While the task we are called to is difficult enough even under perfect conditions; it has become even more challenging as our country, federal government and world has become more divided. As additional differences flood our organizations, neighborhoods and institutions, more fuel is poured on a fire of exclusiveness, bigotry and bias to the point that at times it feels routine.
As a trainer, you must disrupt this new normal by helping adult learners identify their personal biases and beliefs, the beliefs and biases of others and then put those assumptions together to grow inclusion for their organization. It is not an easy task and to have any reasonable chance at success, you must learn to be resilient, gritty and tough.
You must recognize that inclusion work is a contact sport where disagreement and conflict follow. Your task as a diversity and inclusion trainer is to create a safe emotional space where grown people many of them who are resistant to change, can have those difficult conversations necessary to grow workplaces that work for everyone.
This emotional safety net promotes dependability, which produces vulnerability and shared purpose, which encourages structure and clarity which enables the certainty and predictability needed for inclusion to happen.
What does that look like? According to Cile Johnson of Mind Gym, a talent development company, a psychologically safe environment exists where “people feel free to be themselves, express their views and beliefs without fear of suffering as a result.”
You should expect that every time you step in front of an audience either virtually or in person there will people on the receiving end of your inclusion message that disagree with your efforts to create safe workspaces for people who do not look, talk, think or act like each other.
As a sensing person I tended to take these slights personally. As a result, these negative signals which stimulate cortisol in my brain allowed stress to thrive in my body for 48 hours. What you must try to do as an instructor is to flush that negativity out of your system as quickly as possible. Feel the pain but don’t let it linger. Don’t ignore these missives either because they can become teachable moments. Hang on to the notion that your mission is a long game. You may lose a couple of skirmishes along the way, but your goal is to win the bigger contest. You are running a marathon, not a sprint.
Here are just some of the negative missives that have been hurled my way in my training career:
- I found the training to be heavily tilted to the "Left Wing's" perspective.
- Can't believe the Government wastes money on this.
- Do something with that nasty hair and learn to tie a necktie.
- For people who have highly developed skills for avoiding street people, you don’t want to look homeless.
- Discontinue it. It's a waste of time and money.
- I can't believe I heard that in an IRS sanctioned presentation.
- I will never recommend this training to another group.
- I did not understand the need for this training.
- I've had training like this for so many years I can't take it anymore.
Recognizing and embracing differences is difficult work. You should know before you step behind the podium or strap on your headset that resistance, conflict and adversity are right around the corner. Over time you will develop a tough chin that will enable you to take the inevitable punches from those that reject the notion that inclusion adds any value to the workplace. Never forget there will always be space for diverse expressions in the struggle for and against inclusion. Don’t fret over these circumstances. Remember what the Buddhists say, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” Learn to get over ourselves.
Keep in mind you are planting seeds toward a better tomorrow for a more inclusive world. You are not constructing something, you are growing something. Some of your seeds will fall among desolate locations like rocks. Other seeds will land in dry soil. Your investment in those seeds is predicated on the hope that others will hopefully come along and water and nourish those seeds that will sprout one day. See yourself more as possibility maker and less as a training event planner. As less of a carpenter and more of gardener.
I try to keep the words of existential psychologist, Rollo May close to my heart as I train IRS employees. “Freedom is the capacity to pause between stimulus and response.” At the end of the day, you are the message bearer. You cannot fully control how folks will react to your message. Learn to like being disliked occasionally.
I understood to embrace whatever comes around when it comes to reactions to my training. I try to watch the right scoreboard. Actions are under our control, outcomes are not.
You may be tempted as people beat on you as a trainer to pummel others into inclusion shape by winning and forcing agreement. You may fall for one of the greatest training myths- if I can just make them understand the material, they will do what I want them to do.
There have been times when my ego got the best of me as I tried to win my case with folks who did not agree with our inclusion mission. The satisfaction of prevailing in these arguments was short lived as I felt guilty about how I made my inclusion opponents feel. I had proven myself right but was it really worth it. I had failed to ask the question, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
I felt what writer Jane Green wrote about when she said: “It is not just how you feel about someone, but how you feel about yourself when you are with them.” I had won the quarrel, but I had lost the customer.
I forgot that my main job as a trainer is to create inviting spaces and forums where diverse voices come together in a safe, emotional atmosphere regardless of whether they fully agree with the host that summoned them in the first place. If you are emotionally upset as you work for inclusion, most likely the folks you want to be more inclusive will get upset as well.
I am reminded of writer, Barry Neal Kaufman’s admonition: “Every time we allow someone to move us with anger, we teach them to be angry.”
A proverb from my Native tradition is instructive here: “Whatever a person is full of is liable to spill out on others when bumped.”
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not saying to avoid confrontation with those that don’t value inclusion. Make sure you don’t become one of them in the process.
Frederick Nietzsche, German philosopher states this case better than I can: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process, they don’t become a monster.”
As a trainer, your job is about others and not solely about yourself. Those others include your detractors as well. You must pride yourself on the notion that it is not my way but our way. You don’t want to tell the inclusion story, you want to sell the inclusion story where it changes someone else’s inclusion story.
Framing the inclusion quest with stories leads to the following equation. Telling stories=better relationships=deeper connections.
John Schaar, a political theorist says it better than me: “The future is not some place we are going but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found but made. And the activity of making them, changes both the maker and their destination.”
It has certainly changed me.
