly to his chest disheveled papers and unread mail he hurriedly picked up along the way. Then he begins moving stealthily through the crowded room from the front to the back, stopping to shake hands with each participant and asking them how they are doing. He makes it personal, as he expresses to them how excited and happy he is that they could come to training, as though they are visiting his home.

Dr. Jorge Cherbosque Photo by Reed Hutchinson, UCLA Photographic Services

After making everyone's acquaintance, it does not take long for Jorge to call the training to order as participants are sitting on the edge of their seats, leaning forward and ready to listen to every word he speaks. Once again, Jorge has masterfully managed to work the audience by first capturing their attention and making them feel special and welcomed. Now, he's ready to begin training.

For 21 years, Dr. Jorge Cherbosque has been the Co-Director of the Staff & Faculty Counseling Center at UCLA. He combines Emotional Intelligence with Diversity Training (EID), which is an extremely exciting experience.

He and I sat down so I could ask him a few questions for our University of California Diversity Educator's Group (UCDEG) Website on the hot topic of Emotional Intelligence/Diversity (EID).

Q: Tell me briefly about yourself and what your role is at UCLA.

A: As Co-Director of the Staff and Faculty Counseling Center (SFCC), I've always said, what I do is walk people from, "Thank God it's Friday (TGIF) to Thank God I'm here (TGIH)!" In some ways this briefly summarizes our SFCC program; which is to empower people not to just want to come to work, but to come with a sense of enthusiasm, and a deep sense of belonging to their organization. We like to help people feel that the organization really respects them and does not take them, their creativity, contributions, or efforts for granted. This is just a small part of the global vision we share at SFCC.

SFCC interacts with many different organizations on campus, such as Campus Human Resources, Training and Development, Staff Affirmative Action, and other campus units. Part of our contribution is to look at the human side of human resource issues, which entail dealing with the human side of diversity issues such as: stereotypes, resolving conflict, and handling sensitive issues that arise hoping people will feel respected. Also, we help staff who have different personalities, work styles and backgrounds feel something positive will come out of whatever issues they are confronted with daily. Additionally, we help to create synergistic work teams so that the diversity within these teams is being fully utilized, motivating people toward success.

And finally, SFCC is an advocate to the spirit that human beings are by far the most important resource of any organization. The contribution of SFCC and our interactions with staff bring about the human perspective of issues, whether they entail hiring, firing people or helping individuals to effectively navigate through change. 

Q: As a psychologist, what were some of the variables that piqued your interest to become involved in diversity training?

A: My passion for diversity strengthened after I studied psychology. I felt that some of the models I was being taught were very narrow in their perspective and did not account for a lot of diversity. As a youth living in Mexico City, I was a member of a swim team that traveled extensively.  Because we could not always afford to stay in hotels, we had a common practice of staying in the homes of other swimmers. This exposed me to various diverse backgrounds of individuals from a different socio-economic status, as well as different religions and ethnicities.

At the early age of 7, I was very intrigued by differences as well as similarities in the cultures that surrounded me. My parents encouraged travel and learning many languages. They were very instrumental in making me aware of social injustices of the underprivileged people in Mexico. Because I come from a mixed background—Mexican and Jewish—many times I was faced with anti-Semitic remarks at a very young age. Since then, I've always felt a passion in helping people enjoy the diversity that we all bring by helping them to be aware of differences as well as similarities we all share.

Q: How long have you been a diversity trainer? Where has your training taken you?

A: I've been a diversity trainer for 15 years.  My training has taken me to incredible places throughout the world.  Because I also work for a worldwide organization of CEOs with some of the biggest companies in the world, as their only bi-cultural/bilingual trainer in Spanish, I have traveled extensively to Brazil, Chile, and to every country in Central and South America, Spain and England. Currently, I am teaching emotional intelligence in Asian countries such as Japan, Jakarta, and Singapore.

