Issues? Possibilities? It's In Our Language

"Change is created one conversation at a time. 

Social fabric is created one room at a time, the one we are in at the moment."

- Peter Block

How many times have you tolerated conversations that left you unmotivated, depleted of energy and wondering why you're wasting your time? 

Personally, I've had it!
How about some more  straight talk? ...
 Listening to stories,  diverse opinions, examples and ideas.
  Then taking the best of the best.

Do something - not disguised in rhetoric &
("cya"" -  ask me for the definition if you don't know)


What happens when we change the conversation?

• We  respect diversity 
• We begin to talk about possibilities instead of continuing to debate the issues
• We honor the gifts and strengths that each of us brings to the table 
• We laugh together - humour is essential in change leadership

Transformation occurs simply through language. Words. Questions. Gestures. 

Conversations (and organizations) move in the direction of the questions they ask!


Example # 1:  "How do we discriminate?"

We say things to each other without realizing that our beliefs and values differ so much from whoever might be listening to our coffee shop conversations.
When our use of the  language is so "normal" we often don't realize how we use words to discriminate - race, colour, sexism, ageism, obesity...


Let's take a look at the Under-Belly of "White Privilege"


"I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege,
 as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege.


I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day,
but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious n each day.


White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks."

Source: Peggy McIntosh is Associate Director of the Wellesley College Center for Research for Women. This essay is excerpted from her working paper. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies.”


Do we have your attention yet?  
PRINT these 4 pages from the full text.
DOWNLOAD  Here:

http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf

Example # 2:  Young aboriginal woman who has changed the conversation in Thunder Bay using music as her platform.

Have you heard about ShyAnne Hovorka yet?  
Here's her view about how to change the world
- using her strengths
 to present the gifts of change.
Straight talk.
Huge influence.
Admirable leadership in community action.

http://netnewsledger.com/?p=3634

Example # 3:  Comedian Jon Stewart's Rally for Sanity in U.S.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXmbzLI3pnk&feature=share

November 18 Learning Day....

"Diversity: Key Leadership Skill = Respect"

As a leader, you have the authority and responsibility to change conversations in all of your relationships.

• Listen for words that disguise forward motion (cut the bs) and create chaos and confusion
• Listen for issue centred talk - that ignores possibility
• Listen for questions that point to opportunities
• Listen for white privilege, male privilege, North American bias

Take notes...

"It all starts with uncertainty...not be resolved until we can listen to people's experience of things like racism and sexism-just listening without trying to defend ourselves...."
- Margaret Wheatley

Yours in Leadership,

Maggie



POWER Source

Photo Credit: Richard Chicoine iCopyright 2009  "Sibley Sunrise"

"Power":
or when is it errr, "KaPOW"?

There's a positive side, and a negative view of "Power" and how leaders use its many elements. 

Thinking about diversity, racism, white privilege, discrimination (which will be discussed at our November CLD)
... a number of terms come to mind. 

These are all associated in some way with "power", or the lack of power...

In her thesis, "Making Meaning of Whiteness: Explorations by White Community College Faculty, Frances Trowsse offers these definitions for our understanding of "the basics":

Stereotype:  "A false or generalized conception of a group of people that results in an unconscious or conscious categorization of each member of that group, without regard for individual differences." (Henry 7&Tator, 2006)

Oppression:  "The domination of certain individuals or groups by others through the use of physical, psychological, social, cultural, or economic force." (sic)

Marginal:  "The status of groups who do not have full and equal access to the social, economic, cultural or political institutions of society." (sic)

Racism:  ""Everyday racism involves the many and sometimes small ways in which racism is experienced by people of colour in their interactions with the dominant White group.  It expresses itself in glances, gestures, forms of speech, and physical movements.  Sometimes it is not even consciously experienced by its perpetrators, but it is immediately and painfully felt by its victims."  (sic)

Systemic Racism:  "Racism that consists of policies and practices, entrenched in established institutions, that result in exclusion or advancement of specific groups of people." (sic)

So what about "Power" itself?

Gloria Steinam says:  "A river of Truth ends at a dam of bias - Truth floods and moves on."

Stacy Schiff writes:  "Is it possible for a woman to weild power without reference to her gender?  Can she prove herself competent, effective, articulate without being dismissed as either a bimbo or a bitch? 

Power has for so long been a male construct that it distorted the shape of the first women who tried it on, only to find themselves in a sort of straight-jacket.  Powerful women were caricatures of their male counterparts.  No wonder early feminists hoped the concept of power would vanish entirely when women ran the world."

"Money has no power of its own.  You alone are the power source." says Suze Orman.

"Real power," states Martha Beck, "is usually unspectacular, a simple setting aside of fear that allows the free flow of love.  But it changes everything."

What do YOU think?  What's your definition and how does "power" show its face in your work and life?  Send a comment: click on the link at http://www.xowhat.blogspot.com/

PS:  Remember to reflect on the power of nature's sunrises, sunsets and seasons...

- Maggie

The Under-Belly of White Privilege

Photo Credit: Richard Chicoine iCopyright 2009  at the National Art Gallery/Ottawa

How do we discriminate?

Let's examine the Under-Belly

"It all starts with uncertainty...not be resolved until we can listen to people's experience of things like racism and sexism-just listening without trying to defend ourselves...." - Margaret Wheatley

Provocative???

"I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege.

I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious n each day.

White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks."

Peggy McIntosh is Associate Director of the Wellesley College Center for Research for Women.  This essay is excerpted from her working paper. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies.”

Do we have your attention yet?  Confederation College's Frances Trousse will be presenting "White Privilege" at our next CLD.  Be ready to launch into a dialogue which, for many of us, will be the first time we have seen our own reflections in the spider web of myths about discrimination and racism.

The full text is here: 

 http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf

Your assignment...

Keep a "white priviledge" diary for 1 week...

chat with your family, friends and co-workers (ask "appreciative inquiry questions)...

wonder "conciously" about how your views of our community might be changed through this lens...

Yours in leadership,

Maggie