“Humans are made for collaborating,” the authors write, “Yet over time, humans created so many conveniences that we can now survive without each other.” I would offer that this is not the case in most parts of the world and certainly not in working class and poor communities in the economic North where survival is still very much linked to relationships and collaborations with other humans in strong clan, tribal, family or community networks. Nonetheless, for those of us with access to economic resources, their point is well-taken: we have “advanced” ourselves into isolation.

The first element of a strong collaboration, and the focus of this first book blog, is complementary strengths.  The authors debunk the myth of the “polymath”–a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas, otherwise known as the “Renaissance Man.”  This is a pervasive notion and supports the strong US emphasis on individualism, individual accomplishment and the Hero story.  Wagner and Muller write, “Few ideas so widely accepted are so demonstrably wrong [as the 'polymath.']“  Yet shoring up this myth reinforces values and beliefs that are not only deeply held and defended but also structurally supported and institutionally enforced by dominant culture in the US.

According to the Power of 2, in order to develop strong partnerships in life or at work, we would need to accept that while excellent in some areas we are also limited in others–the way any person’s skills and expertise are partial to the experiences, training and education they have received.  As they write, “So admit it: You stink at some things. You have blind spots, weaknesses….  Your strengths are stronger and your weaknesses weaker than you realize. You need help. You are also precisely the help someone else needs.” And this is why they make the case for true collaborators to actively seek a partner who is different from us.  In other words, we all need diversity to perform at our best.

I recently asked a client who has a very homogeneous workforce of largely white men if he thought it was a problem that his department lacked diversity. He thought about if for a while and then said, “No.”  He argued that they were still able to do excellent work, despite the lack of employees with different strengths or ways of thinking. Therefore, he concluded, no problem.  Wagner and Muller would disagree on the level of individual collaboration, contribution and excellence. “It’s a fallacy that…[you] alone will be anywhere as powerful as the two combined.” And I would also disagree, and even extend their argument to support the importance of having a diverse workplace.  It is also a fallacy, in my view, for any one group to imagine themselves to be as powerful, excellent, brilliant, or cutting-edge as two (or more) different groups collaborating and working together.

Wagner and Muller caution that seeking and acknowledging complimentary strengths means seeing your partner’s contribution of equal value to your own. In other words: ego and dominance must be checked at the door.  This is an important, yet difficult, diversity lesson when the groups we belong to (men, white, able-bodied, heterosexual, Christian, etc.) are in the position of dominance because of institutional validation for our way of thinking and acting.  It’s easy to get caught up into believing our complimentary strength really is the “better” strength in the partnership–and they wouldn’t make it without us.  According to Wagner and Muller, they wouldn’t. But neither would we.  It’s the interdependency of the complimentary strengths that allows each contributor in the partnership to shine. Therefore, to encourage true equity and peerness of both sets of strengths in any partnership, in other words to see them equally important, individuals and organizations will have to both closely examine and interrupt policies and attitudes that would seek to promote one strength over another. Failing to acknowledge that the partnership’s success is based in the diversity of the partnership itself will continue to invalidate and undermine true collaboration.

What are the strengths you bring to a collaborative partnership? What are your weaknesses?  Who would you need to seek out as a partner to compliment your strengths? What stops you?  How will you check your ego and dominance so that it doesn’t interfere with the partnership? Or conversely, how will you interrupt attempting to “adapt” yourself to mimic the dominant strengths you see around you at work and instead assert the value of what your bring as complimentary and essential to any successful collaboration?  How will you interrupt organizational dominance to ensure complimentary strengths are recognized, rewarded, and sought after?

By the end of June you can pick up a copy of this book or audio book through our website resources page (15% of all purchases are donated to a non-profit) or follow along using the audio podcasts adapted for the book.  Click here for the link to this chapter or here for a list of all the adapted podcast chapters.  Read (or listen) along with us and share you comments on this book blog!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSUw9SaPLmA

My father has diabetes as a complication from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; my mother was diagnosed with diabetes in her late 60s but was able to reverse her diagnose through regular exercise and Weight Watchers; when I was 10 years old my grandfather’s leg was amputated after gangrene set in after third-degree burns from sleeping with a heating pad (he couldn’t feel the heat or the burning since his circulation was so poor by then). Type II Diabetes (also called “Adult Onset,” although it is increasingly diagnosed in children) is a pandemic in my family, and especially in my Mexican and Puerto Rican communities. When I was a little girl, I was told this disease is genetic and that I could expect to get it when I got older. Not a question of if, but of when. No information about what causes it. No information about how to live differently to interrupt its course. Just a fact. My destiny.

