by Rita Fierro | Dec 5, 2019 | Facilitation, Inclusive Conversations, Participatory Leadership, Racism, Uncategorized
On Wednesday, we found out that Donald J Trump is our president-elect. I spent the day grieving for what I thought the next ten years of my life would look like, for me and the children I’d like to bring into the world. Outrage got him elected. Outrage now grows in those of us who have begun marching. I spent the campaign season reassuring myself that 60 years of desegregation, activism, and coalition building could not have happened in vain. That we were a better people, a more united people, than it seemed. That the violence, the hate, was the minority of us, and Trump’s campaign would become just a bad dream. I was wrong.
The violence is rising.
When I guide groups through frustration and outrage, I say it’s time to tend to the margins. In this case, the margins have become 50% of the popular vote.
For our series on inclusive conversations (conversations where differences are seen as an opportunity, not a threat), tip #7: Look for wisdom in the outrage.
I support groups of people to agree on a future direction, even large groups of people.
It’s a process that sometimes happens quickly and sometimes takes months. In each and every process, there is always a moment, when the frustration and the anger turn up. Often, I get blamed.
“Rita, you are not the right person to do this.”
“Rita, I have no idea what you want from us.”
“Rita, I’m lost.”
“Rita, you were too ‘woo woo’ in that meeting, Black folk do healing differently.”
“Rita, you are blaming me for your lack of skills.”
I said I support groups towards a common decision, I didn’t say it was easy. Often, the frustration gets directed at me. Things get delicate.
It is very hard not to react when attacked. It’s extremely hard to keep listening when I disagree with the accusations and my own emotions are triggered. But I know from experience that when the frustration shows up, it’s time to tend to the margins.
First, this means taking the time to listen to the perspective of the person/people who has/have a different opinion and really, really, taking the time to understand it. That process can take a phone call, two, or three, a lunch or more. I try my best to not take personally whatever the accusation is, but to truly listen to understand.
Second, when I’m alone again, I lick my wounds. Again, I didn’t say it was easy. I didn’t say the accusations don’t hurt. And some days are better than others. I can’t deeply listen to others unless I listen deeply to myself. I spend time thinking about how I was affected by the interactions. Did the accusations get to me? Why? Are they a projection of my own thoughts about myself?
Third, I do some thinking and processing about the conversations I had. I may call a colleague for insights. I am actively looking for the wisdom that the frustrated person or subgroup carries for the whole group. In group relations theory, every individual holds something for the whole group. It could be an emotion, and/or experience. Discovering this pearl of wisdom means finding what the individual is holding for the whole group, which helps veer away from scapegoating the person/group who disagrees. I’m not talking about looking for a compromise. I’m talking about listening to the wisdom in the outrage. The wisdom in the outrageous. Digging deeper for a kernel that will change the whole group’s dynamic from conflict to shared purpose.
Fourth, ONLY once I’m clear of what the wisdom is, I start a separate group of conversations to identify solutions. In tending to the margins, it’s important to not look for solutions too soon. Sometimes I call the frustrated folks back. Sometimes I make a small adjustment in the process, to incorporate the critical opinions. Sometimes a radical change of direction is needed.
To people on the outside, tending to the margins looks like pure magic. “How did you do that? How did you get everyone on board?” I hear this time and time again. I’ve seen the person/people in the group that others labeled difficult, come around once they saw their concerns listened to and incorporated in the future direction of the group. The others are stunned that an agreement was reached at all.
***
Tending to the margins is hard right now. Trump and trumpers stand for everything my America, focused on inclusion, is not. Yet listening, deeply listening to the frustration of the America that voted for him is really important right now. Especially, but not only for white folk. We need to listen, not agree, but listen. Otto Scharmer called it understanding the blind spot that has created this condition.
I’m one of those white people who function in predominantly Black spaces. The white spaces I navigate tend to be progressive ones. I don’t interact much with conservatives these days.
