In Conversation with ... Lionel F. Laroche, Ph. D., P. Eng.
Keynote Speaker at TESL Canada 2009
By Judy Sillito
Few keynote speakers have the enduring relationship with Alberta that is enjoyed by Lionel Laroche. If you have recently attended a conference or an in-service, whether in the career development sector helping immigrants gain jobs in their profession, or a settlement conference, at ESL forums or at intercultural education workshops, you likely have had the pleasure to hear Lionel Laroche. I had the opportunity to chat with Lionel to get a glimpse of the person behind the presentations to discuss how he came to be so connected to Alberta scene, what influences temper his work, and about his goals for the future.
Lionel was born in France and graduated from a prestigious university with a degree in engineering. He married a Canadian woman and upon immigrating to Canada he, like many immigrants, put his mind to creating a game plan for success. Relying on his understanding of the European situation, he surmised that the cultural and business capital of the country was the only place to find professional success so he - a talented and eager chemical engineer – refused to seek a job in Calgary in the oil and gas sector and instead headed for Toronto. That was his first learning about culturally based assumptions that inhibit the success of newcomers.
He eventually found good work in Toronto and soon came face to face with an unexpected set of challenges in this Canadian workplace. Immediately he recognized that he was facing unusual problems that were unprecedented in the French context. Ultimately, he realized that he was not meant to be an engineer in the Canadian sense of the word. Looking for answers, he changed companies and found that although the people were different, the problems were the same. This caused him to wonder about the tensions at play that were making him less influential, and less effective in the Canadian context than he had been in France.
By this time he had developed a real interest in cultural influence on professional success and wanted to direct his career toward that. But the question was “how?” He started reading voraciously, learning, and speaking. With the release of his first book, Managing Cultural Diversity in Technical Professions the speaking invitations soared and he never looked back. Since then he has provided intercultural training, coaching, and consulting services to over 15,000 people in nine countries (Canada, the U.S., Bermuda, Mexico, Peru, France, Belgium, Switzerland and China) and has written a second book entitled Recruiting, Retaining and Promoting Culturally Diverse Employees.
Then life turned as it is apt to do. With two small children and a wife battling cancer, Lionel found himself in need of a more secure financial situation than his rather sporadic speaking engagements provided. He speaks of this era as the time he was forced to activate a crucial idea that he now tries to inspire in his work with newcomers: “Find a way to make it work, somehow”. And he did.
He found a job at a job placement agency where he became more intimately aware of the critical nuances of the Canadian labour market. Later, he was hired to do coaching for the internationally educated professionals and this opportunity broadened his knowledge of the challenges of integration. Eventually, he was contracted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to deliver coaching and workshops for their immigrant professionals and to this day PWC remains one of his largest clients.
PwC has a large stake in Alberta and is one reason why Lionel continues to visit here so frequently. But he admits that another draw is his admiration for the unique spirit of Albertans. He talks of the boom or bust cycle that is so much a part of the Alberta psyche – when the price of oil is down everyone accepts that nothing will happen and when things are booming, it takes no time at all to convince Albertans to try new things.
In the course of his work Lionel has had many opportunities to intersect with the ESL world. He speaks candidly about the CLBs and his experience with unique language difficulties faced by professionals. He says, “It’s not only about communicative ability, your value as a professional is the value of your ideas; even at CLB 7 it’s difficult to convey the full merit of an idea.” He fears that too few ESL teachers understand the challenge of this reality.
Lionel’s passion for his work has roots in his childhood in France. As a young boy, he witnessed the demise of the steel industry in his community and watched how the lay-offs, strikes, and demonstrations traumatized people. Although his family was not directly affected, he was deeply impacted by the trauma caused by employment insecurity. He sees similar suffering with the employment insecurity faced by immigrants in Canada and is devoted to forging change. He admits there is still much to do and his future aspirations include working to influence public policy, and perhaps a third book.