Diversity

  Diversity is being invited to the part. Inclusion is being asked to dance. Verna Meyers

Every person who walks through our door brings more than their skills, experiences, and resume. They bring a lifetime of experiences. Family traditions. Successes. Disappointments. Culture. Language. Beliefs. Values. None of us arrive at work as a blank slate. Yet we often assume that because we work together, we see the world the same way. The truth is we don’t.

Our perspectives have been shaped by different histories, opportunities, relationships, and challenges. These experiences influence how we interpret situations, solve problems, communicate, and lead. This is diversity. It is much deeper than visible differences. It is diversity of experience. Diversity of thought. Diversity of knowing. The challenge is that we often mistake our own experiences for universal truth. If something has always made sense to us, we assume it should make sense to everyone else. But what if it doesn’t?

One idea frequently discussed in leadership is meritocracy. The belief that people succeed primarily because of their talent and effort. There is truth in this. Hard work matters. Preparation matters. Commitment matters. Yet leadership also asks us to consider another question. Do all people begin from the same starting line?

Some individuals grow up surrounded by mentors, educational opportunities, financial stability, and professional networks. Others begin with barriers that remain largely invisible to those who have never experienced them. Recognizing these different starting points does not diminish achievement. It broadens our understanding of what achievement may require from different people.

Another difficult conversation involves racism. Many people immediately associate racism with intentional acts of hatred or discrimination. Yet researchers also encourage us to examine how assumptions, systems, and everyday interactions can unintentionally advantage some groups while creating obstacles for others.

This is often uncomfortable. Not because people wish to exclude others, but because it challenges long-held beliefs about fairness, opportunity, and identity. These conversations can evoke defensiveness. A response sometimes described as white fragility. Rather than viewing this as a personal accusation, it may be more helpful to understand it as a common human reaction when our deeply held assumptions are questioned.

Discomfort is not failure. Sometimes it is the beginning of learning

Living inquiry:

-------------- janine harrison

Take ten minutes this week to reflect on the questions below. There are no right answers. Only opportunities for great understanding.

     What experiences have most influenced how you see the world?

     When have you felt like you truly belonged?

     When have you felt like an outsider?

     What assumptions do you hold about success, fairness, or opportunity?

     How might someone with a different life experience view the same situation differently?

Coffee Conversations:

Discuss one of the following questions:

          Tell me about a time you felt like you truly belonged.

     What experience has most shaped who you are today?

     Have you ever felt misunderstood because of your background or experiences?

     What is one assumption people often make about you that is not true?

 Find one opportunity to learn about a coworker’s story that you did not know before. Curiosity builds understanding. Understanding builds belonging. Belonging builds stronger teams.

What I Didn't Know I Wasn't Seeing

 Coming with Me is a willingness to see more.

I entered this course believing strongly that people should be treated equally, that hard work matters, and that as a leader my responsibility was to support the person standing in front of me. Those beliefs are still coming with me, but they are no longer enough on their own. What has changed is my awareness of everything that may be operating around that person before I ever enter the conversation.

Intersectionality challenged me to recognize that social identities do not operate independently, and that privilege and disadvantage can exist simultaneously depending on social location. The discussions of meritocracy pushed me even further. I still believe effort, accountability, and mindset matter, but I now question who had access to the relationships, resources, safety, recognition, and opportunities that allowed that effort to become visible in the first place. That was an uncomfortable shift for me because it required me to examine explanations for my own success that I had carried for much of my adult life.

Coming with Me is also the distinction between inclusion and belonging. Throughout the course, I repeatedly returned to the realization that inviting someone into an existing system does not necessarily make that system equitable. This became increasingly clear through our discussions of gender, multiculturalism, reconciliation, and globalization. Whether considering whose leadership is viewed as legitimate, whose credentials are recognized, or whose knowledge is valued, I have learned to look beyond whether someone has been given access and ask what happens after they enter the room.

Perhaps most importantly, Coming with Me is greater responsibility as a leader. Awareness without action changes very little. I cannot assume that because a policy appears neutral, an organization values diversity, or I personally intend to treat people fairly that everyone experiences the same opportunities. I can listen, ask better questions, examine whose voices are missing, challenge assumptions I once accepted without noticing, and remain willing to change my own thinking.