I’m feeling a real strong need to understand, to find the wisdom, in what seems like retro insanity. Is it that poor, rural, white America feels despised and dismissed by a country dominated by the urban coastal cities? That a country that governs from the coasts and dismisses the majority of its landmass is unsustainable? Our electoral college supports our coastal privilege? Is it that in our strife for diversity and inclusion, we underestimate how hard the white poor has been hit? Is it that we spend too much time despising our own instead of organizing our own? Is it that we are using white supremacy divide and conquer tools ourselves every time we use the term “hick” or “white trash”? Have we failed to build class alliances? Too much time on our phones at Sunday dinner? That the white poor continues to support racism in bad faith? In good faith? Maybe all of this or much more. Many pundits are writing articles on all of this, as I too write. I’m not calling upon you to read more articles, though you may choose to. I’m calling on you to face those who don’t think like you with genuine curiousity. I’m launching into the next week with this intention. I hope some trumpers set a similar intention for their interactions with me. It’s important I step into this work, becuse given the rising hostility, it’s even harder for my brother and sisters of color right now.
There’s wisdom in this mess for our nation. My process with groups teaches me that. Even on the discouraged days I least believe in a shared purpose, I still know it’s possible. I must look for the wisdom in the outrage, the kernel that will change that can unite us in spite of what we are experiencing right now.
by Rita Fierro | Oct 18, 2019 | Inclusive Conversations
Ever feel that having a conversation in a productive way when people have different perspectives is hard work? I’ve got news for you. You’re right!
This blog is the first in a series of 13 about inclusive conversations. With three introductory blogs and ten topical blogs, along with the e-book that will compile them all, I’m focusing on ten barriers to inclusive conversations and 10 skills that can help overcome them.
What is an inclusive conversation and why do inclusive conversations matter?
Here is a beginning definition of inclusive conversations.
I see an inclusive conversation as a conversation in which differences in perspectives are leveraged as opportunities instead of threats or being ignored.
Differences in perspectives are always grounded in differences in life experiences whether they are based on gender, race, ethnicity, culture, class, location, job rank, political outlook, allegiances, hair color, or whatever other life experiences play an important role in an individual human being’s life.
Here are a few opportunities for inclusive conversations:
- Generating strategies: Someone with different life experiences from the majority is invited to offer unique insights to understand the reaction of a wider audience;
- In-group perceptions of other people: People from one group have a conversation about a person or group with a different set of life experiences;
- Dissipating tension and staying engaged: Tensions build because of different perspectives, where the differences risk shutting down the conversation, e.g. agreeing to disagree;
- Getting feedback: Getting genuine feedback on your work from someone who you know will have different view.
Engaging differences as building blocks instead of walls takes overcoming internal and external barriers and exercising certain muscles.
In this blog series there will be 10 skills that will help you increase your capacity to have inclusive conversations. I will also tell you stories about how they I used them.
But before we get to skills, let’s check our assumptions. Why is inclusion important? Why should we care? That’s the topic of my next blog.
by Rita Fierro | Oct 18, 2019 | Inclusive Conversations
We live in a world where our experiences of individual and group differences are more expansive every day. As globalism, transportation, and communication make our world smaller, we gain contact with people of more different cultures, nationalities, sexual orientations, tribes, ethnic groups, professions, political outlooks, ideologies etc. etc. etc than prior generations.
In my family, my brother and I are the first generation not raised on a farm. For our parents, until they migrated to the United States, and many others in their small Italian village of 6,000, their lives revolved around the people they knew in a 7-mile radius. Very few acquaintances came from nearby towns, a few from the nearest two small cities, and in extreme circumstances, the largest nearby city. Even their most extensive networks were in a 50-mile radius. My grandparents rarely went to Naples (50 miles away) and had never been to Rome (151 miles away). My father tells me stories about how growing up, people from the river felt different from those from the hills or the villages. For us today, those differences feel minimal.
In our current world, while we are exposed to people from all around the world, in school, work, community or play, conversations are not easier.
While I know that exclusion can be intentional, in my work, I have found that “mainstream” often excludes “others” for the fear of not being able to “manage” the conflict that may surge given the differences among people in the conversation. I think there is some truth to those fears.
But before we get to skills, let’s check our assumptions. Why is inclusion important? Why should we care? Here are some reasons why.
- Effective strategies – Whether you are a business, a non-profit, an organizer, or a teacher, you probably don’t want to waste your time. When we are faced with new situations with diverse audiences, we often problem solve with friends or colleagues to help find the best solution to our woes. If, in preparation, you only talk to people who look like you, it’s very likely that your strategy will be ineffective once it hits a wider, more diverse audience. This doesn’t mean that the people who helped you were “wrong.” It simply means that you also need advice from people similar to your ultimate audience to come up with the right strategy. This can be especially tricky when the situation is raw or your thoughts about it are raw. Knowing how to talk with someone who doesn’t walk, talk, think, or look like you to get back genuine, insightful feedback is essential to your planning. It takes skill to get more than a cordial “it’s ok” so that when you act, you are more likely to hit gold.