I have come to understand this disease as one of classism. It’s poor people who marketed to and sold cheap mineral- and vitamin-deficient foods. It’s poor people who do not have access to affordable, organic produce. It’s poor people who are marketed to and sold high-processed, high-sugar foods as a way to numb to our emotions and the injustice of classism. The effects of diabetes are slow and insidious. It’s the socially-acceptable way for us to self-destruct. And then we are targeted and blamed for being fat. And yet it is not only reversible--it is completely avoidable.

Despite no longer being poor, the effects of being raised poor and having parents who grew up in poverty under the full weight of classism, I still struggle to make choices that will support my health and longevity. To not choose food to numb, especially ones high in fat and sugar, I have to notice my emotions, perhaps anger or sadness. As the video highlights, without addressing the emotional components of what underpins food addictions, the struggle is fierce and I would dare argue virtually unwinnable. I will continue to share my insights and thoughts on wellness as a social justice issue--and as a personal act of transformation and human liberation. I hope you will join in the discussion…and find support to keep making choices that treat you as the precious being you are.

“Hello, Nanci. Thanks so much for the pictures and great article. I really took it to heart. Since the training the biggest difference I’m noticing is that people are talking about things. It’s not always nice stuff. Sometimes it’s expressing feeling hurt by a supervisor’s treatment or the way someone addressed them. Instead of just stuffing things under the rug people are opening up and talking a lot more. The break room is just louder and more vibrant. It seems like people have held back a lot of hurt feelings over the years and now feel like they can talk about them. It’s very different with all these new voices of people who used to be pretty silent. Thank you so much.”

Having more authentic conversations, even though they bring up thoughts and feelings that can be hard to hear or challenging to have, are a sign of success. Sometimes organizations are confused by this turn of events. Organizations assume that if no one’s talking about these issues, then everything is going fine. Quite the contrary–if you create enough safety, more and more conversations will happen, and more issues will come into the light; the silences are be broken. And that is a good thing. The question: do you have the organizational capacity to handle these conversations? Skills building for effective conversations as well as a framework with which to “hold” them is essential if the organization and individuals will move through them, toward true alliances and cultural competency.

Feel free to follow along on their site or check out the repostings on this blog.

This year the focus is on racism and sports. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated, “We must push for all sports organizations to adopt stringent anti-discrimination policies, as well as frameworks for punishing the perpetrators of racist incidents and justice for the victims [both inside and outside of the stadium].” The sports industry, like any institution, has perpetuated institutional racism and is used to reinforce “race-based” prejudices (often in the guise of nationalism in international sporting events). A brilliant example of how sports can be used to structurally and emotionally interrupt racist divisions, can be seen in the 2009 film Invictus.  This film tells the inspiring true story of how newly-elected President Nelson Mandela seeks to unite his still racially and economically divided country in the wake of apartheid by joining forces with Francois Pienaar, captain of South Africa’s rugby team, the Springboks, as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

Marking this day in the US, over 700 organizations from across the country are supporting the “March for America” campaign. Thousands are expected to march at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, March 21st to demand immigration reform. For more information about the march visit Reform Immigration For America.

You can find more information about the international call to action at Human Rights Education Associate.  Some tools featured on this site that you can use to bring about an end to racism include learning activities for use with young people to explore the issue of discrimination, developed by Amnesty International; the international basis for intercultural education including anti-racist and human rights education, to increase awareness and use of international human rights treaties to shape international human rights standards into reality; and anti-slavery fact sheets, that present simple, easy-to-use information on past slavery, present-day slavery and bonded labor.

How will you celebrate your life as a woman?  The lives of women you are close with?  What do you cherish about being female?

