Collaboration is a bit of a buzz word thrown around in organizational change circles. But what does collaboration really mean when it’s put into practice? How would you recognize collaboration if you saw it?  I have identified five core “best practice”s to enhance or build collaborative partnerships. True collaboration seeks to keep all party’s peerness as central to the endeavor.  Power imbalances can skew both the practice and effectiveness of collaboration.

1)     Early Involvement: Nothing says we’re doing this together better than starting from the beginning together.  Early involvement assumes that your collaboration partner is an essential element to getting any project off the ground—and in it’s long-term success. It’s much harder to establish shared ownership in a project when it’s already underway and you have to adopt or adapt to someone else’s pre-determined outcomes and process.  Often, the collaboration itself shapes the very direction, process and outcomes and is a different project all together by the mere nature of collaborating.

2)     Co-create Shared Objectives: The essence of collaboration is having a shared objective. At the beginning of any new project, work together to agree on these outcomes, along with timescales, activities and everything else that goes with managing any kind of project. When this is not done, the people involved will not know what is required of them, and will undoubtedly be ineffective overall but certainly unclear about their role in bringing the collaborative effort to successful fruition.  If a project is already underway, it’s not too late to go back and clarify!

3)     Design and Protect Time for Collaboration: Time to collaborate won’t appear, you’ll have to create it.  And part of valuing the collaborative process means setting aside the time to do so—and protecting that time from other demands that would seek to infringe on it.  Communicate with colleagues and/or supervisors so that they understand you are using time for collaboration—especially when it may mean you cannot be as available for another meeting or task.  Remember that in the end collaboration creates more space and time because of the increased productivity and sharing of resources.  The more integral collaboration becomes the easier it will be understand why it’s a priority.

4)     Communicate, Communicate, Communicate: Communication cannot be overstated.  Having clear communication at every step of the process is crucial to effective collaboration.  And communication does not mean simply “telling;” clear communication also means listening deeply, checking in to see if you understand what is being said, asking questions that encourage the speaker to “tell me more,” etc.  Using collaborative technologies to increase communication is great—and keep in mind it is no substitute for face-to-face, in person meetings.  Explore various kinds of communication—and use them all.  Discover which are most effective with your team and use them most often!

5)     Recognize and Reward Effective Teamwork: Nothing says “success” like “success.” As you move along this journey, share your observations of collaboration success—both in process and outcome.  The more you affirm your victories the more likely you will be to repeat them.  No success is too small to recognize! In addition, determine how meaningful rewards can be fashioned to acknowledge the team’s success (rather than the individual’s) and implement them.

What are your thoughts about collaboration? Where have you been successful in implementing one or more of these best practices? What other ones might you include? How have you successfully challenged power imbalances in a collaborative relationship? How not?

Two of the most powerful words every uttered: “I’m sorry.” Sincerely meant, genuinely felt these words have the capacity to reconnect, repair and strengthen any bond.  Whether between two individuals or on a national or global scale these words can heal like no others.  As I watch, again, the powerful example provided by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (see video above) I am reminded of  the healing impact of an apology: visually I observe the responses of his fellow Australians to his words of apology given without condition or expectation; viscerally I gauge my own response to the impact of these words on fellow human beings so wrongly targeted and effected by racism, colonization and domination. I am moved to tears every time I watch him deliver this apology. Knowing how to apologize is a core cross cultural competency. It’s essential to repair the effects of hurts caused by structural inequities, enacted policies of domination and violence, as well as subtle, unaware acts of cluelessness.  We have the capacity to move through experiences of injustice and oppression–even ones as profound as those perpetrated on the Aboriginal peoples of Australia–by beginning with the words: “I’m sorry.”

Learning to give a clean apology is not easy to do.  It requires no attachment to the outcome. In other words, the person to whom you are apologizing may not be in a place to forgive you–and that needs to be OK.  A clean apology doesn’t require the person “get over it” just because you are apologizing.  Remember: you are apologizing because of some wrong-doing or mistake on your part. You don’t determine the timeline for someone else’s process. The power of an apology is coming into integrity with yourself.  ”I’m sorry” recognizes out loud and with accountability the impact of your actions–intended or not–on another human being (or group).  The apology is not for them but for you. Giving a clean apology means to do so without excuse, without justification and without any defensiveness.  In my own experience I have noticed I am able to give a more heartfelt apology the less bad I feel about myself. This may seem ironic because when someone has offended me I want them to know how badly I’ve been hurt by them. I can even tell at times I want them to feel bad–so they can know how it feels to hurt and feel bad. (And sometimes I will continue in my upset until I think they do!) Talk about a counterproductive cycle! But in the end, the longer they stay feeling bad about what they’ve done, the less likely I will hear those powerful words which, when sincerely given, signal a phase of healing and repair can begin.

