Confronting the Elephant: The deeper work of diversity and transformation

My previous blog post ended with this paragraph:

There are many ways to do diversity work but the real power lies in creating a space for honest conversation and deep listening whether it is in a large group, in smaller groups, pairs or triads. The more we can connect as a society and create spaces to talk the less we will find the need to spew out our hatred on social media!

I believe that because we have become a society obsessed with electronic engagement, from email to whatsapp, from facebook to twitter, we are not having real conversations and may even have lost the art of conversation. We hardly make the time to talk to each other even when we work in shared open plan spaces.

Without honest face to face conversations our society will remain locked into our frozen perceptions about each other. We need to begin to name every part of the elephant and how it affects everything we do. Have you heard the favourite saying ‘not everything is about race?’ – yes we agree there are many other issues to consider like gender, class and many others including how they intersect – but we have to agree that the issue of race needs to be unpacked as it runs deep in a country like S.A with a colonial and apartheid history spanning centuries. Most South African workplaces should by now be quite diverse, but even in spaces where the workplace is not diverse it is important to have a conversation about why for example there are no black people in management, or why we only have a few black people employed in lower positions, or why is it we are unable to retain our skilled professional black staff.

The deeper work of diversity and transformation is in having real, face to face honest engagement. In your organizational context, look around and ask yourself – how real or fake are we, are we pretending or walking around with masks on, do we behave superficially, are we able to say what we really need to say or do we walk on eggshells afraid to offend people, are we comfortable here, is there discomfort, do we know what people are really thinking, is there a lot of gossip and behind the scenes talk, do we have cliques, are meetings formal and stiff, in meetings who speaks the most, do we feel tension in this space, is there lightness and laughter, are we serious and stern, does it feel like people want to spend time together or are we shutting ourselves off and just going through the motions. Notice and observe your thinking, feeling and reaction to people you engage with. Are you being authentic and honest with each other, are you stuck in patterns of engagement that is repetitive, unpleasant or boring, is there conflict that you don’t know how to deal with, do engagements leave you feeling like you wish you didn’t have to interact with your colleagues, like you prefer to talk outside of the workspace. If this is so, then you are probably needing a courageous conversation!

What happens to organisations when they do not address the issues lying under the surface, when they fail to name and reveal the elephant in the room, when they allow issues to fester until it becomes an infected boil that needs to be lanced, when power is held by a few people who dominate all spaces, when certain voices are not heard or valued or marginalised, and when trust is low and gossip is high?

These organisations become places where people are no longer productive, staff turnover is high and people are not able to be free and creative in their work. The organization also becomes stuck in a way of being which holds it back instead of propels it forward. In these situations diversity divides instead of providing rich perspectives and opportunities for learning. Some organisations find they are able to continue doing the work expected of them but in quite a toxic and tense environment which results in other symptoms like staff who become stressed and ill, or aggression (both active and passive) becoming the norm, or staff retreating and working in silos. All of these symptoms do not contribute to workplaces being healthy dynamic environments where people grow and flourish.

This is when it becomes necessary for an organization to begin having courageous conversations to address the issues. As mentioned in my previous blog post - When groups need to talk about issues that affect them and confront the elephant in the room it is useful to use the courageous conversation methodology which has very good principles of engagement which can help participants engage more honestly and be present.

Courageous Conversation

Glen Singleton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRZkCpUfEQY has practiced this approach and written extensively about the principles for having a courageous conversation http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/nr6/Readings/SingletonHaysConversations%20About%20Race.pdf

The Four Agreements of Courageous Conversation:

·         stay engaged

·         expect to experience discomfort

·         speak your truth

·         expect and accept a lack of closure

We use these principles in workshops and find them useful as a guide for creating an environment which is conducive for courageous action.

It just takes one brave person to ask for the courageous conversation. It helps if the person is in a leadership position because then the process is able to be driven more powerfully, but it can also be an ordinary staff member who is able to bring it to their managers and convince them that this is what is needed.