Additionally, I am an expert in marketing and research, holding hundreds of focus groups entailing numerous conversations or visits to the homes of people from different and multi-ethnic backgrounds in an effort to understand their values and evaluation process.  All of these areas cumulatively have helped me to understand many facets of diversity

Q: Since you have traveled the world, what do you see as some of the similarities and obvious differences between people in different countries?

A: From my perspective, as a psychologist, throughout the world all people are very similar.  All have the same desires and basic yearnings to be understood, to live with a certain dignity, a great desire to belong, to feel safe, to achieve, to dream, to do meaningful things, offer meaningful contributions and to live a more relaxed and joyful existence.

However, one very critical area worthy of mentioning is that things are changing so quickly it tends to create a lot of fear within individuals and groups. Therefore, we must confront the polarizations that exist between groups, by getting people to dialogue around issues of boundaries, territories, religion and dogmas in order to reach a mutual understanding of where we are coming from. This is what I enjoy most: helping people navigate the process of change that will create more curiosity for each other's perspective. 

What I see emerging in the United States is a new generation of individuals more open to diversity issues surrounding interracial/cultural marriages and children. I am very optimistic as I see this occurring because I am now witnessing fewer stereotypes around these emerging groups.  With the broad spectrum of diversity everywhere, one can now find Asian people living in Madison, Wisconsin and Hispanics living in North Carolina.  Diversity is a natural process of life; it is not an artificial foreign body. So, when people come together, they will begin to witness this natural process occurring and begin to feel good regarding the acceptance of these realities.

Q: What is Emotional Intelligence?

A: There are two ways of explaining Emotional Intelligence (EI). I will explain first with a story, then with a concept. The story is the difference between heaven and hell, where there are people in a room, very hungry, seated around a table with chairs they cannot move, with spoons bigger than their hands, as they make attempts to feed themselves, and they cannot.

Heaven is the same room with the same people, stuck in the same chairs, positioned with the same spoons. However, in heaven, people understand they cannot feed themselves, so they support and feed one another.

The one truth we have to understand is that we do not need to always be right in how we do things, but we must be effective in whatever we do that affects each other. In being effective, we have to draw on the understanding of ourselves and others with compassion and empathy as we transcend our own perspective to understand the perspective of others with very different ideas.

EI is using both our emotions and cognitive ability to make choices, not only the right ones, but also the most effective ones.  EI, to the surprise of many people, is not just about emotions but cognitive processes, abilities, and having a vocabulary to be able to express and communicate our experiences, as well as understanding those experiences. EI further involves understanding our experiences so that we do not have to repeat something that might not be the best choice for us!  How often do we repeat things in life we swear we would never do again, only because we did not use our EI to choose differently?

So, EI is not only about understanding and communicating, it is about managing our emotions instead of allowing our emotions to manage us. It is about applying all this knowledge to better communicate and resolve conflict. 

Q: How did you arrive at the concept of combining Emotional Intelligence and Diversity (EID) as a training tool?

A: That is a great question.  As we were developing this model, we started with a U.S.-based experience and we were not sure how other countries would respond to it.  In the three yearssince we created EID, people from Japan, England and Mexico see a tremendous desire to apply this model in their countries. The concepts may have a universal appeal among different cultures, but its implementation strategies and techniques may need to be adapted to each region or cultural group.

Traditional models of emotional intelligence did not focus on diversity issues such as stereotypes, dealing with ambiguity, cross cultural communication and conflict resolution. So, this is what pushed me to create a new model.

Also, coming from the diversity field, I felt there was room for more skill-based training and many people were asking: What was there beyond awareness? What was the next step to diversity?  I felt it was important to build a more cohesive model integrating awareness with measurable skills to create more of a diverse model.

Also, I think there are certain populations that would be more incredulous to bringing the word diversity to it because of their more logical approach, relating more to emotional intelligence. So, for these groups, EID is a great way to introduce something that is easier to use, allowing the client to feel more comfortable.

Q: How has your travel across the world affected your life?

A: That's a good question. Our skills to communicate better, create teams that are better, teams that create more harmony—this is a universal theme. What changes is the methodology by which this might be used. In the United States for instance, you might want to teach the essence of how to improve self-confidence and assertiveness training. However, in Japan, a direct approach such as assertiveness training might not be the best approach for teams in that society, or exploring different methodologies might work best.

