There is a great rebalancing afoot in our world. The work now is to welcome it in. Institutions are not forever nor are organizations reliable in the way professionals have been prepared to believe.
We are not new to this call to reimagine everything. In my sector of international aid and philanthropy, we heard this call when the #AidToo sexual abuse scandals broke in 2017. We heard it when the global COVID-19 pandemic hit. We heard it when the murders of George Floyd in Minnesota, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, Tony McDade in Florida, and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia in one month in 2020 ensured many more people up around the world could no longer ignore the subjugation of Black bodies for centuries prior. We heard it as Gaza was invaded in October 2023 and since, as aid is now being used as a death trap.
I believe for transformational change to occur, to reimagine our work beyond the status quo requires us to connect to our “why”, to take far bigger “risks” with our colleagues and partners, and make significant shifts in organizational culture. It requires us to build our capacity…to be with it all, to build political courage, to put CARE at the center of our work in many forms.
That’s why I was happy to help close the Bridge of Hope Summit earlier this month. You can watch the recording of my session here:
Ultimately, I hope this time of upheaval focuses us on re-humanizing our workplaces, and challenging how we identify as “professionals.” In the do-gooder spaces I’m in, educational privilege makes us very good at certain “high-minded” things like making a strategy, a plan, a budget, a report. There’s a skill set that’s been developed that says, “You have to be good at making a budget in Excel.” “You have to be really good at creating a reporting format.” I also believe that more privilege you have, the more you can rely on systems that are made for you, and the less you have to rely on relationship and community.
What hasn’t been told to us as professionals is, “Oh, you’ve got to be really good at setting up the right conditions for meaningful dialogue.” “You have to be really good at sensing the room and unearthing the power dynamics that are at play.” These are still considered “soft” skills, which have been labeled as such because they have been believed to be originating from the feminine, but these are skills that can no longer be considered “nice to have” in an employee.
As people at work, these times require us to be proactive and accountable in our roles, aware of our own experiences and biases, and informed of new possibilities. To me, this means becoming a more effective actor in organizational change processes as well. We do this: By choice. By intention. By…
- Offering validation to those expressing fear of uncertainty, and challenging them when it has them stuck
- Recognizing how fear of the unknown shows up in you
- Making decision-making power visible – by whom, by when, using what criteria?
- Understanding the limits of technocratic approaches and the violence of project/budget culture and scarcity mindsets
- Getting real good at generating options
- Understanding how your positionality impacts how you relate to the organizational change process – to acknowledge what you can’t and won’t know
- Being willing to say out loud “I don’t know but let’s figure it out together”
- Acknowledging how ill-equipped our organizations are for any conflicts in the workplace
- Recognizing where/when/how judgment and blame come up for you
- Showing empathy for those who have to balance multiple goals and demands, and ultimately be responsible for consequences and impact of their decisions
- Understanding the function of workplace gossip and being intentional about if/how to engage
- Using self-reflection to set and reset your inner compass
We start all of this by resisting urgency so that we can move together. We slow down to go inward, to then work out how we will move swiftly in response, not reaction. We have to do this to allow for multiple realities and truths to exist while focusing on where we do have the power of choice. We have to do this because I don’t believe that any one of us is capable of taking bolder risks and making big changes alone.
If there were “enough” time, what could this mean for our partnerships and relationships? Could we dream up alternatives to learned helplessness, consent overrides, and resource/information hoarding? Could we dare to map the interpersonal to the institutional, the organizational to the systemic? Where are pivots needed? Where is learning required? What individual sacrifices are necessary? Where is collective courage able to flourish and grow?
Let us build new skills to proceed without certainty – to grieve & release, and reimagine & build again and again and again.
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My sincere thanks to the Peter, Sal, and Carlo, the Bridge of Hope Summit team, for their invitation and collaboration on this session. Check out the other sessions here!
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