I am leaving this course with fewer simple answers than I entered with, and I think that may be the point. Coming with me is the willingness to remain curious about what I cannot immediately see and the understanding that equitable leadership begins with continually questioning the conditions that shape another person's opportunity to belong, contribute, and succeed.

New Employee Questions

 Remember Your First Day? They do too.

Starting a new job is exciting. It is also one of the most vulnerable experiences an adult can have.

While leaders often focus on onboarding checklists, system access, training schedules, and process manuals, new employees are carrying a much different set of questions into the workplace.

They may not ask them out loud, but they are constantly evaluating their new environment. 

Can I do this job?

Do I belong here?

Can I trust these people?

Research on organizational socializations suggests that the success of a new employee depends on understanding the culture, expectations, relationships, and unwritten rules of the organizations (Bauer & Erdogan, 2011).

In many ways, every new employee enters an unfamiliar culture. 

They are learning a new language, system, personalities, and expectations. They are trying to understand where they fit in and how they can contribute. Every interaction becomes a clue about what is valued, tolerated, and what it takes to succeed. 

As leaders, we often underestimate the emotional work that accompanies learning.

A new employee may appear quiet, hesitant, or uncertain. What we may actually be witnessing is someone trying to make sense of their new environment while managing the natural fear of making mistakes. 

This is where leadership matters most.

Studies have found that role clarity, social acceptance, and support from supervisors are among the strongest predictors of successful onboarding and long-term employee engagement (Bauer et. al., 2007).

In other words, people thrive because someone helps them understand how they fit in.

The best leaders recognize that onboarding is not merely the transfer of information. It is the process of helping someone move from uncertainty to confidence, from outsider to contributor, and from observer to team member.

So, the next time a new employee joins the team, remember that they are not simply learning a job, they are learning whether they matter, belong, and fit in.

Research insight:

-------------- Bauer et al. (2007)

Successful onboarding is influenced by 4 key factors:

1. Role Clarity – emploees need to understand what is expected of them and how success will be measured.

2. Self-Efficacy – new hires need opportunities to build confidence in their ability to preform the job successfully.

3. Social Acceptance – Feeling welcomed, include, and valued by colleagues is a significant predicator of engagement and retention.

4. Knowledge of Culture – Employees must learn the unwritten rules, norms, and values that shape how work gets done.

People rarely leave because they did not learn the system. They often leave because they never felt they belonged.

What are you doing differently to add a layer on belonging?

References:

Bauer, T. N., Bodner, T., Erdogan, B., Truxillo, D. M., & Tucker, J. S. (2007). Newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization: A meta-analytic review of antecedents, outcomes, and methods. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(3), 707–721.

Bauer, T. N., & Erdogan, B. (2011). Organizational socialization: The effective onboarding of new employees. In S. Zedeck (Ed.), APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Change is Inevitable

 

Between what was and what will be, there is a season of becoming.

It is all around us and it is a journey we must continually take. Sometimes it arrives gently with the seasons. Other times it appears suddenly and demands our attention. Regardless of how it arrives, change asks something of us: let go of what no longer serves us so that something new can emerge.

Every fall, the trees shed their leaves. They do not cling to them or question whether they are ready. The leaves have served their purpose, and in releasing them, the tree creates the conditions necessary for new growth in the spring.

What are you holding onto the needs to be shed?

Perhaps it is an old habit, a limiting belief, a way of thinking, or a process that once worked but no longer serves you. Growth requires space. Before we can embrace something new, we often need to release something old.

Our brains are remarkably adaptable. Neuroplasticity teaches us that our minds are constantly changing and rewiring based on our experiences and the information we consume. We are not fixed. We are works in progress. Every conversation, book, challenge, and lesson has the potential to reshape how we think and who we become.

What brought you to where you are today will not be enough to keep you there tomorrow.

Success has a tendency to tempt us into comfort. We rely on proven methods, familiar routines, and established patterns. Yet the world continues to evolve. Industries change. Customers change. Teams change. Effective leaders and high-performing employees understand that growth requires continuous learning and adaptation.

The good news is that your brain is designed for this. It seeks novelty, challenge, and learning. It wants you to improve. It wants you to become more capable than you were yesterday.

The challenge is deciding to begin.

The moment you become curious, ask questions, seek new perspectives, and intentionally pursue growth, something interesting happens. You discover that opportunities, ideas, and knowledge were waiting for you all along. They were always there – you simply weren’t looking for them yet.