Q: Do you think that you would be a good facilitator for the United Nations?

A: I would love to do that. In fact, many people think I would be great. I think a very special gift to give is the ability to make people feel safe.  I think this is a very important gift that I inherited from my mother and my dad. When people feel safe, they open up, they trust, develop curiosity, and bringing a lot of joy into the process of learning. Once we feel safe with people we can see how many dimensions there are to a whole human being and how little we see at first sight.  I believe when human beings discover how fascinating our dimensions are and get insight, they have great potential and respect for one another.

Q: What impact has this combination had on participants you have trained?

A: One of the major impacts is that they understand this is not only a training program but also a developmental process. EID skills are skills that need to be taught and practiced. My experience has been that once people become obsessed and start practicing these skills, they become very excited about the process of really applying them to their lives. They become more productive in the way they resolve conflict with some of their staff members. And also what I find tremendously interesting is how they see that these skills can make them a more effective person both at work and at home in their personal relationships.

Q: Can you give me examples of how one would measure an emotionally intelligent diverse individual?

A: Some things to look for in the workplace would be how effective managers are when dealing with change; their ability to modify their communication styles in order to match different personalities within their work environment; their flexibility in utilizing different ways of resolving conflict; how much employees are included and feel part of the team; how they use new strategies to serve a diversity of customers; and how they implement these new strategies.

I learned a tremendous lesson once when I was teaching an emotional intelligence class; a tool that I have applied to EID. In this class there was a blind person in attendance and I had not sent her the materials in advance. When she arrived for training, she was limited in how she could participate, because my classes required a lot of participation with coworkers. I learned that I should have been more intuitive by sending the materials ahead. My mistake was that I assumed that everyone was sighted.

Later, she and I discussed this and she was a very good teacher for me. She gently let me know that I could have done certain things to better facilitate this training. As she discussed these areas with me, I tried to bring my curiosity and not my defensiveness to the table. So, the next time I have a situation such as this, I will strive to be more effective in my approach. What I experienced is a good example of how many individuals in organizations are not aware of protocols and procedures and tend to do things that might limit and not reach out to certain groups. 

Q: What do you see as the future for Emotional Intelligence and Diversity?

A: I am very excited! It's a new concept that has generated a lot of interest in many companies from UCLA to American Express, where many trainers are utilizing this concept. I believe we have to look at worldwide skills in conflict resolution, communication and motivation that are cultural specific or country specific that will teach us a little more about how to be effective in reaching diverse groups.  My vision is to teach Emotional Intelligence skills in schools, so each child will learn Emotional Intelligence skills one hour a week as they learn biology or history. We are translating the materials to be applicable to children at different ages.

Q: In your opinion, should Emotional Intelligence/Diversity Training be taught on campus to all staff, faculty and students?

A: Absolutely! The number one reason people come to my office is because of misunderstandings with their boss and other employees. Sometimes misunderstandings can lead to very unpleasant, and in some ways, tragic endings in order to resolve conflict. I believe that we can create more harmonious, respectful and productive work relationships if people could have more emotional intelligence training and diversity skills.

Q: What suggestion can you offer faculty and staff interested in teaching diversity?

A: I think they should enroll in classes that will offer them these skills. Anyone interested in teaching EID will find it hard to teach without first participating in a training program. It would be great to have them participate in a train-the-trainer program to see the strategies utilized. Second, we need to have some champions on campus who understand the power and benefit of this model who can funnel this training through the organization. And, third, we should not settle for quick responses or quick fixes. This strategy requires a good commitment of time, because training as well as coaching is necessary to develop these skills.

So I think diversity training needs to be firmly rooted and should not be just a band-aid solution for an organization. Individuals really interested in training should partner with people who are willing to invest their time and understand the business sense and how it is applied to organizations.

Q: Are you available for train-the-trainer programs at other campuses, and how would someone get in contact with you?