Depending on our experience with apologies, how badly we feel about ourselves, how numb or in denial we are to the impact of our actions on others or how we were trained as members of certain groups: apologies can also be patterned.  A patterned apology lacks true sincerity–although the person saying “I’m sorry” may be completely unaware of this.  It isn’t necessarily a conscious decision to be insincere. More often it is an unaware, deeply ingrained set of attitudes or behaviors that have attached to the words “I’m sorry”–thus rendering the words almost meaningless and ultimately interfering with the possibility of repair. So what is a “patterned apology?”  Here are a few examples:

The “Shut Down” Apology Pattern Have you ever used the words “I’m sorry” as a pre-emptive “block” intended to shut the conversation (really the feelings of upset and hurt from the other person) down? I have used “I’m sorry” to placate the person, giving them what I think they want–but really I want to stop the interaction from going any further. This apology pattern is immediately experienced as insincere and often escalates the anger or upset–having the direct opposite of what I had hoped my patterned apology would render. I want it to be over. Done. Finished. I want to be off the hook and I have a very definite outcome in mind–forgiveness. I don’t want to hear any more about how I messed up or the impact my actions or words had on another person.  When I use an apology in this way I’m really not allowing for the repair to happen. When we feel that bad about ourselves, our (sometimes not so) hidden hope is that we can stop noticing our mistake by essentially shutting the affected party up.  It sounds harsher than I imagine it is intended and yet to the offended party, it can feel that harsh.  Instead of opening a door for reconnection, the “shut down” apology prematurely interrupts an opportunity for deeper learning and shared understanding.

The “I’m Not Worthy” Apology Pattern Another way that I’ve seen “I’m sorry” used (and myself participated in!) is one that comes from a place so deep inside, so entrenched in a bedrock of guilt and worthlessness, that somehow without uttering those words one no longer thinks they have the right to continue to exist.  The “I’m sorry” offered as part of the “I’m Not Worthy” apology pattern is like a rent payment–a regular, predictable toll paid for taking up space.  Primarily based in deeply-rooted shame, “I’m sorry”–repeated frequently and often inappropriately (i.e. for nothing the person could actual be accountable for, like bad weather or a plane delay)–is an attempt at redemption. The person to whom the words are uttered is expected to act as redeemer–a job they did not ask for and an unfair expectation when, on the rare occasion a real offense has occurred, they are now expected to help assuage the guilt of the person who has just aggrieved them. Challenging at best, a further offense at worst: this pattern can be a tough one to interrupt because the words sound right, and the tone is even contrite but it’s completely self-effacing and self-erasing and ultimately without self has no accountability in it.

The “Non-Repair” Apology Pattern Finally, another common apology pattern is one that uses an apology to substitute for real repair.  An apology is not repair. Repair is actual work, effort, behavior or policy changes that are enacted to rebuild trust.  (Repair will be discussed more fully in a future blog.) This apology pattern is neither capable of nor wants to do repair. It simply wants to move on. It’s different from the “shut down” apology pattern in that it isn’t attempting to stop further upset and require forgiveness.  This patterned “I’m sorry” essentially denies anything even happened. For example, I have to say “I’m sorry” because it’s expected but I really don’t understand what this all about any way. It reminds me a bit of a parent who requires a child to apologize to another child for some trespass but the apologizing child really doesn’t understand why or think that the apology is warranted; she or he is simply saying the words to be in compliance. And so the “I’m sorry” is perfunctory, flat and transactional.  It isn’t a means to an end. It’s the end. There is little or no compassion or attempt to understand what repair would be necessary to rebuild severed or weakened trust.

While apologies can be the gateway to profound and transformational healing, if done from a patterned place they can not only prevent repair from happening but, worse, can cause further affront to the offended party.  It’s crucial that we understand from where our apologies come…and what, if anything, we expect by saying those most powerful words: “I’m sorry.”

Scapegoating

Scapegoating is an age-old practice, well-tested as an expression of Anti-Jewish oppression, that finds a convenient group or individual to blame for current difficulties or troubles. Today, scapegoating provides the foundation for modern-day discourse against newcomers, foreigners and immigrants throughout the world. The widely accepted and largely unchallenged practice of scapegoating has also seeped into our organizations and personal relationships. You can see this when an organization emphasizes a “problem person” who needs to be “fixed’ or gotten rid of, as if this will magically make the the difficulty go away. How easy it would be if this were true, but it rarely, if ever, is. However much we’d like to pinpoint a specific individual (or group) as the problem, we cannot deny they are part of a larger system which encourages, through reward or fear, the very behaviors we wish to eradicate.

