Helen Keller once said: “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
These words didn’t resonate with me until I participated in a discussion on Dafina Lazarus Stewart’s book, Multicultural Student Services on Campus: Building Bridges, Re-visioning Community, at the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion at John Carroll University.
Read more about Shanice’s insights into social learning and the power it brings to the workplace.
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It’s officially a “thing.” Many corporations have enthusiastically embraced mindfulness and meditation to enhance employee experience. With outcomes both promising and proven, it’s no wonder that the likes of Google, Apple, Nike, JP Morgan and General Mills have invested in the belief that corporate mindfulness improves workplace wellbeing.
The numbers support the story. In a 2017 report on employer sponsored wellbeing, Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health reported that 86% of the 141 employers surveyed include an expanded definition of employee well-being in their business strategy. Specifically, 61% were already engaged in or considering mindfulness classes or training, up from 43% in 2016.
But meditation is usually a solo sport. Books@Work, like meditation, develops the skills to see things differently – but it allows colleagues to do it together.
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If you could ask an innovative HR leader for her insights on your most pressing concerns, what do you think her advice might be? When Leena Nair, Chief Human Resources Officer at Unilever was asked just that, she did what a leader who values true inclusion would do: she asked for a diversity of perspectives.
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We live in a results-oriented world. And many believe that the best way to get results is to be direct. After all, when we know exactly what we want to accomplish and what steps to take to get there, anything other than a direct approach is a waste of time.
But what if the problem is thorny and the solutions are less clear?
When we seek to make change that involves people of different backgrounds and perspectives, the direct path becomes hard, if not impossible, to identify. In issues related to organizational culture – team effectiveness, inclusion, wellness, leadership, among others – the inevitable salad of human emotions and personal agendas create complicated as well as complex challenges.
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I recently had the good fortune to attend and present at the 2019 Forum on Workplace Inclusion in Minneapolis. Surrounded by committed diversity & inclusion professionals presenting on a wide array of topics, I spoke about discomfort and the role it plays in inclusion conversations.
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The term “psychological safety” may be buzzy, but it’s no buzzword. Collaborative, inclusive and productive organizational cultures require psychological safety. But building and maintaining true psychological safety takes both time and practice.
Psychological safety is the “shared belief’ that a team or a group is “safe for interpersonal risk taking.” Reintroduced (although coined years earlier) in the academic literature by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, psychological safety enables candor, trust and mutual respect, and invites the full power of human ability to tackle workplace challenges. In psychologically safe environments, we give each other the benefit of the doubt and we are fully able to learn together – from each other and from our mistakes.
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At Books@Work, we look for books and stories with multiple “handles,” or angles to address. We love narratives that provoke tough questions and stir debate, that kindle memories and foster connection. Sometimes a story may defy the reader’s expectations and assumptions. And sometimes a story may seem like it’s “about” one thing – but a well-facilitated conversation exposes deeper thematic layers.
In ZZ Packer’s “Brownies,” the most popular members of an all-black girl scout troop convince their fellow Brownies to confront an all-white troop for using a racial slur. To avoid spoilers, suffice it to say that the confrontation does not go as planned – and the girls realize they have spectacularly misjudged the situation.
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At Books@Work, we constantly read and evaluate new texts – short stories and books – for interesting opportunities to trigger engaging and timeless discussion among colleagues. We look for new perspectives, especially from writers whose work is “outside” the traditional canon of Western literature. Whether a powerful portrait of immigrant experience from Edwidge Danticat, or a fascinating take on #metoo from Jamel Brinkley, we take pride in introducing new voices to our participants. But I’ve recently had a chance to revisit the power of a few classic short stories.
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminds us that education and learning are “tools for shaping the future and not devices of privilege for an exclusive few.” Learning – and in particular, social learning – is an equalizer. What we learn from each other is broader than anything we can learn alone.
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There’s reading, and there’s reading. Sometimes we read opportunistically, with the sole objective to take something we need from the text. It might be a manual, it might be a technical article or it might be an article highlighting the news of the day.
But sometimes (less frequently, I fear) we read for the sheer pleasure of immersing ourselves in a story, of taking ourselves to a far-off land, solving a mystery or stepping into the shoes of a character. It might be a novel or a piece of narrative nonfiction, but we relish the words and “live” the experience rather than taking away lessons.
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