I recently visited my father’s youngest sister, who is now in her early 70s.  Despite societal expectations and barriers of gender and class, she has created an independent life for herself that continues to inspire me.  She lives in her own cement house, built on the same site in Aguada, Puerto Rico that my Mama Minga had her wooden home (before Hurricane George had its way with it).

My grandmother, Mama Minga, had the foresight to purchase a plot of land with the settlement from her husband’s accidental death in 1936.  She left that land to her five youngest children–my aunt being the only girl in that bunch.  To make ends meet after her husband died, Mama Minga would bring in piece work (small articles to be sewn by hand for the US garment industry that paid pennies per piece of work) for her and the youngest to sew.

My aunt further developed her skills as a seamstress. Eventually she got a job at a JCPenny’s clothing factory, which supported herself and her son.  Her eyes still sparkle with pride when she talks about the lingerie she made day after day.  The factory moved overseas 13 years ago (for a cheaper labor pool) and she’s lives off her monthly social security check.  You can tell she’s glad to not work in the factory anymore (“I haven’t been sick a day since I stopped working there,” she tells me.  “Too much stress.”).  Now her days are her own and she sews for pleasure.

Although she sews most everything–clothing, curtains, etc.–she has a special place in her heart for making dolls. Treasured patterns of small girls, precisely cut, and lovingly wrapped in paper and plastic and stored in boxes are carefully removed for me to see.  Each pattern has a story.  “I made this one for my granddaughter, Nicole, when she was little.”  “When I was six, my mother made me a Victorian doll just like this one.” “I sold this one for $20.”

Each doll connects her to other girls and women in her life.

She’s now making one for me.

While the statements, “be who you are” or “stay true to yourself,” sound simple, they are surprisingly challenging to live up to. This is especially true in a society that explicitly values and rewards particular groups and ways of “being” over others.

Many of us purposely change how we present ourselves in work environments to be seen as more credible or to advance our projects in our organizations. On some level, this strategy makes sense as we need political support and buy-in to be effective in our jobs. However, some of these decisions —how we dress and talk, how much we reveal about our personal lives, core values and beliefs, and how we live—have become so familiar and reinforced by co-workers and society that the connection with our authentic selves begins to unravel. We lose sight of who we really are.

I recently led a workshop where a participant insisted I couldn’t be Latina because I was so “articulate.” I grew up in a household where my parents spoke Spanish to each other, but spoke to us children in English because they didn’t want us to speak with an accent. I watched my father and grandparents be “stigmatized” as uneducated or less intelligent because English was clearly not their native tongue.

I learned as a very young person that English was the language of power and access. I excelled at it, especially verbally. I knew that skillfully commanding English would bring recognition for being smart, because I would sound smart. Yet, I’m most “at home” in Spanglish. My tone softens, as does my heart, when those melodic syllables roll off my tongue. For the most part, I don’t reveal that part of me in work settings. I remain wary of both the stigma and its possible “exclusionary” effect on non-Spanish speakers, even when I translate what I say. I worry that I may offend someone in power and as a result lose a contract or client, or worse, my credibility.

When I hold back from speaking in my more familiar tongue, I have already lost credibility because I contradict my value of being authentic. In order to come more in alignment with my value, sometimes it’s enough for me to be open about how higher education and especially my decision to adopt “very formally educated” English impacted me. Other times, it makes sense to slip into Spanglish and share this aspect of myself. The outcome is two-fold:  I bring more of myself to whatever I am doing, and this benefits everyone around me. Another outcome is that by being more authentic I invite others to do the same.

I recently asked workshop participants to do an activity in their first language.  The resistance from a small group of immigrants was palpable. The room filled with nervous chatter, anxious clarifying questions, uncomfortable shifting in chairs, and even visible upset at me for making such a request. After the exercise, several of these participants shared with me, one-on-one, how powerful it was to be able to speak their own languages at work. They cried about how hard it was to speak only English and how doing so led them to forget certain words in their birth language. The grief was evident. As I walked through the lunch area after the session, the participants volunteered to teach me “thank you” and “good-bye” in Romanian, Tibetan, Arabic, and Eritrean, just to name a few. The participants felt safe enough to be more authentic in the workplace and the trust increased for everyone.