Change is not something to fear.

It is an invitation.

An invitation to learn.

An invitation to grow.

An invitation to become the next version of yourself.

Magnolia Dance

-------------- Celeste Snowber (2021)

How do we know our own blooming,

The beauty in each of us?

As much as you gaxe

On the magnificence of magnolia

Buds are growing within you

Slowly, perceptively

Asking to be watered.

 

The soul, the body thirsts

For air and water as do

the greening in the garde.

You are a garen

A hybrid paradox of beauty

Fragile tendrils lie

In the soil of your heart.

 

Now is the time

to let the life you lead

be the mulch

of your own ripening.

  

Listen to the cadence

Of your body

Hear the hymn of your own heart

Listen to your own

Birdsong.

Maybe It Isn't Energy?

 I have been sitting with a question that refuses to leave me.

How do we come to know another human before we consciously know them?

Long before words are exchanged, before stories are shared, before trust has been earned, something happens. We notice them. We are drawn toward them or gently pulled away. Sometimes we feel an immediate sense of ease. Other times we experience hesitation that we cannot explain.

Perhaps we call it chemistry. Perhaps we call it intuition. Perhaps we simply call it energy.

Whatever name we choose, it raises a fascinating question. Are we recognizing something in another person, or are we recognizing something within ourselves?

From a scientific perspective, psychologists suggest that familiarity and similarity influence attraction. Similarity Attraction Theory proposes that we naturally gravitate toward people who share our values, interests, communication styles, and beliefs. The more familiar something becomes, the more positively we tend to evaluate it. Maybe instant chemistry is simply rapid pattern recognition, our brains efficiently searching for what feels safe and known.

Attachment theory offers another explanation. The people who immediately feel comfortable may unconsciously remind us of significant relationships from our childhood. Sometimes these patterns lead us toward healthy relationships. Sometimes they invite us to recreate dynamics that no longer serve us.

The body seems to know before the mind catches up. Then I wonder about the paradox.

Why is it that one person winks at us and we receive it with warmth and delight, while another person performs the exact same gesture and it feels unsettling?

The action is identical. The experience is completely different.  Perhaps the difference exists in the invisible space between us.

The philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued that we encounter the world through our lived bodies. We do not objectively experience another person as though we are detached observers. We experience them through memory, history, identity, emotion, and culture. Every interaction is relational. Meaning is created not by one person or the other, but in the space where our lives intersect.

Connection is not simply something that happens to us. Connection is something we embody. Lately I have been fascinated by the concept of embodiment. Embodiment is the conscious experience of living through the body rather than solely through the thinking mind. It is the awareness that emotions are not abstract ideas but physical sensations. A racing heart. Relaxed shoulders. A deep breath. A smile that arrives before we realize we are smiling.

Perhaps what I have been calling "energy" is simply my body participating in a conversation before my conscious mind has translated it into language. Perhaps every meaningful encounter is altering something within me. Not just my thoughts but my posture, my nervous system, my expectations, and my future decisions like every connection leaves a trace.

Interestingly, artificial intelligence researchers have arrived at a similar conclusion.

They describe embodied intelligence as the idea that true intelligence does not exist as a disconnected brain floating in isolation. Intelligence emerges through interaction with an environment. It perceives, responds, adapts, and learns through continuous feedback.

In many ways, humans are no different. We become who we are through interaction. We learn through movement, through relationships, through experiences, and through every conversation that changes how we see ourselves and the world around us. Identity is not created in isolation; it is continuously negotiated in the presence of others.

This shifts the question for me. The question is no longer:

Should I keep this person in my life?

Instead, I find myself asking:

Who am I becoming when I am with them?

Do they make me more curious? Do they expand my thinking? Do they introduce me to ways of knowing I have never considered? Do they challenge my assumptions while allowing me to remain fully myself?

The most meaningful relationships are not always the easiest ones. Sometimes they are the ones that invite transformation. Perhaps we are not simply attracted to another person's energy. Perhaps we are recognizing possibilities. A possibility of becoming more compassionate, more courageous, more creative, or more fully ourselves?

There is, of course, a calculated risk in every new connection that allows another human close enough to influence us is to accept that we might change. We gather information. We observe. We feel. Our body responds before our mind has completed its analysis. Then, consciously, we make a choice; to step closer, remain curious, begin a conversation, or walk away.

