caitlinwalker
14-03-2008, 08:29 PM
Below are some notes from an address at a race and employment conference I facilitated with a colleague.
We were introducing the notion of thinking systemically about diversity.
Code congruent: The process by which we aim to achieve a solution is, itself, an example of the solution we are aiming for.
Code incongruent: The process by which we aim to achieve a solution is incongruent with the solution we're aiming for. Often it is, itself, an example of the problem we need a solution to.
How can this conference be a great example of working successfully within diversity?
The ability to work successfully within diversity is coupled with the ability to be in a place of not knowing and to employ different strategies of discovery until the unknown becomes more familiar.
One of the most important factors for me in being part of this conference is that it wasn’t an example of the kinds of thinking and behaviour that lead to race being a barrier to employment. I’ve worked in a very diverse relationship for six years now, P***** is quite unlike me, I’m initially quite attracted to those unlike me and looked forward to working with someone like P*****
The diverse issues showed themselves over time. I’ll give you an example: P**** and I would be walking down the street,
(Start doing it)
and I’d be raising and discussing a topic with him, some idea I had about learning and training.
(P I’d be listening with interest)
he didn’t appear to be interested and I’d adjust my behaviour to discover what was going on for him, whether he was distracted or disagreed or what.
Who here has my way of thinking?
(P I would notice that even though she had been in the middle of explaining something to me, she now appeared to want to cross the road, I’d turn the way she had indicated and look out for traffic)
He wasn’t only not listening, he didn’t have the courtesy to acknowledge that he wanted to cross the road in the middle of me speaking to him. I’d go silent and follow him
(She just stopped in mid sentence and looks cross, I’m not sure if she’s lost her thread so I keep walking and don’t say anything in case it disturbs her thought process.)
He’s clearly annoyed about something but is sulking. I can’t stand it when he behaves like this!
It took us a couple of months to unpick this one. The big one for me was on meeting his family at a barbecue, all of the men were sat along one wall talking, all faced in the same direction. I thought, look they don’t pay attention to one another in the same way P***** is so rude to me! That must be where he gets it from! Could have gone so far as to assume I’d learnt something about Barbadian men that I could use in the future.
Then a little piece of information caught my eye – they were replying to each other in a rhythm, which showed that they were listening. They became animated in turn indicating that they were interested. They were, in fact, having a fully functional conversation without eye contact.
It had never occurred to me until that moment that such a thing was possible, that my way wasn’t the way.
I subsequently, hadn’t learnt very much about Barbadian men or even about P*******, I was just beginning to learn about myself.
So now I had to approach the issue in a new way.
The next time we were working together I turned to P*** and asked "When I'm talking to you and you look away, what are you doing?"
"I'm building a model of what you're talking about down here to my left and giving you lots of ear contact."
Now we were in a respectful systemic relationship, I'm in a place of not-knowing and learning is possible.
We were introducing the notion of thinking systemically about diversity.
Code congruent: The process by which we aim to achieve a solution is, itself, an example of the solution we are aiming for.
Code incongruent: The process by which we aim to achieve a solution is incongruent with the solution we're aiming for. Often it is, itself, an example of the problem we need a solution to.
How can this conference be a great example of working successfully within diversity?
The ability to work successfully within diversity is coupled with the ability to be in a place of not knowing and to employ different strategies of discovery until the unknown becomes more familiar.
One of the most important factors for me in being part of this conference is that it wasn’t an example of the kinds of thinking and behaviour that lead to race being a barrier to employment. I’ve worked in a very diverse relationship for six years now, P***** is quite unlike me, I’m initially quite attracted to those unlike me and looked forward to working with someone like P*****
The diverse issues showed themselves over time. I’ll give you an example: P**** and I would be walking down the street,
(Start doing it)
and I’d be raising and discussing a topic with him, some idea I had about learning and training.
(P I’d be listening with interest)
he didn’t appear to be interested and I’d adjust my behaviour to discover what was going on for him, whether he was distracted or disagreed or what.
Who here has my way of thinking?
(P I would notice that even though she had been in the middle of explaining something to me, she now appeared to want to cross the road, I’d turn the way she had indicated and look out for traffic)
He wasn’t only not listening, he didn’t have the courtesy to acknowledge that he wanted to cross the road in the middle of me speaking to him. I’d go silent and follow him
(She just stopped in mid sentence and looks cross, I’m not sure if she’s lost her thread so I keep walking and don’t say anything in case it disturbs her thought process.)
He’s clearly annoyed about something but is sulking. I can’t stand it when he behaves like this!
It took us a couple of months to unpick this one. The big one for me was on meeting his family at a barbecue, all of the men were sat along one wall talking, all faced in the same direction. I thought, look they don’t pay attention to one another in the same way P***** is so rude to me! That must be where he gets it from! Could have gone so far as to assume I’d learnt something about Barbadian men that I could use in the future.
Then a little piece of information caught my eye – they were replying to each other in a rhythm, which showed that they were listening. They became animated in turn indicating that they were interested. They were, in fact, having a fully functional conversation without eye contact.
It had never occurred to me until that moment that such a thing was possible, that my way wasn’t the way.
I subsequently, hadn’t learnt very much about Barbadian men or even about P*******, I was just beginning to learn about myself.
So now I had to approach the issue in a new way.
The next time we were working together I turned to P*** and asked "When I'm talking to you and you look away, what are you doing?"
"I'm building a model of what you're talking about down here to my left and giving you lots of ear contact."
Now we were in a respectful systemic relationship, I'm in a place of not-knowing and learning is possible.