Being authentic means being willing to be all of who you are. The truth is, being less of who we are impacts our organizational effectiveness. It takes effort—more energy, more resources, more time—to be less of myself since my brain is preoccupied with what and how much to change or hold back. If you are part of a group that has institutional power—English dominant, male, white, Christian, heterosexual, etc.—you are especially poised to create more safety for others. You can do this by engaging your access and credibility to model authenticity and insist on a workplace that actively counteracts pressures to assimilate.

Where have you changed who you are in order to fit in or gain more acceptance?  What can you do to be more authentic in the workplace? How would this increase the trust level and allow others to be more authentic? How would this impact diversity and increase inclusion where you work? I forward to reading your thoughts and responding to your comments!

Last month I asked you to identify what would need to change to have the life you want by creating a “Changes List.”  Some of you might have things like:  “don’t take on more work projects until I cross some off my list” or “spend more time with my family.”  Some of you might have things like:  “change my job,” “have a child,” or “move from my current home or apartment.”  For some of you the changes might seem relatively small, while for others the changes could feel like they would send shockwaves throughout your life—and the lives of those closest to you.  Notice if the changes feel large or small. Of course, bigger changes will require more resource—financial, emotional, and planning, etc.  In the end though, it’s not the size of the change that matters; it’s your capacity to make the change happen. And building that capacity is what this process is about!

The second tool (which is a companion to the second step) involves categorizing your “Change List” into three “Change Arenas.”  Below I will briefly define how I use the terms “attitude,” “responsibility,” and “expectation” and give some examples of each.  As you review your list and read this article, begin to put marks by each item to indicate which category you think best describes your change.

By “attitudes” I mean beliefs that you hold about yourself that contribute to the current situation of misalignment.  These attitudes will need to change in order to create something different.  For example, an attitude on my “Change List” is to let go of the idea that if someone needs me, it’s my duty to be available to them.  This attitude—both of responding to others’ needs and this being a way to uphold my sense of “duty”—keeps me stuck.  I continue to respond to others’ needs (feeling more resentful along the way) and even as “duty” overrides my own priorities, I find myself unable to say “no.”  What attitudes are on your “Change List?” What would happen if you changed this belief? Even though we know these attitudes need to change to create change, they can be ingrained, almost inherent to us, that change feels impossible.

The second “Change Arena” is “responsibilities:” actions you take that, with diminished choice, feel more like duty and obligation.  Responsibilities are part of how we spend our lives: benign actions that enhance the functioning of our lives.  In themselves, they can be interesting and even fun!  When these responsibilities no longer align with our priorities or larger sense of purpose, they can feel like more like obligation—serving the needs of others, but not ours. Discerning the difference between a “responsibility” and an “obligation” is mostly about rigidity.  For example, I have a responsibility to pay my mortgage.  It turns into an obligation when I can only imagine doing it by staying at a job I hate or when I feel like it’s up to me, and me alone, and there isn’t any help. My responsibility can be met in any number of creative ways: I could rent out my home and move in with friends or family temporarily; I could get a roommate to help reduce the financial strain; I could sell my home; etc.  To be truly open to other creative ways to meet our responsibilities, we’ll usually bump up against preciously-defended attitudes.  For example, yours might be “I’m independent and self-sufficient and I don’t need help from anyone.”  That certainly makes imagining moving in with friends or family, even temporarily, seem undoable.  As you categorize your change list, you’ll find these three “Change Arenas” end up supporting each other to keep the status quo intact.

And the final change arena is “expectations:” what others think or believe about you.  These can be even more compelling than what we believe about ourselves—especially if these expectations are supported by society.  Of course, these expectations may or may not be true, but we have internalized them so they are now ours and feel true, regardless.  One of my priorities is to write a book.  Staying in the daily structure of my current life wouldn’t support me to carve out time to focus on that goal.  One item on my change list was to move somewhere else temporarily—which would mean not living with my partner (his job does not have that kind of flexibility).  An expectation that also showed up on my Change List is “a good partner shares the daily responsibilities of life together.” Of course, living somewhere else would prevent me from contributing to those daily responsibilities.  Making this change brought me up against the external images of how a partnership is “supposed” to be.  I didn’t have a model for partners living a part—although I know this is not uncommon.  This expectation needed to change in order to continue to see my value as a partner—even if I were to live somewhere else.  Of course, it also challenged my own attitude to respond to others’ needs.  If I weren’t physically there, I couldn’t respond to my partners’ needs.  What are some expectations you would have to question in order to have the life you want?  How much of these expectations are really yours that you project onto others?  How much of these expectations are really from others? From society?