- Creativity – Misunderstandings are quite easy in the presence of different mindsets, so building your ability to have a good conversation across differences means also building your capacity to be creative, flexible, original, genuine, and positive all at the same time. Needless to say, this deeper, richer way of thinking about human beings can help you in other areas of your life too.
- Support – Most of us could use more support. Sometimes we get so used to having minimal support that we stop looking for people who share our vision. Instead, we work harder. When we build our capacity to have inclusive conversations, we are also building our capacity to see the common threads between our own passions and that of others. We learn to build more effective partnerships and alliances that help reduce or eliminate our isolation. Our connections become more genuine and we discover more support than we thought possible.
- Happier society – Most people are struggling to be seen and heard. Many conflicts originate from people pushing to be heard or pulling away for fear of not being heard. When we build our inclusive conversation muscles, we can use those tensions to help people be seen and heard the way they want to be seen and heard. The result is often releasing of fear, anger, and shame and more compassion. I daresay, that when we exercise these muscles more as a society, we can be a whole lot lighter and a whole lot happier.
- Wisdom – One of our greatest myths about people who are on the margins of an experience, such as the dropouts, the naysayers, and the skeptics, is that they do not understand what we we are doing and are critiquing from a place of ignorance. Rarely do people admit that folks disengage precisely because they do understand, they do see things, dynamics that people in charge sometimes do not. They see the limitations of what is being done, think it will fail, don’t see space for their critical input and bail. Inclusive conversations help us engage with the margins of our practice to help us see our blindspots before they tear apart our whole vision.
Ok. You think you can just talk to people? You don’t think having inclusive conversation requires building a skillset? Check out my next blog….
by Rita Fierro | Oct 18, 2019 | Inclusive Conversations
Once we’ve decided that having inclusive conversations is important and worth our time, why is it important to build our ability to do so? Can’t we just talk? What is there to learn? After all, aren’t we just people?
Yes, we are all just people and we all have culture. Because our worlds are often separate, except for specific moments of contact, each group has a history, a set of beliefs, habits, and norms about and for itself, and a set of perceptions of other groups. Communication is extra-tricky too. In ambiguous situations body language and tone of voice are what we use to interpret meaning. Each culture is subject to its own interpretation. Even if we assumed that everyone had only the purest, best interests at heart in delivering a verbal message (which is not always the case), how that individual communicates that message determines whether the conversation is productive or not. The words we choose, the tone of voice, how we stand, and what we do when we are talking, all play a part in how our message is received. And as the theatrical genius Augusto Boal said, ”The word spoken is rarely the word heard.”
Further, where communicating about different sensitive topics that are often taboo, such as the social construct of race, victimization, microaggressions, privilege (social inequality), etc., there is a high risk of the conversation getting tense and people being either victimized or victimizing others via misleading, miscommunication, or mislistening (in case you’re wondering, yes, I just made that word up). Violent outbreaks can also occur after multiple dissatisfying, victimizing interactions; the victim can become the aggressor.
This is why exercising muscles to converse across differences is crucial. Misunderstandings are not to be avoided. They are an integral part of communicating. We can avoid shutting down the conversation when a misunderstanding occurs so that it strengthens the relationship.
The next ten blogs and the e-book that will contain all ten posts, will focus on ten barriers to conversations across differences and skills that can help overcome them. Each barrier falls under one of five moments of building relationships with people or groups: opening the door, self-care/discernment, deepening the relationships, taking a stand, and fostering a group’s process.
Here are the individual skills and barriers that will be addressed in this series:
- Opening the door: Resistance to someone else’s view
- Opening the door: Different Political Stances
- Self-care/Discernment: Burnout
- Self-care/Discernment: Being attacked
- Deepening relationships: Tensions rising
- Deepening relationships: Putting people off – Beating them down with knowledge
- Taking a stand: Flawed Process
- Fostering group process: Jeopardizing trust
- Fostering group process: Trying to control the result
- Fostering group process: Different comfort zones
Building muscles for genuine conversation is critical for this time.