Every relationship asks us to move. And every movement changes us.

Maybe embodiment is not simply the awareness of bodily sensations. Maybe embodiment is the moment our body, mind, and experience align and ask us to respond. I can. So I will. Perhaps that is what growth has always been. Not certainty. Not perfect reasoning. But the willingness to trust that some connections are invitations to become. And maybe the greatest paradox of being human is this:

We spend so much time searching for people who understand us, when the people who truly change our lives are often the ones who introduce us to parts of ourselves, we have yet to discover.

Maybe we never truly come to know another person first. Maybe, in the brief moment before words are spoken, we are simply catching a glimpse of who we might become because they entered our story.

Who Benefits from the Story you Tell Yourself?

 We all tell ourselves stories. Stories about who we are. Stories about what we are capable of. Stories about why things happen to us and what they mean. Some of these stories are empowering, while others quietly limit what we believe is possible. The interesting thing about these stories is that we rarely question them. We carry them from one experience to the next allowing them to shape our decisions, relationships, and opportunities.

As I prepare for a session on self-doubt, I ask myself these questions to gain clarity on why? Why do create these stories in the first place? Perhaps more importantly, “What if the story you are telling yourself is no longer serving the person you want to become?

One of the profound lessons I learned through curriculum studies and leadership is that identity is not fixed. William Pinar’s concept of currere invites us to understand our lives as an ongoing process of becoming. We are not simply products of our experiences but are active participants in interpreting those experiences and assigning meaning to them.

The stories we tell ourselves matter because they become the lens through which we view the world. As identity is not something we possess, we continually create and recreate ourselves through reflection, experience, and actions.

Consider what would happen if you began telling yourself, “I am the greatest.” “I am capable.” “I can learn.” How would these statements change the way in which you moved through the world. How would it change your interactions, your confidence, and your willingness to take risks?

True learning is not simply acquisition of knowledge. It is the examination of assumptions. It is the willingness to question what we have always believed to be true. It is the courage to ask, “where did this story come from, and does it still serve me?”

Living inquiry teaches us that learning happens through our everyday experiences. Every challenge, relationship, success, disappointment, and conversation provides an opportunity to examine the narratives that shape our lives. Growth often begins when we recognize that we are not the story. We are the authors.

Who Are You Without Your Job Title?

If I took away your job title, your office, your credentials, and your responsibilities, who would you be?

Take a moment to sit with that question.

For many of us our identities become intertwined with what we do. We introduce ourselves through our careers. We measure our success through promotions, achievements, and reviews. We wear our titles like badges that tell the world who we are.

But what happens when those titles change?

What happens when we retire, switch careers, lose our job, become a parent, experience illness, or enter a new season of life? If our identity is built solely on what we do, we can find ourselves feeling lost when circumstances shift.

An idea I encountered through my studies is the concept of currere, developed by William Pinar. Currere invites us to view curriculum not simply as a course of study, but as the study of one's educational experience. It asks us to examine our past, understand our present. imagine our future and reflect on the relationship between them. Through this process, we begin to understand that identity is not fixed. It is continually being shaped and reshaped through experiences.

We are always becoming.

This idea aligns closely with what I have learned through living inquiry. Learning is not something that happens exclusively in classrooms, workshops, or training sessions. Learning occurs in the everyday moments of our lives. It unfolds through conversations, challenges, successes, failures, relationships, and reflections. We are constantly making meaning from our experiences, and in doing so we are continually recreating ourselves.

The danger lies in reducing ourselves to a single identity.

While each role in your life may be true, none of them fully capture who we are. They are parts of our story, but they are not the entire story.

When we become overly attached to a title, we risk overlooking the deeper qualities that define us: our values, character, beliefs, relationships, and ways of being in the world.

Perhaps the better question is not, "What do you do? but rather, "Who are you becoming?"

That question shifts our focus from achievement to growth. It encourages us to look inward rather than outward. It reminds us that our lives are not measured solely by what we accomplish, but by how we continue to learn, evolve, and contribute to those around us.

As leaders, parents, and community members, we are all engaged in a lifelong process of becoming. We are constantly negotiation our identities and creating meaning from our experiences, The journey is never complete.

So today, I leave you with a question worth reflecting on:

If your title disappeared tomorrow, what qualities, values, and experiences would remain?

The answer may reveal more about who you are than any title ever could.