Take out another piece of paper.  Put three columns on it.  Label the first one “Attitude,” the second one “Responsibility,” and the third one “Expectation.”   As you look at your list of changes, rewrite your change list so that each item is now in one of the three columns.  Which attitudes and responsibilities (or responsibilities and expectations or attitudes and expectations) reinforce each other, keeping the other in place and therefore more difficult to change?  What patterns or trends do you notice?  If you could distill one or two core themes of change, what would they be?  Share your insights with a friend or write them in a journal—or both.  Keep your lists handy because next month we’ll explore the third step in the process!

When I arrived at 9 am the following morning the waiting room was full.  Already the board displayed numbers in the triple digits.  How did this happen?!  When I asked the receptionist, I  was informed the clinic had been open since 6:30 am.  Patients were expected to wait up to 3 hours before the doctor even arrived!  First one line to get the forms, another line to return them, then another number for waiting to see the doctor.  I had allotted an hour for this visit.  As the second hour drew to a close, my impatience had grown.  No more phone calls to make, no more text messages to return, no more emails to respond to, no more Facebook posts to read.  I could feel my USer entitlement brewing, like a pot of milk left to simmer on the stove–for a long time it can look like nothing’s happening but then all of a sudden the liquid froths over the top of the pot and burns the bottom of the pan!

Patience, Nanci, patience.  It was the voice of my papi in my head. I tried to bring him into the waiting room with me. Almost straining I sought to hear his non-judging, gentle, coaxing words about patience.  He was born on this island and, while this may not be true of all Puerto Ricans, he understands something about connection, community and waiting his turn so that everyone is treated fairly.  I was born in the US where we call this “inefficiency”–a word laced with all the embedded judgment of superiority you can imagine and my tone can muster.

In his book “Uprooting Racism” Paul Kivel writes specifically about white people’s sense of entitlement because of racism: “the feeling that one is entitled to certain goods or services more than others are, or that is [sic] one is entitled to be served by the others because of one’s class, race, and/or gender.” (p. 42)  On the US mainland I am painfully familiar with being on the receiving end of this behavior.  I have accumulated many experiences where people simply don’t see me because I am female and Latina–and when I was little: disabled, poor and young, or all of the above.

Watching people talk over me, look through me or disdain my presence fed my passion for justice–and outrage at the unjust systems that perpetuate these behaviors.  Less obvious to me in the midst of this systemic assault, was the slow and insidious entitlement training I was receiving as a USer.  I had internalized the very attitudes and learned to act out the very behaviors that I found so baffling and outrageous.

Standing in the middle of a grocery store aisle without any apparent awareness that you are blocking the flow of carts.  Walking to the front of a line, even though there are people clearly waiting their turn to be attended.  Not noticing the people who clean the office building where you work. Ignoring the bus person or wait staff at the restaurant except if they make contact, “mess up,” or you require attention.  On countless occasions I’ve witnessed these behaviors and felt condemnation toward the person acting entitled.  I have also acted out these very behaviors many times myself and also felt these same feelings of condemnation for myself.  The condemnation serves none of us–it is yet another by-product of feeling superior to another human being.  How can we break this cycle–and bring about an end to entitlement?

1) Slow down.  When we are going fast, feel stressed and trying to get a lot of things done we pay less attention to people around us and are vulnerable to acting out entitlement behaviors.  When we slow down we are better able to pay attention and be more present–and less urgency helps us be more thoughtful, considerate and patient.

2) Ask someone close to you, preferably from a targeted group, to share some of the ways you act entitled.  Because non-targets (the group with institutional power and access) are trained to be clueless, we don’t immediately recognize our own entitlement behaviors. Inviting someone else to “see” us in this way helps us grow and also can deepen our relationships as allies.