It can take several rounds of conversations to sometimes get to the heart of issues, expect to start with surface issues and then dive deeper as more people voice their perspective. A once off process is not enough – this cannot be treated as an event - it has to be a process with time inbetween for the system to work with what needs to happen in the organisation.

It may be in the very first opening round that issues emerge and are tackled quite bravely – it all depends on how ready people are and how easy it is to articulate.

Leaders need to give permission for the issues to be spoken about honestly. Here it may help for a leader to say something like: We would like everyone to speak their truth and voice concerns so that we can improve our organization – we would like to learn from each others’ experiences, we need feedback in order to grow our organization. People must feel free to speak and not fear victimization or consequences related to their jobs or careers – this is where the facilitator needs to ensure that the organization is willing to embark on such a process, to allow staff to speak honestly as well as protect them from possible victimization – working closely with the leaders and management to ensure they can agree with the principle of freedom of speech and no victimization.

What does a courageous conversation need?

Good containment and skilled facilitation

The organisation should set a strong intention and purpose and articulate this carefully so the organisation knows what is coming and why they will be engaging in the process. 

The organisation will need skilled facilitation to guide the process and hold it all together - and choose a facilitator who has the right skills and understanding of the work needed. This may be internally identified or an external facilitator contracted to do the work.

It also needs enough staff to have a certain level of readiness and a strong willingness to do it – recognizing that not everyone will be on board and willing to do it – fear is normal and often even the mention of such a process may induce anxiety. It is better to enroll people and convince them to join rather than force and make the process compulsory. It is better to have those staff who want to embrace change and are keen to improve the organization be part of such a process, than to drag the ones who may be not willing to change and may be dead wood in a process.

Where to start? Preparing the organisation...

It may be more strategic to start with a ‘training’ approach and ask for everyone to be trained in a deeper understanding of diversity. Through the diversity training an organization may be able to find a common language and understanding as well as develop the resilience and bravery needed to have the courageous conversation and go deeper with diversity and transformation work.

These training or organizational capacity building processes should include an element of personal development because any courageous conversation will need to begin with self reflection and self examination. The reason for this is that staff may lack a proper understanding of the situation or the language to enable a level of engagement that will allow  addressing of the issues.

Connect to vision, values and principles

It is very important that a process which looks at difficult organizational issues also reconnect to the vision, values and principles or ‘codes of conduct’ of an organization and how these are being practiced, or may need to be refreshed. This opens up the possibility for the organization holding itself accountable so that it can honestly reflect on whether it is indeed upholding the vision, practicing the values and adhering to principles and codes of conduct.

Appreciation and Gratitude

Organisations need to celebrate what is working well, so appreciative approaches should form part of the process, including allowing for expressions of gratitude for what is working well. These can be done with a simple round asking people to share what they are grateful for in their work, or allow for appreciation of colleagues through sharing organizational success stories and experiences and allowing colleagues to say one thing they appreciated about the sharing. As much as a courageous conversation is about having a difficult conversation and allowing the issues that are hard to talk about emerge, it is also about expressing appreciation for those aspects of the organization working well, and those people doing good work who need to be acknowledged.

Building the capacity of listening

A very powerful methodology which I use in every workshop before we have a courageous conversation/s is listening in pairs. Here we provide a topic or question for sharing and we ask people to listen without interrupting. What this does is to allow each person in the pair to share for 5 minutes, and be heard, and then receive feedback on what was heard.  Follow this link and find a tool called ‘Developing Deep Listening Skills - an Exercise and a Reading’ on the Barefoot Guide website http://barefootguidecontent.weebly.com/tools-and-exercises.html for a simple guide on doing such an exercise. This listening pairs exercise allows for an intimate space for sharing and being listened to qualitatively – orientations which are often missing in organisations. The sharing of an issue that is close to one’s heart brings much relief for those staff members who don’t have this kind of opportunity to be heard. It also offers a first opportunity to test ones voice privately before taking it into the larger organizational realm – this often gives people courage.

