Patience as a catalyst for change

People often think that DEI work is about race - at its most demonized, the misconception is that it’s about making white people believe they and the US are inherently racist. At its best it is often thought to be about how to hire more Black and other people of color so that the staff is more reflective of the communities they serve.

It is absolutely not the former, and the latter is only a very small part.

I’m not even sure I knew it when I started out, but what I’ve come to find is that, for me at least, DEI work is about healing - healing from the trauma and harm of systems of oppression.

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Creating psychological safety for ourselves

At Co-Creating Inclusion, one of the questions we constantly ask ourselves, each other, and our clients is - do you have what you need to do your best work?

Psychological safety is a key factor.

This doesn’t mean we can’t do really great work without it - let’s face it, workplaces are typically not psychologically safe for most.

But the cost of doing work without psychological safety is significant, both to employees and the organizations they work for. I often think of the lost untapped potential that impacts us all.

But what can folks do if they identify that they are lacking in psychological safety?

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What do feelings have to do with DEI?

Feelings. Complicated. Messy. Awkward. Inconvenient. Subjective. Unprofessional.

One of the things we find ourselves doing as a result is creating space for feelings in our DEI work. And then people comment on what an awkward transition that is coming in from other workspaces.

The point is not that DEI spaces are spaces where you can have your feelings. What do feelings even have to do with DEI?

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What progress sometimes feels like

There’s a moment in our work, whether it’s during a particular meeting or whether it’s over the course of a more extended period of time, where the containers that we work to build create space for hard truths to be spoken or revealed.

Things that have been swept under the rug for niceness, people pleasing, fear of conflict, denial and avoidance become visible.

It’s progress, but often it’s so painful, an opening of Pandora’s box, that it doesn’t feel like progress. It feels like things got worse.

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Self-regulation as a critical leadership skill

We know there's a lot going on right now and something that has been coming up in our coaching sessions with executives, leaders and staff is stress and burnout. We’ve written about burnout before, deep into the worst of the pandemic, and revisited over a year later, the strategies (and science) are just as relevant today, even if our stressors have shifted.

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Self-righteousness

The obvious microaggressions are easy to spot. The anger flares inside immediately and past similar incidents rise to the surface unbidden.

It’s painful but it’s clear cut.

It’s the subtler ones that eat at you, almost on a time delayed extended release. At first you’re annoyed but not that bothered. But then it slowly sinks in. It feels familiar but you can’t quite put your finger on it. You’re irked, but you’re also irked at yourself for being irked.

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We are not all equally harmed but we are all harmed

The devastation I have been feeling at a cellular level in my body this week is a recall of my personal journey of grief as I realized that aligning with whiteness (as a system, not a people) was not going to keep me safe, and that any privileges I gained by aligning with whiteness were not for my benefit but for the purposes of oppressing others.

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No one is free until we are all free

My heart and mind and entire body really is heavy from the past few days of news about the horrifying attacks in Israel, the impacts, and the ripple effect of shock, grief and trauma even for those not directly impacted.

It feels out of my lane yet also very relevant to the work I do.

For now I am reading, listening, learning, and engaging in conversation where I can.

Here’s what I know: anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arabism are all pillars of white supremacy. If destroying one pillar depends on fortifying another, white supremacy prevails.

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People pleasing as a barrier to engagement

Earlier this year, we did a deep dive into people pleasing, and how people pleasing should not consistently traumatize the people you are trying to please.

We did several group sessions on people pleasing, and it seemed to open people up to thinking about people pleasing and its adverse impacts in new ways.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that people pleasing goes away overnight.

These patterns and habits are deeply ingrained in us, and are often rooted in strategies developed to respond to childhood trauma or harm.

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Is it “DEI” or is it “organizational management”?

A question that comes up from time to time in our work is some variation on whether an issue we have raised is “DEI” or if it is “organizational management”.

It’s a curious question, especially when it only ever seems to come from white or white appearing men about our work as women and gender-expansive people of color.

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Functioning systems can surprisingly contribute to inclusion and accessibility

We are only seven days into my oldest child’s first year in high school so it’s early days but so far the experience of going from both my kids only ever being at schools with no more than a few hundred kids, my oldest child’s middle school having only 60 students, to a school with several thousand kids has been really fascinating.

My assumption was that it would be impersonal, overwhelming, and bureaucratic. I assumed my child would get lost in the system. How would he learn to navigate coming from a middle school that pretty much required no executive functioning skills?

Fast forward a year and yes I know we are only seven days in but so far I have been really impressed with the school for reasons I was not expecting at all.

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