3) Question why you feel better than someone else.  (This can also take the form of feeling sorry for someone else.) When you pulled to judge or pity someone else, notice why.  Usually feeling better than someone else is a cover for where you feel bad about yourself or less than someone else.  Remember: both reactions are inaccurate. You are neither better or less than anyone else.

4) Decide to not be clueless.  Society grooms its dominant groups into cluelessness patterns.  If we were aware we would interrupt the injustice and require the system change.  In entitlement we lose connection with other people to the point of feeling superior to them.  This is the basis for class oppression and the justification for institutional oppressions overall. When we practice awareness we take important steps to interrupting our own and other’s entitlement.

5) Have compassion. Remember entitlement attitudes and behaviors are not your personal or individual fault–nor that of anyone else with entitlement patterns.  If we can seek understanding and to see the goodness in others (and ourselves)  instead, we might be closer to having true compassion for that person (or ourselves)–without feeling sorry for them (or ourselves).

Where do you act entitled?  Where did you first see this behavior on someone else?  Which group(s) of people do you feel superior to (smarter than, better looking than, happier than, more competent than, etc.)? Why? Which group(s) of people do you feel inferior to? Why? Which of the above suggestions did you use to interrupt entitlement? What else have you tried?  How did it work?  What did you learn?

Continuing to do the same thing will not bring about new results.  I have heard this advice again and again, usually followed by some statement like, “Just choose to spend your time differently.  It’s up to you.”  This statement is not inaccurate; it’s just not the whole story. If it were only about doing something different, then we would.  What I’m already doing is supported by both my own thoughts and attitudes (i.e. I like feeling indispensable at home, knowing that I am needed; I have a reputation for producing a high quality work product and that’s important to my sense of self-worth; etc.) as well as the structures and relationships in my life (i.e. I’m in charge of certain committees and groups in the community service work I do; my partner and I have routines around cooking, cleaning and bill paying where my role and time are defined and my responsibilities clear; my supervisor and I have deadlines and rhythms in my work life that hold me accountable, etc.).  Shifting my time to reflect shifting priorities means that what I currently chose to do (and the expectations, responsibilities and beliefs associated with them) is also now in question.

Shifting choices in how you spend your time will bring about change.  And with change comes opportunities for something different to happen—some of which we have planned for in adopting the new behavior or attitude (i.e. I chose to work out at lunch because I want a healthier lifestyle and I am becoming more fit); some of which we may not have anticipated (i.e. My work lunch-time buddies are disappointed that I’m not available to eat lunch with them and hang out the way I used to; I’m losing the friendship circle I had with them).  Change threatens the status quo.  Those in our lives who benefit most from how you currently spend your time are likely those most invested in you not making changes.  We will return this aspect of outside support for these changes in a later step; however, for now it’s enough to be aware of this aspect of the change.  And to try, as best you can, to not let it overly impact this next step for you in the process of having the life you want:   brainstorm a list of what needs to change in order to spend your time in alignment with your key priorities.

You know what needs to change.  No one else has to see this list. And you don’t have to do anything with the list. Not ever.  Just making the list and bringing it to your consciousness is a big step all by itself.  Take out some paper and a pen now.  (Or maybe that journal you’ve started for just this purpose.) You know the drill.  Begin to write.  Try not to censor or block the thoughts as they come.  You are still in charge of what you decide to take on (or not) after you do this exercise.  Nonetheless, it’s still useful to make the changes explicit—as scary as it may feel to put them onto paper.

Now put the list away, for a day or maybe even a few.  Periodically, over the next month, before we introduce the next step, spend time looking over this list.  Sit with it and try not to be too attached to what you see.  Resist any temptations to edit the list.  If you want to do the process again, feel free.  You can generate a “change list” three or four times, if you like.  Each time set it aside.  When you return to it, compare the lists and notice which changes repeatedly rise to the surface. Notice what you see without too much interpretation.  Just notice.  Think about this list as belonging to a dear friend or someone you deeply care about and whose life you want to go well. You deserve this much.