Showing an example of a courageous conversation

An example of a courageous conversation can be seen in the documentary ‘The Colour of Fear’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBSImagHK8c – it may be useful to show such a movie to an organization as part of a longer training process. Here we can illustrate what is possible when people get honest with each other. Often such a movie can provide a good lead in and an opportunity to draw lessons from a context outside of the one we find ourselves in. This movie will need space for a good and thorough debrief so it cannot be shown in a short one day process – but will need overnight processing.

Using creative methodologies to name the elephant

Other ways to open up the conversation to make it easier to name the elephant is to use metaphor or other creative methodologies for people to express what they are feeling.

Drawing

Examples of these are to ask staff to draw the organization in a metaphor eg. My organization is like a… or this organisation reminds me of a …

This allows for wordless ways of saying powerfully what is difficult or complex to express. Staff members put up their images and then a discussion could be opened. Another way to do this is to have small groups share their images and allow each small group to then combine and come up with a joint image that is then shared with the larger organizational team.

Movement is another way of allowing expression, sometimes it may be useful to bring in an outside person who is able to work with interpretive movement. I have used a dancer choreographer to work with an organization and tease out some of the key themes like trust using movement and dance. This can often allow for a release and a different way of opening up a space for more courageous engagement.

Working with clay is another form of expression – to ask people to make a clay sculpture of a metaphor for the organization.

Role plays, miming and body sculpture is also another way of allowing a group to express how they experience the organization – this often allows for people to play roles and show what they may find hard to say in words. It will be important to provide some guidance so for example to ask them to portray ‘A typical day in our organisation’.

Youtube clips or documentaries are also useful lead in’s to courageous conversations. A documentary that is quite relevant even though it is slightly outdated due to new developments in our context, is The People Vs The Rainbow Nation made in 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08v-vSkHpbI.

Poetry

Reading a meaningful poem that highlights the issues in a different way or an extract from a book can also help open the space and give food for thought allowing for interpretation of the power and description that poetry brings which is different to trying to articulate it oneself.

How to conduct the courageous conversation with a group

Sit in a circle – this is a centuries old method for having conversations – indigenous peoples have used this approach since time immemorial – it helps to remove tables if possible so that there are no barriers.

Group engagement

In the build up to the courageous conversation it is important to have different configurations of group engagement eg. Using rounds where each person is allowed to speak brings equality and reduces dominance and certain people always speaking first, paired conversations, triads (groups of 3) and small group work. These help to bring divergent views and opportunities to engage with different people in the room. The facilitator always encourages the staff to mix and ensure diversity in their groupings. This also breaks up cliques and takes people out of their comfort zone to speak to people they would not usually talk to.

Open the conversation by inviting people to share an issue or concern.

Help people to really hear what the other is saying – sometimes people may struggle to articulate the issue and it may take a few iterations to actually get the issue out. When an issue is directed at a particular person or group it will need to be handled in such a way that it doesn’t become personalized and the issue is unpacked from various angles. Here people can be reminded about the listening methodology of listening at the head level (facts), heart level (feelings) and foot level (intention). The most important thing is that people are heard and that the conversation does not spiral into defensiveness. Sometimes the facilitator may need to coach people through the process so that they are able to hear where each other is coming from and what is behind what the person is saying.

Fish bowl

Sometimes if a group is very large the group may be divided with an inner circle of people who participates and an outer circle who observes – in this way it becomes like a fish bowl. But freedom of movement is allowed so people can move into the centre and participate for as long as they want and if they feel they have made their contribution they then move out to the observer circle.

Facilitation during the courageous conversation process and accompaniment after the courageous conversations have happened

The facilitator has to be skilled in group process and understand how to facilitate difficult conversations. In this way she will know when it is appropriate to intervene and when it is appropriate to allow the group to find its way on its own.

The facilitator should be able to read the group and know when to ask questions that challenge them to go deeper, and when they need compassion and containment. The facilitator will also have to listen, sense and intuit what the group needs – reading the group dynamic and gently nudging the group to move to the next level of engagement.