Ignoring or Minimizing the Context

Removing or attempting to “fix” a group or individual is misguided at best and perpetuates oppressive, punitive, fear-producing behavior at worst. Any one individual or group of people is never the problem. Whether in an organization, a personal relationship, or society as a whole, blame either minimizes or denies the full context in which any individual or group is shaped and encouraged to act. Even if the behavior is one that must be interrupted or stopped because it is inappropriate, we can do so more effectively with an understanding of the context which co-created their response. When we acknowledge and seek to understand the full extent of the external factors impacting this group or individual, we can intervene in a more appropriate way that addresses the root causes of the problem behavior.

For example, a department manager was consistently late to work and struggled to get to meetings on time. He was disorganized and lacked focus. His team felt that he was unable to provide the support they needed and that his behavior was unprofessional, reflecting poorly on the department as a whole. The solution the team came up with was to get rid of him. Any difficulties the team was experiencing were scapegoated on the leader. Yes, the leader did arrive very late to work on most days–and also stayed well into the night most evenings. Chronic insomnia along with other medical conditions made it physically impossible for him to start his work day earlier. It also turned out he was managing his department without any administrative support. Given the high visibility of his programs throughout the organization, he was completely overwhelmed handling it on his own. Without this crucial support, his pre-existing difficulties with promptness and focus were exacerbated and became an obvious target for scapegoating. Upon further inquiry, it became evident that more than the leader’s actions were contributing to the challenges in the department. Gossip, sabotage and other attack tactics common in the team’s dynamics not only undermined the leader but also the entire team’s effectiveness. While the leader certainly needed to make changes in his behavior, as long as the team could blame the leader, they didn’t have to examine how their own behaviors and attitudes co-created this outcome.

Avoiding Our Own Responsibility

When we blame others we make ourselves powerless. In the blame paradigm we give power away to another individual or group, making them “wrong”–and making ourselves victims at the same time. I use the word “victim” very intentionally yet with great caution because of how it has been misused to target people for their own difficulties. The scapegoating phenomenon makes the target of blame the “perpetrator” in this dynamic, which, by default, creates a “victim.” These two roles co-create the dynamic–even as we may want to deny or fight against such labels.

By acknowledging the ways our own behaviors and attitudes contribute to the situation we want to change, we can have more influence on the situation. We do this by altering the only aspect we have any real control over–ourselves. The need to find and assign blame keeps us hooked into the dynamic. Without the distraction of blame, we can more flexibly impact the situation with both confidence and compassion.

Blamelessness

Do I blame others? Absolutely. I fall into the trap of needing to make others wrong, especially when I feel powerless to influence change. Yet, when I can reach for a perspective that refuses to find fault–against someone else or against myself–I reclaim my own power to effect change. I hold the individual or group accountable while acknowledging my own contribution to the situation–with compassion for both of us. As I address and shift my part of the dynamic, the change I couldn’t before imagine as possible becomes real.

By refusing to find fault, I stand firmly against patterns rooted in Anti-Jewish oppression and also against injustices which seeks to target any group or individual as “the problem.” No one is the “problem.”The problem is rooted in larger societal contexts of structural inequalities and injustices. The problem requires us to work together to create solutions. It’s more than likely that the person or group we feel compelled to scapegoat is actually the perfect ally with whom to solve that problem.

Who do you scapegoat in your life? Where do you see blaming behaviors go unchallenged in your personal relationships? Your organization? Society? What would shift for you if you decided to embrace a “blamelessness” policy? I look forward to reading your comments on our blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed. Feel free to share this article to broaden the conversation!

“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!

Self-awareness is not a destination, it’s a process.

Not everything about who we are and how we show up in the world is obvious to us.  Without an intentional practice of self-reflection, we can be oblivious to how we impact those around us. Our best intentions don’t always create the best impacts. People in our lives give us information about how our actions affect them. Sometimes this information is delivered via thoughtful and insightful feedforward. [Author's note: I use the concept of "feedforward" to mean a practice of offering information or observations in a meaningful and compassionate way that moves a person forward on their path (rather than "feedback" which can sometimes set us back, especially if it is masked as "constructive criticism"--an oxymoron, in my opinion).] Sometimes we get this information through other people’s reactions (which we may need to interpret or seek to understand our role in co-creating) to our behaviors and attitudes. Cultural competence requires developing a practice of self-exploration. We cultivate a curiosity about who we are, what we bring to situations, and how our behaviors co-create the outcomes we experience.

