September 21st, 2011
Once upon a time…
I facilitated a half day workshop for the leadership team of a large urban school district; there was about 100 people involved. A couple of weeks prior to this workshop I had asked them to evaluate themselves regarding how inclusive they were of people that were of different genders, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, etc.
They rated themselves very high. They were pretty much in agreement that they were awesome.
But.
Somebody had a different truth.
One of the exercises that I often use highlights many different aspects of our social identities (and in doing so a whole bunch of ways in which we are different from each other and like each other).
During that exercise, one of the senior members of this team disclosed, for the first time, her sexual orientation and as we discussed the exercise, she took her peers to task. She pointed out how almost all of them had given the team a 10 out of 10 regarding being inclusive of people regardless of sexual orientation, but she had worked here for over 20 years and had never shared her orientation with anyone because it never felt safe to do so.
She was only doing so now because this team said that they were serious about moving diversity and inclusion efforts forward, and she was very close to retirement.
If 99 out of 100 people say that the team does something really well, does it really matter what the 100th person says? 99 out of 100 is a pretty good score. It’s an A+ if I remember correctly.
It is also bullshit.
It is confusing data for information.
It is the subjugation of individual differences, and it violates both the truth and the opportunity for growth and learning.
Once upon another time…
I helped facilitate a listening circle with the lovely and talented Melissa Kopplin a couple of years ago and for six months about a dozen of us got together once a month for about 3 hours. One of the gentlemen that participated in the group originally introduced himself to us as “Alex,” but later informed us of his real name. He also went on to speak about how good it felt to use his real name, he had been using an ”Americanized” version basically since he had come to this country several years earlier.
How many people in your organization come to work everyday with truncated identities? How many of your employees are pretending to be someone else at work?
You can talk about strategy all day long. You can talk about process and measurement and all of the other serious business stuff that you love to talk about. Talk away.
Sit around those big tables and look at those lovely flowcharts. Serious business.
Your ship is still sinking.
Until you are willing and able to prioritize Truth, everything that you do is compromised.
Be good to each other.