We cannot learn all there is to learn, and solve the problems of our world, without communicating. Our world is changing quickly. Conversation is the most creative tool of our human selves, it enables us to think on our feet and get out of mental ruts. When we “agree to disagree”, we are in fact, shutting down the conversation for the fear of saying the wrong thing or letting it get out of hand. When we do this, we simply strengthen our wrong perceptions behind walls of silence and indifference.
It’s important that we stay open and learn to communicate even through the tough moments.
The health and survival of our world depend on it.
In the next blog, I’ll give an example of how to overcome someone’s resistance to an inclusive conversation.
by Rita Fierro | Oct 18, 2019 | Inclusive Conversations
Tip #1. Open the door mindfully.
How a conversation begins is everything. It’s like not knowing what’s behind a door, so we have to be careful of how we open it. I’ve learned that to have an inclusive conversation, I have to be mindful of how I open the door to the conversation. I pay attention to what I say and the impact of my words and actions.
(Happy Halloween, folks!)
I used to just run people down with my knowledge to stay true to myself. I believed in calling people out, by any means necessary. The result? Many dinner parties became arguments and I went home feeling hurt, alone, and isolated. I was hurting myself and I was missing great opportunities for learning. My closest friends stopped talking to me about race. When Obama was elected, the group of friends that knew me from this phase of my life never talked with me about the elections. I’ve changed a lot over the years, but many haven’t noticed.
While calling out is still a value for me, I can now see that there are different ways to do it. There is power in opening a door without knowing what’s on the other side. The way you start a conversation can open it up, shut it down, or make it explode. I now strategize to maximize the impact and decide ahead of time how much I’m willing to expose myself. I decide how important it is for me to call out this particular circumstance and how safe I feel or not.
Many times my intention is to plant seeds for questions and reflection. It’s to start a conversation, not end it. It isn’t always easy or effective. Here’s an example of a time that worked particularly well.
It was early this spring; I was camping with 2-3 friends and a larger group of people I had just met. I was up on a hill, sitting under a tree, waiting for folks to get and finish their ice cream. I’m lactose intolerant. It is hard to watch others eat and resist the temptation, but the sun was bright on a cloudless day and the sun is a blessing.
One of the guys came back from getting ice cream quite irritated and vented.
“This woman in front of me was so rude. She was deaf and she was trying out all these flavors, then letting the person she was with try them too, they were both deaf, and it took forever. She’d ask the woman and the woman wouldn’t understand, then the woman would answer and she wouldn’t understand. There weren’t that many people in line, but she just took forever. Plus…they’re everywhere today. What is it, a deaf convention or something? Not that I have a problem with deaf people…she was just so rude. I mean, If you have a communication challenge, try one flavor, not five.”
There was a dense pause. I was holding back.
Then one woman said, “I disagree.”
“I do too,” I quickly supported her.
“I mean, it just took forever, come on!!!….” The guy continued, ignoring our disagreement.
Neither of us pressed to give our opinion.
After a few minutes of him venting again, another person spoke up. “It sounded like someone else had another opinion, I wonder what that was about….”
The dude started talking again. No one answered. But then, he stopped himself. He got curious.
“You disagree? I’m curious to hear your perspective.”
“Well, just because someone is deaf, that doesn’t mean they should hold back from trying ice cream. It’s bad enough to be deaf, why give up on other pleasures too?” said the other woman.
“And,” I added, “there may be a different perception of time in deaf culture, or simply in the experience of being deaf. It may be a slower-paced culture. So from her perspective, it is your impatience that is rude.”
“I never thought about that,” he said.
We all kept talking and there was an openness to interrogate that wasn’t there before. This conversation was no doubt a group effort. Here are the things I think worked well:
- Disagreement was initially voiced concisely, without an argument, creating curiosity.
- Two people supported each other in their dissent, one person was not alone.
- One person gave the stage to the disagreeing party.
- The disagreers did not force the conversation nor try to “win” the argument, they simply voiced their dissent.
- The main person got curious about another perspective on the issue.
- The person in question had a chance to vent, before he welcomed another perspective.