Here’s a personal example from my own life: I pride myself on being highly efficient.  It’s a set of skills I learned early in life and I received a high level of external affirmation for this way of being in the world. Efficiency skills helped me in myriad ways, including being organized and “getting a lot done.” Despite being aware of how much I value and strive to be efficient, I was less aware of how this attitude and my behaviors impacted those around me. I assumed that others would find my efficiency useful and a benefit in most every situation.  Sometimes this was true, but not always.

Once I noticed that my efficiency wasn’t always needed, I started to tune into the reactions of others and my own internal clues after interactions with others. The first thing I noted was how others often felt intimidated and subsequently hesitant to sign on for a task because they feared not living up to my efficiency standards. They were concerned, rightly so, that I would become frustrated and impatient. This led to a second realization–that my drive to be efficient diminished opportunities for me to be present with myself, others, and the moment.

My self-awareness journey started with acknowledging my efficiency skills, but it didn’t stop there. Rather than remain defended and hold tight to the idea that my way was the “right” one, I chose to examine, question, and eventually shift my internal drive to be efficient. I feared that by being less “efficient,” I would lose the approval and perceived value I mistakenly thought efficiency earned me. By releasing this fear, I noticed an unexpected outcome:  by being less efficient, people began to value and include me for being me-instead of what I could do for them.

This process moved me from focusing on others and their perceived “inefficiency” to examining my behaviors, attitudes, and biases. By turning my attention towards self, my increased internal awareness moved me to a place where I could compassionately, and even dispassionately at times, think about others and where they might struggle or be limited by being less than optimally organized. This process of self investigation lays the important foundation for being an effective ally. However if we start by wanting to be an ally before we’ve really developed a practice of self-awareness we are doomed to act from wanting to “fix” or “save” others (read: make them be like us)–a perspective of paternalism, condescension and dominance.

The same trap exists on an organizational level.  When an organization focuses its effort outside of itself (for example: How can we better serve our “diverse” customers–without first seeking to care and serve co-workers better? How can we increase our recruitment of women–without first exploring the roles and attitudes men carry in the organization? What approach would appeal to low-income communities–without first exploring the embedded class assumptions in the current approach? How can we use some new tool to work with children–without first asking and understanding how we can use this tool with our peer group of teachers?) there is the danger that organizational patterns and policies will go unexamined and unchallenged.  The focus is on “them” rather than “us”–without an acknowledgement that “us” is the only part of the equation we have any real influence over.

An all-too-common example plays out in the “Diversity Flavor of the Month” scenario.  This is when a new diversity program is rolled out every few months, leading to a buildup of employee cynicism. Furthermore, the group that is supposed to benefit from the program sees the program as a “check the box”-type effort rather than one which requires organizational cultural changes.  The diversity program comes across more as an attempt to win recognition rather than a system-wide commitment to inclusion. Efforts such as these lack the organizational self-awareness and reflective practice that leads to lasting, effective change.

What are some of your personal patterns or behaviors that co-create outcomes that reinforce dominance, paternalism and condescension?  Why are these behaviors so defended within you? What would it take for you to let them go? How would your view of yourself change if you did? I remember listening to a client express genuine confusion about why they seemed unable to attract or retain a diverse range of clients and employees. I gently suggested that the barrier to inclusion wasn’t about the other group at all–but rather within them. This was a perspective they clearly had not considered before. Have you?

http://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.

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.

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!

With provocative chapter titles such as “I’m Not White” and “I’m Not A Racist,” Kivel engages his readers and acknowledges the social context that makes people shy away from identifying as “white.”  He validates that for many of his readers, there is a strong desire to individualize their identities and distance themselves from the associations that come with that label. He goes on to illuminate how the tendency to focus solely on personal prejudice can impede efforts to dismantle racism in the greater context: the “institutional nature of [centuries of white racism] is more entrenched than racial prejudice. In fact, it is barely touched by changes in individual white consciousness.”

While shifts in individual white consciousness are necessary for racial justice, Kivel also provides strategies and suggestions to take the next steps towards combating institutional racism. He explores initiatives such as Affirmative Action, redistribution of economic resources, investment in communities of color, and supporting democratic, anti-racist multiculturalism. The revised edition includes an updated bibliography and the more current topics of anti-Arab prejudice and how the U.S.’s health care system perpetuates racial inequalities—an especially timely issue.

This book is an engaging guide to identifying the social, political, and economic context in which institutional racism is grounded. Subscribe to the LJS blog feed to read more reflections about this book. We hope you’ll add your voice to the discussion!