Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging Cultural Humility

Blue hair, pierced tongues, and economic status - How do they affect your decisions? How do they affect your reactions? When is being colorblind ever helpful?

Everyone has biases; it is human nature to have ingrained stereotypes, but what part do they play in our leadership abilities or our decision making process? Join us for a training regarding the barriers that influence our efforts to support others and tackle conflict. The training will explore tools to assist in putting aside biases, addressing stereotypes, and confronting roadblocks.

Implicit bias is a fact of life. Everyone harbors them and takes them into the workplace.

Biases can be based on skin color, gender, age, height, weight, introvert vs. extrovert, marital and parental status, disability status, foreign accents, where someone went to college, and more. If you can name it, there is probably an unconscious bias for it. These biases cause us to make decisions in favor of one group to the detriment of others, and they naturally creep into the workplace. This workshop focuses on acknowledging those biases and offers tips on how to curb implicit bias.

This workshop takes a deeper dive into understanding implicit bias.

The workshop offers tools to acknowledge and extinguish implicit bias from the workplace. Implicit bias affects our decision-making, our behavior and our interactions with others and can have harmful effects. Participants will explore their own biases and practice strategies to stamp out biases.

Race is hard to discuss. Some people whisper about it. Some people are afraid to talk about it – what if I make a mistake or say something wrong? If we do not talk about it, we are going to keep getting it wrong. This workshop leads participants through a guided discussion about race in America. Asking questions – Why is it so uncomfortable to talk about race? What is your accountability in discussions of race? How do you feel about systematic racism and privilege? The workshop strives to create an open, honest, and transparent conversation about race. 

The narrative bias refers to people's tendency to interpret information as a part of a larger story or pattern, regardless of whether the facts support the full narrative. This workshop explores an individual’s personal story and how that influences their perspective on the world. Through stories, we share passions, fears, sadness, hardships, and joys, and we find common ground with other people so that we can connect and communicate with them. These stories also separate us, form prejudice, and promote discrimination. In this workshop, participants will investigate their own stories to uncover personal biases.

Privilege is societally granted, unearned advantages accorded to some people and not others. Talking about privilege is hard.

Depending on proximity to privilege, participants may find that thinking about privilege makes their guard come up, and they begin to form counterarguments to resist the thought that they have benefitted from privilege. This workshop explores the societal construct of privilege and how it affects our communities, businesses, schools, and organizations. There are many reasons why privilege can be difficult to acknowledge and discuss. The workshop will address individualism and the roadblocks to accepting societal privilege.

“Human conversation is the most ancient and easiest way to cultivate the conditions for change – personal change, community, and organizational change.”  -Margaret Wheatley 2002

Continuous/Multiple Sessions (TBD by organization) 

Courageous conversations are a series of facilitated dialogue sessions on difficult topics. A courageous conversation can create an atmosphere of patient listening that blends the elements of honesty and reflection, thus facilitating more in-depth communication. The three goals of a courageous conversation are to:  gain wisdom to see from a more prominent/different perception,  advance understanding that will establish trust in the relationship, and gain knowledge to take the next step.

“No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship.”  -Dr. James Comer

In this workshop, participants will explore the concrete experience of people in generational poverty. Through the use of mental models participants will view poverty, middle class, and wealth to identify how personal perspectives can help or interfere with building relationships. Participants will investigate the “tyranny of the moment” and how to apply this knowledge with students, clients, and/or colleagues. The workshop will also discuss the hidden rules of the three economic classes. 

“The need to act overwhelms any willingness to learn.”  -Peter Schwartz

Mental models are our internal pictures of how the world works. This workshop utilizes mental models to view economic class. Mental models often reveal perspectives that exist below awareness and often unconsciously determine how we act. To foster a productive and honest dialogue about class, we must first address and then suspend our mental models. Poverty as defined is the extent to which an individual does without resources. This workshop will also review and discuss the importance of and access to resources for our students, clients, and/or colleagues.

This workshop explores the presumption that schools and businesses operate from middle class norms and use hidden rules of middle class. How does that affect students or clients from other classes? What are the hidden rules? The hidden rules of class are those rules that we have all known, but don’t talk about and often when discussed become controversial.