Together, the above team scored a touchdown in the camp of overcoming resistance and helping the conversation move to place of exploration and openness. It’s worth mentioning, that the above interaction wasn’t planned, yet I would not have experienced it with my old strategy of running down the enemy with all my knowledge.
by Rita Fierro | Oct 18, 2019 | Inclusive Conversations, Uncategorized
“What is it about you Americans?” a friend in New Zealand said to me a few months ago, “Why are you so resistant to the common good?” The state of panic, fomented by some presidential candidates, reminds me of that statement. Inclusive conversations are defined as conversations where differences are leveraged as a resource, not a threat. For this issue, I’m addressing practicing inclusion for our common good.
What is the “common good?” It is something that affects all of us humans as human. Right now, the political landscape has become polarized because it is fear-driven, it helps us forget that we have anything in common. People rush to push others away in order to offer an illusion of protection. If only I can live in a box, and protect my box, I’ll be fine. Let’s just make the box bigger, stronger, let fewer people in. It is an illusion. We have forgotten that human beings cannot live in a box. We are human, we cannot live outside of communities.
Besides an organizational consultant, I am also a Reiki practitioner and teacher. Reiki is healing energy that fosters balance and relaxation in the body. It helps relieve pain, anxiety, stress, and depression. In the past 14 years as a Reiki practitioner, I have treated people at mental health, recovery, and AIDS clinics, homeless shelters, and privately. I have treated: social workers and managers, homeless and professionals, people with mental health challenges and recovering from addiction, old and young, rich and poor, republicans, democrats, independents, socialists and anarchists, formally educated and not, veterans and pacifists, from the United States and other places in the world. People generally come to me because their body is hurting, and they’ll do anything to try to make it feel better, even if they don’t believe in Reiki. Reiki brings emotional healing and peace too, but most people don’t believe or care about that in the beginning of treatment. They just want their head, knee, back, sciatica pain to go away. Doing Reiki has taught me about the common good.
There is one thing that I know all human beings have in common: a yearning to connect and be seen, appreciated, and loved. When I hold my hands over someone where they feel pain, I sometimes see images, like photographs stored in their body. My hands become the darkroom for these pictures to come to light. More frequently than not, those images are moments of separation or isolation. A man stopped by the police terrified his family would have nothing to eat if they locked him up. A mother and daughter fighting. The shame of abortion, 50 years later. An old friend walks away after a misunderstanding. A lover surprised with someone else. The immigration police knocking on one’s door.
The most frequent image I see is that of rejection. The personal feels excluded, or unloved, because they feel they do not belong they:are schizophrenic or schizoaffective, alcoholic or drug user, homeless or mentally vulnerable, Black or Latino, have four toes or three nipples, are too fat or too skinny.
As a sociologist, it is so blatant to me that the rise in shootings in the USA and the world is connected to this increased sense of exclusion and fear. Durkeim in 1897, called it anomia, a social cause of suicide. Durkheim said that when social norms change too quickly, as they often do in the post-industrial world, some feel a sense of disconnect and alienation from societal norms, they take their lives to react. I believe that currently, the sense of exclusion is so high, for some as individuals, for others as a group, that many are willing to take their own lives and the lives of others to just be able to end the pain that they feel inside. So to me, it is clear that the rising violence originates from the pain of exclusion, whatever the politics. Hurt people hurt people.
It’s so easy to hate this or that politician, take your pick. It’s much harder to love and talk with your neighbor or family member on the other side of any controversial argument and have a conversation and stay open mind and heart. When we shut down we ultimately hurt ourselves, and store the sense of isolation into our bodies as pain. While we struggle to find legal agreements and long-term solutions, let us not forget the greatest antidote to violence is love, connection, and community. Especially when connectedness and openness takes courage. For when we feel loved, embraced, and connected in community, we safeguard it. So what we do for the common good benefits ourselves as individuals, too.
Our weapons are way too advanced for how immature we are at love. We say “I love you,” but can turn it quickly into hate. It’s harder to love when we are scared, stay loving and open when we are angry, when we are terrified. There is no other option for us to survive as a species.
What if each of us today took someone who has outrageous beliefs and accepted or listened to the story that gave life to them? What if we stepped through the illusion of fear focused on our common good? Societies that pay more attention to the common good are a lot less violent than ours. We must begin to value and invest in our common good. Our survival as a country and a species depends on our ability to learn how to do so.
Photo credit: Louis Waweru
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