“tell me, and i'll forget. show me, and i may remember. involve me, and i'll...
TRANSCRIPT
“Tell me, and I'll forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I'll understand.”
Native American Proverb
Challenging and Expanding Your Diversity Competency: Moving Beyond Your Comfort ZoneNine Practices for Organizational Change
Agenda
I. Deeper Diversity Awareness: What You Really Do Vs. What You Think You Do
II. Beyond Awareness: The Structure of the Land
Outcomes
Introduce 9 diversity practices
Explore diversity as a “wicked problem”
Challenge basic assumptions about diversity
Explore the utility of experiential learning as a diversity tool
Provide an active learning experience
Tools
Circle Project Inclusion Model
9 Practices for Organizational Change
Structure of the Land Change Model
Circle Project Toolkit
Water follows the structure of the land…
Behavior, like water, follows the structure of the land
We’re trying to bring an awareness to
underlying structure
WICKED PROBLEMS AND TAME SOLUTIONS
• “…humans are oriented more toward learning (a process that leaves us changed) than towards problem solving (a process focused on changing our surroundings)...
• business and government persist in applying inadequate thinking and methods to solving problems. One reason they do that is it is possible, in fact easy, to tame a wicked problem.
• To do so, you simply construct a problem definition that obscures the wicked nature of the problem, and then apply linear methods to solving it (this sets off a chain reaction that perpetuates the problem).” - Jeff Conklin, “Wicked Problems: Naming the Pain in Organization”
Grant Specificity to the Other
Can you acknowledge that every single person you meet is as richly human as you are?
REVIEWNine Practices for Organizational Change
Reframe Your Story• Meaning-making has very little to do with truth or fact and is more a function
of your frame of reference. How would changing your frame of reference change the meaning you make? Celebrate what might look like a problem. What do you see now?
Put Down Your Clever• How would your relationships change if you let go of your need to be right?
What would you see if you let go of your need to be the expert or any other “role” that keeps you separate? What you judge as “ordinary” in yourself is actually what makes you unique; you are at your most powerful and authentic when you “put down your clever and pick up your ordinary.”
See And Be Seen• After you are able to put down your clever you will discover that you are
capable of being seen. Only then will you be able to see others. There is directionality in “seeing;” relationship requires that you allow yourself to be seen.
Find Your Edges• All significant change and learning happens at the edges and the edges are
rarely comfortable. Discomfort is a signal that you are on edge. Find it. Don’t judge it. You’ll discover there is often a significant discrepancy between what you think you do at the edge and what you actually do.
Know Your Mask• The majority of your communication is nonverbal. How are you consciously
or unconsciously blocking your communication with others? Discover and come to know your mask; when is it necessary and when are you hiding?
Grant Specificity To The Other• How would your engagements change if you recognized that every human
being has the same depth of experience as you do? That their hopes, dreams, frustrations—their lives—are as rich and varied in experience as yours?
Notice Your First Thought, Work On Your Second• We won’t every stop making assumptions or quick judgments about others.
Diversity work that is designed to stop that process will always fail. As the Chinese saying goes, “we see what is being our eyes.” But what we can do is notice our first thoughts and work on our second.
Say “Yes And…”• How does the language you use facilitate or impede connection? Using a
“yes, and” approach is always generative and expansive, while using a “yes, but” approach is always reductive and exclusionary.
Remember The Triangle• We’re rarely aware of the impact of even the simplest action. Are you
underestimating the impact of your choices? How might your smallest action ripple through a community or organization, and beyond?
BibliographyAbout playing an infinite game…Bayles, David and Ted Orland. Art and Fear. Santa Cruz: Image Continuum, 1993.Carse, James. Finite and Infinite Games, Ballantine Books, New York, 1986Fritz, Robert. The Path Of Least Resistance, Fawcett Columbine, New York, 1989
Making meaning through story…Brown, John Seely. The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School, 2002.Bruner, Jerome. Acts of Meaning. Harvard University Press, 1990.Pink, Daniel. A Whole New Mind. Riverhead Trade Press, 2005.
Vicious & Virtuous Circles…Hampden-Turner, Charles. Charting the Corporate Mind: Graphic Solutions to Business Conflicts. New York: Free Press, 1990
Wicked problems and tame solutions…Conklin, E. Jeffrey and William Weil. “Wicked Problems: Naming the Pain in Organizations,” in Guindon, Raymonde (1990) Designing the Design Process: Exploiting Opportunistic Thoughts. Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 5, 305-344.Langer, Ellen J. Mindfulness. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1989.
Creative exercises…Boal, Augusto. Games For Actors and Non-Actors, Rutledge, New York, 1992Johnstone, Keith. IMPRO, Routledge/Theatre Books, New York, 1981Johnstone, Keith. IMPRO For Storytellers, Routledge/Theatre Books, New York.