It takes many years to develop the skills to facilitate groups – practice and more practice coupled with ongoing self development to hone yourself as your own best tool. There are many approaches to draw on – the one I have found most useful when needing to do depth work in surfacing and engaging with issues is called Process oriented psychology which offers many lessons and deeper understanding to enable one to work with groups in depth. Arnold Mindell who pioneered this approach says Process oriented psychology is a multicultural, multi-level, awareness practice for individuals and organizations in all states of consciousness. Also called Processwork, it is an evolving, trans-disciplinary approach supporting individuals, relationships and groups to discover themselves. http://www.aamindell.net/process-work/ Mindell’s book – ‘Sitting in the Fire: Large Group Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity’ is extremely useful for methodologies and approaches in working with groups.

My own journey with facilitation has been exciting and interesting and led me to do the work I do. In the early nineties we were bright eyed and excited about our new democracy and we were excited about training and development, capacity building and empowerment – diversity training was handled lightly then. We didn’t think we would still be needing to do this work 20 years later– it seems that as the reality of the rainbow nation set in and we began to really experience what we were working with, we have had to face our challenges head on. My 23 year journey as a facilitator has seen me work in many many contexts, I have made many mistakes, I have learnt from them and tried to deepen my approach each time. Having courageous conversations are never easy, they trigger us as facilitators and we need to be aware of what our triggers are, they take us into places of discomfort and we are challenged, people take things very personally or even attack and blame the facilitator for allowing the process to go there, ego’s and feelings are hurt in the process, managers are put under the spotlight, it is painful for those who have held pain or been marginalized for a long time, it is explosive, it is cathartic, it is a release for the organization, it opens the can of worms, the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet.

One thing is certain that once an organization has done this deeper work it cannot go back to how it was before. The system is disturbed and the transformation can then begin. The work that happens after the courageous conversation is as important, if not more important because this is where the change that is needed has to be implemented at multiple levels from personal, to interpersonal and probably the hardest thing for individuals and teams – this is where ongoing accompaniment is necessary to ensure the organization takes its next steps in a careful and considered manner.  

An organization has a choice – to keep the status quo – remaining us you are or becoming more authentic and engaging in a real and honest manner. If an organization does not consciously decide to address its challenges or name the elephant, issues will come out in a destructive manner and cause harm to the organization over time or staff will just leave. It is far better to agree to embark on a process of transformation and take the conscious next step towards becoming healthy organisations with integrity who can be of service to the world and have staff who are happy and productive.

As I end this article let me name the elephants I have come across – it is ultimately about empowering black workers to take their rightful role in organisations which are often white led, white controlled or white owned. It is about balancing power and shifting the scale so that all who live in organisations have a place and not some staff being valued more than others because of the colour of their skins. It is about moving beyond the frozen perceptions the different races hold and have about each other and how these impact and affect our interactions on a daily basis – and here the prejudices run deep - using apartheid terms which have racialised us into categories that still affect many people's behaviour - white to black, coloured to black, indian to black, indian to coloured, white to coloured, white to indian – and all of these can be vice versa and within race groups themselves – and overlaid with issues of gender, class, religion, political affiliation and our Country’s current context. How all of these intersect in the workplace play themselves out in ways that are often not fully visible and only once named and engaged with can we begin to unpack and see the monster that Colonialism and Apartheid has created.  Only when we begin to recognise and work with our internalised oppression and internalised dominance can we begin to change our ingrained behaviours. 

Finally it has to be emphasized that any facilitator choosing to do this work should be fully versed and up to date with the issues facing us as a country including the layers and complexities of our issues – any conversation has to be had bearing in mind our history as a country, how it has shaped us and how the past lives in the present. 

As a facilitator if you are brave enough to do this work you need to have the courage to do your own ongoing self examination and identity exploration, so that you show up authentically and ready to face your own elephants too. 

I need to acknowledge my colleagues and mentors who work in this field with me and from whom I have learnt most of what I know and practice -  Rejane Williams, Ilze Olckers, Stephen Schuitervoerder, Veronica King, CDRA www.cdra.org.za colleagues